Who Was Auntie Glad

 

Yesterday I was asked by a new reader who auntie Glad was? 

They had seen my reference to her in my blog bio ( see right)

I will share this piece with them, I think it will do nicely…..

This is the story of my very first meeting with Auntie Gladys.

She was in her mid eighties back then and was selling her Flower Show raffle tickets around the village and its surrounds.

She would sell four to five hundred in consecutive afternoons

This was back in 2006
The Jungle telegraph had alerted to most that there was a new Gay couple in the village

I bought a strip off her

She was tiny. White hair, a bit windswept, thin hands, a red woollen coat worn for many years with matching red lipstick

And I noticed even back then that she had watery, gentle blue eyes, that were full of interest and candor

" Does your friend want any tickets too?" she asked , her eyes twinkling and I was half amused by the term "friend" a word which was often bandied around by people too shy or too uncomfortable to call a spade a spade
Only Gladys was not uncomfortable, she was just searching for the right word to use
"He is my partner and not a friend and yes he will have some tickets from you" I told her kindly
Gladys laughed
"I was going to call him your boyfriend " she said "but you are both far too old to be called that!!!"

At 96, on the day of our marriage, the old girl walked all the way down from her house on High Street to present me with a wedding gift over the kitchen wall and when I remarked that I never thought I would see the day that two men would be allowed to Marry each other
she clapped her frail hands together and laughed her musical Welsh laugh and with her blue eyes twinkling she then held her hands to her chin

"How marvellous" she cried…It is the law!”

yes....how bloody marvellous!

Gladys opening the Flower Show 

2016

Gracie

 Trendy Carol ( dressed in something autumnal and classy ) sent me this video of her Gracie playing with Roger and old Mary 

Love it 

On the way out to meet Chic Eleanor for lunch x

The Mean Reds?

The weather has turned somewhat 

It feels cold, suddenly damp and all rather sad

And Grey     

Holly Golightly would refer to these kind of  times as 

“ The Blues….a time when

you're getting fatter and maybe it's been raining too long”

The soaring violins after the line

Two drifters

Always brings me around on days like today

And I am reminded of Buddy Edsen’s sad face looking up out of the bus window,

Of Audrey Hepburn’s wonderful beauty 

And of waltzing in the dining room on a winter’s afternoon in Sheffield 

Pause For Thought

 Many people grow up in difficult households. Those people often learn to read a room quickly, mainly because they have too. Because they have limited support, they learn to be as self sufficient as they can. They don’t ask for help, because help is not forthcoming . It’s simply not there. 

They do not trust easily. They can’t , so they soldier on often unseen and isolated. These are the children of a hidden abuse. They mask their hollow smiles, they can be loud and funny and therefore remain unseen. They are not victims because they’ve never acted as one, nor been treated as one.

They fall through the cracks.

This fact, alone makes this video so important 

Herd Mentality

I’m enjoying Celebrity Traitors but non but the murdered Bella Ramsey ( and perhaps the desperate Hannah Fry) have understood the phenomenon of herd mentality. The rest , over a dozen fairly bright celebs, are getting swayed by names thrown up as if everyone is an extra at the Salam witch Trials .

The one thing I’m proud of myself for, is that I’m not swayed by the mob.

I realised this early on , in life. 

I don’t bounce along with an hysterical concert audience 

I don’t scream chants at football games ( yes I  HAVE  been to one)

And I don’t panic in a crisis. 

And most importantly I understand the importance of standing back and reading the room 

 

Miranda Hart is my bet to be the saviour of the faithfuls 

Animal Review

Weaver is a vampire

 Bun has been gone for over two months now. 

She’s not coming back.

😔

Weaver only comes alive and friendly as darkness and silence takes over the cottage .

Only then does she playfully sits on my hip, or my catheter leg bag ( which is warm) or comes for a brief cuddle , eventually coming to rest in the arch of one of my feet. 

Daytime she sleeps upstairs, usually in a pile of untidy clothes , or on the orange cushion in the window seat of my bedroom.

No living animal ever sees her in the daylight. 

Mary continues to fade, rather like Lilian Gish did in Robert Altman’s The Wedding. She’s eating well, but does little more, but I was touched when she jumped up at the sky lesbian technician the other day, demanding a cuddle and marvellously getting one. 

Tonight she is asleep in my knee, coughing gently with pulmonary oedema. 

Roger remains the joy of my household 

He’s the new star of my daily gay man’s stream, with multi cultural screams of ooooooohhhhh and arrrhhhh from gay bears from around the world 

As I type this , he’s stalking a rather large household spider which has entered the kitchen through the broken cat flap , but is too frightened to actually pounce. 

He keeps my morale up with his gentle good humour 

Roger and his favourite plant pot

Take Heart

 I’m thinking of Yael today, and of Lee too. 

And stream follower Zachary in Tel Aviv got a message from me too as did Yael

Lee received a kiss , sent heavenward from the garden 

I do so miss her

We all know it’s the anniversary  of the 711 attacks

And most of us here want a lasting peace.

Today I streamed on a gay streaming site. 

Zachary joined in. He’s a bright  IT businessman  in his thirties with sharp witty asides to many a topic

The room had several gay men I know in it,; a polish actor, a doctor from the East Indies , an Englishman on chemo, a Spanish physio, and one of the last entrants was a Younger Palestinian student , who was living in Germany 

I was moved by one brief interaction between him and Zachary as the Arab said hello to the group, he typed a diplomatic and kind  “ Shalom” to all”, 

There was a brief gap in the correspondence 

After which the Israeli replied with an equally moving  “ As salamu Alaykum” 🌈                

It’s Tuesday already

 All of my counselling clients finished their sessions last week, so I thought I’d take 2 weeks off from a full day’s concentration. I worked last night at the hospice and won’t return until Saturday night

Tonight it’s relaxing in front of a coal fire with The Great British Bake Off. 

Little else to report. An old friend died over the weekend, which seems to be a sad and increasing trend in this life of a middle sixty year old someone….I was sad and reflective on Sunday….overly so with the gloom only lifted by a gift of dahlias from next door

Gina, the powerhouse who helped so hard in last year’s Christmas Show has been poorly too. I sent her some flowers on behalf of the TCA. I always use Bloom And Wild now because they deliver their flowers in a slim box through the letterbox. For some strange reason this always pleases me. 

I’ve bought tickets to see Ignacio Lopez at theatre Clwyd , he’ll cheer me up , we all need a handsome Spaniard in our lives don’t we? 

Ojalá tuviera un español guapo en mi vida.