Bedevilled with Meetings

….so said the wonderful Moria Rose from Schitts Creek. 

I’m happy to steal her lines any day even if they were uttered with no self awareness whatsoever.

Sunday today and after a short sleep I intend to meet up with my friend Colin for Lunch and Bette Davis

It’s going to be overcast and gloomy, ideal weather for Now Voyager me thinks.

I managed to sort out a preliminary meeting of “ The Friends of St Michael’s” for the 2nd of September inside the Church itself, where we hope to organise an action group into some sort of coherent force so that the Church can eventually become a Pilgrim Church and tomorrow I’ve been asked by the community association to go to  a site meeting at the village pond between the Community Association who are planning to rejuvenate the green space and the Clwydian ANOB ( Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty) I think I’ve been invited to represent an “ ordinary villager” 

Which is nice.

It’s nice to be useful

 

Gut Feelings

A photo of the Louisa Street Bombing

https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/stories/familys-blitz-memories-shared-and-displayed

 Rachel’s post about gut feelings held a certain resonance with me today.

I wouldn’t be here today, if my Grandmother had not listened to her gut feeling during an air raid over Liverpool in 1940, Nor would another 20 or so members of my family.

One gut feeling meant that two dozen others plus would exist.

She used to tell a good tale of it. 

So did my mother who was a girl of fifteen at the time,

But there they were in 1940 running through the Liverpool streets during an air raid. My grandmother, my mother and my uncle Jim who was around ten years old at the time

My family had three choices. 

They could either go to the public shelter which was furthest away or run to the family shelter in Louisa Street Everton where my grandmother’s in laws had congregated, their last choose was to make  for the nearby school.

The school was slightly further, but my grandmother had been promised a single “ reinforced” room just for her own use in it, so she was torn between the choices.

My mother remembered than the bombers were already turning at St George’s Church, the highest point of that part of the city when my grandmother stopped in the road unsure of which shelter to make for.

She prayed and her gut feeling made her turn for the school.

The bombs were falling when they flung themselves onto the school floor, and nearby explosions brought in windows and doors as the Louisa Street Shelter suffered a direct hit which brought the roof in onto my paternal family fatally injuring  my great grandfather  and killing seven others. 

Just tonight I found my great grandfather’s name James Samual Fry in the official Liverpool and Merseyside Bombings Blogsites on line

My grandmother followed her gut feeling that night and soon after, with family dead and no home to go back to , she followed that little voice in her head and took her family to wales where she settled in the back of a small shop, in the village of Gwaenysgor, just a mile or so from Trelawnyd.

I will leave you with this lovely song

A Little Bit Of Magic

 

I haven’t got much to say today.

The meeting with village leaders Ian and Helen was productive and we now have a plan regarding getting an action group ready to support the Church , but generally yesterday was pretty quiet and today, I will be working then sleeping in that order.

No real magic today,

We all need little moments of magic in our lives…..just occasionally 

Things to offset the humdrum and the ordinary .

Things that we will always remember.

A sunset, a view, a glance, an uncontrolled giggle….a moment  …..we all have our little fragments of magic

I remember a few years ago now going to The New York Met for the first time.

It was to see The Magic Flute 

It wasn’t the Opera the took my breath away, even though it was big and brash and extraordinary beautiful but it was the unexpected drama of the Met’s famous Lobmeyr Crystal Chandeliers as they were raised and lowered before the performance.

It was a wonderful piece of choreographed magic. 

Understated but showy all at the same time.

And something that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up

What is your magic moment?

The one that first enters your mind

Black Widows, Church Meetings and bad Humour

 

My meal on Tuesday bloody lovely

My next day off is Sunday, I’m back on nights Thursday, Fri and Saturday nights 

Sunday afternoon my friend Colin and I are doing a gay afternoon 

Lunch out and the Bette Davis movie Now Voyager at the Storyhouse….

I’ve told him we are drinking vodka martinis 

I got myself all a bit fed up yesterday .

The good humour, meal out and theatre of Tuesday boosted me so much that I came down with a rather large bump yesterday 

The day was boring and gray and wet 

I mooched most of yesterday then met luckily Gorgeous Dave for a trip to the cinema

We had arranged to see a well reviewed art house horror movie Boys From County Hell at llandudno cineworld but they’re cancelled the showing due to “ lack of interest” ( obviously there is now a policy of cancelling poorly subscribed movies so that popular shite can be rescheduled instead ) so we went to see the awful Black Widow which is a dreadfully loud superhero thing. I knew it was a bad move because even my nephew Leo texted me that it was rubbish and he adores anything Marvel

Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow

Gorgeous Dave as Gorgeous  Dave 

It was nice to catch up with Dave though,  who has agreed to accompany me to see Nigella Lawson later in the year

He giggled in the cinema when I said I would only go with a straight friend to see her in her one woman show…….she Is definitely one of his cougar crushes…every straight man I know fancies Nigella 

Today I’m meeting with village leader Ian regarding a plan of action regarding the Church

Like I told u I’m back on nights tonight 

Hey ho

Udder Cream

 

A local read all about Dorothy’s bite the other day and popped around with some magic cream which she said would help the wound enormously .

The cream, she said, was used by farmers to treat sore udders in cattle so I thought nothing ventured nothing gained and took a large spoonful of the ointment 

Within a couple of days the would improved much more than I expected and now, a week after the attack her wounds have healed and the skin is pink and clean and painless.

Lol for the past four days I’ve rubbed a little udder cream on the tiny spots of psoriasis on my knees

And voila! I now have knees of a 40 year old!  

Pride And Prejudice

 

What a delightful evening 

A Thai meal followed by a camp production of Pride And Prejudice in the Grosvenor Park open air theatre

Where everything felt right including a bearded rotund Howard Chadwick gliding on stage as Lady Catherine De Bourge. 

The romantic and lovely drama was turned into a gentle comedy of manners and relationships and it was lovely to laugh and be moved by the words of Austen even when they were played sweetly and with humour

A Tree Called Nigel

 

One of the smaller goals in my days is to be able to name all of the trees I see.

Apart from some of the old favourites, I am woefully bad at recognising species, and so every morning when we are out for our “ big” walk when I see a tree I don’t recognise I will grab a leaf from it and take it home to pour over google or as a last resort use the free Woodlands Trust Name a Tree App in order to name that tree.

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/british-trees/tree-id-app/

This morning as I was snapping a few leaves from a tree just off the path, I caught the eye of a passing dog Walker and felt the need to explain what I was doing.

“ I’m trying to name all the trees down the walkway” I told him

And the man nodded and smiled politely and walked on.

Much later as we ambled back to Bluebell, limp leaves in hand we passed the man again,

He pointed to a large Beech tree in the corner of a nearby field “ Do you know this one’s name? “

I was about to show off with the answer  , albeit with the humility of “ I think” preceding it  when he beat me to the punch

“ He’s called Nigel” the man said with a chuckle

Mike Kilner

 I caught  the up with my friend Jane for a silly video meet tonight. After that I met up with sheffield Mike on what’s app 

It was his birthday today 

 Here is Mike well out of his sheffield comfort zone 

He came to visit me here in wales and this is him with Boris my pet turkey

I miss him 

We hope to go away for a few days together very soon

Happy Birthday pal xx

Thistle down

 

After  a balanced food shop ( and a purchase of extra hard pigs ears for the dogs) I’ve opened the cottage windows wide to a strong warm and rather welcoming breeze.

The wind is just strong enough to keep the butterflies off the buddleia and the thistle down from my field is blowing from west to east in bursts like snow.

The breeze is whisking away the construction noise from behind the cottage and all I can hear is the wind in the Elms and the faint contented sound of dog chewing.

Borborygmi

 Borborygmi is one of my favourite words

It’s a medical term for the gurgling noise bowels make when they are working normally.

It made a wonderful round in tv’s Call My Bluff when the effete Arthur Marshall and Frank Muir battled it’s true meaning out, but I learned it back in 1983 in my first year of nursing school.

It’s one of those words like follow you , just underneath the surface of memory 

Like mendacity, autonomic dysreflexia, and El- ahrairah ( who was a rabbit God in Watership Down)

I informed my colleague that a patient of ours had no borborygmi

She wasn’t impressed …

I need some company with whom I can talk shite with. It’s a product of being on four nights shifts in a row and needing some frivolity. 

I search messenger for signs of friends on line , but it’s 2 am and all is quiet as it is here. Everyone is safely asleep except me.

One of my patients reminds me of DaVinci ‘s Ginevra De Benci

We studied her in one of my city lit groups…the general consensus suggested that she was unwell, just sixteen and plagued with expectations of total fidelity 

No wonder she looked pissed off.

Tomorrow nights it’s Film Noir again. After that I’ve arranged a what’s app video meet with a friend

With the strict instructions we talk shite over a large gin

Tea

 It’s my last night shift tonight until next Thursday 

I’ve technically run out of food except a few tomatoes and apples

I woke at three thirty and couldn’t  be arsed going to the shops

So I dig out a small cake out of the freezer ( one that the velvet voiced Linda dropped off) and microwaved it until it was steaming

I ate it with leftovers of ice cream 

And watched Antique Roadtrip in my boxers

Madge and Bisket

My great niece Evie using the video technology

 It was my brother in law’s birthday yesterday

He is 73.

He and my sister organised a family meal in a rustic garden 1940’s tent strung with fairy lights and even though it was raining heavily a good time was had by all. 

All my immediate family was there my sisters and their husbands, my sister in law, my two nephews, niece in law and great niece. 

Being on night shift I turned up , briefly at 6pm and I was slightly jealous as since 4 pm a bit of wine had been quaffed and everyone was good natured and relaxed despite the weather.

The talk see sawed on to old memories and my nephews joked that when they were little , it was normal for them, as small kids, to be sat in the car at some pub car park with a bottle of coke and a bag of crisps while mum and dad were “ socialising “ inside. 

Of course their memories were exaggerated for comic effect and the conversations grew wilder with everyone outdoing each other with tales of “when I was a child!”

My totally sober memory out trumped the others when I remember that my sister Janet and I being “babysat” by a family friend Uncle Cliff, a man who had marked learning and physical difficulties after he was kicked on the head by a mule in Egypt when he was four! 

What were my parents thinking, even in those more relaxed days of 1970s parenting ? 

Gawd knows.

My sister Janet then reminded everyone that in the 1980s the same group, that was sat under the canvas yesterday used to meet up for boozy Sunday afternoon meets where, towards Christmas we would make home made videos with a huge, shoulder carried vhs video recorder, loaned from my father’s electrical shop.

The videos would be silly affairs.

My nephew dressed as superman hanging off the back of the sofa with various family members holding pot plants running behind giving the impression he was flying.

The family dressed up in dresses and tinsel miming to ABBA’s Supertrouper 

Silliness and nostalgic memories warmed by time.

I couldn’t stay long. so I left my brother in law’s gift under the table as the cake was being cut and managed  to get to work seconds before I was due to start shift.

I was glad I had picked the gift that I did, one that was sparked by those silly videos of Christmases past without really knowing what the conversation would lead to

I had bought my brother in law a kit for making his own on line tiktok video! 

Happy days

I shall leave you with these two maniacs

My fav tiktok video players

Madge and Bisket

Show Entry

 

Jisas Yu Holem Hand Blong Mi

This hymn, sung in Solomon Island Pijin, is hypnotic as it is strange. 

For some strange reason it’s been going around my head today.

Translated it’s title means Jesus hold my hand 

I can’t think of the last time I held someone’s hand….

Probably at work, but I can’t remember any specifics.

This scene has flashed through my mind too 

And this one too

This one too

It's Glasgow, March,
And we walk hand-in-hand
In the park

Now it's 3:13
And I'm late,
And it's time
I make a choice
We're both boys,
You see.

If you were to go
Back and look,
You'd see a hundred eyes
Hurry to objectify
This hand-in-hand stance
It's a flurried
Dance
Of reaction.
Some smile, they're proud
And they want me to know
But there's a darker
Shade of brow
That balances the books
The kind of look that challenges
Like this is some chess game
And I'm in check
And I'm second-guessing
What they might do next
Point me out to all the
Pawns in the crowd
Spawn
A following
Whose glowers linger on
So that our hands
Are no longer holding
But dragging
Glare after
Glare
Snowballin' stares
Stretching
Elastic social disgrace
Through this forbidden space
And the scales
Are well and truly tipped.


Time For Love
Sean Lionadh

I miss it, a little x

My Last Flower Show

 This stunning photo, is the best illustration of the presence of goats of Llandudno . Recently the council has rounded up some of the younger goats and the Billy’s of the splinter heard and have transported them to new sites in Bristol and Bournemouth, but the majority of the herd remains intact here with contraceptives administered to the females wild now on the Orme

This photo was sent to me by Facebook yesterday. It was dated 4 years ago “today” and was taken at the very last Flower Show  when I was Show Chair and general dogsbody 

The lady in the photo was a new exhibitor to the show. She was the mother of an ex colleague of mine who had suffered severe depression following an extensive stroke. It was her first trip out in public.

As part of some rehab, her daughter had suggested that she enter several of the art classes of the show and because of the fact she had indeed entered most she managed to nab the most points in the art section, which meant that she won the Rowenna Wrigley Cup.

When I called her name out, amid the crowded hall she promptly burst into surprised and happy tears and joyously skipped forward for me to present her with her trophy, The photo captured that moment when she hugged me her thanks.

There is something incredibly moving and infectious in someone else’s genuine happiness 

Of course the lady’s stroke had made her more emotionally labile than she was normally but that didn’t detract from the sweetness of the event.

The audience sensed the importance of the moment and clapped enthusiastically 

Loud and long

Vicars and Shows

“Dear Friends,

Thank you for your support and offers of assistance at the public meeting held in St Michael’s Churchyard re the future of the church. The overwhelming feeling of the meeting from the forms filled in was that the community would support St Michael’s becoming a pilgrim church and would actively support it in its new role. That support means a great deal to us, so thank you.

Just a note to update you. On Thursday 29th, The Bryn a Mor Mission Area Conference voted to allow St Michael’s Church to become a Pilgrim Church. This decision has been forwarded to the Bishop and Diocese for them to discuss and to come to a decision. August tends to be a holiday month, so we probably not hear any more until the Autumn. But I will update you of any news.

Thank you once again.

Regards
David
Vicar”

The vicar phoned me yesterday.

He sounded as avuncular as ever and he showed no upset of my referral to him and his sexy young curate of being like Batman & Robin in my last ecclesiastical blog entry.

He informed me of the first official meeting which may lead to the Church being saved from closure and followed the call up with an email ( see above) 

It looks like we are in the hands of the Bishop and so me thinks it’s time to make some community noise and start a publicity campaign. 

I shall have a word with Village Leaders Ian and Helen about our move.

The Village Community Association is holding an alternative show on Saturday and are calling for entries in their “ What did you do in Lockdown? Exhibition” 

I’m on nights , but I will make a few Gyoza Dumplings as my entry

It’s much more positive that a photo of myself , chugging McDonalds, and weeping in front of the tv.

  

A Date

 Dorothy was ok this morning. I took her back to the dyserth Walkway and she trotted to heel as always, bright and excited and as bouncy as usual 

I had a date today

A bona fide date! 

Now the last time I dated anyone,  way back before the start of the first lockdown,  “the date”  became a very good friend and nothing more.

Which is a sort of lose/win situation .

Today was a bust

Three hours I’m never going to get back again.

The date in question was a guy I met several months ago in the weekly Big Gay Quiz .

He was in my small group one Friday and in the weeks that followed, he messaged me privately during subsequent quiz nights to say hi , and to swap chit chat.

He is a little younger than me, broad and built like a lumberjack

I was intrigued 

Eventually I gave him my telephone number and we swapped friendly texts.

Since the constraints of lockdown had been lifted, he has texted me a few times asking for a date

So today I met him for lunch in Chester

Gawd help me, the man never stopped talking about himself .

The first hour, I let it go because I thought he could have been nervous, but as we entered the second hour and he still hadn’t asked me one question about myself, I thought it could be  time to call things a day.

As hour three came, and when I was sipping my second cold coffee elbows on the table , he stopped telling me a story about one of his luxury holidays and suddenly asked me if he could as me a personal question.

I told him that he could and he pointed to a tiny patch of skin on my right elbow.

“Is that psoriasis ?” he asked 

“ Yes I’m covered in it “ I replied 

( I’m not btw)

A few minutes later he reminded himself and me that he had to get home for a work’s phone call.

I walked down to the River Dee and bought myself an ice cream 

I sat and ate it on a bench in the sun 

And enjoyed the silence

A Bad Patient

 After three hours sleep , several dog painkillers and two bowls of hand fed roast chicken Dorothy came out from under my duvet with all of the drama of Scarlet O’Hara after she gave birth to daughter Bonnie.

I swear she was limping , even though her only injury was the bite on her neck.

I had covered the wound with antibiotic purple spray after it had been vet inspected, and lucky for Dorothy there were only two puncture wounds rather than a rip to deal with. 

Having said this after the vet had examined her, she insisted on showing her injury to both vet nurses and the woman on reception, all of whom ohhhhed and arhhhhed appropriately 

At home she only stopped shaking when safely under the duvet , her neck wrapped in a clean tea towel .

My poor little lost girl

She’s such a baby.

She didn’t need this drama today.

And to be honest , neither  did I 

In the meantime mary has been overly aggressive with her yellow bone all night

Drama

 Whilst on our early morning walk Dorothy was set upon by a black staffie type off it’s lead.

She was still on hers, we had just gotten out of Bluebell.

The staffie circled once then clamped onto her throat before I could stamp on it 

I stamped on it until it eventually let go

Mary biting at its arse in typical terrier style.

The dogs owner threatened to “fuck me over!” 

I yelled back so loud that he sloped away very quickly his dog hanging from its collar.

The air was blue.

Dorothy was terribly shocked and bleeding and was shaking and whimpering long after I had cleaned and photographed her wound on the kitchen top. 

She’s not long back from the vets and I’ve taken her to bed to rest under the duvet 

I’ve informed the police 

Phyllis Dietrichson

ToNight I took part in a City Lit zoom Lecture on Neo Noir (modern film noir movies ) 

We are studying The Long Goodbye 1973, Chinatown 1974 and Bodyheat 1981. 

I really enjoyed the lecturer’s take on things even though the other “ students” may have found my “ odd eyeball rolling  faces” on the grid a little bizarre as Dorothy spent 2 hours under my desk scraping the hard skin from both of my heels with her baby teeth. 

My favourite film Noir movie is the 1944 thriller Double Indemnity which features the glorious Barbara Stanwick as the scheming Phylis Dietrichson .I’m so glad we will be discussing her next week !

She was such a slag .

No other news to report ….this afternoon neighbours Mandy and Sailor John and I met up with Animal Helper Pat in the lane….it was her first walk after getting over covid and she was bright as a button. We slagged off the owners of the new build behind the cottage, who have been ruining Mandy’s washing with their bonfires…Pat looked well, a year ago, pre vaccines her story may have been so different . 

We all mentioned that 

I’m not going to choir tomorrow tonight…I’ve told Jamie I will only go when we can sing indoors….and he understands …..so tomorrow afternoon all I am doing is buying more agapanthus for the garden…fireworks of neon blue which will burst their colourful flower heads in every corner of the cottage garden .

I will arranged them amid the hostas and hydrangeas