Like you do

 Don’t get me started

We only get post around once a week now. 

Of course it’s all unofficial but after a straw poll of villagers was taken 

I have come to the conclusion that letters are not a priority for the Royal Mail and that weekly visits are becoming the norm. Today I’ve had three letters and each one posted back at the beginning of march

Go figure that one

Today the postman couldn’t push the letter box open, so he called through the open window

I explained that I had to jam a knitted Father Christmas into the letter box itself to keep it shut in the gale force wind of yesterday. 

He looked faintly surprised but said “ like you do”

Riding the storm II

It’s stormy today and Trelawnyd feels as though it’s hiding in the protection of the Gop. The cats have hunkered down upstairs and refused to go out in the gale force wind and the wind through the yew trees in the graveyard has almost been deafening. Twice I’ve checked on my laburnum sapling, and thankfully she remains tall and strong and defiant. She’s seven years old 

How time flies

Last night I watched Notting Hill a film that reminds me of an unhealthy relationship I was once in… having said this and  film’s portrayal of what could be seen as an ultimately decent relationship between Anna Scott( Julia Roberts) and William Thacker ( Hugh Grant) gave me that “ arh ha!” Therapy moment I was writing about yesterday.

I went with my boyfriend to see the movie on a Friday afternoon, after which he disappeared to his second home in the Lake District, something he’d do regularly and always without me. I realised after that that I was making do with the crumbs of the relationship and that was “ok” because I didn’t deserve anything more or better. 

Crazy to think that now, but back then I did , only to realise by the final credits of the movie I was worth more than that.

I broke up with him soon after.

Riding The Storm

Spanish froth 

Sometimes Counselling is all about helping a client look for patterns of behaviour in their lives. Ways of coping, ways of thinking, developed often in childhood can often be the go to in adulthood, ingrained patterns that are often comforting habits which are not always healthy places to go.

Understanding why these behaviours develop is pivotal when exploring self awareness and tapping into old hurts, and losses and pain, much of it hidden away in locked boxes can be hugely emotional moments within therapy. Visceral and frightening, powerful and sometimes strangely wonderful.

I witnessed such a moment today. The client so upset that support staff had to be waved away when they came running “ to help”. I’m learning , that you have to “ ride the storm “ with your client and be the rock they can share with. Inside, every empathetic fibre has been stretched to its limits and your eyes well just a little with understanding tears but you remain stalwart and kind and strong and professional and hope that the “ah-ha” moment is not far away

If you are lucky you can talk the session through with your supervisor or colleague soon after, today I didn’t have the opportunity so I videoed my German friend who works from home . 

“ vat can I do for you?” he asked not unkindly, but to the point.

“ Talk to me about some shitty 1980s movie you have seen recently” ( he is a movie geek and loves cheesy films) 

Without asking why he launched into a review of some teen movie featuring aliens and busty cheerleaders and with a coffee in hand I decompressed and laughed and get bored with the light conversation until the ghosts of the session were dustered away

A Time Of Great Mischief: Secret Agent

 

This sprawling political thriller set in 1970s Brazil is exhausting but in a good way. I cannot begin to explain the plot but suffice to know that Marcelo or was it Armando (Wagner Moura) is heading to Recife to visit his son. He has a shady past, and is on Government business at a time of political upheaval, change and corruption ( The Time Of Great Mischief) and here he crosses paths with political refugees led by the aging, chain smoking Dona ( the amazingly charismatic Tania Maria) a corrupt police department and contract killers wanting him dead. 

Tania Maria

It’s an odd film, but one that is literally bursting with the mise en sense of Latin America at its most threatening , where life is cheap and where the city feels one step away from being Sodom and Gomorrah.

A simple pit stop at a country petrol station is laced with tension as the police stop our hero fully aware that a thief has lain dead in the forecourt for almost a week, a shark is killed with the remains of a police killing in its stomach and where a Jewish holocaust refugee is pointless mocked by a police officer. 

Moura is impressive in the lead role, always sad, but wise, but I was tired after three hours of complicated political shenanigans. 

After the movie we treated ourselves to mac and cheese( bloody lovely) 

And I came home and watched the final episode of Call The Midwife ( spoiler alert). Now I have to be honest here I have never watched one episode before ( it’s gone on for 15 seasons) but this one featured the death of an elderly nun Sister Monica Joan ( Judy Parfit) whose death scene had me blubbering all evening ….when she asks the ghost of Sister Evangelina who has thoughtfully come to collect her“ What’s it like where I will go?” I was in buckets…….

 

Head Over Heart

 My heart rules most of my decision making, it always has, but there are times you have to listen to that Jiminy Cricket voice in your head and decide just why it is there. Over the week that nagging voice has plagued me regarding Olive’s planned arrival and before the weekend I had made my decision not to take her, albeit one with a heavy heart. 

The memory of Winnie and Dorothy celebrates everything that’s good about bulldogs and the thought of the stories of a new character is tempting and honestly addictive to be sure, but I work full time , depend on Trendy Carol’s hubby too much for dog care and have Weaver to consider. After all this is the only home she has ever known after a start that was somewhat fraught and stressful.

There are other reasons too personal to be shared here, which need to be considered and I know that I will disappoint many here with today’s choice but I have made the decision and have deliberated about it carefully.

The cats  enjoyed the spring sun in the cottage garden this morning

As did I 

Froth

Lovely day today. 

Simple pleasures, a lovely roast dinner at The Crown with a friend , then some mindless cinema with the awful but entertaining Mother’s Pride where Martin Clunes’ failing pub landlord is saved by a prodigal son, and a village of very unlikely characters including a Morris Dancing Team , the village slut and a drunk Mark Addy playing Mark Addy.

Clunes manages to steal all of the sentimental weepy bits for himself and the comedy when it arrives is clunky and unfunny but in this climate of war, bad news and disillusionment I’ve had worse afternoons entertainment.  

A Death In The Village

 Somebody I know died suddenly in the village this morning. 

Apart from knowing who it is and the fact they were young and liked , I am aware of little else , but like ripples on a small pond the news is spread not out of gossip or salacious interest , but from concern and self reflection and as I’ve cleared the back patio of detritus and slime, villagers have stopped, then passed some with sad faces and in hushed tones.

In my experience a death, any death, makes people seek others out. There is a reaching out, a sort of sharing which is needed. Contact has to be made. 

Maybe it’s a grace of god go I  thing….? Or maybe it’s an innate thing where neighbours stand shoulder to shoulder, a comfort to each other rather than just being the witnesses to an event. 

I have some nice boxed paper with my name on. Nu gave it to me for Christmas. I will write to the deceased’s partner with my ink pen over the weekend. The ink and the paper says I’m thinking about you more than any words do

Well in my mind they do

I’ve planted out long stem polyanthus in planters on the kitchen wall and will buy more from the supermarket late

Hey ho

TA

 I went to a lecture on transactional analysis today.

Invited by my personal counsellor, the old Irish therapist who was leading the proceedings . 

The psychoanalytical theory concentrates on the study of social interactions as a way of understanding behaviours and its premise that people work in certain ego states has a resonance with me , even though I have been trained in a more human centred therapy approach.

I still feel the new boy in the counselling field so remained quiet but present in the discussion groups even though one was a long in-depth on looking at the characteristics of the critical parent ego state which left me feeling somewhat bruised but still interested

I noticed that as this junction my old counsellor walked around each group , checking in that all was well …..as she passed me she rested a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it once…..class