It’s been rather an odd afternoon today (Friday, July 14). All week I’ve been having ear-drops of olive oil ably administered by my wife Margaret (M) in readiness for my appointment at the surgery on Monday. Around lunchtime my good right ear totally packed up and I was plunged into silence, which even a post-prandial snooze did nothing to alleviate.
On coming to, and coming down stairs, I found two dear neighbours chatting to M. All I could do was to look intelligent, but I failed even in this, I think. They may as well have been speaking an unknown foreign language. I might try practising my lip reading later with M, but I could scarcely give prolonged stares at our guests – I mean, it wouldn’t be polite would it, as well as being a useless exercise. Are there lip-reading classes in Rye?
I am seriously considering whether I should go to our Quaker meeting on Sunday morning. I know that we all sit in silence, but sometimes there is ministry and that for me would be a closed world.
John Milton complained of his blindness “and wisdom at one entrance quite shut out”. Well, hearing loss feels much the same. However, I have made a discovery – when Ludwig van Beethoven lost his hearing and was close to suicide (viz. the Heiligenstadt Testament) I’m sure he realised that he could still hear himself singing in his head, or as in my case humming and whistling. So whilst he could not listen to other composers’ music, at least he could appreciate his own to wonderful effect. My creative spirit need not be extinguished even if my social skills become negligible and a sore trial to M. So, in the interests of family harmony, let’s hope for clearance on Monday!
But before then comes tomorrow, when we are taking our wanderlust cat Milly to the vet to have her bad eye examined. We’ve kept her indoors all week with a near hermetic seal on our back door into the garden to prevent her going walkabout. She really mustn’t be allowed to miss another vet’s appointment again.
Understandably she is rather miffed by this and insists now on walking over my keypad so that typing this is quite complicated. As I nudge her out of the way with my forehead, she takes this as a sign of affection which only makes the situation worse of course. Now, can I hear the dinner gong? No chance of that but it must be my suppertime. Goodbye for now.
Image Credits: Kt Bruce , Maya .