Overwhelmed & Grateful

I wanted to tell you a little more about the centre where your donations will be going to.
Samaritans Rhyl is one of the smallest Sam centres in the UK.
It is run solely by volunteers, and last year  in this time of volunteer apathy, we had only some 16 souls that acted as listening volunteers on the phone lines .
Phone lines that had literally doubled in activity due to the introduction of the Sams freephone number 116123
In nearly every assessment we were told that we were consistently punching above our weight, and through hard work our recruitment, training and mentoring teams have literally doubled our listening volunteer numbers in just one year !!!!!
This ongoing development of our service needs support at this crucial time and be assured that
Your donated monies will go directly to Rhyl branch.and really will  make a difference to the service we give our callers.
A reminder ...my donate page can be reached at  ( click on)

https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/johngray1

In just 18 hours you have donated over £ 1500.00 to our little centre, a phenomenal amount !
Thank you so, so very much on behalf of our team, we now hope to raise a fantastic £2000, which will be vital in keeping us going this year....

This morning my fellow conspirator Ann stopped by for  a selfie, she is completing her zip wire in support of Alzheimer's, a charity which is, I know dear to many of you
Her donate page can be seen at

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/ann-malthoff

Hands In Pockets Time

Hello All, 

As you may remember , I am terrified of heights

And so, I am going to squeeze my fat arse into a sleeping bag and I am going to launch myself 

Over the Bethesda Quarry on the Velocity 2 zip line

On September 26th

I am doing this for Charity namely

The Rhyl Samaritans, 

Of which I am deputy director for Caller Care

Please sponsor me 

Give what you can! The money will go directly to our centre and will be used to support the 

Service we give our callers

Donation page 

https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/johngray1

I am zipping with fellow villager Ann Maltoff who will be doing her jump 

In support of Alzheimer's Charity

I will publish her charity link tomorrow  

Pulchritudinous

I couldn't pronounce it let alone understand what it actually meant.
But there it was in black and white
On the blog written by a gay man, I was actually described as Pulchritudinous.
At first I presumed it was a side swipe at my chunky bear outline or even a reference to my overly scabby knees or ruddy outdoor complexion but no, it was , in fact,  a positive remark
I was actually described in a positive if not exaggerated light
But, I was pleased.
And rather flattered.

The Choir

Our choir master is called Jaimie.
He has a 28 inch waist, looks about 14 and has all the energy of a small nuclear power station.
He was also delightfully friendly.
I was sat with the three other bass singers in the male section as various ladies in the sopranos gave me thumbs up and encouraging smiles.
There were around thirty of us. The youngest a nurse in her twenties who lives in one of the tiny cottages in  Trelawnyd , stood next to me. She remembered that I had been kind to her the day she moved to the village. " Hello John the dogs " she whispered as the song sheets were handed out
She seems one of those incredibly warm characters with a big heart.

I quickly had to learn the bass lines to Labi Siffre's Something Inside So Strong which the ever bouncy Jamie demonstrated to each of the vocal groups .
It was all rather challenging but a wonderfully enjoyable experience.

We went on with a terribly hard Czech folk tune Okolo Hradisca with several of the choir waving at me to say they were sorry for the "baptism  of fire" ( they had all sang it before) but it certainly didn't put me off as the harmonies suddenly came together in front of a somewhat manic Jamie.

As I packed up to leave, he came over briefly to ask if I was coming back
" You have a good singing voice!" He told me,
And I suddenly felt a tiny bit tearful
But I had already made my decision within two minutes of entering the choir room
" See you next Tuesday!" I told him with a big smile

Back In The Saddle

Only a brief morning post today as I am saving my creative juices for tell you all about the choir later.
I've been chasing paperwork and officialdom from 9 am as I have hopefully got myself a part time , 2 nights a week job. A job that will pay some of the bills, support the animals and stop me thinking of what was and what could have been.
I won't tell you all more than that given that all of the i s have to dotted , suffice to say that after my non too reticent criticism of senior management decisions and abilities at my previous employ , I won't be going back to ITU.
Thank God!

More about the choir later......

Animal Problems

Mary behaved impeccably at the vets this afternoon.
We had an appointment with the senior vet ( not George Clooney) who reviewed her history of recurrent ear infections and drew diagrams for me to understand the physiology of the problem .
It looks as though she will need surgery
I sighed....another day..another animal problem.

Earlier today I found myself trying to round up the field horses.
It had come to my attention that they had loosened the wooden fencing between them and the new graveyard by rubbing their itchy arses on the upright stakes so it was imperative that I move them to the lower part of the field where they could do no more damage.
Having little experience in tacking up ponies I resorted to waving a piece of cheap white bread in front of them hoping to do a bit of a "pied piper"  thing , but things went tits up when The ponies got all frisky with the whole situation and charged somewhat energetically after me.
From out of nowhere Irene noisily joined in with the stampede, and I found myself galloping clumsily ahead in my flip flops like a fat, bread waving lunatic .
It was a genuinely frightening experience.

The young Bantam cockerels have caused their own minor problems and have deserted their hen house in the Ukrainian village to move into the garden of our new neighbours. I have no idea where they are roosting but I do know that two sets of neighbours are feeding them so well that the roosters have now learnt to tap on their conservatory windows in a ploy to beg for food.

William is recovering from his car accident well and George despite his age continues to look robust even though I'm convinced he has the start of diabetes insipidus with his water drinking antics.

Only the oldest and potentially most unfit of all of the animals at Bwthyn y llan is doing all rather well. Winnie, who has past her sell by date a good while ago now , remains steadfast and magnificent
She's like a Old Spanish galleon in full sail

The best two bitches in my life

I want

Sometimes I want...

I want a house with a hallway upstairs with sash windows on either side so that the sun shines through at all times of day.

I want brexit to be overruled

I want a porch like the one whoopie Goldberg had in The Colour Purple

I want a American roll topped bath and wash basin

I want world peace

I want a sassy housekeeper like Thelma Ritter

I want an asthmatic pug dog called Roger

I want to be able to dance 

I want my Sheffield friends on tap

I want to go to New York on the Queen Mary

I want a pristine green front lawn 

I want an official Walking Dead Trendy sports top

I want a tortoise 

I want a 34 inch waist

I want a continual collection of pencils 

What do you want?

Sunday

I've put moisturiser on and everything

Boring Oneself

Broadstairs 

I'm boring myself now, which is probably a good thing.
But for 18 weeks now I have cried every single day.
It's not a melodramatic cry. I'm no Scarlett O'Hara
But it is more like a daily " welling up"  a rush of emotions that occurs when a particular piece of music is played , a certain scene pops up in a movie or a certain advert dives under your emotional radar.
I am fed up of trying to shake away blurred vision, a blotchy face and that here we go again exasperation bereavement plonks on you out of the blue.
It's a bastard .....bereavement .
I know  all this, Indeed I pride myself on my emotional intelligence, but 18 weeks isn't a long time in the great scheme of things to realise that your husband has chosen a life which is now different to the one you previously knew and that he has gone alongside with shared way of life , family and home.

Intellectually the blocks are in all of the right holes .
Emotionally my head is at times like spaghetti.
Yet I know what to do
Keep busy, get a job, sort out the practical things,
Enjoy friends, keep busy, try to roll with punches,
Keep busy, let things go, remember the good, keep busy,
Be pragmatic, let go of anger, keep busy....

It's just the doing  which is sometime hard.
So this is my cathartic post, a bit like yesterday's but with a little more honesty.
Real life is more less exhausting than this necessary emotional romp of grief, and that is what I have to get back to.
My husband is no monster here, I would never of married him if he was a monster.

Mary has to be picked up from the groomers at 11 am and I've got some shopping to do before I ve got to help a colleague at Sams complete some interviews for new volunteers.
The village community Association is holding a treasure hunt this afternoon which I may go to if I can conscript a co pilot and I have got to see Flower Show Ann regarding our zip wire day, which we will be doing for charity ( coughs into hand which I expect every reader to donate on line to! )

Ann has warmed me that the " heavier" participants on the zip wire have a small parachute attached to them in order to slight slow their decent down.......I know I am going to resemble one of those refugee food drops in Africa where the tons of supplies are crash landed into the jungle ! 

I may go to the cinema later today, William is doing mighty fine , so doesn't need watching too much.
Onwards and upwards, so they say....
I'm not promising myself or you, that this will be my last emotional romp in blogland
After all  Birony was right when she quoted

"“When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions”




But it will the last for now....

Out

I needed to get out of the village this afternoon.
After giving William a painkiller and three cocktail sausages, I settled him down for a sleep on my bed then washed my face, shaved donned a clean shirt ( not one of my Walking Dead T shirts) and took myself out to a busier place.
I did some banking, saw a financial advisor , gossiped with Nu briefly and bought a quality newspaper which I read cover to cover as I treated myself to lunch at a sweet little coffee shop staffed by an even sweeter bearded barista
No big shakes.
No company
No angst conversations
Just a little moment where I felt a tad more f*cking human

Update

We have just returned from the vets after a check up.
Blind eye ok, one tooth lost, very sore all over.
Treatment rest, painkillers, 8 mini cocktail sausages
Hey ho
I'm off to bed for a sleep

William RTA

Early yesterday evening William was hit by a car.
He'd slipped his lead on his early evening walk, and ambled into the road as I was grappling with the other dogs' by the back gate
He walked three steps into the road, his blind eye to the upcoming traffic which never really comes...
But this time  it did come...
The small hatchback car stopped only a half inch too short. It was a good natured young man from down Cwm Road
And William was knocked over with a yelp.
The boy went white
My heart broke but my nursing head took over.
The boy in the car held the dog's leads as I rushed the old boy into the kitchen to check him over on the kitchen top.
He shook like a leaf, had some bleeding from his nose and mouth and clung to me fearfully but all of his limbs and abdomen looked alright and after we all eventually returned to my living room chair  he lay on my knee like for an absolute age, like a floppy shocked baby.....As I cried,a few grateful tears
I'm sick of this bad luck,
But at this time of typing , old William is fine, and sleeping a grateful sleep.

Everyone's got an Opinion

Someone from the village stopped me today with a " is it true?" comment....you know the sort....with a head tilt and an overly sympathetic smile.
She was just being nosey.
I could have punched her in the face until her eyes popped out
Instead I answered the question vaguely , giving what I thought were good enough non verbals for the conversation to be shut down.
It wasn't
" When I broke up with my first husband!" She droned "I went a bit wild and got myself dating half the single men at work " 
" And several of the married  guys so I've heard" 
(I didn't say it but I oh so wanted to)
" Get yourself out there and kiss a few frogs" she suggested
" I'm doing the fastest zip wire in the world,  joined a choir and got a part time job will that do?" I told her
She wasn't impressed

Bog Story

A benign post today
The plumber is presently lying on the bathroom floor with his face up the U bend
Winnie is  lying parallel with her face inches from his
I can hear him explaining what he's doing and no doubt she is all ears.
She's in total rapture as she has already had a mooch through his extensive  toolbox and almost swooned at the sight of his shiny new boiler suit.
" The pipes are all in the wrong position " the plumber explained when I took him a cup of tea and plate of custard creams  " You may need another pan" 
More expense, I thought with a sigh
" In the  mean time don't flop yourself down for an hour or so!"  He added passing a biscuit to Winnie who took it like Lady Grantham at high tea.
Perhaps he suspects  my habit of reading the news in situ as it were is having an undesired effect on the  polcelain

That reminds me its fat club this afternoon,

Baba Yetu

Enjoy

I've arranged to meet with the community Choir in nearby Gwaenysgor 

next week! 

I'm going to sing! 

3 Years, 5 months, 7 days

I took off my wedding ring today......
....and tied a narrow ribbon to it, then put it carefully away........

Virgin Terrier

I need to buy a car of my own.
Today was a case in point, as Mary needed a trip to the vets and the car was parked over in Bangor.
No joined up thinking and a Welsh Terrier with an ear infection, not a good combination
So , village Elder Islwyn, as usual came to the rescue and gave Mary and I a lift to the station so we could catch the train, to get to Bangor, to collect the car.....you still with me there at the back?

I drank coffee on the virgin train while Mary jammed her head between the seats in order to bum something from the middle aged couple sitting behind us.
I think she managed to beg the ham filling out of a cheese and ham sandwich

Packing

I spent yesterday dusting and carefully packing away my husband's large selection of books.
I wasn't angry or upset, I just wanted to clear the bookcase in the bedroom, clean it of twelve years of dust and repack it with my own , much more meagre selection of books.
All of the dogs and Albert lay around the mess in untidy heaps watching the action.
I'm not going to discuss my marriage here so please don't ask me anything, but I did wanted to talk about the peace and memories such a pastime brings to a person.
Books on politics and history , of queens long dead, of wartime and Art Deco whodunnits, the Mitford sisters and of Russian ballet dancers, all were wiped clean of soot and boxed awaiting sorting and tucked away behind them, in between them , were the flotsam of decades of ordinary life.
Train tickets dated 2007 to Bangor, a clock key, old wage packets , a half flattened stuffed platypus bought from Sydney Zoo. A few letters dated from when people actually wrote letters, a Christmas card list, dried flowers fallen out of a small family Bible ( a cutting from my Grandmother's wedding bouquet) my old Charge Nurse ID badge and a lady's handkerchief with a monogrammed K in one corner .
The pile of detritus grew as the books were packed away.
And I worked away in silence save for the chirping of the sparrow flock in the honeysuckle

No Words Needed

Central Station is a lovely film.
I've been clearing book shelves today and found an old copy DVD I thought I had lost
You don't need subtitles for this wonderfully moving final scene
Enjoy

I've never wanted to visit Mexico

I met a man who I was in school with today
We have not spoken for perhaps 40 years
He was with his boyfriend
I was dressed in a green tabard, flip flops and was holding a green plastic collecting bucket.
We had one of those odd public conversations that was all too much
I told them that I was separated
They told me that they have just been on a gay cruise around Mexico
Apparently you can sleep with everyone  on a gay cruise they told me with a cackle
And they both did! ( what fun!)

I've never understood people in long term relationships that swing/ shag around/ or think it's ok to shag themselves silly on an ocean liner. To me shagging around is something you do when you are young and single or indeed old and single .....but single is the most important point of it all for me
Do what you like when you are single ....Multiple shags , to me when you are in a relationship are a sign of fickle immaturity.
But each to their own I guess

I've never wanted to go to Mexico either btw