Eh?

For many years my family having been telling me I'm deaf.

There are some who are born deaf and others who have deafness thrust upon them. I belong to the latter camp.

Now, many mothers I know assume deafness as a means of coping with the verbal onslaught of their children, and I am no different. What I mean is, that in the first instance, my apparent deafness didn't stem from a physiological origin, rather a conscious dissociation of the link between sensory canal and brain .

However later, when old age started forcing itself upon me, and I found it hard to make out what I thought was the mumbling of certain of the softly spoken ladies of my bookgroup, I knew I was, at the least, hard of hearing and should take action.

I always hesitate to say as my old aunt did in the past- "Speak up dear, you're mumbling"- a sentiment which moved me to fury as my voice is reputed to have all the carrying quality of a raucous fishwife and has been known to get me into all sorts of trouble when one of my remarks made sotto voce has been picked up by eagle ears yards away.
And so rather than telling people to speak up, I have soldiered on, when in company, with a combination of lipreading and catching the odd word.

But enough is enough, and I had an appointment this morning at the Audiology department of ERI which is conveniently situated about 500 yards from my front door.
The results were not at all spectacularly bad and although there is a degree of hearing loss in one ear it's marginal whether or not I should have a hearing aid.

In fact I'm going to give it a try, much to his Lordship's disgust. He must feel it's the beginning of the end when he has to sleep with a pensioner who wears a hearing aid. There's no room for fantasy there.

Maybe he should just be thankful I don't keep my teeth in a tumbler on the bedside table yet.

This is the Braid burn in the Hermitage of Braid in the early morning light.