Week 25/2025: Beauty, the beast and the back injury
Week of 16 June 2025
This post is wholly researched and written by me. I do not use AI in my writing. I will always bring you my stories in my real human voice.
Beauty, the beast and the back injury
Hearing trials
My hearing aid trial that I started last week continued.
This is intended to establish whether hearing devices will help alleviate my hyperacusis and tinnitus, and I don’t know if it will. One of the things I found was they work quite well in my left ear but my right ear is a weird shape or something and they don’t sit as well there. It’s even worse if I wear my glasses. The right is also the ear where the tinnitus is worse and it just does not want to be silenced.
I took the first set back on Monday and got some different devices to try. They felt like they were dampening some of the sounds around me but they were really itchy. Back to the audiologist on Thursday for set three, which I had to take out when I got home because they were amplifying noises I never normally heard like when I touched my clothing or picked up my backpack, and the heat pump. That was unbearable and I couldn’t wear them at all.
So more of these await me next week but I’m not finding them easy to wear and the impact they have on the sounds around me is so minimal I’m not sure if this is a good idea. But I guess we won’t know unless we try.
Back to back to back
My back/hip/leg/nerve pain also continued into this week.
Walking is so painful, mainly in the outside of my calf as well as in my groin area, which seizes up particularly badly if I sneeze. It all hurts so much, and my osteopath says it’s all connected to the day about a month ago I hurt my back picking up a water bottle. That was the day I saw the nerve explosion in my head. (Go check that week out. The picture of what I saw is cool.)
This has been going on for more than five weeks now. And not a single health professional has told me it’s okay to stay on the couch all day and watch TV, even though lying down and sitting down are the only times it doesn’t hurt, and I would quite like to stay in bed all day please. No, they said. You cannot do that. You must move. Go out and exercise.
Ouch.
Beauty and the Beast
In what was a wonderful end to a painful week, I went to the Theatre Royal to see the Victorian State Ballet’s Beauty & the Beast on Sunday. This is only the second time I’ve been to the ballet; my first time was last year when I saw Swan Lake (It’s at the end of this post from last year.)
This is their description of the show:
A full-length classical ballet production of the traditional tale, Beauty & the Beast is one of the world’s most loved classics. Following VSB’s sell-out seasons since its Australian Premier in 2018, we are proud to present this spectacular original ballet, to audiences in 2025. Featuring internationally recognized Principal Artists Elise Jacques as Belle and Cieren Edinger as Gaston, Tristan Gross as the Prince/Beast and Alexia Simpson as the Rose.
Our production is based on both the original tale by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, and the screenplay for Disney by Linda Woolverton, bringing to life a captivating display of the beloved characters that we all know and love from other films and musicals.
Within spectacular classical ballet choreography, our version seeks to retell this magical story and to draw the audience right inside the spellbinding moments, transporting through to the very moving transformation, grand waltz and happily-ever-after final scenes.
Choreographed by Michelle Cassar De Sierra, the ballet’s spellbinding moments and grand waltzes promise a captivating experience for all ages.
Soundtrack
I’m guessing this isn’t a ballet written as a ballet like Swan Lake or other classical ballets (I can’t think of any . . Nutcracker Suite? I don’t know anything about ballet . . .) so there isn’t a “Beauty and the Beast” ballet score like there is for Swan Lake where the music was designed for the dances (or the other way around? I don’t know).
So likely the soundtrack has been put together from existing music to match the story—or it may be the score from the Disney movie. I’m not sure! I loved the music, especially two of the pieces in the beast’s castle, but the only piece I recognised for sure was the final waltz, which was a Johann Strauss composition that I don’t remember the name of but now I’m going to have to go and figure it out . . . I think it was The Emperor Waltz (aka Kaiser-Walzer Op 437).
What I thought
I had seats in the gallery, which was the only place I could get a front row seat. Front row, but a long way from the action! It also comes with accessibility advice that the front row has a large step down to the seats and isn’t recommended for people with access needs. I wasn’t injured when I booked it and am not sure if my injury counts as ‘access needs’ but it was definitely uncomfortable making that step. But it was momentary so it wasn’t too bad, and the view was fantastic.
I’ve not seen the Disney versions (animated from 1991 or live action from 2017) of Beauty & the Beast, but reading some reviews of this show, it would seem some of the characters are from Disney rather than the original fairytale (which I have also not read). So I was half-expecting Angela Lansbury’s ghost to appear from behind the backdrop and start singing the theme tune.
In the scenes in the Beast’s castle, there were dancers who I’m going to guess were servants, and I had to very strongly resist calling two of them Riff-Raff and Magenta (wrong musical by a couple of decades and definitely not appropriate for the large number of small girl children who were there).
One of my favourite scenes was the cake that turned into a troupe of cupcake dancers.
I loved the Rose too.
The costumes were stunning and it was all very beautiful. I loved it!
I think I’ll go watch the movie now.
Habit tracker
Existing habits
- Go outside first thing (7 days): 7/7
- 15 minutes morning exercise sequence (7 days): 6/7
- Hip exercises (5 days): 2/5
- Walk (7 days): 6/7
- Walk 8,000 steps (7 days): 5/7
- 9.00 shutdown & dim lights (6 days): 5/6
- Evening routine (6 days): 5/6
New habits
- Fill water bottle in the morning (5 days): 5/5
- Carry a notebook with me when I walk (6 days): 6/6
- Mid-day journalling (7 days): 4/7
- Thinking time (4 days): 4/4
- Read aloud (7 days): 5/7
Summary of the week
Some positive things
I got some useful feedback from my manager about some work I did, including advice to be more sure of myself when I’m talking about things I know about. I like that they believe in me.
Watching Stranger Things.
I saw my osteopath and she did something that made me hurt less.
I found some ‘missing’ video clips of Kramstable aged 2.
What did I learn this week?
I learned there is a place in Tasmania called Weasel Plains.
Learnings from the elder abuse awareness walk
Unrelated, Lil Sis and I went on the Council on the Ageing (COTA) annual World Elder Abuse Awareness Day walk on Monday. I learned that one in six Australian aged 65 or older living in the community experience elder abuse each year.
The walk is intended to raise awareness of elder abuse and the ageism that contributes to this. Elder abuse includes physical or sexual abuse, taking the person’s money, neglecting them or keeping them from their social contacts. It often happens in their home and the abuser is often a family member, friend or other trusted person.
COTA says that ageism makes it seem okay to ignore and undervalue older people and this contributes to people tuning a blind eye to abuse. They say “While ageism may not cause abuse, it can contribute to an environment in which individuals who abuse older people fail to recognise their behaviour constitutes abuse; other members of society fail to notice these negative behaviours or take action to stop them; and older people experiencing elder abuse blame themselves and are too ashamed to seek assistance.”
The walk is a way of making more people aware of what elder abuse is, how it can happen, and that it is not okay.
Above is a card I picked up at the Queer As Art exhibition a couple of weeks ago produced by COTA and Working It Out to provide information about elder abuse in relation to a person’s gender or sexuality might look like. The full card is available on COTA’s website.
What did I notice this week?
What am I reading this week?
- Into the Woods by John Yorke
- What is Poetry? by Michael Rosen
What am I watching this week?
- Stranger Things Season 2
- Masterchef Australia
- Beauty and the Beast (Victorian State Ballet)
What am I listening to this week?
- Bohemia by Van Diemen’s Band
- Spacemakers Podcast Season 3
About The Author
