I bought...

...another bunch of roses today. Actually I bought two bunches and gave the other to a neighbour...

I couldn't sleep well last night. Pain.

I got up early to do some gel plate prints, because I was even more out of sorts than I was yesterday. I had to go out to dentist, and then opticians. And I very much did not want to do either. I had no energy, nothing left...

I did an hour and was just getting into doing them, when I was running out of time. I used a strand of frayed green wool on the gel plate. My favourite is the middle one on the left. These six gel prints are in the extra. I just didn't want to do anything, let alone go to the dentist.

When I went out to the car, thick frosted ice all round the windows. I nearly came in and gave up. I did come back in, but I found a can of de-ice spray...so back out again.

The sun was blood red this morning. Made me think of Watership Down and impending doom...

Luckily when I got to dentist I was able to park right outside. I was 15 minutes early. But I went in. I got handed a Samsung tablet?!?

I was told to fill these forms out on it. It was very skittish. The form kept jumping back and forth on the screen. I would try to tick yes or no, or fill in some words, and the page on the screen would jump up, and my tick or words wouldn't register. I had just got to the end to sign my name, when the form crashed. Grrrrr.....

So I had to go back to reception for them to find the form again. It was now 10 minutes after my dentist appointment should have started, and I had been on this tablet more than 20 minutes filling in this online form.

I had to fill it in again. Brain rebelled. I rebelled. I just didn't want to do all that again. I am sitting there with a very grumpy face. Receptionist came over. 'I am not filling this in again', I said.

She looked at my rebellious face and she scrolled it to the bottom, said 'sign here'. My fingers are shaky by now and my finger cannot write my name within that small box and it is illegible. Then she bought up a second form which apparently I should have filled in as well, 'sign here', she said. I couldn't even sign my own name by now on that screen. Half way through my surname my finger gets stuck on writing the same letter repeatedly....Receptionist snatches the tablet off me, 'print your name', she says...

I tried on my own tablet when I got home to sign my name and I had no problem. But the dentist's surgery was full, noisy, screaming babies, fractious children....paperwork has always been on paper up to now....

Finally get to see Dentist half an hour late because of the tablet. When I came out, I noticed the receptionist had reverted back to paper paperwork...

Then opticians. My glasses are a bit old and I have deep yellow tinted lenses to help me read and look at white screens.

But they don't do the same deep yellow tint any more. So I tried different coloured lenses. But it's not easy. However, at home I have some coloured Irlens overlays. The pink is most helpful at the moment for reading. So I went for pink lenses but a darker pink. I hope it works. The other colours they had didn't help me to read at all. So fingers crossed they will work when I get them.

Then a lady in the shop I was in wanted to talk about my cochlear processor. She'd had a cochlear implant a year before, but she had been hearing all her life until she went deaf. She couldn't understand why each time in the morning when she turned on the processor it took awhile for her brain to make sense of the distorted sounds. And then the next day when she turned it on, she had to get used to the distorted sounds again before her brain adjusted. I said it was the same with me, only it takes me an hour or more every day for my brain to make some sense of sound again.

' It'll get easier over time?' She asked me. I said I didn't know, and that I am different than her in that my brain had not heard sounds before the implant 10 years ago.

Then she asked me about music. She always loved music, and cannot make head or tail of it now. It is all distortion now she said. I said I had never heard music before the cochlear implant, so I don't have a baseline with to work from.

We talked more.

I got home absolutely shattered. Got on the couch and fell asleep...but the germ of an idea was starting with the lady talking at length about music. I woke up with the word 'equaliser' in my head. So read up on it. Downloaded an app. Had to pay extra for all the settings. I need presets...the more, the better. No way with my defective hearing can I manipulate an equaliser manually. It was impossible.

So I tried some pop songs. It was scary. Each different equaliser preset brought something different into the song/music. They were like completely different songs/music with the different Equalizer presets. Then I tried the song/music on its own without other equaliser presets. There was no variation in it by comparison to the song/music played in one of the equaliser presets. By this time I think I am confusing my brain, but then maybe I am not...

I will try another day when I am not so tired.

Thank you for looking in.
Thanks for your kind words and love,
Take care x