Memories

 December 29th 2005 was a Thursday . 

A suicide bomber killed himself, two Palestinian civilians and an Israeli soldier on the West Bank 

Tony Blair was Prime Minister and Mariah Carey was doing well with “ Don’t forget about us” 

There was little else of note to report that day, however it was the day I started to write Going Gently.

My first post was perfunctory 

disaster thoughts

well my first blog........sounds rather like something Kenneth Williams would say.
I will be brief, and "set the scene" as it were.

I am 43, a nurse professionally, newly moved into the Welsh country side from Sheffield. I Am probably going through a mid life crisis.

Ideal for a place like this......................look forward to talk soon.

I didn’t give much away did I? but the “ Midlife crisis “ quote was a bit of giveaway. 

For I felt a bit…..aimless. 

Lizzy asked about my move from Sheffield to a tiny village the size of Hillsborough Park and I’m trying to recall the lead up to it. 

My husband certainly had itchy feet and had wanted to move to the country for  a long time and we had been together five years in a city that had served us both very well. He was looking for promotion , 

I was looking to nest.

If children were on the cards then, I would have been an ideal time to adopt,

But we left my large three bedroom terrace on the steep Wynyard Road in Hillsborough with two old cats, Welsh terrier Finlay and grumpy Scottie Maddie and moved to Trelawnyd which was a village three miles ( and thirty  years )different from my childhood home of Prestatyn.

The first year in the cottage seems a blur now. 

There was a lot for me to organise as the inside had been reduced to a bland, 1980s shell by the previous owner and so I contracted a big shy bear of a carpenter to design a new staircase and handrail, Victorian looking glass fronted cabinets for either side of the inglenook fireplace and a bookcase and wardrobe for the bedroom. 

New windows were replaced in the back of the cottage and a new garden dug from beneath the tarmac car park , an  eyesore which was bordered with a new but traditional welsh limestone wall complete with an iron wrought gate made by my brother in law.

I oversaw everything and made a home. 

And never had much to do with the “ locals” until one moment when I was painting the living room ceiling one day I caught two old ladies peeping through the living room windows. 

Both had matching cardigans on. 

It was my first meeting with lifelong friends Gwyneth Jones and Olwena Hughes. Gwyneth had a penchant for tweed skirts and lived in the farm down the lane.

Olwena had no ankles and lived in one of the pensioner bungalows on Bron Haul.

Both ladies made a run for it when I saw me waving at them with my paint brush.

I caught them in the lane by the kitchen wall and invited them in for tea.

They admitted they wanted to see what we had “ done to the place” 

I recorded this video of the two matrons a few years later. I wanted to record some spoken welsh 

The conversation is about a fellow villager who had hurt his face in a fall.

Both have long since passed away

Funny what you remember