My Make-things-better-for-deaf-people wish list

Phew, how can it be Thursday already?

This week has been a bit mental to tell you the truth. Yesterday I had my day ruined by a barium X-Ray, which involved drinking 5 cups of chalky white stuff, being X-Rayed a lot and prodded with a wooden spoon – all high-tech stuff I'm sure you'll agree.

Anyway, it left me feeling pretty rubbish and so the only place I wanted to be was my bed. So there I went.

But that's enough boring health stuff.

More importantly this week, I got an email from London Fire Brigade, offering me a home visit where they'd fit a flashing, vibrating fire alarm... for free!

How amazing is that?

Now, I knew that councils offered this service but the fact that the fire brigade do is bloomin’ fabulous.

I'm rather excited in fact that soon, I shall know when my smoke alarm is going off when I have burnt my toast.

It will give me one less thing to worry about – and that can only be a good thing.

It always gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling when things happen that make my deafness better – like digital subtitles that can be recorded, the iPod lyrics app on my phone, Stagetext captioning being available at The Globe, and anything that used to go beep that now vibrates.

Every year I have fewer things on my Make-it-better-for-deaf-people wish list, but right now at the top is subtitled movies extensively available on iTunes, subtitled iPlayer on the iPhone, and subtitled cinema at sociable times.

If I get all that this year, I'll be a very happy DG...

Guess I'd better think of new things to add to the list, just in case.