Spring?

There feels that there is a big sky over the village today.

The daffodils that Trendy Carol and I planted on the field wall opposite my cottage nearly twenty years ago now are flowering late this year and the sun was out this morning which remains a novelty for this time of year.

It’s St David’s day tomorrow, and the TCA has organised a St David’s Day tea in the Hall. 

There is a bowls night and Casino nite organised too as well as chair yoga….I may go to that if my tendency for flatulence has abated enough.  

I’m working tonight and tomorrow night, then have two weeks on holiday, what fun….

 

Nasty

 Sometimes you can’t help but overhear a conversation between people in the supermarket . Two sixty something couples, one man proudly saying that they had just been to a charity fundraiser for the local lifeboat. As I passed the other woman, who was facing him said something I didn’t catch then loudly added, “well I wouldn’t support them as all they seem to do is to save illegal immigrants.”

I stopped my trolley as the original guy said something else and I caught something like “well you can’t let anyone drown” before the racist woman added “ well I would “ then conceeded with  “ I would save the children though” 

I saw red

It wasn’t my conversation 

It wasn’t my business.  

But I butted in anyway and hissed at the woman “ shame, shame on you!”

All four looked shocked but I carried on,

The floodgates opened

“ Racist Scum” I called her

I wasn’t pretty

Cheap Shoes was all too gentle an insult

I’m still shaking 

The Audience

The delightful Richard McCabe

Bluebell went in for her MOT today. I pick her up tomorrow alongside a big bill no doubt. My hope is that she will last one more year , just enough time to save up for Bluebell 2

Tonight Chic Eleanor and I went out for supper followed by a re run of the NT ‘s The Audience. I saw it thirteen years ago but was more than happy to revisit it…..and I didn’t regret it . 

This is my 2013 review lol


“Finally we got to see the NT production of The Audience
It was the cinematic re run in a small Art Deco refurbished cinema in Colwyn Bay...and I must admit, I loved the much lauded production featuring Dame Helen Mirren .
Once you get passed a slight left wing bias from playwright Peter Morgan, The Audience is a wry and witty "look" at the Queen's weekly "audiences" with a selection of her Prime Ministers over a 60 year period.
As you may expect from the writer of The Queen, Helen Mirren's monarch is a sympathetic, multilayered and gloriously difficult character, who is always a match for her PMs who all come to her with a host of circular and recurrent problems of self doubt, failure and political shenanigans.

The Ministers with the possible exception of a " Royal acting" Thatcher ( a wonderful Hayden Gwynne) are given an interesting and original slant . Gordon Brown ( Nathaniel Parker) is vulnerable and obviously depressed. John Major ( Paul Ritter) tearful and out of his depth and Harold Wilson ( Richard McCabe) is more Huddersfield than "ecky thump" it is his Northern Straight talking chauvinistic character that gives the play its heart, as we find out in the last few moments that out of her leaders, it is his old fashioned chutzpah that the Queen favours most above all of the others.

I enjoyed the play. Mirren's Queen is just how most of us would like to envisage her. Dedicated, steely, naturally funny and able to kick ass when the need arises.

8/10”

More later

 

Rhino

 No breakfast on my jumper and with Chic Eleanor’s jaunty scarf giving the illusion that I am indeed a counsellor, I’m almost set for a day counselling.  I’m tired today after nights, so have topped up with McDonald.’s Coffee, but the eye bags are very evident and I know that I resemble a Disney cartoon of an old African rhino who has seen better days.

Sagrada Familia

 The problem with being an efficient and older male nurse is that there is a presumption that the death of a patient doesn’t affect you as much as it does to other, more demonstrative nurses.

I’ve just finished two nights where two deaths featured, central stage.

I know myself well, and I knew I felt a tad bruised when I watched the soaring cranes plant the huge lighted cross on the central tower of the Sagrada Familia

I sat, a little weary at the kitchen table, when I got home and ate dry eggs in the chill of the unheated cottage, as the most beautiful building on earth was crowned

Then I had a little cry before going to bed

I love You

On Valentine’s Day, the mental health charity “ Calm” shared some important research. 

In it, they found that nearly half of men never say “ I love You” to a friend.

The research,co funded by a brewery company,  didn’t make it clear that they were talking about male/male relationships exclusively ( I suspect men find it easier to tell a female friend that they love them, and visa versa) but I liked the initiative championed in The Guardian last week, to tell a friend that you love them.❤️

I’ve been reflecting on my own ability to tell my own male friends that I love them, and tonight, as I was quietly sitting with a patient in the wee small hours, I listed my closest male friends and tried to remember if I had shared this simple but vital piece of information with them

Mike, Colin, John H, Nigel, Ben, Marcus, Jim,Mick

Four I had shared my feelings for, sometimes after a drink mind you and four I hadn’t. 

But this simple exercise got me to thinking of my female friends , and family, and people who I may not love per se, but whom I think of fondly and with affection.

How many people do we properly share our feelings with?

Answers on a postcard please

 

Cinema is Home

 My old friend deserved a visit today and yesterday

I’ve missed him of late.

I fell asleep in both visits but only for a moment as I enjoyed one version more than the other.

My old friend is the cinema .

He has been my friend for sixty years.

Yesterday a friend and I went to see the caper movie Crime 101

Slow to start it was a modern day mixture of  Steve Mc Queen’s Bullet with a moody Chris Hemsworth as a psychologically damaged but redeemable thief and The Thomas Crown Affair with Halle Berry in the Faye Dunaway/ Rene Russo role. 

Looking fabulous Berry at 59. ( playing 53) is back on form as an insurance broker for the rich and her storyline of being overlooked by her male boss because of her age and sex is a clear side swipe to the producers in Hollywood. 

I enjoyed this slick and polished drama more than Is This Switched On ? A muddled and uneven drama comedy that follows the unlikely story of unhappy forty something Will Arnett who suddenly finds stand up comedy as therapy to process his marriage break down with Laura Dern

This drama was ok…not great but ok, but I was glad to be back at theatre Clwyd’s newly refurbished cinema, an arthouse cinema who kept my head above water for many a year.

My sister Janet came with me tonight, and it was lovely to see the theatre so vibrant, what with the new restaurant run by Bryn Williams centre stage in the centre of it.

Wales has culture and I’m grateful it’s only 20 minutes from home 

Bryn Williams 

The cinema