A Red Admiral...

... I am getting quite a few of these in my back garden now. I still have some Hebe flowering, and also some late Buddliea. I have a beautiful pink Buddliea which is a late flowerer, and it started flowering a week ago. I am going to take some more cuttings from this late flowering Buddliea in a bit.

Yesterday I was working with technology, and my cochlear speech processor (between doing the plastic ivy project).

Next door has a dog that barks deeply and loudly all day long, and sets the other neighbour's dogs off. Neighbour (of the shared drain problems, imprinted driveway debacle, and now the roofing debacle with cowboy workmen, and now a new further one...) has a very loud deep booming voice and is shouting at his dog the day long. This is just a few yards away from me.

I have been taking my cochlear speech processor off most of the day to get peace. But the app on my phone is grumbling at me and sends me alerts to put it back on etc.

Also it is not a good idea not to wear it, because despite having this cochlear operation 10 years ago, my brain gets out of practice very quickly, and when I put it back on (I am still wearing it daily, just not when dog and man shouting at each other all day next door, but that ends up all day) it takes me while for Brain to tune into noise/sound coming back in again, and noise sounds distorted until it settles again.

I can stream via Bluetooth stuff from my iPhone (which is portable and sits in my pocket) so I am getting noise/sound, but the battery doesn't last long now, and the phone heats up easily. I am also worried about damaging my phone carrying it all the time while doing projects and gardening etc. I want it to last longer. So I need more options for incoming sound (so I am not listening to shouty neighbour and shouty dog).

Yesterday I rigged up a Bluetooth transmitter from the radio (the radio left over from the days when J was alive), and to some compatible Bluetooth headphones. I'd got the set from Amazon. But trying to marry the transmitter to the radio drove me insane because I cannot hear the spoken instructions from the transmitter. So I kept retreating to my plastic ivy project.

Finally I got it all up and running so that I can stream the radio via the transmitter to the Bluetooth headphones that came with it. so it will work from the back room into the garden, but only in a direct line from the door, not if the bungalow wall is in the way.

But then another problem, which I had anticipated. The headphones are stereo with no facility to make them mono. I only have one ear, the cochlear implant, and I do have a hearing aid in the other ear but that is to help my balance and it is not useful comprehensible sound. So with stereo I am only get half the sound in my speech processor, and the other half of the sound is over the hearing aid in the other ear which is just meaningless sound because I cannot hear it.

I did order a mono jack plug when I got this transmitter and I put it in the radio, then plugged the transmitter in. The audiologist had warned me that because of my poor level of hearing, even with the cochlear implant, that the mono jack plug, or indeed an additional jack plug that it would degrade the sound signal far too much for me. I was trying to be hopeful, but with the mono jack plug it did degrade the sound so what I got was useless.

So, I need a mono setting within any headphones I order in order to stop this degradation. But also with Bluetooth technology so I can pair it with the Mpow transmitter...

Also it needs to be noise cancelling headphones which means that it is big enough to go entirely over the speech processor on my head, to prevent shouty neighbour and shouty dog penetrating through...

So far, cannot find anything online that fulfills all that.

So, failed experiment for me, that took most of the day yesterday...

I have a couple of other ideas, but it needs me to spend more money to experiment. And more research.

I am afraid I totally fail to understand why hearing people need stereo. What is the point in headphones splitting sound between two ears so you get some in one ear and different parts of that moment of sound in the other ear. How on earth can it make a coherent whole? This is beyond my understanding.

In the summer months of much longer daylight days, because of shouty next door neighbour and his shouty dog, it was just doable to turn cochlear processor off in the day to get peace from him. I was out at dawn or sunrise in my garden, because I love the early part of the day (because he and shouty dog didn't start until about 10 am). But now we have the much shorter days, this is not possible now.

This Red Admiral butterfly was out there this morning when I went out to do my plastic ivy project. It was far too early for a butterfly to be out. There were a few drops of rain, but it still stayed there. Normally they fly off if it rains to find shelter. I can see it directly from my thatched swing. And I am worried for it. Yes I know I am silly, but I can leave nature alone. Stuff is what it is, but not if it is directly in front of me where I am working. So I moved one of my garden parasols to cover it from the rain.

The sun has just come out, rain has stopped, so I moved parasol so it could sun. One of its back wings is a little deformed or not properly unfurled, so I don't know if it has only just hatched out.