The tallest of the two is now a respectable 119cm tall (from soil level to flower).

I’ve been meaning to post about learning British sign language (BSL) for months now. I wanted to post it in BSL as a video blog (vlog) but, having borrowed my friend Ben’s webcam months ago, I’ve still not got round to even seeing if I can get it working, let alone actually sign coherent content in front of it. Another friend, Gareth, has started blogging about his experiences of learning BSL and prompted me to just pull my finger out and write a post. Maybe at some point I’ll record a translation in BSL. Maybe…

So, I started learning BSL in September 2006 when IBM put on courses for employees at Hursley. We had two hours of teaching every Wednesday morning for 30 weeks, which culminated in being CACDP BSL Level 1 certified.

Jeff, our tutor, is Deaf and taught us using a combination of signing, speech, writing on whiteboards, slides, and humour. Different tutors using different communication methods – for instance, BSL tutors don’t have to be deaf themselves, and some use speech and some don’t. Jeff doesn’t really lip-read so we got lots of practice at signing when talking to him during tea-breaks.

During the course, Jeff taught us a bit about Deaf culture as well as the language. This built on the deaf awareness workshop that we had attended early on in the course. In the workshop, another man (also deaf but deafened later in life; he speaks, uses a hearing aid, and lip-reads) taught us about what it’s like to be deaf, how (as hearing people) to communicate with deaf people, what the Deaf (signing) culture is, and attitudes of deaf people to their deafness.

I really enjoyed the course. It was difficult at first to deal with learning something without being able to write it down (BSL notation is a skill all to itself!). So learning to rely less on written notes was useful too. Learning BSL has been really useful, in particular in talking to my friend Ben at work who is profoundly deaf (without speech) and whose first language is BSL. It’s also handy in meetings or in the noisy canteen to be able to sign to colleagues.

I think it’s really cool that we could learn BSL at work. Aside from the actual language, learning about the Deaf culture and deafness in general has given me a different perspective on things and broadened my understanding of other people. In terms of my day-job, I have a better understanding of the issues around Accessibility.

For instance, here’s one of them….

Did you know that if BSL is your first language (and, therefore, English your second), written transcripts are not necessarily sufficient for a Deaf person to understand an audio recording***? The concepts and grammar of BSL are so different from English that moving between the two can be very difficult. That’s why you get BSL interpreters signing on TV (eg BBC News 24) instead of just providing subtitles.

A lot (a *lot*) of people don’t know that.

Update (16th July 2008):

***This is not to say that written transcripts are a waste of time, nor that Deaf people can’t generally understand written English! Also, if you can provide written transcripts, they provide a means for other people to translate those transcripts to other languages. So projects like this one are really cool: https://launchpad.net/~transcribers. For a start, a written transcription might one day be able to be converted automatically into BSL…(My SiSi blog post)…

Last year, I attempted to grow sunflowers for the first time. Blue Peter always encouraged me to grow them as a child but I never did. So, last Spring, I bought some seeds and planted them in little pots. They all germinated nicely so, just before we went on holiday in May/June, I planted them out in the garden. Unfortunately, in under three days, the slugs had eaten them all. I was devasted for about a day then started plotting how to beat the slugs next year.

So, this Spring, I’ve started collecting toilet roll tubes (also in the spirit of Blue Peter) so that I can stick them in the ground around my small sunflower seedlings when I first plant them out. Hopefully, that’ll fool those pesky slugs.

In the meantime, I’ve bought a couple of packets of seeds (hoping that if one is so tasty that the toilet roll tubes fail to foil the crafty slugs, I can try again). I’ve planted the first packet into small pots on the windowsill and the first few seeds have germinated nicely:

That’s despite me mixing in too much of the water-saving crystals with the compost so that every time I water them, the soil expands so much that it starts to climb out of the pots!

I’m hoping these ones work because I want to see what they come out like. They’re not your usual yellow sunflowers. They’re a species called ‘Moulin Rouge’ and the heads are a dark red instead of yellow. If they work, I’ll post a photo here.

I just called our local Indian takeaway to order some yummy Friday night food. At the end of the phone call, when I gave my name, the guy at the other end of the phone stopped me and asked if I’d ordered a meal from them on 3rd September.

I was slightly bewildered and couldn’t remember. But on mention of a missing keema nan it all came flooding back.

A few weeks back (apparently on 3rd September), we ordered and collected an Indian takeaway. On getting it home I was rather distressed to find that it was missing from the paper bag. I recovered though and, ultimately, forgot about it.

Until tonight when the lovely man at the Pipasa remembered my name (and, probably, my identical order!) and told me that he wasn’t going to charge me for my keema nan this time.

How good is that for customer service? )

I recently had to complete a CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) form. Today, I got it back again with a query about my name.

Now, my surname is, as you probably know or have guessed, Cowen. This is my family’s surname and the name I received at birth. I’ve never had a different surname.

In Section C of the CRB form, Line 20 provides a box labelled Surname at birth (if different). It’s that bit in parentheses that’s important here:”if different”. My surname at birth is, as I said, not different from the surname I gave as my name. So I left that box blank.

My ‘mistake’, apparently was that, in Section A Line 1, I selected Ms as my title for the innocent reason that I don’t like to be called Miss (I find it unnecessary to tell people that I’m unmarried or to give the impression that I’m a 10-year-old girl). By selecting Ms, however, I could be hiding the fact that I am, or have been, actually married and, thus, who knows what my surname at birth was.

Despite the fact that I’ve signed the form to say that it contains the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And the fact that it asks me only to provide my surname at birth (IF DIFFERENT)!

I think you get the idea that I’m a touch annoyed by all this. The upshot of it all is that the charity for whom I’m getting the CRB check done has had to send me the form back by recorded delivery so that I can fill in a box that I correctly didn’t fill in the first time. Anyway, I’ve written my surname at birth in Line C20 as requested and as if it didn’t say “(if different)”. And now I’ve to return the form to the charity so that they can post it back to the CRB agency.