The Walking Dead Returns!

The lovely Jesus

Mondays are now back to normal.
The Walking Dead has returned for the next two months or so!
Finally "team Rick" is more or less back together.
Carol is still been relegated to the shack in the woods, but her absence  has made space for the new characters of Jesus ( Tom Payne) Ezekiel ( Khary Payton) and others  to get some sort of foothold amid the two dozen characters that now need to be juggled within the Saviour threat
narrative.
It's interesting to note that Jesus is reported to be another gay character.
That makes four gays in " team rick" !!!!
perhaps homos do well in zombie apocalypses?

The strength of The Walking Dead lies in the " The community against the world" storyline. 
Thank goodness we are now getting back to the formula that has always served the series so well over the years. 

Image



I think I need a new image.
At the Baftas I noticed that Dev Patel had gone all floppy haired and informal which apparently sent the women ( and many of the men) in the room wild with desire. 
Eddie Redmayne donned a white tux and looked very 1950s and even Steven Fry, who usually looks like a bag of coal in a suit , scrubbed up well enough to lead the charge against Trump's references to the overrated Meryl Streep.
The Prof has a new twitter profile photo. ( see above)
It shrieks professional & Individual 
If I had one there would be a gravy stain on the shirt and egg in my beard.
Unprofessional & Individual 

It's time to change!
And so......Before I take neighbour Trevor to the doctor's surgery this morning I 've made an effort...it's the turning of a new leaf!
I've washed my face and combed my hair! I've put on clean jeans and a jumper spring fresh from airing on the bathroom radiator. I've brushed my teeth and have put shoes on instead of my crocs with the holes in the sole
And feeling fairly dapper strode out to get myself a coffee from the kitchen

.....and promptly stood in a pile of George's bile sick lurking by the fridge

Hanging Up My Stethoscope!


My work retirement documentation arrived in the post yesterday.
There is a whole booklet of things to complete....it's bureaucracy overload!

I aim to leave intensive Care around my birthday which is in June.
By then I would have been a nurse over 35 years!
35 years!
Bugger Me!

Recently a colleague asked me if there was much difference between the nursing of today and that of thirty years ago, and Without much pause, I said no
Caring is caring whatever the decade.

What has changed is the system itself. Pressure on the system by increased demand. Pressure on the system by more complex care needs and pressure on the system by patients who are living longer and who are expecting more.
The system is now dominated by quality control measures, audits, specialist managers and all of the paperwork that goes along with ticking a box. The nhs monster is so big that great swathes of the supportive services have been contracted out and balancing the books will now never be a possibility no matter what Hospital Trust you work for.

Like I said the caring  part of nursing hasn't changed.
But almost everything else has.

I was a good ward manager and dare I say a very effective rehabilitation nurse that often ran things by the seat of my pants. Now I am a safe intensive care nurse, but I can see that the management side of nursing has become harder and harder. The burn out of senior staff is a sobering fact of modern day nursing life......nursing management is more fire fighting now, fire fighting and juggling!

After I retire, I still intend to nurse occassionally. After all I will be 55 and not ready to fully hang up my stethoscope for eternity! But it will be nice to officially leave a system that asks so much of
you...

Mini Drama

A pretty little tabby is presently sat on our coal bunker making moo moo eyes at Albert .
Like any lazy and pragmatic fellow , Albert is sat on the kitchen windowsill , next to his feed bowl.
He is warm and comfortable and surprisingly is looking at the sad stranger in a rather benign way
The tabby looks cold.
I took her out some food as she is meowing in a needy way.
William is watching proceedings through the cat flap with his one good eye.
The Prof has already gone to bed with George.
Winnie is warming her nipples by the fire
Mary, as usual is with me in the arm chair, she too is asleep.

So the little Mexican standoff remains largely unwitnessed.

I'm watching The Bourne Ultimatum on tv.
Jason Bourne is walking quickly through the city

In the ad break I put more food out for the tabby.....she is very  hungry
Albert is still on the window ledge pretending he's asleep.

Who says nothing happens here on a Saturday night

Top Shelf


Written last night 20.30 pmI am writing this at Manchester airport.....Terminal 1 ......the arrival hall.
The Prof's plane is late
I've just been told off by the woman in charge of WH SMITH for pulling all of the zombie magazines  onto the floor when reaching for an old Walking Dead magazine.
It could have been worse.....it could have been the porn shelf!
I got all in a fluster and broke wind rather loudly during the scrabble to pick everything up
Apart from this......,
I've had a lovely day.
A Non stop catch up with old friend Cheryl over three hours of lunch in a nice restaurant in Chester was so therapeutic, literally as my old mate is now a much talented psychotherapist!
We've both done a great deal in two decades!
It was lovely to touch base again
Hey ho 

28 Years Later


I am having lunch with an old friend this afternoon.
We have not seen each other for twenty eight years.
I had just started my first staff nurse posting at the Mother and Baby unit at Bootham Park Psychiatric Hospital in York and Cheryl was a student nurse.
She lived down the corridor at the nurses home.
I'm a little nervous in one way about meeting up.
I am not that svelte gauche unopinionated  character that I used to be
Hey ho

Sending a dear friend and fellow blogger -Weaver
A group hug tonight 

Don't Like It?...don't read it.



Over the past couple of years, blogland has experienced it's own number of trolls.
Now thankfully the true anonymous nasty buggers that cause real mischief are thankfully rather thin on the ground, but there are certain characters who seem to delight in  popping into a thread in order to hurt, ridicule or impart anger and bad feeling.
I've seen this recently on a popular blog that I follow
Now don't get me wrong, being devil's advocate about a subject, or having an alternative view is vital for bloglands cogs to be well and truly oiled, for there is nothing worse than a blind acquiescence to a much sweated over blog entry.
It has all of the real validation of a husband's tired remark of " No you look lovely" when confronted by his wife's constant moan of " Does my bum look big in this? " 
Balanced arguement and debate is king and gentle Micky taking and joshing is entertaining to read and participate in but when things become personal and destructive...it's time to grow up.
I've always say the same thing when I have a follower who becomes destructive.
" If you don't enjoy reading this shit ( regardless of whether you agree or not with the content) then DON'T READ IT" 
Plain and simple


"Goodbye Flower"

Mrs James rang me this morning with the sad news that Gay Gordon had passed away.
" He died quietly in his sleep" she said , the irony plain in her voice.
Gay Gordon, as we all know, never did anything quietly.
The village will miss the old motor mouth, famous for booming " HELLO FLOWER" at every turn and for pouring a whole bottle of brandy into a gigantic fruit cake, so big that it had to be transferred to the Flower Show tea tables via invalid trolley.
Gay Gordon was  not gay, but he was as camp as a row of tents and by all accounts he was a bit of a lady's man before ill health and good living took its toll but despite everything he remained resolutely cheerful albeit in a fey Brian Blessed kind of way in his final years with Big Mary over in the pensioner bungalows in Trelawnyd.

I called in with a card for Big Mary, though she can clearly no longer be called " big Mary" anymore given the amount of weight she has lost over the past year. She was understandably tearful and upset but managed a laugh at the card inscription.
Trelawnyd will be a dull place without him 

Riding into his final sunset
Gay Gordon and his invalid trolley
RIP

Gogglebox

My husband is a busy man.
London Monday-Tuesday home last night for a few hours then Norway today.
I shall drive to the airport on Friday night to pick him up.
It's very cold in Norway today.....thank goodness he has bought a new bobble hat!

As all was rushed and frenetic on his brief return last night
One constant never changed a bit, she didn't even move her fat arse.
As The Secret Life Of Dogs played on our small tv, which is perched on the window sill
Winnie sat transfixed and never moved for nearly an hour.


Best Comment Of The Day!

I was standing on the village green in front of the Memorial Hall
when a car pulled up to the give way lines on Chapel Street.
The window opened and someone I shall refer to as Ms X waved in a friendly manner
a cheerful voice rang out, 
With the words
" My Anal abscess is back!"

You couldn't make it up!

The Face At The Window


I don't generally scare easily.
I'm happy to walk through the graveyard at night and I never batter so much as an eye, but I suppose
having four dogs and an accompanying cat with me always means that I am never truly alone.
But I do walk alone around the Marian at night with only the stars for company, and my imagination fails to wander to thoughts of monsters and psychopaths.
The one thing that does scare me however is a face at a window!
This stems from a night working on a psychiatric ward in an old asylum way back in 1984 when a stranger to the hospital attacked staff with bottles thrown from the roof forcing the whole hospital into lockdown. My mentor and I locked ourselves and our 24 elderly patients into our ward and when I checked if the office windows where bolted shut, I suddenly glimpsed the intruder standing outside , his impassive face up close and personal against the window panes.
Yes it was the stuff of nightmares.
Last night, with the Prof away, I walked the dogs slightly earlier than usual. There was method to the madness as I wanted to slip into my jim jams in order to watch The Walking Dead reruns before next weeks' restart. We had not long returned, all wet and cold from the rain and as the dogs shook themselves dry, I turned to put their leads onto the table.
Now we have three windows in our kitchen. Two facing the back garden and the path to the gate and one inset window facing directly onto the lane. This lane window is screened at head height with an antique French lace curtain .
As I turned around I suddenly saw a face above the curtain. It was blurred by condensation  but it was there right up against the glass...pale white and wearing a hood of sorts against the rain
A millisecond later it moved off as I yelled out " SHIT A BRICK!" at the top of my voice
I cannot think of a time recently that I have been so frightened

By the time I had scrabbled around for the back door key, unlocked the kitchen door, and had leaned over the back wall to check the dark lane whoever had peeped through the window had gone.

All of the dogs slept on the bed with me last night!

What's frightened you recently?

Britain's Best

Kirsty Young is my first girl crush in an age! 

No one does radio like BBC Radio 4
Yesterday I listened to the latest Desert Island Disc programme, which is now in it's 75 th year!
The velvet voiced Kirsty Young was interviewing the International Welsh rugby referee Nigel Owens.
It was a rollercoaster ride of an interview.
With quiet diligence Young gave Owens space to talk, and boy did he talk!
With incredible candour and emotion, he described the difficulties of accepting his alternative sexuality within a tight knit rural Welsh community and without pulling a punch, shared a somewhat harrowing suicide attempt with a shotgun and a packet of pills on the mountain over looking the family farm.


Owens came out gay to his family and the rugby world soon after and it is a testament to both that he was embraced and supported in his new life.
Rugby men and their supporters seem more accepting than most sports people I think!

It was an inspirational and at times tearful interview.
I wept, standing at the kitchen sink listening to it all.

This track was one of Owen's chosen discs, it's a version of The Sound Of Silence which I have never heard before .
It's wonderfully dramatic even though the lead singer scares the begeebers out of me!
Enjoy!



I Have Never



I 've never cried at a funeral! 

This revelation came to me this morning after I recalled reading that Hitler loved watching Snow White and the seven Dwarfs
Both facts to me are mildly surprising, especially as I always thought that Hitler was more of a Gone With The Wind kind of guy!
Anyhow, as usual I digress

Yes, I have never cried at a funeral.
I have never found myself naked in pubic either, which, when you think of it , is more or less the same thing!
I also have have been called to Jury service, which is a real pisser! I have always thought I would rather suit than linen jacket Henry Fonda kept taking on and off in Twelve Angry Men.

I have never eaten Haggis or oysters !
Or ever had  fight in the street.
and I have never once been on a protest march and waved a suitably ribald placard at the authorities!

I have never slept in a tent or had a shit in the woods
And I have not seen a hedgehog close up since I was 13!

I have never read Dickens, Proust or Chekhov

I have never been to Madame Tussauds, The Tower Of London or The Royal Albert Hall.
And  have never waltzed with gay abandon on the sprung floor of the Blackpool dance ballroom!

I never said " I love you" to my parents. And I never heard them utter the phrase back  to me

And I have never cried at a funeral!

Paysanne


The Prof and I found a rather delightful restaurant this evening.
The food was unfussy and very tasty and the front-of-house host interestingly quirky with his somewhat unusual tableside delivery. He reminded me of a cross between a posh Russell Brand, John Cleese and Terry Thomas 
When asked why the restaurant had an obituary of the hell-raiser Oliver Reed on the toilet wall, he replied with a wave of his hand and a breezy " It makes for an interesting read!" and when The Prof asked if he could add the tip on the card machine our host apologised describing the rules for not doing so as " positively Orwellian!" 
What fun!


I've nothing much to say today! 

The Ghosts Of Boyfriends Past!


The room felt oppressive .
The walls were painted badly in the primary colours of the Brazil flag. Garish Yellow, Green and  Navy blue. With strange " tropical " symbols clumsily hand painted over the yellow borders around the tall old fashioned victorian windows.
Curtains with cheap gold tassles were hung around those windows and an immersion tank hidden next to the fireplace and in each dark corner, at ceiling height, a fat gold painted cherub looked down on the flimsy ikea bed set against one wall.
I hated that room.
I hated it with a vengeance .
I hated it as it was the Prof's bedroom when I met him.
I hated it as it was decorated by his previous, much younger partner.
A partner who obviously had no taste whatsoever, but whose ghost lived on in every badly painted piece of woodwork and smudged gold effect stencil!
My first morning there, after we woke up, I started as I meant to go on!
As the Prof prepared coffee and french pastries in the kitchen
I found one of my shoes under a pile of clothes on the floor,
And knocked every soddin cherub off the wall before he came back to bed with a tray!

Watching

I think blogland is suffering from a Febuary bout of writer's Block. 
I blame the short dark days of winter coupled with small doses of apathy and a post adrenalin drop following surges experienced with the crowning of Trump!
Perhaps we are all feeling rather jaded with all of this demonstrating
Or is it more likely that fuck all is happening in our lives ?

On this morning's power walk Mary and I sat on the broken stone wall overlooking  Basil's sheep fields and the valley East of the village and looked out at the view. Welsh terriers love to sit and watch, so we sat and watched for an absolute age.
I day dreamed about having a new kitchen. Mary sat with her own deep doggy thoughts.
She was so preoccupied thay she didn't notice Mrs Trellis and Blue walking up the hill behind us. Mrs Trellis' bobble hat was sticking straight up as usual! She looks like Noddy!




Thank You


......thank you Eirlys
The gift of a dozen of your free range eggs ( all be them from a huge barn) was a lovely gesture today.
I gave you a hug which threw you slightly!
But it made my day
I miss my hens