Pastures New

This morning I recieved an email from a smallholder from Gwynedd . He told me that Camilla Parker Bowles and her " sisters" were doing very well indeed.
The email was a welcomed one, but it did twang the heart strings just a little.

Several weeks ago the geese left the Ukrainian village for pastures new.
I didn't blog about this fact , for it was rather a sad time.

It was a hard decision to make, but with the hens' removal to the safety of barn life and under the shadow of avian flu I finally made the decision that the geese had to be found a new home.
And I wanted total control over this change.
This year I retire from work. The Prof's work could and probably will change to pastures new and we also have the opportunity to travel a little more, and so I wanted the girls on a farm with care 24/7.
I " interviewed" several interested parties and eventually chose a small holder from the back-and-beyond in deepest Wales. He is an interesting character as he is good with animals and fairly poor with people.
He was also as poor as a church mouse,as it was evident that his income went on animal care and not designer clothing!
It was this quiet dedication that allowed me to make that final decision.
Now Camilla has the space to fly without risks of crash landing on the nearest bin lorry. The group now have a safe haven with a pond and a new owner who only leaves the farm to to the weeks' shopping.

I still miss the geese but I am so happy they are settled in their new home.
Was it actually seven years ago when they arrived?

The Walking Dead Season 7 Eps10

Relationships don't last too long in The Walking Dead ask Maggie, Sasha and Rosita if you don't believe me! Rick has been with Michonne just one series now and the " boys" Aaron and Eric seem to be hanging on in there but everyone else seems to be suffering from Walking Dead Widow syndrome.
Everyone but Carol and Daryl.
These fractured characters have been friends since the close of season 1, and it was an absolute joy for the series audience to see them reunited in tonight's episode.
Carol and Daryl are the heart of team Rick. They are both victims of  domestic abuse, but have blossomed in this dangerous new world and although still very much  damaged goods, their vulnerabilities have propelled them into two of the most cherished characters in the entire show
Tonight when Daryl, the borderline Aspergers warns off Richard with the words
 " if she ever gets hurt...she dies....she catches a fever....gets taken out by a walker....gets hit by lightening...anything...anything....happens to her...and I'll kill you."
It brought a lump to my throat!
The Walking Dead needs such characters.
Without them, it's just a gore fest.

Looking Like Shite

I do so try to explain to the Prof about the toll shift work takes on a soul
Yesterday was a case in point.
I finished a night shift (7.30 pm to 8.15 am ) then came home..slept from 9 am to midday then was woken up by a bowl of fish pie! ( which was bloody lovely btw) I then took the dogs out then went to Conwy for a drink and a read of the papers in a lovely real ale pub we found recently......the Prof had a few pints of real ale.....I had two strong coffees and Mary had a packet of crisps!  Great to find a dog friendly pub........as we sat in the snug with a group of Liverpudlian hikers , I tried to explain that If I woke the Prof up at 1am and took him out to a night club , he too would feel and look like this....
He just doesnt get it!
Fucking rough! ......roll on retirement

She loves me so

Shit Bags

Tom will like this....
It's about dog shit.

I don't feel neighbourly today. I'm tired.
Sure I was  friendly to Rowenna when she complained that the church bin had not been emptied,,( but she is so sweet that it didnt take much effort) but when a certain hatchet face old prune screamed at me when winnie was mid dump on an expense of badly kept lawn outside her council owned property I was ready for a fight albeit a velvet glove sort of fight.
I was just about to scoop the offending turd up into a bag when the old fart yelled out
" get that dog off that grass!" 
Now..I know it was more out of devilment rather than maliciousness  but I turned to the woman, smiled a sweet smile and said in a polite yet firm tone
"NO!" 
This kind of attitude drives em bananas! 
As I tied up the 2 lb poo and plonked it into my pocket, she started again, though there was noticeably less aggression in her voice
" I'll ring the council!" She called
I smiled again
" You do that!" I trilled sweetly
"I will " she shouted 
" Good" I replied.
Yes it was all rather juvenile but I couldn't help myself.
" and when your at it, get them to cut your grass"
The woman " harrumphed" as we moved on watching me carefully over folded arms.
I could have then kissed George with a big sloppy Scottish terrier kiss,
For as he  jauntily trotted up behind us ( he is off his lead at this particular part of our constitutional) he  stopped briefly at a stone animal which decorated this woman's path and without prompting loudly pissed on it!

Night shift again

Photograhed as she contemplated life this evening

kitchen Sink News

Yesterday I recieved an email from one of the community council members.
He asked me to post it on today's blog in order to raise awareness of the event.
I agreed

Hi John, Great blog entry today - I nearly wept over my laptop. It always breaks me up.

On a different issue, as I know many in the village follow your blog, and only if you feel it appropriate, could you plug the drop ins for discussing community transport .

"Community transport drop in events 22/02/17 - 4.30pm-5.30pmGwaenysgor Village Hall and 24/02/17 - 4.30pm-5.30pmTrelawnyd Memorial Hall"

The Community Council have arranged them with FCC

With the declining public transport in our area we need to do something on a community basis and I was hoping to get as many people there as we can to discuss what we can do.

Thanks John - if you feel it inappropriate then I will not feel offended.

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

Bring Him Home

This blog should be viewed after the proceeding one if that makes sense.

Bear with me....if you follow my instructions, it will make sense.

Seventy people more or less filled St Michael's Church for Colin Endres' memorial service. Seventy people is not a bad turn out for someone in their mid eighties I thought.

Every pew was filled.

Sailor John and Mandy, Animal Helper Pat and her daughter Joanne, Farmer Basil, Jenny the former postmistress, old Trevor, Sheep man Graham, the head of the community council, and a score of old faces sat at the back of the Church as the family took the front pews.

Gaynor, the mad organist looked natty in her checked jacket.

The vicar looked traditional in his long frock. 

It was a nice service. 

The funeral usher came from Denbigh and was a practised baritone. He provided a spirited descant to the chorus of Calon Lan.

After  the service, Yola, Colin's wife took her time to process down the aisle and as we sat there, Gaynor switched on a recording of Bring Him Home from Les Miserables.

I suspect that the recording was this  version, and although it is said to be a common song to be played at a funeral, It was the first time I had heard it at such a service. 

As the elderly and strong voices from the village choir filled the church, many in the congregation bowed their heads with the sudden emotion of it all.

Butterscotch Angel Delight

After a somewhat energetic appointment with a dental hygienist , I called into the Mcdonald's drive through for a coffee. It was mid morning.
On impulse, while my coffee cooled I drove up past the Monastery at Pantasaph and pulled up outside Auntie Glad's nursing home.
The new manager met me at the door and shook my hand formally. She wanted to know who I was.
She asked me to wait as she thought Gladys was having a lie in after being somewhat poorly.
I waited in the small dining room, where one deminuative resident eyed me carefully from her wheelchair.
" who are you here to see?" She croaked
" Gladys Jones" I replied
" Her room is next to mine", she told me " She's had a wee infection!"
" oh dear" I said smiling weakly.
The manager appeared and told me that Gladys would recieve me in her room.
I didn't stay too long, for Gladys was slightly vague and tired but she recognized  me and sounded like her old self when I informed her there was a funeral in the village this afternoon.
" Mr Endres' funeral !"
Mr Endres had helped run his wife Yola's family shop for many years
Now the Welsh love a good funeral and Gladys is no different in that respect and immediately she was giving thought to what she would wear for the service, plans I managed to divert with some more chatter about the Flower Show committee and Gay Gordon's recent death.
I even toyed with the idea that I may take her to funeral myself, but thought against it as she was not quite well enough.
Next time, I thought, if permission was granted

As I left , I smiled at the woman in the wheelchair, who was now sat at the lunchtable.
She smiled back showing a wide expanse of gums
" We're having butterscotch angel delight for pudding today" she told me

Favourite Quote

" You have a merry heart!"

" Yea, my lord, I thank it......poor fool
    It keeps on the windy side of care"



What's yours?

A Little Post About Lurve!

Valentines day....PAH!

I popped into Sainsburys yesterday, to get neighbour Trevor a chicken dinner and a paper. You couldn't move for men pawing carefully over buckets of flowers.
It wasn't much of an uplifting spectacle.
I'm not an  overly romantic animal. I find large romantic gestures somewhat cloying!
Does that surprise you?
Answers on a postcard please!

I had only two serious " boyfriends" before the Professor came along. I did however kiss quite a few frogs in the search for Mr Right but that was a long time ago in a country far far away.
There were no Mr Right's before the Professor......Mr Self Obsessed certainly, Mr Straight acting too and surprisingly Mr Getting-married-to-a-woman ....oh and lets not forget Mr Charmless, Mr Bad Breath Mr Strange Sex and Mr Mommy Lover.....like I said ......I kissed a few frogs
Before all that I did date a few women, two of which I am still friends with today.
Dating women may not have been fully satisfying but it was more civilized I always thought

However, despite my lack of a romantic personality, I must say something here
The Prof and I were married two years ago next month and my wedding day was the best day of my life.
It was the best thing I ever did!
Hey ho..there....I have said it!

I'll leave you with this tiny animation I made last Spring....it has nothing to do with Valentine's but it has everything to do with lurve
It shows an old Welsh Terrier chasing bees in our back garden

The Walking Dead Returns!

The lovely Jesus

Mondays are now back to normal.
The Walking Dead has returned for the next two months or so!
Finally "team Rick" is more or less back together.
Carol is still been relegated to the shack in the woods, but her absence  has made space for the new characters of Jesus ( Tom Payne) Ezekiel ( Khary Payton) and others  to get some sort of foothold amid the two dozen characters that now need to be juggled within the Saviour threat
narrative.
It's interesting to note that Jesus is reported to be another gay character.
That makes four gays in " team rick" !!!!
perhaps homos do well in zombie apocalypses?

The strength of The Walking Dead lies in the " The community against the world" storyline. 
Thank goodness we are now getting back to the formula that has always served the series so well over the years. 

Image

I think I need a new image.

At the Baftas I noticed that Dev Patel had gone all floppy haired and informal which apparently sent the women ( and many of the men) in the room wild with desire. 

Eddie Redmayne donned a white tux and looked very 1950s and even Steven Fry, who usually looks like a bag of coal in a suit , scrubbed up well enough to lead the charge against Trump's references to the overrated Meryl Streep.
The Prof has a new twitter profile photo. ( see above)
It shrieks professional & Individual 
If I had one there would be a gravy stain on the shirt and egg in my beard.
Unprofessional & Individual 

It's time to change!
And so......Before I take neighbour Trevor to the doctor's surgery this morning I 've made an effort...it's the turning of a new leaf!
I've washed my face and combed my hair! I've put on clean jeans and a jumper spring fresh from airing on the bathroom radiator. I've brushed my teeth and have put shoes on instead of my crocs with the holes in the sole
And feeling fairly dapper strode out to get myself a coffee from the kitchen

.....and promptly stood in a pile of George's bile sick lurking by the fridge

Hanging Up My Stethoscope!

My work retirement documentation arrived in the post yesterday.
There is a whole booklet of things to complete....it's bureaucracy overload!

I aim to leave intensive Care around my birthday which is in June.
By then I would have been a nurse over 35 years!
35 years!
Bugger Me!

Recently a colleague asked me if there was much difference between the nursing of today and that of thirty years ago, and Without much pause, I said no
Caring is caring whatever the decade.

What has changed is the system itself. Pressure on the system by increased demand. Pressure on the system by more complex care needs and pressure on the system by patients who are living longer and who are expecting more.
The system is now dominated by quality control measures, audits, specialist managers and all of the paperwork that goes along with ticking a box. The nhs monster is so big that great swathes of the supportive services have been contracted out and balancing the books will now never be a possibility no matter what Hospital Trust you work for.

Like I said the caring  part of nursing hasn't changed.
But almost everything else has.

I was a good ward manager and dare I say a very effective rehabilitation nurse that often ran things by the seat of my pants. Now I am a safe intensive care nurse, but I can see that the management side of nursing has become harder and harder. The burn out of senior staff is a sobering fact of modern day nursing life......nursing management is more fire fighting now, fire fighting and juggling!

After I retire, I still intend to nurse occassionally. After all I will be 55 and not ready to fully hang up my stethoscope for eternity! But it will be nice to officially leave a system that asks so much of
you...

Mini Drama

A pretty little tabby is presently sat on our coal bunker making moo moo eyes at Albert .
Like any lazy and pragmatic fellow , Albert is sat on the kitchen windowsill , next to his feed bowl.
He is warm and comfortable and surprisingly is looking at the sad stranger in a rather benign way
The tabby looks cold.
I took her out some food as she is meowing in a needy way.
William is watching proceedings through the cat flap with his one good eye.
The Prof has already gone to bed with George.
Winnie is warming her nipples by the fire
Mary, as usual is with me in the arm chair, she too is asleep.

So the little Mexican standoff remains largely unwitnessed.

I'm watching The Bourne Ultimatum on tv.
Jason Bourne is walking quickly through the city

In the ad break I put more food out for the tabby.....she is very  hungry
Albert is still on the window ledge pretending he's asleep.

Who says nothing happens here on a Saturday night

Top Shelf

Written last night 20.30 pmI am writing this at Manchester airport.....Terminal 1 ......the arrival hall.
The Prof's plane is late
I've just been told off by the woman in charge of WH SMITH for pulling all of the zombie magazines  onto the floor when reaching for an old Walking Dead magazine.
It could have been worse.....it could have been the porn shelf!
I got all in a fluster and broke wind rather loudly during the scrabble to pick everything up
Apart from this......,
I've had a lovely day.
A Non stop catch up with old friend Cheryl over three hours of lunch in a nice restaurant in Chester was so therapeutic, literally as my old mate is now a much talented psychotherapist!
We've both done a great deal in two decades!
It was lovely to touch base again
Hey ho 

28 Years Later

I am having lunch with an old friend this afternoon.
We have not seen each other for twenty eight years.
I had just started my first staff nurse posting at the Mother and Baby unit at Bootham Park Psychiatric Hospital in York and Cheryl was a student nurse.
She lived down the corridor at the nurses home.
I'm a little nervous in one way about meeting up.
I am not that svelte gauche unopinionated  character that I used to be
Hey ho

Sending a dear friend and fellow blogger -Weaver

A group hug tonight 

Don't Like It?...don't read it.

Over the past couple of years, blogland has experienced it's own number of trolls.
Now thankfully the true anonymous nasty buggers that cause real mischief are thankfully rather thin on the ground, but there are certain characters who seem to delight in  popping into a thread in order to hurt, ridicule or impart anger and bad feeling.
I've seen this recently on a popular blog that I follow
Now don't get me wrong, being devil's advocate about a subject, or having an alternative view is vital for bloglands cogs to be well and truly oiled, for there is nothing worse than a blind acquiescence to a much sweated over blog entry.
It has all of the real validation of a husband's tired remark of " No you look lovely" when confronted by his wife's constant moan of " Does my bum look big in this? " 
Balanced arguement and debate is king and gentle Micky taking and joshing is entertaining to read and participate in but when things become personal and destructive...it's time to grow up.
I've always say the same thing when I have a follower who becomes destructive.
" If you don't enjoy reading this shit ( regardless of whether you agree or not with the content) then DON'T READ IT" 
Plain and simple

"Goodbye Flower"

Mrs James rang me this morning with the sad news that Gay Gordon had passed away.
" He died quietly in his sleep" she said , the irony plain in her voice.
Gay Gordon, as we all know, never did anything quietly.
The village will miss the old motor mouth, famous for booming " HELLO FLOWER" at every turn and for pouring a whole bottle of brandy into a gigantic fruit cake, so big that it had to be transferred to the Flower Show tea tables via invalid trolley.
Gay Gordon was  not gay, but he was as camp as a row of tents and by all accounts he was a bit of a lady's man before ill health and good living took its toll but despite everything he remained resolutely cheerful albeit in a fey Brian Blessed kind of way in his final years with Big Mary over in the pensioner bungalows in Trelawnyd.

I called in with a card for Big Mary, though she can clearly no longer be called " big Mary" anymore given the amount of weight she has lost over the past year. She was understandably tearful and upset but managed a laugh at the card inscription.
Trelawnyd will be a dull place without him 

Riding into his final sunset

Gay Gordon and his invalid trolley

RIP