It's here

It's official...the  corona virus is here in North Wales and probably has been for a while now.
The next step is to cope with it.
The Trelawnyd Community Association has organised a meeting to highlight problem areas and to revisit the already organised resilience plan for the village and already the sturdier of local characters have been offering help on the village websites and by email.
It's nice to think people are going to have each other's backs

I've not long got home and as usual Trendy Carol and her hubby have clearly done their neighbourly thing and have walked the girls for me.

I'm lucky to live here.
What's going to happen to the isolated town and city dwellers, hidden away from neighbours and community by a lifestyle that reenforces loneliness

I hope like those wonderful singing Italians
We all sing and pull together x

Hope

If you want to see something incredibly moving
Have a look at this video
I've not been able to find it in a format I can post
( click on link below)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KeXsIMouv0

Total lockdown in Italy
And locals show their solidarity by singing together from their own individual houses

It was a sad/ hard day for me yesterday
But this little video underlined just how sweet it is to be human

" The Windy Side Of Care"

" The Trelawnyd Sandwich " ( Hattie, Heulwen and I) were supposed to meet yesterday afternoon to see Military Wives . We cancelled as Heulwen couldn't make it, as she was caring for an poorly elderly neighbour and friend.
She has a good heart.

Instead of the cinema I baked homemade pizza and locked Mary and Dottie into the kitchen as Winnie and I shared it.
Winifred absolutely adores pizza crusts and munches them with her fat brown eyes closed in pure rapture
She's fading fast now and I am treating the old girl as much as I able as I feel a decision will have to be made sometime fairly soon about her future
But for the time being, as long as her strong heart keeps going without help, we share pizza crusts in front of the fire.

Last night , I'm sort of glad we didn't go to the cinema
After the pizza crust thing, I caught up with paperwork and bills and read blogs and a lovely email from big hearted  Edgar in San Francisco who follows Going Gently with surprising loyalty.
I also made cauliflower soup, put a face mask on in the bath and laughed at a Judi Dench interview on radio 4 and arranged with work mates a night out with beers

I then watched Jennifer Jones and William Holden in Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing as I gently cleaned out Mary's infected ear with some wet wipes. Dorothy watched proceedings with narrowed eyes from her vantage point on the couch and in a fit of transference pique  chased Albert up the stairs with a high pitched woof

I'm working long days until Sunday, my next day off .
Then my sister Janet and I are off to some afternoon Theatre in Chester

I'm busy and my heart is busy and we both don't really realise that we are  occasionally lonely in this very busy world
Hey ho

Breakfast

Breakfast out this morning was a treat
Too much coffee
Long chats and a walk on the beach
I am beginning to love Breakfast meet ups,
You are simply more awake and have significantly more  time to chat!

We Brits seem to have inherited this wonderful phenomenon from the Yanks
Even a decade ago I remember Samantha, Carrie and Miranda meeting up in their local diner for fruit and cwafffeeee at some ungodly hour.
At least today it was after 9 am for me and a bit of plain black pudding was involved!

I'm tired at the corona virus panic
I've seen the yearly struggle of intensive care with influx of flu cases for a decade now and every year thousands nationally will die from the complications of the virus
Common sense needs to prevail

The restaurant I went to this morning was unusually quiet

At least we got a nice table

United

There were five other women at pottery class tonight, not including my sisters.
They were chattering wildly with the camp-as-Christmas stand in teacher as Janet, Ann and I just got into  things.
I didn't realise just how therapeutic clay play actually is.
Tonight I decided to make my own tribute to Antony Gormley field of figures instillation 
It's called " united" 
  

The Walking Dead and Choir

Jamie our 1940s moustached choirmaster liked my flamingo
The Trelawnyd contingent of the choir ( Heulwen, Hattie and I) will buy him one as a treat
He deserves it we all agreed

Daryl and Judith...a lovely understated scene

I got home after a strenuous choir practice and watched the whisperers' attack on Hilltop in The latest Walking Dead episode
It was a cracking return to form  and although I was slightly miffed that all of the settlement's children  had suddenly been magically transported to the outpost, I loved the series return to its 1970 disaster movie roots.
The episode was a tribute to long term relationships
Even though I have night and day shifts booked for the same week, I've made the effort to book nice things on my days off.
It's pottery tomorrow with my sisters, lunch out on a Thursday and a cinema trip with my choir sandwich mates on Thursday .
I've got Theatre tickets in Chester for Sunday afternoon!
A half hour ago I saw Jim at the lane kitchen window, his dogs were probably pissing against my wall
He waved and put his thumbs up
ALL IS WELL 
We both mouthed
Mr flamingo was lit brightly
And
All is well 

All Is Well

Whilst many frightened people were buying toilet paper from Sainsburys the other day
I bought a fluorescent pink light up flamingo
I use it in the kitchen as a night light for the dogs especially when I am on nights
It runs by batteries and sits to the left of my favourite oil painting of "Trees in a shady wood"

Last night just before I went to work I saw fellow villager " Jim"stop and look through the lane window. His dog was waiting to sniff Mary who had gone all stiff legged and serious at the sight of another terrier so close to home
" I like your flamingo" Jim said after We had approached " It's so cheerful........like your pictures "
I always like the way that Jim is unapologetic at being " caught" looking through my window
After all it is I that invites passing looks by constantly illuminating the scene and by not having shades on the windows
"  all is well when I see the flamingo lit!" He said rather cryptically as if liaising with a fellow spy
" All IS well" I told him as the terriers sniffed and bristled together in the darkness

Miriam Is Right

Recently Miriam Margolyes told the world that she was pissed off with her body.
She wasn't bitching about having a short dumpy Jewish moma figure, lord that has been her signature " look" since she was a girl
But she was grieving the fact that in so many ways her body wasn't performing the way that she wanted it to.
It has aged almost beyond recognition
I get that.
I really do
I repaired the cat flap the other day and sat on the hard kitchen floor for around an hour as I did so.
It took a great deal of chutzpah , physical writing and pain and heave myself up again on one of the kitchen chairs without screaming.
Old bones eh
I'm finding that at the end of my night shift. Whilst some of the younger nurses are bouncing off to the gym after 12 hours ,I'm hobbling like and diarrhoea ridden John Wayne towards the safety of bluebell, a couple of paracetamol hardening my muscles leg controls against collapsing on the back seat like a active nymphomanic would do after something vital snapped in flagrant delicto
It come to all of us

Sans eyes
Sans teeth
Sans taste
Sans Everything

Over

The daffodils on the field border which Trendy Carol planted seven years ago have flowered yesterday in the warm spring sun.
I love their resilience and their loyalty.
Daffodils seem to grow out of nothing and they multiply every year.
Like bills......

I've been saving money up since Christmas and this weekend paid off my half of the overdraft of my marriage joint account. It's another hurdle passed and sorted and I'm proud that I've juggled things enough to tick another box towards the goodbye of my marriage
I'm now waiting for the decree absolute to come through and that final tie will be severed.
I've asked my husband to be prudent with the absolute request
It needs to be over

Moody Cow

I wasn't going to blog today as I've started a run of night shifts

However my new postman ( who seems more cheerful and who is wonderfully bearded unlike my previous bad tempered old duffer) delivered a cushion in yesterday's post.

The cushion was handmade by Scarlett who thought it was apt for Winifred who, as you all may remember ,has a healthy dislike for all scatter cushions.

Thank you again Scarlett, I have written to you yesterday.

I was thrilled by it.

I have no other news. Save for the gut wrenching disappointment I have for my new frying pan which seems to encourage everything I try to cook to stick to it.  

I know I need to get out more

Well I am trying xx

Daffodils

I took this picture at the Albion pub in Conwy last week sometime.
I had driven over to Llandudno with Mary to drop papers off at my solicitors then decided to pop over to the Art Deco pub, hidden away in the narrow streets of Conwy town for a drink and a scotch egg.
Every table in the pub was decorated by a simple spray of daffodils

So lost in day dreaming I hadn't noticed a man waving at me through the serving hatch at first, but finally I did and he walked around to my snug table to say hello
I nursed his partner at the hospice

We chatted for a while and during our chat he summed up the whole complicated and multi facetted phenomenon of grief in one single poignant sentence

" Grief is just love that has absolutely nowhere to go" 

Eleanor

Chic Eleanor was standing at the bar brandishing two goldfish bowls of gin when I walked through the doors of The Crown at 6.30pm
" Darling John ! Early doors ! Who would have guessed it!?" 
The pub is always nicely busy on a Friday teatime and it was nice to say hi to a few familiar faces before we found a table not far from the fire
I adore Eleanor, for she is comfortable in any setting she finds herself in
She smiles, she is gracious and she is genuine
I told her that the mysterious P ( one of my blog followers) is interested in meeting her.
" How delightful, is he a dish?!" She cooed
We gossiped for an hour before wanting chips in a bowl
Unfortunately the chef had left early!
The youth club in the village hall finished around 8pm and the supervisors must of galloped over to the pub for a much needed large wine and I hugged Bridget ( the main supervisor) when we got up to go
" We don't see much of you around the village " another drinker said from his barstool perch next to her  and I thought how lovely it was catching up with people at teatime rather than later in the day
I could see that Eleanor agreed
" Darling this early doors thing is quite the fun thing, we must do it again!" She mused swirling her pashmina like batman's cape before we left

Serendipity

I was chatting about serendipity only yesterday over dinner
I've benefitted from this strange and seemingly fickle phenomenon over the past 18 months and one day I shall share some of the stories of its golden touch here on Going Gently but for now I shall share a little moment of more recent serendipity joy.

The day before my wedding my sister's gave me my grandmother's wedding ring. It was wrapped in a blue ribbon and was the something old in that old fashioned  wedding gift tradition way.
I was incredibly touched by the gift and kept the ring safe with my wedding certificate .

Over the divorce , I had to send  my wedding documentation off to my solicitors and without thinking the ring ended up with some office clerk who kindly researched where it may of come from and returned it to me.
The ring was placed in my wallet for safekeeping but like things do when life is fraught it suddenly went missing from its second safe place around a year ago.
I've scoured the cottage for it over the past months, without success.
I was mortified

Anyhow a few days ago I cleared out a load of old books from under my bed. I bagged them up into carrier bags and took them to the local charity shop but not before I noticed a small Christmas cracker lying amongst the flotsam of one bag
The Christmas cracker I recognised . It was a tiny one from a box of ten 1940s Christmas decorations I had bought from an antique fair decades ago, so I pocketed it inside my hoodie with the thought of returning it safely.

I found the cracker today. I'm doing washing and like a good housewife was emptying my pockets of snotty tissues and dog poo bags and there it was like a small toffee wrapper.

I remembered where I had placed the box of crackers and located it in the small arts and crafts writing bureau in the living room.
Inside the box were nine another crackers and almost hidden underneath them was my grandmother's wedding ring which had been carefully attached to a  wooden tag of a Welsh terrierby me and then forgotten
It had finally been sent back to me

Friends

Some bloggers turn out to be exactly what you expect in real life
Tonight I met David from Travel Penguin (https://travelpenguin.blogspot.com/) and his husband Jay
In a whistle stop visit from Washington, via Ireland and London we all met up for a wonderful meal at The Castle in Conwy
A lovely chatty evening.

I'm off today and tomorrow before another run of nights and was only thinking of what to do tomorrow when Chic Eleanor drove past in her sporty red sports number
" Darling John " she crooned out of the window " Gin and tonics Friday teatime , over a bowl of chips ..how about it?" And with a fling of a pashmina corner she was gone!
What fun

" Cutchiface"

Dorothy is becoming a powerful and rather energetic little dog
The more confident she has become the more I have to lead her in public, so rambunctious and bouncy and excited she is when out of the house!
Her main problem is her amazing ability to jump and jumping she loves to do directly at you in a wide mouthed google eyed way.
With no thought of the ramifications of dirty paws and muscular legs.
I am training her slowly
She is always put on the lead and under control if another dog or walker approaches and when she does get too bouncy, an outstretched hand and a sharp turn sidewards often stops her in her tracks
It's a work in progress.
Today she had been left to run on a totally deserted walkway in the weak spring morning sun when out of the blue a middle aged woman suddenly appeared in view climbing through brambles out of a field.
Dorothy was perhaps forty feet from the woman and a good sixty feet in front of me and she stopped dead still looking worried.
Then I heard the woman say to Dorothy " Hello cutchiface!"  in an overly friendly way.

Now I must stop here for a moment to add a bit of colour to the proceedings
" Cutchi face" is a a sort of hybrid Liverpudlian/ Welsh greeting of long ago.
Cutchi is an English version of the word Cwtch which means hug or cuddle in Welsh
Hence Cutchi face  literally means huggable face

Hearing such a friendly greeting coupled with an open arm welcome, Dorothy literally jumped at the chance for some affection and so ran forward and effectively dropped kicked the woman mid chest at ten feet away.
Both disappeared through the brambles with a cry before I could even open my mouth.

The first thing I saw when I ran up was a single half Wellington boot lying poignantly amid the brambles
Dotty had literally knocked the woman out of her shoes!
Luckily there was no injuries apart from a very muddy coat and a very dirty sock and after a bit of struggling I had the woman back on her feet in a matter of minutes
" She moves quite quickly for a bulldog" the woman observed wryly as Dorothy smiled desperately at everyone involved

" I'm so sorry" I gushed , hoping not to be sued " These dogs will be the death of me !" 
" Almost the death of me " the woman corrected

Old Brown Eyes

I got home late
On the back door step,
A red rugby hoodie and two boxes of cat food.
On the front door step another letter from my solicitor and a rice pudding under foil
Enjoy Miss Gayle
This is a lovely version of the a Tom Waits classic 

Tits Up!!!

Some days are just shite

My mobile phone magically decided to shut down at breakfast time just as I was what's apping a friend about meeting up for lunch.
The little cunt ( and Im talking about the phone and not the friend) demanded a security password totally unknown to me and so for at least four hours, I searched the Internet for ways of bypassing the problem .
Finally I now have a functioning phone, no internet banking and have lost numerous contacts and so much information it actually hurts.
I hate the I've actually become one of those new age people who literally can't function without a friggin phone!!!!

My friend cancelled lunch

Mary nipped the fingers of the new postman who forgot that he was supposed to use the box by the front door to deposit letters into and I had to apologise profusely to be given aletter from my fucking solicitors who demanded another ( and arbitrary) £216.00!!!!!! Payable RIGHT NOW!!!!!!

I went to the bank for help with my app
( no luck) then dropped and smashed a jar of mayonnaise in Aldi
Before coming home and flopping on to the bed for a moment of peace.

I woke up groggy and disorientated and in the dark.
I have now fucking missed choir practice

Late Post

I told a story today.
I told a story like my mother told her stories
I told a story which amused me
I think I remembered it right

Back in the late 1980s my eldest sister and her husband went to see a movie
They weren't big film goers.
Middle class and well spoken they sat through Bruce Willis Die Hard
An interesting choice given its language and violence.
In those days the ice cream lady still came around with her tubs

And my sister turned to my brother in law and in her well spoken brogue said loudly
" Do you want a fucking ice cream motherfucker or don't you?" 

Mighty Fine Coffee

Jorge blew himself out overnight and Sunday blossomed into spring this morning.
I had fixed the broken cat flap yesterday in a fit of testosterone and so the kitchen was warmed nicely by the weak sun by the time I got up at 8.30 am.

Mary,Dotty and I walked through the scores of dog walkers and kids on scooters that lined the Dyserth Walkway and went for breakfast at Y Shed ( English translation The Shed duh!) 
The cafe does lovely illy Coffee and the best bacon sandwich this side of Offa's Dyke

.

I saw an old friend with his daughter at one of the tables
Our friendship had kind of come to an end a few years ago after he had left his wife for another woman. I regret not being able to have been impartial at the time.
But sometimes you just have to act the way you do.
We shook hands and chatted briefly and politely.

The Coffee was indeed a delight as was my sandwich, which I shared with the dogs.
The walkway was sunny and somewhat crowded with walkers and I was reminded Gently of walks past around Central Park. So Jaunty and animated the atmosphere was.

Sunday jobs are on the agenda today
Car cleaning
Soup making,
Friend calling
More proper coffee and perhaps a doze in the chair by the window

Jason And The Zombies

Some friends, you can just pick up where you last left off
affable despot Jason is one of those characters.
Now in winter, he tends to go to ground and is not really seen until Spring, so in some ways I must of felt grateful he ventured out of Tŷ Wynne as Storm Jorge steam rollered in
" Jorge" Jason said " Sounded rather more like a Brazilian toyboy than an Atlantic Storm
I agreed.
Jason is naturally funny and knows it
Admittedly his humour can be somewhat schoolboy in nature but he has a good brain in his head which is a bonus when he is your theatre companion .
Night of the living Dead-Remix is an interesting theatrical experiment.
It takes the original film which it more or less runs in its original form on one screen and with seven actors with handheld cameras on an innovative set reinacting the whole film scene for scene.
It's a clever concept which is implemented almost flawlessly by the cast who must have been rehursed until they dropped but with the use of miniature models standing in for the exterior shots, I wasn't quite sure if we should have been amused or just impressed with the results.

Jason and I can talk for Wales
We can also laugh all night too.
He's a good person to know and I like him

The cottage was warm when I returned home......in a fit of testosterone I had refitted a new cat flap this afternoon