A thought

 According to psychology people that grew up with an absent father and an emotionally unstable mother learn to be strong too soon. 

They got used to solving everything on their own, because no one ever taught them how to face things.

They grew up learning that asking for help was a way of bothering others.

They learned to read the room before speaking , to measure their words so they would create more chaos and to smile even when they felt broken inside. 

That’s why that nowadays they find it hard to trust, hard to believe that someone could stay without hurting them. 

It’s not that they don’t want to love, it’s that they are afraid of being abandoned again. They get attached but at the same time they pull away because they can’t bare to lose someone important once more, and even if they seem cold, they are only protecting the little they have left of their heart.

Psychology says that behind those strong people they’re still awaiting the day their parents come closer to give them the warmth they’ve always been searching for. 

And no matter how hard they hide it, they truly want is to find someone to give them the peace they never had at home.

Goodbye Kira

 

Trelawnyd Productions loses its director this week for Kira leaves the village to return back to her native love, her home country of Canada. Only recently has she put down some connections with us locals and I hope we have all been welcoming in our joint venture of the Christmas show , which was such a success only a few months ago now.

We had planned a leaving do for her tonight, which I had to bow out of for obvious reasons, so I wanted to give her a little token of our appreciation, something that would mean something but something she could carry easily in transatlantic luggage 

So I chose three things. A centenary cup depicting the Memorial Hall, a copy of a 1950’s photo of the village and a hand drawn child’s drawing of the hall itself donated to me from a flower show some years ago, The  hall is the building we all want to save for future generations, and was one that received a nice donation from Trelawnyd Productions from a review Kira worked so hard to support. 

Bon Voyage Kira,

Be happy

I Saw God On The Train

I read this poem today and needed to hear it performed 

In person

The pace Lucas Jones gives his own poem elevates it

amazingly

The enormity of having a long time catheter hit me today, even though I’ve spent 1000s of hours teaching young men how to cope with them back in my spinal injury days

I didn’t sleep much, but found some out of date Valium I was once given to get a battling Albert over the vets threshold, which did a small trick.

My elder sister brought me some tulips and punnet of strawberries which was nice
 

Pompeii MMXXIII” — Dan Smith

 Trendy Carol’s hubby came around and has taken Mary for a few days while I get used to the whole catheter thing. I was grateful as I’ve been in a little pain and discomfort. Roger has kept me company, and important note to self “Don’t let your catheter bag dangle when you get out of the shower with a cat in the bathroom !”

Ouch 

I watched David Attenborough’s 100th birthday tribute last night, and was suitably moved by the whole thing. Dan Smith was new to me and I rather liked his hand gesturing performance. 

I hear the village’s Spring Fair was a success 

I wasn’t quite up to it

Weary

 I’m home, feeling rather weary and very sore.

It’s been a tiring 24 hours.

I’ve seen the efficient side of our beloved NHS when I attended a cottage hospital for a routine kidney ultrasound yesterday. I’ve had no pain or discomfort so and the technician and I  were somewhat shocked to find out that I was in urine retention . 

Fast forward to six hours later when a testosterone filled Urology Registrar and a diffident Surgical Reg, passed a catheter through a blockage in my urethra. 

I have never screamed as much as I did last night, so much so that after the deed was done and I was shown back into reception, 2.5 litres lighter, at least 10 patients sitting along the corridor eyed me with ashen looks and worried faces. 

I was sent home with the catheter in situ and sometime in the night , the catheter literally snapped in half    ( you couldn’t make it up) so back I went, waiting another 5 hours in order to see two more urology registrars brandishing more pain inducing catheters! 

They used tons of local anaesthetic this time ( and by 2 pm I was beginning to lose some of my natural good humour) but the deed was done and I was sent on my way to pharmacy with a prescription for strong antibiotics walking like a man who looked as though he’d shit himself. 

I was near dropping when the pharmacist told me my prescription was only usable for community pharmacies so resisting the urge to throttle the technician with the straps of my leg bag, I walked to Bluebell, only to find I’d lost the prescription somewhere en route. 

I hobbled back to A&E where a delightful nurse , sorted things out giving me the tablets from her store. 

I could have kissed her

It was nice to get home. 

Nuala has been fab in phone support, even stating she would be on the next train to wales if I needed her, 

😀❤️

But like I said, it’s just nice to be home

Therapy

 I still find it a little difficult to think that I am a professional counsellor.

That is something I know I have to work on, and to be honest have worked on over the past few years. Stepping out of a nurse uniform was a big step for me, and without that uniform I literally felt somewhat exposed and naked, with old vulnerabilities gnawing at my psychi of “you can’t possibly do that ?”

I know that I can do that, and I can do that rather well thank you very much, but it was a difficult lesson to learn.

My supervisor at the charity has started to give me paying clients, before I was concentrating on nhs clients with a view of bringing the waiting lists down, this subtle change has allowed my imposter syndrome niggles to re surface and thoughts like , am I giving people their money’s worth? rears its ugly head from time to time. 

I’m getting better at ignoring these dissenting whispers

☹️ fuck!

Roger knocked my wireless headphones into the dogs/ cat’s  water bowl this morning

Fuck

Not Saying What You Want ( Prada Spoilers)

One of the themes running through The Devil Wears Prada 2 was that most of the characters were never quite able to say what they wanted. Miranda couldn’t share her thanks and admiration for second in command Nigel, who in turn could not ask his boss for what he wanted, ie recognition and promotion. and Emily wanted Andrea’s friendship but backed off from asking for it, even though she was desperate for contact and affection. 

On my counselling days I often see this in therapy. The unsaid, the not asked for, the I’m not worthy, the fear of rejection. 

I’ve seen it in my own life, and in the life of others close to me, in fact it’s a central theme to one of my most favourite film scenes….the ferry scene in My Best Friend’s Wedding

We all need to practice to say what we want and what we need 

I’ve done it today , and feel better for it, even though the outcome wasn’t the best 🌈❤️

Hey ho

I’m relaxing watching Andre Rieu on tv ….a beer in hand , Roger is playing with Bun and Weaver upstairs 

God only knows how that happened ….they are racing around like lunatics 

Mary is on my knee 

A Rather Nice Arse

A dog walk on Colwyn Bay Promenade to photograph the new Terry Jones memorial sculpture, a homemade chicken dinner, a couple of chapters of Transactional analysis Theory, a 90 minute video chat with Nigel ,chores, fire lighting, feet licking ( Mary licking mine) cold roast potatoes for supper

 

Cerulean Blue ( spoilers)

The Devil Wears Prada 2 ( I hate the title) works only because all four of the original cast have returned to their original roles….its a clever reworking of the original with Hathaway in sudden need of a Runway job, 20 years after magazines have been made redundant and the internet is king. Miranda ( Streep) remains iconic in her role .Stanley Tucci remains pleasing as her 2nd in command and Anne Hathaway remains the fresh new girl trying to make the best of things , Emily Blunt ( now head of New York Dior ) has all the scene stealing lines and has proved herself a talented comedienne and the subtle non saccharine moments as all four bond in their own ways is so incredibly moving to watch , especially when Nigel finally said to Andy “ you’re forever my girl “ ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Interesting to note that some of the plot was based clearly on the Sex and the City rerun And Just Like That  with Andy’s old apartment looking remarkably like Carrie Bradshaw’s….clever move

It was lovely to go with my two sisters who missed the cinematic Easter eggs 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_egg_(media)

The constant cerulean references to Streep’s iconic speech in the first movie were great fun to pick out and on the way home , we all laughed long and hard as Janet realised that she was actually looking for chocolate Easter eggs in the narrative …duh

Golders Green

 Near to the hospice there is a holiday complex used by the Jewish Community. I’m presuming the clientele are from communities within urban areas of the Uk and its a common site to see visitors walking around in traditional dress. The men in their tzitzit vests and black fedora type hats , the women , in long skirts , their hair covered in scarfs, the children with buckets and spades and bags of beach toys. 

I was driving into the hospice entrance when a family group stopped to let me enter, I waved them on with a big smile, making sure I looked welcoming and friendly given the recent news in Golders Green and the family moved on with the father eying me suspiciously. 

How awful must it to feel threatened in your own country? To be mistrustful of a friendly smile which could be a mask of some sort of a preemptive attack. A stabbing, a car road rage incident, a bombing? 

As the father looked at me, unsmiling and hostile, I tried to acknowledge his feelings by another smile and a nod

If I hear antisemitism I will call it out. If I see it, I will call it out

We all need to .

Hey ho……it’s going to be a restful day and a nice week

No more hospice shifts until next Saturday. 

Lots of catch ups with friends on video this weekend.

Touching base with old chums😀

I’m drinking coffee at the kitchen table now , the sparrows that bicker like schoolboys in the honeysuckle have moved to the back garden because Weaver is sat watching them from the open lounge window. 

Bun is asleep with Mary on the kitchen reading chair and the coffee is good. 

I don’t know where Roger is, sometimes he sits by the gate with his nose poked through the bars, waiting to catch the eye of passing walkers. 

I’ve only yelled at the yappy dogs next door twice this morning ! A record

I’m meeting both sisters for. The Prada sequel later

Return

 Overnight the Montana has flowered over the secret garden gate of my back garden, it always looks a picture. The clematis like the bluebells and white bells in the garden borders are friends who reappear every year, as do the black tulips by the gravel path and the mock orange by Finlay’s grave.

The ribus bush is tinged red with flowers and the honeysuckle is already densely green around the front door, shielding the sparrows who are planning to nest there. 

Every year the flowers and shrubs return

And every year I am grateful

Colours Of Time

 I think I’ve seen the best film of 2026 so far, and it’s a charming bit of French whimsy set in the present day and glorious 1890’s Paris 

Four strangers, distant cousins, are united by the fact that they and a dozen other family members have inherited a rundown country cottage earmarked to become a trendy new shopping mall. 

Benign beekeeper Guy( Vincent Mccaigne) galvanises sad executive Celine ( Julia Piaton), retiring schoolteacher Abdelkrim( Zindine Soualem) and on line artist Seb ( Abraham Walpler) into studying their family tree, mainly concentrating on 21 year old Adele ( Suzanne Lindon) and her journey to Paris to find her mother. 

Here the film gently dovetails from the family bonding of the cousins ( beautifully observed and never saccharine in its portrayal ) to Adele’s journey of discovery, where she meets her mother and ultimately her father under the strangest of circumstances. 

Every character is underplayed beautifully with Lindon and Piaton being especially impressive, and the climatic scene involving psychedelic drug taking, and Victor Hugo, has to be seen to be believed.

I loved it

A beautiful, well crafted and charming film, about family ties, growing up and history

Go and see it

Serendipity

 

I love a story of coincidence.

Around 32 years ago I found myself on a specialist six month work course at the Spinal Injury Unit in Southport. It was expected that for part of that course, I was to organise an elective placement somewhere interesting and after weeks of organising I was lucky enough to wangle work experience in the USA Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to be precise. Much of my experience centred upon the spinal injury rehabilitation hospital in Harmarville.
Like many rehab facilities, Harmarville was located out in the sticks, so to get to and from my lodgings which were back in the City, I was provided with a volunteer driver, who happened to be a very elderly black guy called Norm. Norm insisted that I sit in the back of his large black car, and so I( and many others) was reminded of the movie Driving Miss Daisy when we turned up at any event. The film had only just opened in cinemas the previous summer.
Anyhow I digress.

Fast forward a decade or so to rural Lincolnshire, to an antiques emporium at a former RAF station to be precise. In a dusty, junk filled room, I spied an old map with art deco writing in a battered frame and on a whim bought it. It looked American, in period with the look of our former house , and it filled a spot in the hall.

The map travelled with us to Trelawnyd and until recently it has graced the wall on the upstairs landing, more or less unseen by all.

You may recall that fairly recently I painted the living room, hallway and landing, and after this, I rearranged the paintings in the cottage and moved the map to it's present position in the spare bedroom.
There , I looked at it again with fresh eyes.

The map, I noticed , had small illustrations on it. A golfer in plus fours, a hunting hound, a whole series of huntsmen and women in full livery, and written in the right hand margin in faint deco script was the name Harmarville.

I looked closer, and spied a road called Fox Chapel Road and I suddenly recognised where the map was of. Of all of the places in the world that a 1930s map could have been from, I had bought an old map of the very place I had worked three decades before!
The map was of one very small far suburb of the city of Pittsburgh. A suburb where the Harmarville Rehab unit was to be built some fifty years later.

A Hiking of Bra Straps

 I feel brighter and more focused today. 

A lot more. 

For weeks I’ve felt a little listless and out of sorts. Something I couldn’t quantify adequately but something that had brought down my mood and my resolve.

The weather is bright and warm and sunny and I’m making my first list of the day

A to do list.

First thing I collected my petunias from Oli . He’s a lad who lives on Byron Street who was selling home grown petunias to earn extra pocket money.

I treated myself to a McDonald’s coffee, walked the dogs and picked spring flowers from the garden and lane, garlic mustard, bluebells and aquilegia , which I put in that little vase I bought at Camden Market.

The Velvet Voiced Linda gave me a gift over the kitchen wall

A book of poetry by Lucas Jones

It’s quite lovely

Good timing or what? 

Bra straps hiked to top position 

Best foot forward

The Arm Chairs No one sits in…..

Gay men love to rearrange furniture. 

It’s in our genes. 

It underlines control and order in lives we cannot always control and order

A behaviour which helps day to day life.

Ok you get where I’m coming from. 

I was laughing with the velvet Voiced Linda today 

Sharing what we think of when times feel somewhat bleak 

5 am ish on Friday I was sitting in the lounge trying to tape my forehead gash with a succession of band aids when I looked around the neatly ordered room

Two arm chairs now face the window 

The little grey one which used to sit in the kitchen and the antique maroon Edwardian one , in which I always get my fat arse wedged in, so never use

Bespoke cushions sit on both

And through my headache , I suddenly felt very sorry for myself .

“Look at the place”I said through a bloody tea towel “Two fucking armchairs with no fucker to sit in them” 

Singletons will understand such a comment and the emotion of sitting alone with said bloody tea towel stuck on their face  

Hey ho
 

A old Harry Potter

A old video ( I’m guessing 20 years at least ) of my lisping choir 

 I slept long and heavy today. I woke around 11 am without a headache and hungry. I suspect I had a minor concussion yesterday. 

Jesus John it’s one thing after another. 

Mary was unhurt in the fall, and went back to bed after thoughtfully licking the blood stains from the Lino. 

I went on a study day in Bangor which was foolish . At least I had a day off today so after dog walks, a breakfast of scrambled eggs I watched old reruns of The Walking Dead , spoke to the German on line and slept on the blue couch with the dogs and both cats 

I’m off to bed shortly and it’s only just after 9 pm

I sent a colleague a photo of my injury 

She said I looked like Harry Potter aged 64

Bladder Problems

 5 am and you go for a pee and you don’t see a half blind Welsh terrier sitting in the bathroom doorway

( Mary’s ok )

April Dusk

 We are not going to have Mary long now. 

She sleeps most of the day, and curls up with me for most of the night .

But at dusk tonight, after a bout of cardiac coughing , she perked up like an old lady at a church jumble sale and trotted into the lane with her ears up, and her one eye bright, for her last walk of the day.

These walks with the Welsh are special times now, especially as Bun comes too, her tail erect, her mouth yowling some sort of message which means fun and solidarity. Today she comes from her den in the ponies’ field and she skips alongside us, in that playful way kittens do when they are learning to hunt and sometimes Roger will dart out towards her, in a half arsed effort to dominate. 

Tonight, was sunny but cooling, and Weaver stood on the cottage wall, quietly watching us go. She reminded me of one of the bad footballers at school, one who wanted to play for the team but the one no one chose to play. 

I called to her but she remained stoic and unmoving, only following us into the cottage after we returned, where she retraced her way  to her lonely safe place on my double bed. 

My laburnum is budding carefully in the churchyard and we walked round with some fertilizer to give her a boost. 

Mary watched the rabbits flag us with white tails as Mervin’s racing pigeons shimmer and gently roar around the bell tower on their last lap before home, and under the dying ash trees on my old corner of the graveyard , the gooseberry bushes I planted fifteen years ago look bright and green and healthy.

The dusk arrives gently 

And as we wait for Mary to jump the last shallow step into the cottage, I’m sure I heard the first breeze of a bat down the lane 

Cloud Watching

 Sometimes it’s important just to be

Several of my counselling clients want to be mindful of things other than stressors 

One cried when I asked them when did you last have any fun?

I got home this afternoon to find out my sister had tidied the garden.

It looked lovely

The mock orange I bought in memory of Finlay is flowering strongly near his grave, and I lay on the grass to cloud watch, even though there wasn’t a much  of a cloud in the sky. 

Not many people outside Cwm Road, are used to 63 year old man lying supine in this front garden and two concerned amblers stopped briefly to ask if I was alright. 

I’m enjoying the view I told them and they walked on amused at this tubby old bloke enjoying his garden 

Blue skies and telephone lines