A Christmas Rubber Chicken, A Scarf and Cards To Die For

 The hunky Postman never got the change to “James Herriot” my cat flap today , as Roger caught sight of him early doors and marshalled the troops to meet him at the garden gate with big smiles and busy tail wags.

I opened the parcels and cards at the kitchen table and was amazed 

A beautiful scarf, simply wrapped ( I love it) 

And a Christmas decoration in the shape of Winnie’s much loved rubber chicken from Mistress Maddie.

Wearing the scarf, I cried real tears at the chicken and it’s significance 

I miss my old Queen Sálote of Tonga so

My favourite photo of Winnie

Getting pissed off with me Christmas Day 2018

When we were at the cold beach and she wanted to go home

Godzilla Minus One

 

Finally I got back to the movies and boy did I enjoy returning.

Today’s film was a Japanese  version of the country’s own original monster movie from 1954

A retelling of the Godzilla story from the perspective of the post war Japanese people.

It’s an interesting movie and strange as it would seem, a very emotional one as we follow the story of a thrown together nuclear ( literally) family of Shikishima ( Ryunosuke Kamiki) a kamiski pilot who refused to crash his plane, and Noriko ( Minami Hamabe) a young woman who saved a baby (Sae Nagatani) during the firestorm on Tokyo 

One pissed off Dinosaur

This chaste family Unit try to forge an existence in post war Japan where most of the population are haunted by ghosts of the war, living in squalor ,fear of the H bomb threat , and coping with the internalised anger at their own Government for dragging them through a war which degraded them. 

Indeed the whole message from Godzilla minus one ,is about redemption and one of saving face. 

Director Takashi Yamazaki interestingly has the general public, the old soldiers and sailors from the war to fight a rather bad tempered and nasty Godzilla and the destruction set pieces have a wonderfully vintage and slightly old fashioned feel to them, almost as if we were back in the man-in -a-suit 1954 original.

yamazaki also makes his protagonists incredibly real and somewhat vulnerable , and when Noriko is cornered by Godzilla as she travels in a train in the city of Ginza ( a total homage to the L train destruction scene in the original King Kong)  It is real hand to the mouth stuff , as Shikishima turns up to save her.

You care about this nuclear family, and you care about the real people devastated by a war most of them never wanted. Godzilla Minus One has lots to say about the horrors of war and less to say about a bad tempered dinosaur , which makes it such a better film than those recent American remakes who resemble the olympics in 1980 Los Angeles …..when too much thrown at them

Cards

 It’s Friday already and I’m working all day Saturday and Sunday so Christmas week is practically here.

I have another presentation to deliver on Tuesday at college but this is part of a group Ethical  presentation and only lasts five minutes so I have to write this up today, which will be pretty straightforward.

Shortly I’m taking Trendy Carol’s hubby Christmas Shopping and late afternoon I’m going to watch Godzilla minus one which is the Japanese movie reclaiming it’s own monster back

I think it will be fun .

Last night I hung my Christmas Cards, and they started to snake around the living room. With the cost of postage so high I’m not expecting the usual amount, but I’m secretly hoping I can fill the room.

It’s a tradition I got into when I moved into the cottage in 2005

My ex sent me a polite card, 

It’s up with the others.

I’ve bought my gifts, 

I found some rusting wrens online, the types you nail onto of a fence or on a tree branch and have sent them to friends

I think they are quite lovely and have bought one for myself 

My nephew sent me a beautifully wrapped gift, yesterday 

And I’ve had a few more with cards from bloggers which I’m very grateful for 

Mary has a sore foot which Dorothy is licking loudly in the kitchen reading chair

Everything in Wales feels damp

Erddig

 

My friend Ruth and I went out to do the Christmas Thing this afternoon and go to Erddig, a visit which turned into a hysterical sob fest during lunch where she found an extremely long blonde hair in her Turkey bap and proceeded to remove it from her throat like a magician pulling out a row of bunting.The moment was made more special by the fact it had a small knot of stuffing wrapped around its distal end.

We haven’t laughed so long in ages.

The house looked magical in the darkness of a winter’s day, and even though we could only see half of the rooms ( the house is for the most part without electric light so is unsafe to walk around ) what we saw was lovely 

It was good to see her x

Christmas

 

Finally a day for just myself no work and no study.

I’m late with my Christmas Cards, and the sending of gifts so I will get those done today. Next week I’ve arranged to meet up with Gorgeous Dave on Monday and my family for a meal on Tuesday. Wednesday I am having supper with Chic Eleanor and there’s a party most of the TCA are going to on Thursday

I’m working Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 

The Covid Nun

The covid inquiry continues

And I have one small story I wish they could hear.

It’s a story of people going one step further for another human being

Many such stories could be told of that time .

My patient was admitted from home, and I could immediately see , like the wide eyed paramedics that accomplished her, that she was imminently dying,

Her large family , requested just one thing as they ran in after her

She needed and wanted a priest.

I stayed with the patient and hissed a request at a pragmatic smart support worker   “ Get Me A Nun”

During lockdown , it had been almost impossible to get any chaplaincy support, but knowing that there was a nearby Convent I thought a nun was better than nothing , and even though nuns can’t give the last rights they can pray over the dying to give comfort.

An elderly nun duly arrived in what seemed like a minute or so .she was in her eighties and looked valiant as she glided in breathless but twinkle eyed. 

I had seldom seen anything so brave.

The nurses immediately surrounded her, 

Helping her into PPE and mask and gloves and  apron, with gentleness and respect

And clutching a bible the nun hurried to the patient’s bedside seconds before she passed away

I wish the inquest had heard that story , which stands up with a thousand others that should be heard 

A brave old nun, not frightened or bowed by covid 

Lie In

 My academic poster needed uploading to turnitin today , and happily  I did so around 2pm

Before that I had a proper lie in, which was lovely. 

A lie in ( after dog wees) with a cup of tea and hot buttered toast.

Of course the dogs ate the crusts with their sleepy eyes shut tight and we all slept in until 10am which I so needed.

This evening I’ve practiced my presentation ( which is tomorrow) then made noodles and chicken sprinkled with peanuts to eat on my knee in front of the fire.

Tomorrow after Uni , our group is off for an early supper

I’m still wearing my Christmas Jumper

It will need a few squirts of Fabreese tomorrow 

Nurse

 I didn’t want to be a nurse today.

I didn’t want to check scores of drug calculations, too many in most hours to cope with….

On cards and in books and at bedsides and with a tired colleague who smiled when she didn’t want to.

I didn’t want to carefully fill greedy little syringe drivers and set them up bleeping like tiny box robots under pillows and duvets as their patients relaxed and slept

I didn’t want to explain to lost families about the process of dying and I didn’t want to use a quip with a patient in order to make their tearful son laugh for the first time in weeks.

I didn’t want to teach a student nurse about complex pain in a way she understood as buzzers rang and jobs mounted up

And I didn’t want to write up notes , proving to auditors what I did that day and how I did it.

I wanted to lie on a couch in the warmth with someone rubbing my hair until I fell asleep.

And I wanted to eat a meal I hadn’t cooked myself 

But instead , I was a nurse today

….and it was ok 

 

Christina Perri - "A Thousand Years" captured in The Live Room

Coffee

6.21 

This is on the radio 

I don’t want to be a nurse today