5.12.2022 Pardon?

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 Monday 5th 3C/38F. Slightly warmer than yesterday. Another grey day in prospect. Up at 6am.  

 

 I am not in the habit of flaunting myself online.
But I have added a "selfie" taken with my new webcam. 

Too large for my tastes but its size it seems to be fixed.
I am supposed to be smiling. Believe it or not. 

 

 I am going to a commercial hearing aid outlet today. My appointments at the hospital were being pushed months forwards each time they approached. Four months ahead the last time. I had an initial hearing test at the local hearing aid outlet a little while ago but chose not to proceed. As I thought I had a hospital hearing clinic appointment at that point. The health service subsidy can only be used once and cannot be split between official and commercial services. Hearing tests are free. 

 

 At the hospital hearing clinic I would now have to wait until the end of March. Just for the hearing test. With another month again before the fitting. Which would put me at the end of April. I first had my ears tested [officially] a year prior to this!

 

 Being deaf as an isolated person, at home with my wife, was irritating but merely inconvenient. Being deaf is now a severe handicap. As I mix with more and more people. I cannot hear voices against background noise. This is commonly known as "masking."

 My hearing has been stressed repeatedly over my lifetime. I never really recovered from target practice with .303 WW1 rifles at school. Then there were the [then unlimited] sound levels at weekly 60's rock concerts. My ears would whistle for a week. Followed by the next concert. Hifi and audio became a lifelong obsession soon afterwards. Best enjoyed at high sound levels to match the original performances. Electric guitars produce damaging high frequencies.

 

 Teenage interest in motorcycles included attending race meetings. Where I would visit the pits to take photographs. While racing engines with megaphone exhausts were often being warmed up. The exposure was often intense! A physical presence in the air! 2-strokes were even worse with their high frequencies! 

 

  Later I owned a closed, fibreglass sports car with a noisy exhaust and high interior noise levels for 10 years. That can't have helped!

 I worked in engineering and building work. Where high sound levels were commonplace. Hammering nails into wooden floors without protection was a memorable highlight in my youth. Using an angle grinder on sheet metal can produce extremely high noise levels. As can the squeal of a commercial lathe cutting stainless steel. My last working years in engineering, before retirement, often occurred at high noise levels. 

 

 I have several SPL meters and regularly recorded over 110B at wide bandwidth, higher frequencies. Nobody should be exposed to this for more than a few seconds according to the [official] charts. I wore closed ear defenders [like headphones] most of the time but they weren't perfect. Nor very comfortable. They also had to be removed to converse with colleagues and managers. Repeatedly exposing my ears to the high sound levels without protection.  In retrospect, there was little I could have done at the time of my repeated exposure over a long lifetime. 

 

 Those of you who wear headphones to enjoy music, as I did for years, should be very careful! The ears are repeatedly stressed at high SPLs over long time periods. So can never fully recover. High frequencies, intensity and duration are all factors in causing permanent deafness.

 The other day I was making the appointment for a hearing aid fitting in town. Somewhat ironically, a worker was cutting paving slabs. Using a large, motor driven, angle grinder with a diamond blade. He was working at least 20 meters away from me. On the other side of a very wide, two lane junction. The noise was more intense than I have ever experienced! Even with my fingers stuck firmly into my deaf ears it was absolutely awful! The machine operator was wearing ear defenders. As he should. His colleague, only feet away and laying the slabs, was not. 

 

 The damage being done to his hearing must have been catastrophic and permanent! And totally inexcusable! He should have been provided, by law, with approved protection in the form of closed headphone, ear defenders. Probably wearing sponge ear plugs within those too. Given the extremely high SPLs to which he was being repeatedly exposed at such close range. The typical macho male, manual worker? Ear defenders are for sissies? Pure ignorance? Who knows? Been there. Done that. 

 

 08.00 3C/38F outside, 17C/63F upstairs, 14C/57F in the lounge and kitchen, 7C/45F bathroom. The tree tops have become visible against the leaden sky. Another half hour before it is safe to venture out on foot against the commuting traffic. 

 

 I have no option. Half a mile of rural main road leads to the lanes and all my other familiar routes. With blind humps and sharp, completely blind corners for added interest. The crash test dimmies are always driving nose to tail. Like some Hollywood, presidential convoy. All in the vain hope of a miracle allowing them to gain one car length on the busy road. With solid, double white lines for miles in both directions. 

 

 It's not like this in the car sales ads! Where they film in Rumania, at 3am on a summer, Sunday morning. Just to ensure zero traffic. Which would spoil the modern fantasy. Cycling speeds in cities have been higher than cars for nearly 100 years. You'd think the car buying dimmies would catch on by now. Wouldn't you? Meanwhile, farm tractors and digger drivers take turns by rota. To drive slowly during "the rush hour." 

 Many drivers are clearly confused. Should they "break the law" and cross the double white lines to pass? Or brush closely past the cyclist or pedestrian? Without their tyres even touching the white lines. Which would be "very naughty."

 

 The vast majority of drivers, in my own experience, choose to stay within the white lines. Until, that is, they reach the next corner. Where they will [always] overshoot, across the double white lines. Or, [always] cut the corner. To save having to drive all the way around and tire themselves out. The law requires 1.5m minimum distance when passing a cyclist. Yeah, right! 🤣

 I spent an hour with the hearing aid salesperson. Where I agreed to go ahead with a month's free trial. We were both open and honest in our discussion. Helped by my lifetime interest in audio. I have to wait a week before I can be fitted and trained in their use. I shall have two hearing aids. There being a huge difference in sensitivity between my two ears. About 30dB!

 

 Then I went shopping on the way home. I bought some Coop Red Curry and hope it will satisfy my desire to have curry again. Ben's Medium Curry has vanished from the shops. 

 

 I also bought some smaller, transparent, storage tubs for my computer storage area. The present mix of fruit boxes and containers is untidy even by my standards. I want to be able to recognise the contents at a glance.

18.45  Well, that was fun! I just had a Skype free video call with my British friend [in Denmark] for over an hour. His computer knowledge is very useful for solving problems I never knew I had. Video is a much more powerful tool than typing furiously. Then mending all the typos!

 Dinner was chips [again] with fried chicken, mushrooms and an egg. I have no idea why I added an egg. It just seemed incomplete without it. There was no oil left in the pan so it stuck fast. I should have used the chicken for a curry.

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