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Ants in my pants

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I smile wryly as I acknowledge it is more than two years since I last posted. Same old, same old! It is not exactly that nothing ever happens — though it certainly seems that little of importance does, in the scheme of things — it is more that I don’t think that other people would be particularly interested. Still, I am notoriously bad at judging such things, so here I am again.

A little update

At the moment I am halfway through a degree in Professional Writing and Publishing. I’m loving it! I’ve learned a lot so far. I’ve attained a few useful skills, and a healthy respect for those who write well. I have recently joined the committee of Editors WA, which is the Western Australian branch of the Institute of Professional Editors (IPEd). I’m starting to feel I’m on my way to finding my feet in the writing and publishing world.

Picnic!

Now, on to more immediate matters. Hubby and I made it out of the city on Monday. It was a beautiful sunny day and we went up to John Forrest National Park for a picnic. We’d heard Hovea Falls was currently looking good, and neither of us had been there in decades. (Scary, hey?!) Well, the falls were quite nice, though I fear that the amazing waterfalls in Far North Queensland have forever spoilt for me the waterfalls around Perth. Still, it was pleasant!

It was an easy walk to the falls from the car park, which suited this unfit old lady just fine. The viewing platform over the falls was closed, presumably for maintenance, though the sign said “until further notice” which doesn’t bode well. I was forced to stumble nervously over treacherous rocks (not really — they were pretty tame as far as scrambling over rocks is concerned) to attempt some photos. Side-on, it was less than ideal but one can only do what one can do.

Waterfall with a medium gradient and flow, with bush-covered hills and a blue sky in the background

Hovea Falls from sort of the top/side. Ish.

All was well until I lowered my camera and looked down to see I was standing on a teeming ant nest. It put me in mind of another picnic at John Forrest National Park as a kid. Something similar happened, and my parents ended up taking off my jeans and dipping me in the river to get rid of the nasty biting ants. I wasn’t keen for a repeat today, so I swatted off the ants that were visible and waited to feel them crawling up the inside of my jeans. You will be pleased, for my sake, that I didn’t have to wait long.

“Ow!” I exclaimed. (See? I have such a way with words.)

Fortunately, this time no stripping off of jeans was necessary and I escaped unscathed, except for a solitary ant bite (and numerous mosquito bites, but hey, them’s the breaks).

We took the “low road” back to the car park, sandwiched as it was between the river and the old railway. It was so refreshing to be in the bush again after several months of not leaving the suburbs.

An old, cement block railway bridge with two channels cut through the hillside beneat it to let the creek water flow through

Under the old railway bridge.

A creek with still, green-brown water and thick vegetation overhanging at the sides

A section of Jane Brook near the walk trail.

A green-painted bird house placed high in a tree above a creek

Bird house.

Wildflower season has begun. If we can manage it, we will go on another picnic next month when the season will be well underway.

A small tree covered in bright yellow blossoms

Flowering wattle by the edge of Jane Brook. Glorious colours!

Small red flowers with yellow centres, with grey-green foliage

Wildflowers.

Back at the carpark and picnic area…

A creek flows under an old railway bridge

The view from our picnic table.

… we munched on omelette rolls and salad…

A melamine picnic plate with a blue striped border, piled with food, on a weathered picnic table

Omelette roll and salad for lunch.

… followed by cappuccino muffins for dessert. (I’m afraid I just tucked straight into those without stopping to snap a photo. Sorry-not-sorry!)

Altogether, a lovely, lovely day.

Ants in my pants and all!

Back to nature

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Serpentine falls

Serpentine Falls

Hubby and I have both been sick lately — “just” head colds but nasty ones that dragged on and on. I spent 8 days in bed, with the exception of a doctor visit when I developed an ear infection. But even after that, I have been feeling bleugh. You know, heady, no energy, pretty much merely existing without taking any pleasure from the fact.

On Thursday, the first time in 8 days that I didn’t have a headache, I did something radical: I made a plan. I suggested to Dohn that we go for a picnic on Saturday. I like picnics. Normally, though, we only start to think about it on the day, which means we generally don’t do it at all as we haven’t allowed time for prep. This time, we decided where to go and what we would eat. We even did the necessary food shopping ahead of time. Wonders will never cease.

We decided to visit Serpentine Falls and Serpentine Dam, in the Perth Hills south-east of the city. We headed down the freeway and turned into Mundijong road. Pretty much the whole stretch of this road from the freeway to South West Highway was countryside (as opposed to suburbia). Just driving through it, I felt refreshed. Open spaces! I hadn’t been out of the house since my doctor visit, over a week beforehand. And there is just something about green-covered, wide open spaces that lifts my spirits.

At Serpentine Falls, we parked and wandered the 400m to the falls. I can’t say they were exactly impressive in themselves, but there is just, well, something about walking down a bush trail on a lovely winter day, with birds singing and anonymous rustles in the undergrowth to alert you to the fact that you’re not as alone as you might have thought. And then, a lovely waterfall and natural pool to greet you at the end of the trail. There is something very soothing about water in a forest.

A pool of water with Serpentine Falls barely visible in the background.

Along one of the walk trails near Serpentine Falls.

I still wasn’t completely well, but I felt good.

We had a delicious barbecue lunch with kangaroos hopping greedily around the picnic tables, apparently friendly, but then again tourists who didn’t give a hoot about their health were feeding them despite the many warning signposts, so naturally they were hanging around.

Kangaroo

Kangaroo at the picnic grounds.

We then drove over to Serpentine Dam.

Serpentine dam, from the dam wall.

Serpentine Dam.

Serpentine Dam, which is one of the dams that supplies water to the Perth area, is a far greater expanse of water, complete with vast concrete and limestone rock structures, and overlooked by a cafe on the nearby hillside where many “tame” birds (who really just like the readily available birdseed) hung around.

Common bronzewing

Common Bronzewing — an apparently shy bird!

It’s no secret that getting back to nature refreshes and sustains the human soul. Some folks, like my hubby, don’t appear to crave it. But many, like me, do. Think how many urban dwellers plan to spend their holidays or weekends in rural areas? “Getting away from the city” is a Thing. Most of us seem to simply feel better, after the opportunity to connect with our natural world. There are plenty of articles on the interwebs to explain why this is, from angles ranging from the scientific to the philosophical to the spiritual. All I know for sure, however, is that it nourishes me, revives me — and makes me very nostalgic for the times I’ve lived in the country.

I’m grateful for my time living in the country, but Dohn and I are fortunate now to have the beautiful Swan River at our doorstep, and lovely countryside not too far away. Plus: family! All chicken soup for the soul.

What do you think? Do you crave time out in nature?

Black is the new… black

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2 black speech processors on a black background

Peer closely and you will see my new Sonnet speech processors.

After seven and a half years with bilateral cochlear implants, I have finally upgraded my original speech processors. I am now the proud new owner of two sexy matte black Sonnets, by Med-El.

Black, it would appear, is the new black.

It is remarkable, really, that the previous pair lasted as long as they did. It’s true I took very good care of them (at A$12,500 each, it was no doubt wise to do so) but it’s also true the plastic was getting brittle and they were literally falling apart.

Still, they had a pretty good innings. They didn’t even die while we were living in our mouldy rainforest home! And thank heavens for that, as I didn’t have access to an audiologist who dealt with cochlear implants up in Far North Queensland.

My health fund unfortunately didn’t automatically agree to pay for the upgrade. (Apparently only Medibank Private does, and HBF doesn’t cover them at all. The other funds appear to vary in the degree of difficulty of approval.) There were a few hoops to jump through and the process took about 7 months altogether. I can’t pretend I didn’t feel I was bashing my head against a brick wall for much of that time but really, I’m just grateful that the day finally arrived when I received an email from the Lions Hearing Clinic telling me the money was in their bank account. I could now come in and be fitted with the sparkly new speech processors that had been ordered and delivered months beforehand.

When I walked into my audiologist’s room, she had already started to unpack one of the boxes containing the speech processors and accessories, and had ripped open some of the small boxes containing the accessories too. I felt like a disappointed child, not allowed to unwrap my own presents! So when it was time to open the box for the second speech processor, I stopped her before she got stuck into it, and snapped a photo while it was still sitting on her lap.

Shallow rectangular cardboard box containing an number of smaller boxes with Med-El branding

Brand spanking new cardboard boxes, er, I mean, speech processors.

It’s a far cry from the fancy aluminium cases my first two came in! But that was, admittedly, pretty wasteful. This is too, really, in a different way, and has much more packaging overall from what I can remember. (I do still have those old cases — they are far too good to throw out — but wouldn’t know where to find them.)

On this visit, my audiologist mainly copied over the settings from the old speech processors to the new ones, which didn’t take long at all. I have a follow-up appointment booked in early March for any fine tuning that might be needed after I’ve used them “in the wild” for a few weeks.

The most amazing thing

I’ve found by now that there are indeed a couple of annoyances, and will see if those can be eliminated at the follow-up visit. The main benefit, however, has been an absolutely remarkable one to me. The Sonnets are far more moisture-resistant than the Opus 2s, which makes a very practical and quite astounding difference to the quality of my life.

It might seem a small thing on the surface, and of course I realise it’s minor in the scheme of things, but I don’t actually remember the last time I was able to hear while taking a shower, or directly after washing my hair.

You see, when my speech processors are out, I am totally deaf. I have zero hearing. Not even the faintest sounds — just total silence. So, in the past, I would take off my speech processors (or, before that, hearing aids) to shower, then put them on again afterwards. If I washed my hair, I had to either blow-dry my hair straight away so I could put my “ears” back on again, or be totally without hearing for the hours it takes my thick, below-shoulder length hair to dry.

Likewise, at the beach, I’d take my “ears” off and, most times, keep my head above water so as to avoid getting my hair wet. Wet hair means no hearing until it’s dry again, which in turn means I am not only in silence while actually in the water, but also while packing up and walking back to the car, then during the car journey home, in the shower once home, and until my hair had been blow-dried and I could put my “ears” back on again.

I’m sure you can appreciate that not being able to communicate for significant chunks of time is somewhat less than ideal.

When out diving, I’d have to bring a hair dryer if I wanted to be able to hear at all between or after dives. I was on the receiving end of some strange looks and incredulous comments, I can tell you!

It was inconvenient, but that’s how it was and for more years than I can count, I lived with it. As you do, when there’s no other option.

Now, I can wear my speech processors in the shower and in the water at the beach, as long as I don’t get my head wet. If I do, well, I still have to take the speech processors off, but the difference is that a quick towel dry later, I can pop them back on again. I haven’t been diving since the upgrade, but the same thing will apply — a quick towel dry and I’ll be able to hear. No more worrying about whether or not a boat will have power for a hairdryer, and no more feeling quite so like a freak.

Being deaf is extremely isolating. This seemingly little thing is actually huge to me.

As a bonus, when I let my hair dry naturally it’s curlier, more bouncy, and feels softer and just generally more pleasant. It still feels like a real luxury to be able to do this again.

Still waiting…

The Sonnets actually have reusable covers that are waterproof, but for some reason they’re not yet available in Australia, even though they appear to be elsewhere. I’m looking forward to them becoming available here, as then I could actually go swimming wearing the speech processors. That would be amazing. It’s hard to imagine being able to put my head underwater, come up again and be able to hear if someone spoke to me.

Nope. Can’t imagine it.

Another feature that hearing aids and other cochlear implants have had since I got my original speech processors is bluetooth capability. The Sonnets do have it built in, but for some reason beyond my comprehension the facility for this is also not available in Australia yet. This means that I have to physically change the battery covers and plug cables in to connect my speech processors to a computer or device if I want to listen to music, or a podcast, or anything else with audio. This is not exactly convenient, especially as when I’m “plugged in” I can’t hear other sounds, so if someone speaks to me it is not a matter of simply hitting “pause” — I have to change the battery covers back again first.

Rechargeable batteries are yet another accessory that is available elsewhere but not here. It’s good that the Sonnet takes only two batteries instead of the three my previous speech processors took — and they last just as long before they need to be changed. Still, they require replacing every two days, and even though I’ve now reduced battery usage from six every two days down to four, it does gets expensive and means a lot of poisonous waste in the environment that has to somehow be dealt with.

Catching up

A bonus of my new Sonnet speech processors is the Dry-Star electronic drying station that came in the box. Each night, the speech processors must be given the opportunity to dry out to prolong their life. If we’d still been in our rainforest on solar power I might think differently about the power usage but, as it is, it’s much more effective than before. Instead of a little screw-top plastic container with disposable silicon-filled tablets, I have this.

The drying station is a white plastic container with small vent holes in the top that light up blue, and a glowing blue button at the front

Dry-Star UV electronic drying station.

I believe that in later years the Opus 2 processors have come with an electronic drying device, but “back in my day” it was just the small plastic tub I’ve had all these years.

I do like getting new toys!

So there we have it — and hopefully my new, sexy black Sonnets will be as good to me as my original speech processors have been.