Scandals, Sex and Signing (on Sunday)

The Twenty-Ninth of September Two Thousand and Eleven. Thursday.

I'm learning British Sign Language (BSL). No, really. Very slowly and in my inimitable cack-handed fashion but I am learning. No 2 son is deaf and as he grows up it's our hope that he'll develop bilingually - speech and BSL. He's coming along brilliantly in both but it would be a great help if his dad was up to speed too. Not doing too badly - vocab's coming along nicely, my grammar's a bit poor. Shu Shu and I are doing an online course for Level 1. Running a bit behind - as I am in most of my endeavours - but got some breathing space last week when the tutor had to postpone our tutorial because she had just had a baby. The lightweight.

But in addition to my studies there is a more casual way that I am assimilating a feel for signing. And that's by watching the Hollyoaks omnibus on a Sunday morning.

I have no idea who the characters are. I have no clue what the latest plotlines are (that's not strictly true. There was something about Jeff Rawle off of Drop the Dead Donkey being a serial killer or something). But on a Sunday morning I spend half an hour or so in the company of this woman:

Her and her colleagues are tasked with the tricky business of interpreting a whole week's worth of good-looking people getting into outrageous scrapes. Or something.

I'm getting better. I can't follow every word of  what she's saying but I surprised myself last Sunday with how much I could figure out. I learned the sign for 'gutted' - that was quite good.

Coincidentally, one of the actors, Rachel Shenton who plays Mitzee on the show is fluent in sign and is a fully qualified interpreter.

She was inspired to learn by her deaf father and has subsequently used her skills to make a living between acting jobs. In the photo above she's raised money from skydiving on behalf of the National Deaf Children's Society - the NDCS who have given us a lot of help and advice. Proof if ever it was needed that Hollyoaks is a valuable tool in learning BSL. Possibly. Just don't ask me what's actually going on...

More soonliest.