Busy day!!!

Firstly, a little info from yesterday (as I got home and quite literally had to crash out on the sofa as I was exhausted and didn't feel up to switching on our PC). I decided to pluck up some courage and (for the first time since getting the communication aid) go and browse a favourite shop of mine on the way home. Eclipse is located in Stroud and stocks some quite lovely and unique clothes and has very friendly staff. I'd seen a top in their window that the girly part of my brain went a bit nuts over and thought I'd check out how much it was. I browsed for a little while, then making eye-contact with the staff, they said "Hello! How are you?" (they're very friendly with everyone, but I've been in a few times, so they recognised me, too), so I marched up to the counter, held up a finger in a polite "give me a sec" gesture and selected my little message that says I'm using a communication aid for a week. Fully expecting panic or confusion, I was very pleased when they expressed an interest to know more and we had a nice little chat about my communication aid and National Star College. Then I went home feeling quite brave and proud of myself for actually initiating a conversation having deliberately gone into the store to (hopefully) do so.

Today Bruce came round to Stroud to film Matthew and I for the website going Christmas shopping at Stroud Farmers' Market. Bruce was a little late due to his SatNav taking him to Minchinhampton and Nailsworth rather than Stroud, and I think he managed to profoundly confuse a Nailsworth shop owner by asking him where the market was, with a reply of "I think it's in a garden somewhere."...we're lucky he found us at all! I had to use Matthew as my human communication aid to call Bruce on his mobile to check on his progress, as I'm still not a competant phone user with my little communicator.
We accomplished buying everything we wanted to. Buying cheese from Godsells Church Farm (their "Holy Smoked" Oak-smoked Gloucester cheese is amazing!), fresh soup (which we had for lunch and it was bloody gorgeous!), some cake, some local wine, some mistletoe (sp?), three baking potatoes and a little potted Christmas tree. I actually used my communicator to ask for all of these except the tree as Matthew knew more about it than I did anyway. And Bruce cunningly filmed us (this should be available to view sometime next week).

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was! I was expecting a full-on battle to get vendors' attention and then to be ignored once they got bored with waiting for my responses, but every vendor was patient, quite a few very curious, none were unpleasant or against us filming them, and the only real difference I noticed between their usual behaviour and that of today was that when it took me a while to type in my message, they might start serving another customer, then jump right back to me when I was ready (it was very busy, I didn't begrudge them this at all!), and one vendor was obviously a little thrown by my lack of vocality and hesitated a bit, giving quick glances to Matthew for reassurance or guidance (I'm not sure which). I was actually quite surprised at how some of the vendors even took it entirely in their stride and didn't even seem to register it as anything out of the ordinary. In any case, I managed to hand out quite a few cards with this website on it, so if any of you are reading this, kudos on your people-skills (and a big pat on the back for such lovely produce!).

We then went back to our house for Bruce to interview Matthew on his view of this. That will also be available on here for sometime next week. He was very sweet, and Bruce provoked some very interesting thoughts from him. He even said he missed the sound of my voice!

We are now at Matthew's parents and I have been showing the communication aid to Matthew's brother, Simon (who has a speech impediment) who was most impressed! Being a lover of all things Mac I thought he may be put off as it's a Microsoft-based device, but the features of it as a communicator seemed to please him so much he wasn't concerned with this at all! He especially found the nifty little feature of being able to select on release rather than tap wonderful, as his dexterity is not as coodinated as mine. And we found the display mode very handy to have private conversations with!

All day I have been thinking of Kat, who is using her communication aid for her first full day today and is off to her husband's Christmas party with it. Kat, if you're reading this, good luck!

Signing off for now!

Lucy.