True Grit

The pigs have had a week's reprieve. The butcher's son couldn't pick them up and the "transport" that was going to fill in so to speak, never materialised, so after flagging down the red faced welsh farmer on the main road and enlisting his help, I have provisionally booked them in for next Tuesday.

It's been another gloomy wet day here and I feel it has been a bit of a waste hanging around for phonecalls and the like, however in between the showers, I have spent a little time getting to know Rooster Cogburn, the blind cockerel from Alton Towers.

He's a sweet natured lad, who is well used to being handled, and despite not really knowing me or my voice as yet , he sat carefully on my knee when I picked him up and stayed calm and still as I stroked his feathers and checked his eyes.

Eating and drinking for him seems not to be a major problem as I think he can just make out his bright green feeding bowl in his one barely functioning eye, however all it takes is a finger splashing the water in his water bowl or a rhythmic shake of his corn and his head is immediately down eager to find out what is available.

Putting Vinegar tits in with him was a bit of an inspiration, for he seems to love the company of another bird, and I have found it rather touching to watch him occasionally reaching out with his beak to comb through her feathers in a gentle gesture of contact

Yes he is useless, he has not even got enough meat on him to make 4 points on a weightwater's supper, but looking at him sitting still in his run, alert and careful I think that there is something quite valiant about him and his gentle ability to keep going

Laurel & Hardy

When I took the dogs on their afternoon walk we passed a couple of guys unloading a trailer in the village....
The men were making a real bloody hash of the work and even the terriers sat there half amused by their antics as they dropped box after box...
"You two remind me of Laurel and Hardy" I chirped up when the younger guy dropped yet another package and I had had to smile when the other guy asked "who the bloody hell are they?"
Bloody Heathens.........

Baby Steps

When we, the nurses arrive at work, we line up at the nurses' station waiting to be allocated to a patient for the shift by the nurse in charge. The whole routine smacks of those long distant school days when we lined up waiting to be picked for the games teams, and last night, after handover I sort of just knew which patient I was going to be working with.

I was paired with a very poorly patient who was dying. Unconscious and sedated, the man was fading fast and I had to take a deep breath when I saw him with his wife and his son at his bedside as he could have been my brother albeit a slightly older version of him.

It had to come, I suppose, and it had to be coped with.

Luckily there was a lot to do, a lot to get busy with, and as I "got on with things" a warm natured Irish nurse who was going off duty  stopped briefly and reached over and squeezed my arm as I was introducing myself to the family..

She didn't say anything, she didn't have to.

Her touch was enough.

With it, she said clearly and with feeling " it's tough for you and I recognise that it is"

and do you know..... it helped.

The patient died not long into the shift.

... I think I looked after him and his family ok

**********************************************************************************

btw

Weight watchers weigh in this morning weight 15 stone 2 lbs

                                                          weight loss this week 2lbs

                                                          Total weight loss since 2nd Jan 12 lbs

Exciting Days

I went to bed for a few hours yesterday afternoon in preparation for a Saturday night shift only to be woken up by a rather irate Chris informing me that I was in fact due to work this evening instead!

Humm a siesta in the afternoon.....proved to be an unexpected treat.

This morning,before my little snooze this afternoon,we took George up on the millennium trail above the village to see the observation cairn that was erected in 2003. ( I had never bothered to go and see it before)

I was impressed with the view of the village and will go up there again to take some photos when I have time as there is a lovely view of the village from up there , all huddled away out of the wind in the shelter of Gop Hill.

The dovecot at Gop farm on the millennium trail

I have no real news today, the walk was bracing, the coffee and cake afterwards very welcome and I am about to have 40 winks before night shift tonight!...

This on line diary is knicker wetting in it's excitement!!!....

Iron Lady

There is a scene in the film The Iron Lady

where the Conservative party spin doctors give Maggie Thatcher's budding Prime Minister a style make over in order to boost her popularity amongst the electorate and her party. What they should have employed even then, was a budding actress called Meryl Steep, for it is her performance in this story of Lady Thatcher's Journey through dementia, that gives the former Prime Minister, substance, heart, a certain likability and indeed soul.
She would have made a cracking style guru!

It is clearly one of Streep's best performances to date.

The story outlines Thatcher's twilight years, where the fading Maggie is virtually under house arrest with only the ghost of husband Denis ( a fabulous Jim Broadbent) for company. Through flashbacks, the increasing confused Thatcher surveys her political career from its early days in her Grantham Grocers shop to her resignation from number 10, and in between we touch upon the Miner's strike, The Falklands Conflict and even Thatcher's famous waltz with President Reagan

However, for me, those parts of the film proved to be far less interesting than the film's real message, and that is the heartbreaking and dreadfully moving story of a woman dealing with grief and coping with dementia, and it is in this portrayal that Streep is so good. She gives her character a cunning, guile, balancing out Thatcher's vagueness with flashes of clever confabulation and steely resolve. (The scene when Thatcher outwits her patronising psychiatrist  is a real stand out)....it is a lovely,intelligent and impressive Oscar worthy performance

8/10

Off to work tonight.....
BTW I have placed Rooster Cogburn   in his own run with ( of all hens ) Vinegar Tits, who has been a bit under the weather recently....... when I last checked on them both were sharing a bowl of corn! ( cue smiles all round)

Everyone's so well behaved Nowadays

The weather is atrocious.

I managed my daily power walk with only two of the dogs this morning. Mabel, taking in one long somber look at the driving rain and ever-so-slowly crept back to her place on the kitchen sofa...not to be moved.

The cottage has felt damp and cold, thanks to the smell of damp dog and wet coats, so I have lit the fire early and have switched the lamps on in the living room to create the illusion that it is actually daylight outside.

The University lecturer that contacted me about the blind animal farm rooster, Frodo will be driving over from Shropshire to deliver him later today. I don't envy her the journey, it is a day to hide away in the dry warmth of indoors.

So, for a couple of hours this morning, I busied myself sorting through some old files and papers for burning and for throwing out. As I mooched through the rubbish I found an old report card of mine from when I was a student nurse at an old Psychiatric hospital back in the early 80s.

The assessment was a good one, generally all of my reports were,  for as a student, I was keen,conscientious and eager to please.

The report was filled in by an old lag of a charge nurse, who never once left his office in the whole eight week placement I had on his ward. He was in fact a knowledgeable and charming elderly Scotsman, who loved his whiskey more than he loved his wife and although his philosophy of psychiatric care was, shall we say, hardly cutting edge, he commanded a quiet respect from many long term patients who remembered him as a young man within the care system.

During the day, he would often disappear into locked bathroom at the back of the old ward to complete "paperwork", which, the patients would quietly explain away to me as his quality time with a home brew kit...

As a student, it never crossed my mind to report this old soak for such unprofessional behaviour, behaviour that would figure more on Fleet Street than in an nhs hospital

These characters do not exist anymore, I suspect even in the dark recesses of Fleet street . Badly behaved and colourful old dinosaurs that act badly and by the seat of their pants no longer have a place in industry and the workplace and it is not surprising that Policy development, whistle blowing, HR and performance reviews have all but culled them all off in this age of professionalism and technology.

I guess it is all for the best... but some of me kind of misses the mavericks and the Rooster Cogburn's of this world.....

Mind you......... I have just seem the Red Faced Welsh Farmer shoot past the cottage with a jaunty wave and I realise that in some very small pockets of this land Rooster Cogburn's still are very much alive and kicking

And speaking of characters Frodo has just arrived

and he is a bit of an old sweetie.........blind as a bat and tame as a lamb he sat comfortably on my lap after arriving as I gave him the obligatory health check and once over.

I know he's a lame duck....I know he has no use to me or the gate post... but some space in a small coop and a handful of food a day isn't too much to ask to give him a country retirement is it?

Frodo -Blind as a bat but full of personality... perhaps I should rename him Rooster Cogburn ?

Coincidence

This morning I remembered the oddest thing, a coincidence that really made me sit up and question how strangely things can turn out when you arn't "looking", so to speak.

In 1986, when I lived in York I briefly dated a general nurse called Fiona. Our relationship was basically platonic in nature, but it was all very intense and "serious" given the fact that at the time both of us were....well......very intense and serious people, she more than I , as I recall

Finlay

Of course both of us went our own ways in life, so you can probably imagine the surprise I felt  when I was driving through Crooksmoor , a scruffy suburb of Sheffield some 18 years later when I saw her pushing a pram down a tree lined avenue.

I stopped the car and got out with my dog on his lead, and we walked over to say hello.

It was lovely to see her again. Apparently she had worked as an alternative therapist all over the world, met her husband in Italy and had helped open a restaurant with him not two miles from where we lived in Hillsborough.

A small world eh?

On the spur of the moment we went for a coffee at a student cafe nearby and as we shared gossip, she showed me her son who was fast asleep in his pram.

"what's his name" I asked

"Finlay.." she said " but we all call him Fin"

I had to laugh a little......and I picked up the Welsh Terrier who was sat at my feet

"Meet my son", I told her

"What's his name? " Fiona asked

"Finlay" I said with a smile

Hippo Comment

 One of the better comments to my blog ( see previous entry)
Thanks Hippo

Pryvit

I Vladimir from Ukraine.

Why you compare small, small farm in tiny country with village in Ukraine? You been Ukraine? You ever come her, drink Slavutych (won gold medals, you won gold medals?) you seen Ukrainian chicken? You visit Ukrainian farm? We Ukraine, we say bad thing Wale farm? Why say bad thing Ukraine?

I spit on your chicken, Ptooh!!

You name place. I bring Ukrainian chicken, he kick shit out your chicken

Then I give Salvutych and we drink. In morning you stop nasty about Ukraine. Ukraine much bigger than Wale, Gregoriev say Wale men only Irish men who no swim. All Ukranian man swim, I show you when I bring chicken. When my chicken kill your chicken we swim Ireland, drink Irish Salvutych and swim back. Then I show you how build real house for chicken.

I read your blog, I think you nice man but stupid, You do work for woman, feed animal. You need Babushka. Mebbe I bring Babushka for you, no? She good. Beat her in morning she work hard and sleep with chicken when snow come and fry kovbasa in morning for you made from pigs you kill. All Ukrainian man like kill pig. If you no like kill, Babushka do it.

Do pobachennya
Vladimir
Kiev