Apples

 

Saturday morning and I’m approaching the end of my second night shift.

It’s been a busy enough night for the thirty something support worker to be tired.

I look like a slapped arse

No sleep for me until late morning as I’m helping out Debbie ( my flower show judge) to mark the “apple” classes (?)

There is a cold nip in the air and the skies all week, have featured that weak watery blue of winter.

Horsewomen walking down Trelawnyd high street this week

An Apple press that could be used by visitors

My fellow apple pie judge  Debbie

Affable despot jason , Gill from choir, Animal helper Pat, velvet voiced Linda, Village leaders Ian and Helen, Boffin Cameron , Glam Malinka Levey, , everyone seemed to be there sipping gin and or cider or helping and talking. I sat with Roger at a table and ate my lunch/ breakfast, he was beautifully behaved and so I bought him and Mary a dog bandana each 

Funny Old Day

 

I had planned to meet my friend Colin for lunch in Chester today but I felt all out of sorts as soon as I got back from morning walks. 

He’s an understanding soul with as much gay drama in him as an empty theatre, so we rescheduled and after avocados on bagels and ordering Nu some flowers as she has finally moved into her new house , uncharacteristically I went back to bed.

Perhaps it was the fact that I needed that duvet cocoon 

Or simply more sleep. 

I woke at three after dreaming vivid dreams and it was raining and Misty and cold.

The dogs had been patient so I took them to the beach, where the cold rain stung our eyes and woke me up sufficiently enough for me to feel hungry

I bought a large fish pie on the way home, the sort that taste better than they look.

It’s in the oven now.

It’s been a funny old day

Tell us the one about………

 My grandmother was a storyteller.

She filled our childhood with a dozen or so stories, all repeated at our request during bouts of ironing and cake making.

Hearing these tales repeated was just as much fun as hearing them for the very first time 

The anticipation of a punchline, or the denouement of daring wartime adventure was a delicious thing to children who grew up in a sad house. 

And we gulped up the repeats with gusto.

I’ve repeated this story 4 times now and always just before Christmas

I think it’s worth repeating every year, and I won’t apologise for its appearance here again

Christmas 1985

Christmas week 1985 I was  shadowing a community psychiatric nursing sister with her caseload in the deprived and depressing northern town of Runcorn.
Through a succession of faceless maisonettes, we sat on grubby sofas and listened to  sad stories of loneliness, mental illness and substance abuse and I watched as my mentor tried her best to keep heads above water and bums out of the local psychiatric unit.
The last visit of the day was to a woman called Jean.
Jean lived alone in the top of a ten story complex. She had suffered from severe mental health problems for forty years and had recently been placed in her home from long term psychiatric care only a few months before.
I remember her flat very well. There was no carpet in the hall and the living room but there was a tiny white tinsel Christmas tree standing on top of a large black and white tv.  A homemade fabric stocking was hung on the fire surround and just two Christmas cards  were perched on the mantle.
( one of those cards having been sent by my colleague) The flat was sparse but incredibly clean and it was evident that Jean had been waiting for our visit all day.
In mismatching cups we were offered coffee with powdered milk and a single mince pie served on a paper plate and I remember sharing a sad glance with the nurse when Jean presented us both with gifts hastily wrapped in cheap Christmas paper. My gift was two placemats with photos of cats on them. The nurse received a small yellow vase, and I remember Jean beaming with delight when we both thanked her effusively for her kindness. 
When we washed up our own cups, the nurse quietly checked the fridge, noting that several of the shelves were empty . There was a calender on the wall with the note " NURSE COMES TODAY" written on that day's date. Nothing else was written on it until the week of new year's eve, where the same sentence was written.
It was the very first time that I had experienced someone who was so totally isolated in a community setting and it shocked me to the core.

I listened as the nurse talked about medication, as  I waited patiently and when she took Jean into the bedroom to administer a regular injection I noticed a carrier bag which the nurse had tucked away by the side of the arm chair shortly after we arrived. In it was a package of cold meat, milk , bread and what looked like chocolates and a cake.
Before we left, we let Jean monopolize her only conversation of the week and as she retrieved our coats, I watched and grew a few years older as the nurse silently slipped a five pound note behind one of the cards on the mantle.

Breaking Bread

My counselling besties Caroline and Donna 

There’s a lot to be said for meals out with loved ones.

Monday my family met up for a barbecue  for my brother in law ‘s birthday, 

relaxed, funny and chatty.

I loved it.

And yesterday I met a friend for breakfast which proved to be a gossip and laugh over sausage sandwiches and great coffee.

Great fun.

Last night I met up with my counselling friends at Pen y Bryn in Colwyn Bay and three hours around a table of food which included wild boar apple  pie and gravy to die for, shot past in an instant. 

We start our course in a month and all have felt mutually supported before the challenge starts …it’s nice to have our clique in place.

Im also pleased that my idea of a group get together means that the  numerous members of the Trelawnyd Community Association are getting together for a curry night inside the hall in a few weeks time. 

I thought we deserved some down time , using the hall as a venue , just for us….

Bring your own booze…..I intend to weave my way home late that night……

There is something fundamental about breaking bread together. Sitting with those you love and like, with food and drink and talking and laughing and telling stories.

No phones, no tv, no other distractions . 

Just gossip, and chatter, and sharing the odd morsel 

Around a table 

Face to face

At The Movies

 

My problem with me is that I often want to see life as a movie.

I have always been the same.

Ever since I was a little boy and Shelley Winters got stuck up that Christmas Tree in The Poseidon Adventure.

Like Shelley, things were always larger than life.

I’ve joined an LGBT+ reading club in Chester, and the organise Alison has confirmed my application with a sweet email but I know that there is a part of me that is expecting the first meeting to be a little like The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, what with Dawsey Adam’s hole filled jumper and Isola Pribby’s sweetly dotty spinster.

Of course it won’t be, but I know that

I get it.

Certain scenes in my life do have a cinematic resonance to them. 

And we all experience these, do we not?

Dancing on the roof of Weston Park Hospital with friends one night in 1990 would have made a delightful vignette for any coming of age movie staring Molly Ringwold and John Cusack.

Christmas Morning 2002 when me, The Prof and two dogs climbed all over each other in a hug fest that told me I had my own family for the first time in my life could have graced James L Brooks’ Terms of Endearment .and My Grandmother calling out “ My Poor Poor Boy “ when she saw his coffin in Church would have sent an icy chill over any audience watching Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice.

The film clips stand. But life isn’t a movie.

We plod along

Today nurses will strike in Wales for the first time in welsh history

The postmen have already marched out and the rail drivers will go next week. 

It’s all a bit serious, but at least I can smile as Mrs Trellis’s erect bobble hat can muster a few laughs aka Mrs Pumphrey  in All Creatures Great And Small

Reality lies , as it always seems to do, between the too worlds . 

The ordinary and the cinematic 

My meatballs looked lovely but were hard as bullets

Albert peed on the carpet for the third time yesterday morning

And I did get a distinction for my first assignment, feedback lying somewhere in Google classroom.

Hey ho

Ruth

 

My old friend Ruth is down from Findhorn in Scotland 

I made a huge Cottage Pie which we ate with red wine, green beans  and Crusty bread and 5 hours of solid conversation

We had almost finished and caught up on messenger with our mucker Ben in South Korea before bed 

It’s nice to have her back 

 

Campaign Against Living Miserably

 

This Christmas will be the first one ever I will not be sending any Christmas Cards.

The posting cost is far too prohibitive.

After much thought I will make a donation to CALM which is a charity against living miserably 

And this remembered old blog is the reason why( it is often posted this time of year)

Christmas 1985

Christmas week 1985 I was  shadowing a community psychiatric nursing sister with her caseload in a deprived and depressing northern town

Through a succession of faceless maisonettes, we sat on grubby sofas and listened to  sad stories of loneliness, mental illness and substance abuse and I watched as my mentor tried her best to keep heads above water and bums out of the local psychiatric unit.

The last visit of the day was to a woman I shall call Jean.

Jean lived alone in the top flat of a ten story complex. She had suffered from severe mental health problems for forty years and had recently been placed in her flat from long term psychiatric care only a few months before.

I remember her flat very well. There was no carpet in the hall and the living room but there was a tiny tinsel Christmas tree standing on top of a large black and white tv.  A homemade fabric stocking was hung on the fire surround and just two Christmas cards  were perched on the mantle.

( one of those cards having been sent by my colleague) The flat was sparse but incredibly clean and it was evident that Jean had been waiting for our visit all day.

In mismatching cups we were offered coffee with powdered milk and a single mince pie served on a paper plate and I remember sharing a sad glance with the nurse when Jean presented us both with gifts hastily wrapped in cheap Christmas paper. My gift was two placemats with photos of cats on them. The nurse received a small yellow vase, and I remember Jean beaming with delight when we both thanked her effusively for her kindness. 

When we washed up our own cups, the nurse quietly checked the fridge, noting that most of the shelves were empty . There was a calender on the wall with the note " NURSE COMES TODAY" written on that day's date. Nothing else was written on it until the week of new year's eve, where the same sentence was written.

It was the very first time that I had experienced someone who was so totally isolated in a community setting and it shocked and saddened me.

I listened as the nurse talked about medication, and as  I waited patiently when she took Jean into the bedroom to administer a regular injection I noticed a carrier bag which the nurse had tucked away by the side of the arm chair shortly after we arrived. In it was a package of cold meat, and what looked like chocolates and a cake.

Before we left, we let Jean monopolize her only conversation of the week and as she retrieved our coats, I watched and grew a few years older as the nurse silently slipped a five pound note behind one of the cards on the mantle.

Rainy Day

 Dreadful weather today. Torrential rain 

Three dogs on the couch day 

Watched Amélie, Airport 77 and ate fish pie

Buggery Bollocks

 I’m writing this at work.

No I wasn’t expecting to work last tonight either! 

I arranged to meet up with a friend and make supper, so as the fish pie was browning nicely in the oven and a nice white was chilling in the fridge I was surprised by a phone call from work .

I failed to notice it was at 7.30 pm, the start time for night duty .

A month ago I have volunteered to cover a night duty without a second R./N on duty

I’d totally forgotten about it

Supper wasn’t scheduled until 8 pm so I did the dash of shame , dropped off the wine and dinner at my guest’s house with profuse apologies before driving to work a good hour and a half late.

Bollocks, bugger bollocks 

Any dinner party disasters out there? 

Men Friends

Yesterday my friend Colin collected me from the cottage and we went to lunch 

We had a lovely long chat over celeriac soup which was drizzled over goats cheese and walnuts and put the world to rights over steak pie and poached haddock and poached egg

Now in my late fifties I’ve cultivated more male friends than I ever used to possess.

And more male  gay friends which may be a surprising fact for some. 

For years my only gay friend was Nigel, who is still my go to when I want an objective, occasionally waspish and totally honest opinion about something. 

Now I am single, I have a few more.

Chaps that understand more of the nuances of the gay world later in life.

My straight male friends have increased in number too, a fact I love too. 

Over the past decade sexuality seems to mean less in male friendships than it ever used to be

I applaud  that fact so very much.

I’m planning a visit to Sheffield soon and one completely necessary friend catch up will be with Mike, a friend of thirty three years.

Now Mike is a true Yorkshireman 

He’s a Straighter than straight, blokey, butch, football fan Yorkshireman .

and sounds like an extra from the film Kes

And in the 1990s I came out to him while we were drinking pints at the Dog And Partridge on Trippit Lane . 

When I nervously told him I was gay , he took a measured sip of his bitter

smiled lugubriously and said carefully

“Does this mean that I have to go to gay bars occasionally ?” 

“Only occasionally “ I told him 

He nodded and replied quietly  “ I can do that” 

Worth Repeating

 

Christmas stories are always worth repeating its one of the traditions of the season

Enjoy this one 

Christmas 1985

Christmas week 1985 I was  shadowing a community psychiatric nursing sister with her caseload in the deprived and depressing northern town of Runcorn.
Through a succession of faceless maisonettes, we sat on grubby sofas and listened to  sad stories of loneliness, mental illness and substance abuse and I watched as my mentor tried her best to keep heads above water and bums out of the local psychiatric unit.
The last visit of the day was to a woman called Jean.
Jean lived alone in the top flat of a ten story complex. She had suffered from severe mental health problems for forty years and had recently been placed in her flat from long term psychiatric care only a few months before.
I remember her flat very well. There was no carpet in the hall and the living room but there was a tiny tinsel Christmas tree standing on top of a large black and white tv.  A homemade fabric stocking was hung on the fire surround and just two Christmas cards  were perched on the mantle.
( one of those cards having been sent by my colleague) The flat was sparse but incredibly clean and it was evident that Jean had been waiting for our visit all day.
In mismatching cups we were offered coffee with powdered milk and a single mince pie served on a paper plate and I remember sharing a sad glance with the nurse when Jean presented us both with gifts hastily wrapped in cheap Christmas paper. My gift was two placemats with photos of cats on them. The nurse received a small yellow vase, and I remember Jean beaming with delight when we both thanked her effusively for her kindness. 
When we washed up our own cups, the nurse quietly checked the fridge, noting that most of the shelves were empty . There was a calender on the wall with the note " NURSE COMES TODAY" written on that day's date. Nothing else was written on it until the week of new year's eve, where the same sentence was written.
It was the very first time that I had experienced someone who was so totally isolated in a community setting and it shocked and saddened me.
I listened as the nurse talked about medication, and as  I waited patiently when she took Jean into the bedroom to administer a regular injection I noticed a carrier bag which the nurse had tucked away by the side of the arm chair shortly after we arrived. In it was a package of cold meat, and what looked like chocolates and a cake.
Before we left, we let Jean monopolize her only conversation of the week and as she retrieved our coats, I watched and grew a few years older as the nurse silently slipped a ten pound note behind one of the cards on the mantle.

Out Patients

 Two pairs of eyes, overlapping surgical masks were looking worried,

A gloved hand was on my shoulder.

“ Sir are you ok? Are you alright? Came from under one of the masks and I noticed that the technician’s eyes were a deep brown with speckles on the iris.

I had dribbled a little on my hospital gown.

Sputum and not wee, thank goodness.

I only noticed that after the fact

I apologised and hurriedly assured the xray staff that I had not arrested as they thought I might of done , but I had fallen asleep in the chair after a long night shift.

Both giggled , more out of relief than humour I thought.

I left the hospital soon after. 

It’s very cold today.

My sister has made me a steak and kidney pie dinner( with starter AND pudding)

Fish Pie

Yesterday my bubble friend Ruth was over.

We ate fish pie ( completed with quarters of hard boiled eggs), drank wine  and watched Amelie 

It was a nice evening. 

Amelie is a movie that only gets better when rewatching . 

It’s film in which it’s editing takes centre stage and where a million visual ideas joint together seamlessly 

I adore it.

Today I’ve bought eggs from Rachel at the village riding stables and have dodged snow showers in favour of cold sunny breaks, then I’ve picked up antibiotics for Mary ( at last my demand for a swab on her ear has yielded a bacterial and not fungal infection as I suspected ) and bought flowers for Trendy Carol who never takes any payment for looking after the girls when I’m at work. 

It’s a no news, bland blogging day today.

I will leave you with this excruciatingly funny clip of  Nick Mohammed
He sings the plot of a film to its score


Enjoy x

The Baking Cupboard

 On Saturday it will be the six year anniversary of the day I got married 

Of all the dates I need to forget , this one is the one I always seem to remember.

The morning of March 6th 2015 was very much like the one we experienced today. It was springlike and warm and sunny. 

Like this morning I was alone in the cottage, drinking coffee at the kitchen table.

Unlike this morning, I had been up and down like a fiddler’s elbow receiving cards and gifts from villagers and friends.

I remember the table being filled with bottles of champagne and boxes with bows and flowers in vases.

Around 11am I spied Auntie Gladys walking carefully down the lane. 

She wore a red woollen coat and looked frail at 95

I met her at the garden wall and she held my hand in greeting

“ I have a wedding gift for you both” she said handing me a hand written card 

I started my usual  you shouldn’t have  type reply which she waved away with a hand

“ Buy yourself something you need but would never usually buy yourself “ she said her watery blue eyes twinkling and I was suddenly moved that this old stalwart of the Church and of traditional values had just embraced her first gay marriage 

“ Thank you for being so kind , Your support means a great deal” I told her and she laughed her usual laugh and pushed her hands into her coat pockets to find a hankie 

“ It’s the law ! “ she said simply and I watched her walk back up the lane, her head to one side as though she was thinking hard.

I felt moved and humbled , as though my grandmother had just visited.

Auntie Glad’s card was traditional  and addressed to us both. Inside was several crisp ten pound notes which I rolled up and placed in the tea caddy on the mantle. 

I forgot the money until weeks later, when it was almost summer.

Back then I was planning for my beloved new kitchen and so fantasised about things I wanted to make it the best of all I had owned. Having my own baking cupboard was on my to do list.

And so, with the help of Auntie Glad’s money, I prepared for one.

I bought loaf tins and flan dishes and an old fashioned black bird with its mouth open to sit inside a steaming pie so that the pastry would not get soggy. 

I bought cake tins and a flour shaker and storage tins full of grease roof paper, food colouring and vintage Christmas cake decorations alongside vintage wooden spoons and a mixing bowl with blue embossed sides like the one my mother used to have.

Any I hid all of the bits and bobs away until the IKEA workmen had put in the kitchen, only bringing them out from their hiding place to fill my baking cupboard . The one nearest to the lane window , where the light is best to roll pastry and to kneed dough.

Today after night shift I was in my baking cupboard yet again, retrieving the ingredients to make sourdough bread  and as I kneeded the dough I remembered the day Auntie Gladys brought me a wedding present .......and continued to be a bit of a hero .

The baking Cupboard Today

Rhymes

 I had a dream about my grandmother last night.

She was reciting a rhyme, one that she taught me as a child.

When I woke I remembered it, in its entirety 

Has anyone heard this before? 

I went to my grandmother's garden

I went to my grandmother's garden,

and I found an Irish Farthing,

I gave it to my mother,

who bought a little brother,

The brother was so cross,

We put him on a hoss,

the horse was such a dandy,

we gave him a glass of brandy,

the brandy was too strong,

we put it in a pond,

the pond was too deep,

we put it on a heap,

the heap was too high,

we put it in a pie,

the pie was too little ,

we put it in a kettle,

the kettle had a spout ,

and they all jumped out! 

What rhyme do you remember?

While I remember my fraternal grandmother used to sing this 

An All About Eve Night

I’ve always been a “ looker afterer” 

That’s the nearest I can find for an accurate description of myself 

I’ve never been happier than when I cook, feed  and nurture someone.

By doing so

I nurture myself .

Yesterday I caught up with my covid bubble friend Ruth

She has had a bloody awful time recently and so I thought quick sticks that a night in together was the order of the day.

It was a simple evening to organise for her..... 

A massive cottage pie with thick gravy flavoured with garlic and cranberry jelly

2 glasses of red

Mary cuddles all night 

And a darkened living room watching All About Eve...a classic she had never seen before.

It was a lovely night.

I say this from my own perspective .

For I knew Ruth felt recharged and enjoyed herself as she said as much taking her leave at 11 pm to sleep in the cottage’s west wing  with Mary tucked firmly under her arm.

Her climbing of the stairs reminded me of when the Prof went to bed with George galloping behind him

That used to please me more than anything .

Cooking for someone who is hurting is a joy. 

Cooking for someone is a joy....I have so missed it.

Tucking someone up on my new couch as if they lived here made me feel good, and their  laughs at Eve’s many one liners reenforced my enjoyment of Bette on her best form.

We are never truly altruistic 

We do things that make ourselves feel good

All about Eve is not just a witty and incisive look at theatre life 

It has a lot to say about long term friendships, friendships I was reminded of as we watched.

Yesterday I video chatted with my friend John from Sheffield 

It was a warm and sweet and loving interaction 

Chic Eleanor texted to sort out a coffee at McDonald’s car park next week 

She sat in her car ......, me sat in mine.a conversation between two open windows 

Darling john it’s been too long she typed 

I so agreed.

If you haven’t watched All About Eve , please do so

Love the one liners, the acting, the clever manipulation of plot and gayness 

But don’t forget the thrust of the story

It’s a really a message of friendships , of recognising and nurturing those friendships and the power of being kind

Fellowship

 Last night was the most Christmasy I have felt, thanks primarily to Storm Bella, a living room full of scented candles and the film The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society 

It’s a lovely film and is one that strangely resonates with our own lives under lockdown.

In the film the Characters are under curfew of the German occupation of Guernsey. 

Isolated from each other and from any cultural fellowship.

Isola Pribby is a lonely spinster waiting for her Heathcliffe to turn up in her life, Amelia Maugery a widow overwhelmed with grief, Eben Ramsey a grandfather and postmaster and Dawsey Adams an isolated pig farmer. 

All are hungry for the spark, a literary society meeting gives them, but more importantly it is the friendships that evolves from that shared experience that proves the most significant for each of them.

The experiences of these film characters, will resonate with many of us in blog land ,for we too are little islands in isolation from others.

All in need of connection, 

To feel a part of something

Blogging is our own Literary society meeting

I’d love to say that I’m a sort of Dawsey Adams , but in reality I’m a bit of an Even Ramsey crossed with a Miss Pribby

Boxing Day

 

I missed the Queen’s Speech. 

Dorothy, Mary and I met up with my sisters and in laws and we had a walk up Craig Fawr which is a limestone hill which overlooks Liverpool Bay.

Afterwards we ate turkey baps with cranberry and pigs in blankets ( a bab is a bread bun to btw) and swapped gifts.  

I was very fortunate as my sisters added a new scatter cushion and some John Lewis cutlery to my collection . 

I now have the ideal number of both! 

I made a gravy filled Shepherds pie, walked the dogs before Storm Bella hits home and

Wrote my blog half watching Calamity Jane 

Later on I will watch Korean zombie movie Peninsula which was another Christmas DVD  Gift, this one from my nephew.

Dorothy watched over me

And will do all day 

Her sadness continues 

“Have Yourself A Merry Little.....”

 

This evening I was asked what is my favourite memory of any Christmas 

What a hard question this is to answer.

I’m feeling rather anti social tonight, and the hospice remains quiet , so I busied myself with some mindless checks of sell by dates of the unit’s drugs, and I thought about specific Christmases of note.

Having a Christmas review, I think, is very much like owning a succession of dogs. Each one has its own personality but there is a tendency of every one merging into each other.

Some stand out for the oddest reasons.

The year my father fell under the Christmas tree in his underpants with one of his more glamorous but equally pissed in laws. 

The year each one of the family had to share some sort of dramatic or comic performance, each one excelling the other.

Lying on a sofa with a partner covered in dogs one sunny and lazy Christmas morning 

Last year listening to a colleague sing silent night with a dying patient at 6 am 

Childhood memories are a collage of 1970s tv, warm prawn cocktails and peanuts in glass bowls that before had been used as ash trays .

A visit to a poor psychiatric patient in their home , which had no carpets but still being offered me a mince pie and a cup of tea

The memories feed off each other and bounce around like poleroid photos in the wind.

I am reminded of a late shift one Christmas Day ( always the most hated) when I was charge Nurse on Osborn 1 at The Princess Royal Spinal Unit in Sheffield

It was dark, perhaps late afternoon and the majority of bed fast patients had many visitors surrounding them ,like musk oxen surrounding their young and weak 

Three African nurses were on duty with me and they were pushing a very drunk and smiling patient on his bed back to the ward from the smoking room .

He was nursing a rather robust looking bottle of port

And true to form, they were singing all in low easy voices......one pushing the bed, one pulling and the other holding tight to the patient’s hand.

Several of the relatives came and stood in the corridor to listen, as I did at my office door as the procession went passed and I cannot hear this song without thinking of the pure humanity of that little moment 

What’s your special Christmas memory ?

Say it loud and other minor thoughts

• I haven’t much to share today, it’s grey and chilly
• I wore shorts when out for a walk with the girls this morning even though it was cold. I have patches of  psoriasis on my knees which I defiantly show off from time to time. 
• I’m working nights until after Christmas, I’m cooking a shepherds pie ready for supper at work tonight 
• My nephew who is 18 and has Aspergers, has just got his first job, I just told him how proud I am of him and I think that’s so important..if you are proud say it loud ....my parents seldom praised me as a kid
• I’ve bathed the dogs, Mary with her anti fungal. Winnie and Dorothy with pears baby shampoo and Winnie has had a rare once over with her fanny flannel....the cottage smells fragrant again
• I’ve just missed an invitation for coffee by Chic Eleanor and with nights now will only be able catch up with next week, it will be refreshing to see her .
• I had my first Christmas cards today one off Sue and the other from a ‘cold and dark Sweden’
• I will leave you with this delightful impersonation of Miss Peggy Lee followed by a Christmas message from Fascinating Aida