Turning the other ear

To the Rotary Club of Swindon Old Town.

Yesterday I was fitted with a hearing aid in each ear

This now presents me with certain challenges:

1. My wife now expects me to hear and engage with every word she says as opposed to the previous 1 in 10 ratio I was allowed.

In the film Captain Corelli's Mandolin a doctor removed a hardened pea from a male villager's ear. By the end of the film this man asked for it to be replaced as he could now hear his wife all too regularly.

2. I can now look forward to hearing Stewart Bell's rapier wit as in the past he could have been reciting farmers weekly or the archers for all I know.

3. I'm sure at last night's Swindon match I tuned into Radio 4, or that may have been wishful thinking.

3. With the growing number of hearing aid wearers in the Club I think President we should consider the creation of a committee for those whose fetish is walking around with battery driven digital rubber in one or two orifices.

4. I hope I no longer have to use coping strategies such as 'really' or 'is that so?' when I can see the lips are moving, but haven't the slightest clue what is being said.

5. Finally, I am retiring today as a full-time Headteacher after some 25 years in such a post, but start a new contract as Head for three days a week contract as from Monday. 

I'm looking forward to continue working in Goddard Park as Head, although I do not intend to change my approach of smiling at, and asking a parent 'how is their sister', who I'd taught, to someone who may have just spoken an expletive to me. Its's just that they wouldn't have realized I hadn't heard it. Not quite the disarming approach of turning the other cheek, as much as turning the other ear.