Life

Things that have happened in my life

New Bluetooth hearing aids

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A photo of one of my new hearing aids

Back in autumn 2022, following a decline in my hearing, I started wearing hearing aids. Almost four years on, and following a new hearing test, I’ve got new, upgraded hearing aids – and these ones have Bluetooth.

Bluetooth hearing aids have been around for some time now, but were normally only available if you paid to have them fitted privately. And privately paid-for hearing aids are not cheap – Specsavers charge a minimum of £500 for a pair, and up to £3000 for top-of-the-range models. So I’ve gone with standard issue NHS hearing aids, which don’t cost me anything as long as I don’t lose them.

It’s only been recently that hearing aid manufacturers have started offering Bluetooth functionality in the cheapest models that they sell to the NHS. It offers some advantages to them – my old hearing aids had metal contacts on the bottom so that my hearing profile could be uploaded to them, but now this can be done wirelessly by Bluetooth. That, in turn, allows for a more streamlined casing for the hearing aids.

Phone connectivity

For me, the major advantage of Bluetooth is that I can connect my hearing aids to my phone. They support Apple’s Made for iPhone (MFi) standard, and so they work a bit like Bluetooth earbuds. Once paired, then you can route your phone’s audio to your hearing aids. However, unlike most Bluetooth audio devices, you can opt to not route system sounds and ringtones to your hearing aids, which is good. You also get to see the battery status of your hearing aids if you have the battery widget enabled on your home screen, and can use your phone to control the volume.

Another feature on iPhones is Live Listen. This allows you to use your phone’s microphone to route sound to your hearing aids. It’s useful for noisy environments, where people can talk into your phone’s microphone to help you hearing them better. Whilst you can buy microphones that also do this, it’s handy to be able to use a phone that you already own.

Other Apple devices linked to the same Apple account should be able to interact with your hearing aids when in Bluetooth range, even if not paired. I say should because my iPad says it can see my hearing aids, but I haven’t yet worked out how to route audio from my iPad to my hearing aids via my iPhone. I assume that if I buy a Mac in future, this will also work.

I’m sure Android phones also support these features, but I haven’t had any experience with them.

iPhone App

My hearing aids are manufactured by Oticon, and they also offer a companion app for your phone. This also allows you to control the volume (for both hearing aids together or individually), switch modes to enable Telecoil, and also mute the microphones. This latter option is useful for listening to music or podcasts over Bluetooth; by default, the hearing aids still listen for sound in your environment (albeit a slightly reduced volume) when Bluetooth audio is playing. If you just want to listen to audio and not your environment (essentially using your hearing aids as headphones), then the mute function is useful.

You can also enable a ‘SpeechBooster’ mode that amplifies speech in noisy environments. Being as I am mostly stuck at home at present, I haven’t tried this yet.

Not rechargeable

Whilst most paid-for hearing aids now come in a charger box, like Apple’s AirPods, these basic ones that I have still use disposable batteries. I don’t have to pay for these either – I get a supply of free batteries from the NHS. And thankfully they’re the same type as my previous models, so I can still use the spare ones I had left over. I expected the Bluetooth support to affect battery life, but they seem to last 8-10 days, which isn’t a major difference.

I’m really happy with my new hearing aids, as they negate the need to take them out to use earbuds or headphones to listen to music and podcasts. Whilst the sound quality isn’t as good as some earbuds, they’re a lot more convenient – especially when you can mute the microphones. Most of all, I’m glad Bluetooth hearing aids are now available on the NHS and that I haven’t needed to pay for them.

Juxtaposed into June

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As I mentioned yesterday, we didn’t manage to do many of the things we’d expected to do last month. And, unlike last June when I went to Greece, I’m not expecting to do any long distance travelling.

Continuing recovery

I start this month still in my recovery period; today, I have an X-ray booked to see how my fractures are healing. My sick note for work has another week to run, and in some respects, me blogging again is part of me seeing if I’m able to start working from home again next week. I suspect it’ll be a few more weeks before I can go back into the office, not least because I’m not able to drive at the moment, or carry a backpack on the train.

International visitor

Christine has extended family in the USA, and we’re expecting to host one of her relatives later this month. The plan is for them to stay in our spare room, and, up until I injured myself, we had been making good progress at turning our spare room from a dumping ground for our junk, into a usable bedroom. To the extent that we’d taken two car loads of stuff to the local recycling centre, and another two car loads were donated to a local charity. I’m hoping we’ve done enough to make it usable, but it’s not quite where we had hoped it would be.

Their visit is mostly to sort out some family property and inheritance issues, so nothing too exciting.

A photo of the Arteck multi device Bluetooth wireless mouse

New mouse

The multi-device mouse I bought in September 2022 is starting to become faulty – not all of my left clicks are registering any more, which is as frustrating as you would expect it to be.

Considering that previous two mice that I had (both Tecknet mice from Amazon) each lasted about a year, I’m somewhat pleased that this has managed almost four years, although I’m sure I’ve had Logitech mice that have lasted far longer in the past. So, I’ll be spending this week looking for a suitable replacement – ideally, it’ll be another multi-device mouse.

Car insurance renewal

June is also our car insurance renewal month. Well, our policy would actually start in July, but quotes tend to be cheapest around 21-26 days before renewal. Once we have our renewal quote from our current provider, I’ll be spending time perusing the various price comparison web sites to see if we can get it cheaper. I’ve written in more detail about saving money before, and my record is saving £300 by haggling with my existing provider.

A quick glance at one price comparison site is showing prices around £100 more expensive than last year’s premium, but I’ll see if those prices come down nearer the time.

Unblogged May

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Just a short one this month – as mentioned yesterday, I’m still in my recovery, and my typing is slow and not particularly accurate.

What we didn’t do in May

I did my usual look ahead to the start of the month on the 1st, listing the things we expected to do. Alas, my injuries meant that I never made it to the Everything Electric show in Harrogate, or the gig that I mentioned. That was a Professor Elemental gig in Leeds, being supported by fellow ‘chap hop’ artists Mr B the Gentleman Rhymer and Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq. Ironically, this is the second Professor Elemental gig we’ve missed this year, as we were supposed to see him at Sci-Fi Weekender in March before that got cancelled.

Christine also never made it to London, as she stayed back to help me, and we’re not at UKGE this weekend. Oh well.

Does bad luck come in threes?

There’s a saying that bad luck comes in threes. If we take my injuries as one, then number two would be that we had a gas leak at home last week, and number three would be that we got a flat tyre on our car on Friday.

The gas leak was easily solved – we rang the National Gas Leak Emergency Number, and an engineer from our local gas distribution network was over within the hour. It was a minor leak – the pipe connecting our meter to the inlet pipe had come very slightly loose. Once tightened, it was fine. And as the leak was on the network side of the meter, we would not have been charged for the excess gas. It’s probably a good thing we no longer have a gas cooker, as that would have ignited the leaking gas and could have caused a major explosion. As it is, we only need gas for our central heating and hot water, and in the long term, we’ll replace our boiler with an electric heat pump so that we can come off the gas grid all together.

As for the flat tyre, we used our breakdown cover to get a recovery truck to bring the car home (seeing as it was after 7pm on a Friday and we weren’t too far from home), and we have a technician coming to us to replace it today. Like the gas leak, easily fixed, but a bit annoying. Let’s hope that I don’t have any more bad luck, eh?

The Wolverhampton Taxi Problem

Back in 2015, I wrote a (comparatively) lengthy blog post about taxis registered in the borough of Rossendale in Lancashire, but operating elsewhere, and the issues this causes. A decade on, and it seems like the issue has shifted to Wolverhampton: there’s a lengthy piece on Mobility Matters about it. Almost 30,000 private hire vehicles are registered in Wolverhampton, which would mean one taxi for every ten residents, against a national average of 3 to every 1000. Of course, they’re not all operating there, and it’s reckoned that around a third of those operate in Greater Manchester. A hat tip to London Reconnections for the link.

Turning 42 on Towel Day

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It’s my birthday today. I’m still recovering, and not yet able to spend a long time typing, so this is coming from my phone again. However, I have re-gained some movement in my arms compared to a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been out of hospital for almost two weeks now.

The 25th May is also Towel Day, marking the life of Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Those of you familiar with the book, radio series, TV series or film will know the significance of the number 42. Well, today is my 42nd birthday.

As I’m still recovering, today will be a quiet day with possibly a nice meal out somewhere at lunchtime. Once I’m fit enough to start using a proper keyboard again, I’ll be able to resume blogging more regularly.

Hiatus

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This is a short blog post that I am tapping out on my phone. Since Thursday last week, I have been in hospital, having had a fall at home which resulted in me fracturing bones in both my shoulders (specifically necks of humerus).

I’ve now exhausted the scheduled posts that I’d written before the fall, and both arms need to be non-load baring for another five weeks or so to allow them to heal, so I’m going to have to take a blogging hiatus for now. Which is a shame; I was working on my views of this year’s Eurovision entries when the fall happened.

See you all soon, hopefully when I no longer have T-rex arms.

The Darling Buds of May

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A photo of some bluebells against a moss-covered dry stone wall.

How are we a third of the way through the year already? Mind you, the recent weather has seemed rather more summery than spring, so it’s not surprising that summer is fast approaching. And May should be quite a busy month for us.

Bank holiday celebrations

Our wedding anniversary, on the 4th, and my birthday, on the 25th, both fall on the two bank holidays respectively, which is nice. Neither is a particularly notable number – we’ll have been married 13 years, and I’ll be making further progress into my mid-forties. But at least we both get days of work. I suspect some of our wedding anniversary may end up being spent in Ikea, but we’ll see.

As for my birthday, we may plan a nice meal somewhere.

Travel

Christine has an overnight stay in London coming up in the middle of the month, related to a professional development course that she is doing alongside her work. Meanwhile, I’m planning to go the Everything Electric Show in Harrogate.

We have tentative plans to go to a gig around my birthday weekend. Tickets haven’t yet been booked, but we have provisional childcare in place. We’re also considering a trip to the UK Games Expo in Birmingham at the end of the month, but we’ll see. At least it happens just after we get paid, although that could prove dangerous.

Health

It turns out I should have had another hearing test last summer. Anyhow, instead, I’m having one this month, which may mean I get new hearing aids. Last year, I took one of mine in to be replaced, as it had stopped working, and was told that my particular model was no longer issued by my local NHS trust. As such, my replacement was a refurbished model from another patient. I assume that, following this new test, I’ll be due the newer model, but we’ll see. It would be great if these new ones work with Bluetooth, so that I can stream audio directly from my phone.

We’ve also got a couple of appointments for our ten-year-old, which we’ve been waiting almost three years for. Which will be a big relief.

All in all, a busy month for us.

Happy Easter!

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I hop you are having a good Easter break, if you celebrate it. As mentioned on Wednesday, we’re staying with my parents in York, having arrived yesterday and heading home tomorrow. Which, to be fair, is pretty much what we do every year – Covid years excepted.

The Easter weekend is a full two weeks earlier than last year, when Easter was unusually late – I wrote about the dates for Easter last year. Next year, Easter is even earlier, with Easter Sunday falling on the 28th March.

I went down with a cold last weekend, which, bearing in mind our trip to London, commuting to work and an Easter church service for our ten-year-old’s school, isn’t surprising considering how many people I’ve interacted with recently. However, it means that this may be a more subdued Easter weekend. A bit of rest is probably welcome.

Le Poisson d’Avril

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A photo of a clownfish in an aquarium. The French refer to an April Fool as 'un poisson d'Avril', which translates as an April Fish.

Something I learned back in secondary school was that the French call an April Fool’s joke ‘un poisson d’Avril’, which literally translates as ‘an April fish’. No April Fool’s Day jokes from me today though.

We’re part way though the Easter holidays here, with our ten-year-old having broken up from school last Friday. It would appear that not all schools are off this week, however; I had an email from Eureka about how they are running their Easter holiday activities over three weeks. Indeed, we would have loved to go to see Olaf Falafel’s Stupidest Super Stupid Show in Leeds on the 14th, but our ten-year-old will be back at school by then.

Christine is working on Good Friday, and so I’ll probably end up taking our ten-year-old to see the new Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Unless the weather ends up being especially good, and we end up doing something outdoors. We’ll then be spending the rest of the Easter weekend with my parents in York, as usual.

So far, my post about Kinky Boots is the only one about what we did in London that has gone live, but there are several more to come throughout this month. We packed quite a lot in to what was only a two-night trip; not having our ten-year-old in tow meant we could be a bit more agile. I also have plenty of other blog posts that I have already written to go live in the coming weeks.

Marching onwards into March

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A photo of some crocuses, taken in March 2006

Whilst it’s been a wet start to 2026 for some, it’s definitely starting to feel more like spring now. As it happens, the photo above of some crocuses was taken 20 years ago, on a little Samsung point and shoot camera that I used to own. Apparently I don’t take many photos of crocuses, or at least, not many that Apple’s Photos app can recognise as such.

I mentioned last month that we’d be organising our ten-year-old’s birthday party. And sure, we did organise it in February, but the actual party will be this month. So we have that to look forward to.

No SFW this year

What we don’t have to look forward to is Sci-Fi Weekender. Normally we head off to Great Yarmouth every March for a great weekend of geekery with friends, but it’s been cancelled this year. Over-running building work at the Vauxhall Holiday Park, where it’s hosted, mean that the event would have had to be scaled down, and it seems like a majority of other attendees decided to skip this year. We’re not out of pocket; we’ve asked for our booking to be rolled over to next year. And we would have been driving down, so we haven’t lost out on advance train tickets. We had word last week that it may be cancelled, and it so I’m hoping that some friends of ours who were planning to take the train managed have been able to claim on their travel insurance.

Still, we’re a bit gutted not to see people and have geeky fun there this year. We may still do something else with the weekend, as we have childcare in place, but we’ll see.

Easter break

Whilst the Easter weekend itself is in April, the school holidays start at the end of this month. That’s because Easter Sunday is two weeks earlier than last year. We usually arrange childcare for our ten-year-old, but we’ll see what they want to do nearer the time.

Depending on the weather, we may manage some more days out this month. Last month, we managed Cannon Hall Farm, but that was about it.

Flung into February

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Back in February 2024, my wife Christine described the preceding January as ‘the Januariest January that ever Januaried’. And whilst January 2025 was also something of a slog, for us at least, this January hasn’t been so bad. I think it’s helped that I had a few days off work at the start, and so wasn’t back to work until the 6th. But also, we had some days out, including Hardwick Hall and the Thackray Museum.

And so to this February. Usually when I post something on the first of the month, it’s to tell you what we’re up to this month. Which, based on a glance at my calendar, is not a lot. Valentines Day is next Saturday, which means no hope of a nice but affordable meal out anywhere. Not that we’re big on Valentines Day – normally we just exchange cards. Our 2014 surprise jaunt to London was very much an exception. We may do a nice meal at home, although how romantic we can be with a ten-year-old in the house is questionable.

Speaking of the ten-year-old, they are overdue for a birthday party so we’ll be organising that this for this month. Even though their actual birthday was a few weeks ago. We haven’t done a birthday party for them since they turned seven, but turning 10 is a bigger deal.

I have a few blog posts already lined up, so there should be plenty to read about on the blog this month. We may even manage the occasional day trip, depending on the weather. We’ll see.

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