Deafinitely Girly and the mega noise panic

Yesterday did not start well.

I woke up at 4am in the middle of a massive nightmare. A sweating, almost weeping, horrifically real-feeling nightmare.

After calming my heart rate and returning to sleep, my vibrating alarm clock decided to go rogue again, at 5.43am.

And then again at 5.53am.

All of this on a Sunday flipping morning.

I was not impressed.

All this lack of sleep, hideous dream palava left me feeling somewhat on edge yesterday.

I met the Singing Swede for tea and cake which helped and watched mindless rubbish on the TV.

But alone in my flat it felt as though all my senses were heightened.

I made dinner and to me, the oven sounded like a jumbo jet at take off. The people in the upstairs flat returned home and to me it sounded as if they were performing River Dance in the room above my head.

But perhaps the best one came when I heard a siren. I'm quite new to sirens, only really hearing them properly for the first time since I got my hearing aids. Before hearing aids, I could hear bits of sirens. And I could really only hear them when they were right beside me.

And when they were right beside me, the shock and vibration usually made me lose my balance and fall over. Yup, I actually used to do that in public.

But last night, I heard a siren. What I think was a fire engine. It started quietly. Then gradually it seemed to get louder and louder and louder and louder. So loud in fact that in my sleep deprived, slightly-paranoid-from-nightmare state, I decided that a siren that loud must be right outside. So to pre-empt the flames that by now I was convinced were licking at my front door I grabbed a jug of water.

And then I peeked out the window.

Nothing.

The siren was getting quieter. It's vehicle speeding off into the distance towards something that actually was on fire.

My heart was hammering.

I felt a fool.

I was stood in my living room holding a jug of water.

'Get a grip!' I chided myself. Then chided myself again for talking to myself.

I calmly (hands shaking water dangerously close to my TV) watered the yukka plant as if that was what I had intended to do all along with the full jug of water I'd sloshed around my flat in the panic of hearing a siren so loud and clear.

It's the first time I'd watered it in months so it was probably a good thing.

But what it got me thinking about as I climbed into bed later - sans hearing aids, sans the sounds of the planes, which last night sounded like roaring dinosaurs and sans the sound of the pissed people staggering back from the pub, pink and burnt from the five seconds of sun we'd had yesterday - was how if I'm honest, I'm not always a mad fan of this sound lark.

I mean I thought I was a complete convert to it, and don't get me wrong, I do love being able to hear more. But last night, everything was horribly loud. Horribly intrusive. And horribly scary at times.

So for the minute I think I'm going to try something new. When I get in each night, I'm going to take my hearing aids out at the door.

I'm going to make my flat, and my evenings, quiet zones. I'm going to back to watching my TV on low with subtitles. And I'm going to stay reassured in the knowledge that if my flat does set itself on fire, I will be alerted by the visual disco of lights and thumping vibrations all courtesy of the London Fire Brigade long before they arrived in their siren-blaring fire engine.

That's my world. And right now I miss it. At home, any way. Aren't I lucky I can get it back?

Have a lovely week peeps.

DG x