The King's speech

Well, it's not actually the King's speech I propose to discuss today. Indeed, it's not the speech of any member of the Royal Family. It's the speech of a member of my own family: my wife, otherwise known as She Who Must Be Obeyed, occasionally 'Er Indoors or the Trouble and Strife, but more usually known simply as the Old Bat. In fact, now I come to think about it, I might not be writing so much about her speech as about my hearing.

There are really two separate strands to this particular train of thought. (Can trains of thought - or any type of train for that matter - have strands? But let's not get distracted by such deeply philosophical thoughts - or trains of thought. Oh heck, let's just get out of here!)

The old love, bless her, has a habit of not finishing her sentences. She might, for example, come home from lunch with friends and say, 'I had beef and ale pie for lunch today. It was...' and expect me to know what she thought of her meal. I suppose, if I'm to be completely honest (and what else would you expect?) that example is a trifle on the extreme side. But nevertheless, there are many occasions when I am expected to know what the Old Bat means to say but doesn't. And it's not only when she is in conversation with me that she displays this trait. I've seen (or heard) her do it when she is talking to many other people. Now, either they are too polite to ask her what she has failed to say or their extra-sensory perception is more finely tuned than mine. Certainly this latter would appear to be the case as far as her older. closer friends are concerned. Indeed, I've noticed that they also display this tendency not to finish sentences when talking between themselves and they all seem to know by some form of osmosis just what each hasn't said to the others. Now I don't really want to get into any of those old arguments about women being better than men at multi-tasking or women are from Venus and men are from Pluto or wherever, but I do wonder if this is a feminine thing as I don't recall any men of my acquaintance doing the same thing. But enough!

A similar but slightly different attribute to the Old Bat's conversational manner is her ability to ask me a question or make some out of the blue comment about something without actually saying what it is that she is talking about. It would seem that she has been thinking about something and she makes a comment or asks my opinion or such almost as though she thinks we have actually been talking about the subject rather than just her thinking about it. I wouldn't mind, but she does tend to get upset when I ask what she is talking about, just as if it is my fault that I can't read her thoughts.

Earlier in this discourse I mentioned that there are two strands to my thinking. Both concern the speech of my dearly beloved and my ability, or non-ability or failure, to completely understand it. If the first strand concerns something which is general to the fairer/weaker/other sex, the second is more particularly applicable to the Old Bat. In particular, it is a result (or symptom) of her medical condition. She suffers from an unusual form of Parkinson's disease known as coticobasal degeneration (CBD) and, among other symptoms, she sometimes has difficulty in swallowing. She has had to learn to drink in a somewhat unnatural way to avoid choking. Linked to the difficulty with swallowing is a tendency to slur speech. This means that what she thinks she says is not always what hear auditors hear. The latest example occurred yesterday. Well, actually it occurred on Tuesday but it was yesterday when I became aware of it. Her car has been in the garage for more than a week and it was yesterday that I took a phone call from the mechanic (whose name I had not previously known) while the Old Bat was under the shower. Reporting the gist of the conversation to her later, I mentioned that the mechanic's name was Neil. 'I know,' she said. 'I told you that yesterday.'

Thinking back, I realised that I had heard her say, 'He said'. What she had said, or thought she had said, was, 'Neil said'.

Now, although it is not as acute as it once was, I don't think my hearing is particularly deficient, nor are my ears in need of being syringed to clear them of wax. Nor do I consider myself particularly unobservant in sight or hearing. The Old Bat swears I don't listen. And there is my dilemma.

Am I just not listening - or is her speech beginning to fail? I think it is the latter. But, although she knows that CBD is progressive, can I be so cruel as to tell her it has progressed just that bit more than she realises? Anyway, you will appreciate that conversations in the Brighton Pensioner's house can require a certain degree of mental agility.

(I've just read the NHS web pages about CBD - linked above - for the first time since very shortly after the condition was diagnosed. It now appears that this is not considered (as was once the case) a form of Parkinson's. I also see that she should inform the DVLA, but I really don't consider her ability to drive any less now than it was three years ago. Yes, in the fullness of time the Old Bat will have to give up driving but for the time being at least she should keep a vestige of independence.)