SRA

We treat each other on nights. The night before last, Di brought in bespoke chilli scotch eggs from Conwy 

Hand grenades of beautiful flavour.

Last night I brought in watermelon and mango and left them in the car.

I’m not pretending it was busy.

It wasn’t 

I read a lot about the use of visualisation in pain relief, in between patient care

And I’ve booked tickets to The Play That Goes Wrong, a guided tour around the famous Liverpool Liver Building , tickets for a welsh play Celebrated Virgins ( About the famous Ladies of Llangollen) 

Oh and I’ve finally found a suitable shabby chic hotel for Gorgeous Dave and I to stay in when we are in Rome.( 2 bedrooms rooms, en suite near the Vatican City)….all very La Dolce Vita

I've helped training up a student nurse recently and have asked him to listen to other experienced palliative care nurses in the weeks he’s been with us . " Pick and choose those interactions you hear nurses give their patients !" I advised " Be sure to steal them for your own interactions !"We all steal words and phrases we hear others use.
Sometimes those words have such resonance they burn themselves in your own vocabulary for life.
All of us sponges...for the different, the funny.....the pertinent.

In the late 90s I nursed a somewhat taciturn man for many months.
He was a formidable character, every inch a stereotypical policeman from say a 1970s tv drama...butch, unsmiling and ever slightly distant....think Valquez from Aliens and you'll get where I'm coming from.
He was difficult to engage and only seemed to perk up when he was visited by his police colleagues both male and women.
One policeman that visited seemed to be more smiley and less frivolous than the other visitors and I suspected with my gaydar at full beep that they may have been closeted lovers.
One day, when the visitor was leaving, I noticed my patient murmur " S R A" almost under his breath and this three letter goodbye was noticeably used too as a greeting after several visitations .
A week or who later , when I was teaching the patient how to manage his own bladder I asked him if I could ask a personal question and given the intimacy of the situation he surprisingly agreed , albeit gruffly.
"When your mate comes to visit ....what does SRA mean?"
I busied myself with preparing the nursing equipment as he looked at me squarely and after a long pause he said carefully
" It means a Sudden Rush of Affection!"

A hidden code between lovers