Great comment!

If you have any other suggestions for quick fixes to the “Fred is bringing his veggie girlfriend to dinner at short notice, what do I give her?” question I would love to hear them, I realise there must be far more ways to do this than just the solutions I’ve come up with. Please do add suggestions!

I may be biased as my favourite thing when I was growing up was cheesy peas… I recall one birthday where I had peas in cheese sauce followed by veggie jelly which then came in a lurid almost fluorescent colour… not sure that’s QUITE what I’d go for, 25 years later!

Thanks for reading & commenting, and I would love to hear your favourite easy veggie dishes / solutions.

I’m afraid I’m one of the people who thinks they can sign – I studied to Level 2 BSL but haven’t kept in practise. That said, when a Deaf man came to visit my neighbour and she wasn’t in, I was able to speak to her on the phone and sign to him what she said (wait, I’ll be there in 10 minutes) which made me feel the whole thing was worth it! And, in the past when I was just self-taught but my then-boyfriend was Level 1, we found a frantic man on a nightbus who was trying to get people to understand his signs; we understood where he was going, that his hostel would be closed – and took him home to crash on our sofa overnight. He spent a long time telling us about his father being shot in Northern Ireland, scary stories, before we crashed for the night. I am aware that I’m out of practise and should probably only be considered Level 1, though. And I don’t think I’m better than I am at signing, I hope! “Know your limitations” is good advice for everyone, in everything, at every time! So I hope I realise I can only recall the very basics – shame but I had nowhere to practise the skills.

Anyway I digress. Thank you for your comment – very valuable points.

and b) it’s not just unhelpful but extremely rude to try to speak in a ‘special’ way to someone you have assumed to have an intellectual impairment – regardless of whether they actually do or not. If they’d like you to slow down, explain terms or use more straightforward language, they’ll say so. It’s not your decision.

and while I’m at it c) there is NOTHING about someone using non-speech communication that automatically means that the person’s ability to hear, understand and respond to the spoken word is impaired. Don’t make me waste time and energy by having to tell you three times to please speak directly to me, in an ordinary way and NOT to any person accompanying or supporting me.

oh and d) Sign language users will not get anything useful from you trying to sign if you don’t actually know any sign language. You will just look very silly. Not all sign users are Deaf, and those that are can usually lipread. Save the frantic made-up gestures for a game of Charades and stick to speaking properly and making sure that we can see your face while you talk so that we can lipread if we need to.

Aaaargh. Sorry, Flash. Think I needed to get that off my chest!