6 am Christmas Morning

 It’s cold 

Mary and Roger shared my bed last night and didn’t want to get up this morning

Bun slept carefully between them, all three under the duvet.

Weaver left home for the night, 

Hunting voles and shrews in the frost of the Church field no doubt.

I nurse a coffee in a mug my sister Janet gave me yesterday 

Ann gave me a drone for Christmas, Janet a lovely metal robin and 10 tickets to the storyhouse cinema ! 

Nu sent personalised writing paper

What fun.

Before I leave the dark cottage , I’m pleased by the garland of Christmas Cards in the living room. 

The last card received by hand delivery was from affable Despot Jason and family at teatime yesterday 

It filled the room totally as if it was a key in a lock .

Bun plays in the discarded wrapping paper as I leave my cottage 

My uniform over my arm, coffee in hand, right eye blurry as hell…..

I have decided that this is the last Christmas Day I will ever work as a nurse

43 years all told

No more

Todays hospice staff

Spritzkuchen And other Stories on Christmas Eve

 

Mrs Trellis called around yesterday with her erect bobble hat very evident . 

She brought me a small golden alpine looking house which lit up ( in part) which was incredibly sweet of her.

She’s spending Christmas Day with a great niece and plans to re home another whippet in the spring. 

I gave her a fat robin to sit under her Christmas Tree which pleased her enough to clap her hands gayly

“ God bless you!” She said as she left…and I suddenly felt as though I had been visited by one of life’s real survivors, which was nice. 

Around teatime Trendy Carol called by . She was wearing something festive in green and red ( with a touch of green glitter) she delivered a bottle of Bombay Sapphire ( with massive bow,) as well as  matching Christmas Jumpers for Mary & Roger. I promised they would wear them tomorrow as I’m taking them both to work with me on Christmas Day

Yesterday evening I met my sister Janet and went to the cinema to see the horror thriller The Housemaid which was a passably shite drama if you like people pulling their teeth out 

I got home around 11pm so missed a plate of Spritzkuchen sat on the kitchen wall. Now generally a semi retired nurse doesn’t recognise Spritzkuchen When he sees them but when I went outside this morning to see fifteen rings of glazed dough on a plate covered in rainwater and cling film with the blurred hand written note of apology and explaination from my German friend, I was sort of pleased .
They tasted like shite ….which made me smile even more

But it is Christmas !

This morning I picked up 6 coffees from MacDonalds and went to meet my family in Prestatyn for coffee and cake. Now I love my eldest sister Ann dearly , but she does make crap coffee! ( hence the takeaway )

We shared gifts and cards, as I’m working all day tomorrow and when I got home some more gifts had piled up on the kitchen wall, before the postman arrived just with enough cards to fill the gap in my living room garland…..what fun

I’ve got some nice food for later, and have lit the fire….

🎤🎶 Nocturne and Finlay My Christmas Card to you all…

This is my official blog Christmas Card. For those that don’t know , this is Finlay my very first Welsh Terrier. 

Unlike Roger he was bright. 

Unlike William he was selfish

And unlike Mary and Meg he was lazy, and cowardly but in a good way.

He was the first dog to both capture and tear my heart into pieces, and he started my love affair with a breed which is now rare, and remains the oldest in the British Isles.

I remember taking this photo 21 years ago.

Finlay was only four years old and he was asleep just before Xmas Eve in 2005

He slept through the silence of positioning the Prof’s Christmas Santa 

And. Didn’t notice it as he was fast asleep, warmed by the coal fire

I remember thinking of how lucky I was that evening . My husband was asleep in his arm chair with a bad tempered Scottie called Maddie at his feet. Finlay was snoring lightly on his sofa and old Joan the cat was curled up by the fire. 

The Christmas Tree was lit and it really felt like Christmas .

Like it does today 

So Happy Christmas my dear friends 

Happy Christmas …..I will leave you with this lovely piece above  from my lovely lisping Spanish choir…it’s called Nocturn …….I was in the audience for this ! 

My highlight of 2025

Happy Christmas My Friends…..

Three feet to go

 Almost there………

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

 

My friend Della from the village, came with me to the carol service in Llanasa tonight. Llanasa is a picture post village located a mile and a half Northeast of Trelawnyd and its Norman church remains open, unlike our own . Della and I both miss the Trelawnyd service, with Church Warden Christine Davis proudly carrying on the peanut sized baby Jesus.as Gaynor the mad Organist looked on with pouting lips and a wry look, and so we went tonight which was sweet.

One of the most moving  readings came from Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. It tells of the time poor siblings Francie and Neeley Nolan take part in a local tradition where Christmas Trees were given away to the poor, but only after they were caught after being thrown by a fierce tree seller. 

The Christmas Tree is a metaphor for hope and I was rather pleasantly surprised to see it quoted tonight.

 Earlier today my friend Colin dropped in unexpectedly bearing gifts of scotch eggs and a Christmas card, which was lovely and the treats continued as the Cameron’s ( one of my favourite of village families) dropped off a family made wreath at the kitchen wall……

It’s feeling rather festive today all told , and the garland of Christmas cards just under the living room ceiling is almost complete.

Dena

When I was a child my uncle Jim divorced his wife and went to live with a woman from South Yorkshire ! The woman was twenty five years (?) his junior and hailed from a family that was colourfully working class and I remember so vividly just how shamed my grandparents felt at the news as they talked in hushed tones and cried together in the privacy of their bedroom.

Yesterday that woman, my aunt Dena from South Yorkshire died . Peacefully in a local hospice 

I still love my grandparents so very much and it's nearly four decades after they died, but I know that they could not have coped with me being gay, not in the early 1980s. They thought and were shamed by things that shamed and upset people from another era........we don't live in that world anymore .

Having said this, my grandparents eventually came around to my Uncle's new life, much younger wife and bonny baby grandson. They did this because my new aunt was and is a decent woman with a warm personality. My cousin was a delightful little boy and my Uncle was loved so very much.
Loving him, for them, finally out weighed any prejudice they felt.

I would have liked to have come out to my grandparents. I would have liked to have come out to my
mother and father too, but it was never to be and it was never the right time........ c'est la vie as they say in Frenchland.......

I did come out to my Aunt Dena who wrote to me often, enquiring about my life, loves and news. 

She sent me a gift when I got married, a vase which sits on my bathroom window ledge 

When I told Auntie Gladys that The Prof was my partner ( before we all met up for one of my first Flower Show Meetings) I was acutely aware that in some small way I was "re-living" a moment I
wanted so much to have had with the matriarchs of my old family all now deceased .
It wasn't rocket science....in homespun psychology terms!
I said the words that I really didn't have to say and waited with winced eyes for the reaction.
Gladys was 86 back then.
"Will he be coming to the meeting too? " She asked me, her eyes were bright and interested
" I don't think it's his cup of tea" I told her
" Right O " she said busying herself with a tea towel " " I'll wrap up some scones for him to have later"


And she left him scones, tied in a bag to our front door for the next ten years!

Christmas Week 2004

A memory flashed into consciousness after a patient watched a film full of bonnets and tailcoats.

Christmas Week 2004. I was at work at the Spinal Injury Unit in Sheffield’s Northern General Hospital . My husband was off work and had gone for a riding lesson, so had strode onto the ward in riding boots and tight fitting jodhpurs. He also was tall and often held himself with a slight imperious air, so when he asked for me, a wisecracking Yorkshire nurse called Alexa scurried from the nurses station into the ward round multi disciplinary meeting where I was busy with the consultants and psychologist and physios and hissed at me

“ There’s a Mr Darcy to see you John” she shared rather breathlessly “His breeches are magnificent !”

 

Towering Quake '75 - (Stanley Baxter)

Christmas Specials on the tv were kind of special in the 1970s

God love Mr Baxter