Theatre Trip

My sister and I went to the theatre tonight to see a reboot of the 1985 Charlotte Keatley play My Mother Said I Never Should 
It's a story of the life, milestones and regrets of four generations of women from North Western England and isn't a bag of laughs which is strange given the area in which it is set
It was, however  a nice treat and one I shall reciprocate with a night out at Chester's Storyhouse Theatre soon.
My sister is good company at the theatre , she's good at the pithy one liner in reviews
When I got home , I did that nurse Glasgow Coma scale  neurocheck on Winnie as she waved her fat paw very slowly in the air at me from her resting place on the couch.
She passed.15/15

Change Only What You Can Change

Sharing a car with a soon to be ex husband is difficult,
Like many things that have happened to me recently I feel that I am in a position devoid of any control, in the country, without access to a car, you are effective marooned at times, and reliant on the kindness of friends and family....so it's a big official thank you to my sisters, sister in law, neighbours and Jason the affable Despot

Recently it's felt a little like life is happening to me rather than with me.

It's always the case that you can see solutions in other people's problems and life issues whilst being totally incapable to sorting your own out, and so when reflecting and exploring a life change with a caller at Samaritans the other day I experienced a bit of an arhhh Ha !  moment .
Change only what you can change I suggested
It's not fucking rocket science is it?

I bought a car of my own yesterday.
It's not flash, it's not sexy.....but it is clean and economical and it's bleeding mine
It has five doors and a roomy back seat just built for dogs and tomorrow Winnie will travel in it for the first time , a trip a for a check up at the vets, a check up which will hopefully concur that she is indeed recovering from her " do" of the other night.
She's brighter again this morning and to prove the point has just sucked all of meat off an Aldi lamb shank.
She's the only dog in existence who could probably be resuscitated after a full cardiac arrest by wafting a garlic sausage under her nose.

My old girl is back!

British Bulldogs are built of strong stuff

Update

The View of the village this morning

I slept in the living room last night sharing the couch with an old bulldog. She's still with us this morning, a bit uncoordinated but, still with us.
I look like the wreck of the Hesperus in comparison.
Two fat lumps on a small sofa  eh?

Thirty six hours after her stroke , Winnie seems to be improving slowly.
Her recuperation seems to be mirroring her recovery from pyrometra last year.
You may remember that the vet warned me that she would probably die on the operating table then...and 24 hours post op she was standing behind the vet's reception desk bumming crisps from the secretaries.
If dogs were human, they would save the NHS millions.

I'm tired today and I'm working a twelve hour shift tonight, so I'm off to bed shortly. This morning Mary and I walked up the Gop, which blew the cobwebs away, then we returned the carpet cleaner and paid the fuel bill. On the way home I bought Winnie a MacDonalds cheeseburger which she has just enjoyed whole

Hey ho

Prognosis

The vet agreed with me.
Winnie probably experienced some sort of stroke during the night.
The bewildered and stressed look thankfully left her around 8am, the time she eventually woke up but the head tilt and unsteady gait remained with her as she pissed like a horse on the living room carpet.
Scans and steroids were discussed briefly but as she was able to drink from the bowl I offerered her, I decided to take the old girl home to deteriorate or recover as the will of the stroke dictates.
Her eyes were focused and as the vet took a blood test she tried to offer her face up for a kiss ( Winnie and not the professional) and when we got home she took herself off rather unsteadily for a piss on the lane verge .
She smiled a lopsided smile when I praised her, and I could have cried at her valiant good nature
This year has been too much a rollercoaster ride

Tonight she's had cocktail sausages for tea and slept on the couch when I shampooed the carpets.
As long as she doesn't extend last night's infarct, she has a fair chance, but she's old and fat and heroics will do her no favours

I'm writing this listening to The Archers .
As Lillian discussed Auntie Chris' fall with a pious Jennifer, Winnie belched loudly from her place on the couch and filled the living room with the faint whiff of sausage

03.17 am

Winnie woke me up just after 2 am with a constant series of sharp little barks

I found her disorientated and distressed in a corner of the living room with the other dogs and Albert milling around in stressful circles around her

I think she's had a small stroke in her sleep

I calmed them all down, checked her neurology  and cleaned up a large pee stain 

And a few minutes later she shook her massive head as if waking from a long sleep and climbed onto the couch with an over serious Mary in tow and fell into a long calm sleep

It's 3 .22 am now and I'm just about to go to bed. 

She's home and she's now comfortable so I'll leave her until dawn

She's an old gal, so lets be serious here

Then we will see what we will see. 

These dogs ..they.break my heart

Lord Of The Flies

Lola Adaja as Ralph and Gina Fillingham as Piggy

We studied Lord of The Flies in school when I was around fourteen, and I remember then Miss Betts posing the question -would the outcome of the novel be any different if the stranded school children had been girls and not boys?
I can't remember the answer we gave but I suspect that kids from a 1977 CSE English lit class would have unanimously plumped for an answer of yes. Girls are much more civilised than boys.
Or they were then in a semi rural Welsh secondary school.
It is interesting therefore, in this age where the differences between the sexes seem so blurred that Emma Jordan's production has an all female cast where  the " girls" very believably turn out just as savage  and as feral as the little boys.
Maybe it's a sign of the times?
Flies is not an easy watch; there is much shouting and " silly" behaviour where Golding perfectly captures the arbitrary and irritating part of childhood communication and imagination but the tension builds nicely to a fast paced second half where the shit literally hits the fan and the girls descend into out right War.
In this production the Piggy character who could be so irksome in the book is changed from a geek to a stroppy Yorkshire teen and Gina Fillingham brings a much welcomed warmth and humour to the role. A performance equalled by the other lead members of the cast.

soggy bottoms

You can't get a flavour of just how wet it is here at the moment.
Wet and dark and miserable.
18 th century cottages don't do well in such weather as their thick walls and small windows heighten the gloom, and so to keep your head above water, every lamp has to be switched on in every corner.
I've just been sitting at the kitchen table, deciding on what to do today.
I'm rapidly beginning to hate Saturdays .
For me, they are becoming somewhat lonely days.
Mind you a quick glance at the calendar hanging up by the door has perked the old tits up so to speak.
For on it, scribbled under today's date is the words Theatre lunch!
I'd forgotten but a couple of Samaritan chums and I had planned lunch out followed by an afternoon performance of the acclaimed Theatre Clwyd production of Lord Of The Flies.
What larks pip! 
Ok , an all female version of flies won't be a bag of laughs but it will be stimulating and a respite from the miserable weather
I was just digging out my best Walking Dead  T shirt to iron when my sister in law messaged me about an impromptu  family meal planned for tonight. The meal is a belated celebration of my sister and brother in law's 50 th wedding anniversary
Gifts and cards for a 50 th wedding anniversary can look so old fashioned and frumpy and so not in keeping with my sister's personality so I've now decided on buying them bunches of sunflowers in celebration.
You can't get any more golden then a sunflower.
Hey ho

Cassiopea

I'm going out with Mary in the torrential rain and 

I'm  going to listen to this music from Really Slow Motion

Tankard

I've always liked cleaning silver
There is something intensely satisfying in the transformation from tarnished to gleaming that pleases me greatly.
Last night I switched off the television and cleaned the silver whilst listening to music.

This little silver plated tankard was given to me in 1989..
It's sat on a shelf in every home Ive had since then
It was gift from the partner of a patient I nursed.
And it was a thank you for a kindness perceived
But it wasn't a kindness.
I'd been party of doing the right thing.

I don't remember the patient's name but I do remember that he had suffered a catastrophic series of  strokes at the relatively young age of 60. He had been placed in a side Ward on the busy medical ward I was allocated to and he was dying.
The man's sisters and their husbands were in attendance and it was a night shift, as I recall.
The dying man was gay, a fact that had come to light only to nursing staff during his admission when a closeted older partner had visited unbeknownst to any of the family members.
The nursing staff had managed to negotiate a tricky job of supporting both parties admirably but In the last new hours of the patient's life, his biological family, took over the vigil at the bedside with the " friend" having to take an aseptic role of visiting old friend.

Louise, the senior staff nurse in charge and I hatched a plan that night when the tearful partner turned up at the back corridor of the Ward after being informed his lover was now " being made comfortable"  The plan was simple enough. I pretended to find that the patient's catheter was blocked on my rounds and asked the family to leave the room so that I could change it. The proceedure, I told them, would take a little while. Louise marshalled the family and showed them to a " family" room away on another Ward which had suddenly been found free by the conspiratorial senior nurse officer on duty. They were then provided with tea and sandwiches
As the family were escorted out  by one of the auxiliary nurses, I ushered the partner into the side room via the nurses office.

All this perhaps sounds a bit larky, but the reality and pain of the situation became only too real to Louise and I when the visitor started to cry as he lay down next to his partner of God- so-many years. It was the first time I had seen a man kiss another man properly and with feeling on the lips, and the fact that both men were " elderly" seem to make the whole moment that much more poignant
The two men were together for over an hour, saying their goodbyes.

I left the Ward soon after and was tracked down by Louise when I was in nursing class a week or so after that. The nursing school was on the top floor of the Sheffield hospital only a floor away from the
Ward I worked on, and Louise was in full uniform when we caught up. She gave me the tankard which had been wrapped carefully in black tissue paper and ribbon and she was tearful.
It was a thank you gift from the partner of the patient who had died later that night . Louise and the conspiring auxiliary nurse had been given similar personal gifts for their roles in the deceit , gifts which she had accepted against hospital policy.

But gifts that were so gratefully given.

See-Saw

The road to divorce is paved with extremes
Extremes of behaviour, and extremes of emotion.
Both are exhausting.
Early morning was a time for ugliness, bitterness and nasty talk from both sides.
But that was salved by the kindness of a villager who knocked on the door delivering jam and an invitation to come to his for Christmas  

Bloody Lazy Immigrants

For those that voted for Brexit because of the fear generated over immigration
PLEASE READ THIS 
Read it and think.....


On Monday morning I met a young Hungarian woman who, I thought needed to be heard.
We talked for only a few minutes but in that time I got a flavour of her life.
A life she chose to act out in a semi rural Welsh town.
The woman got up on workdays at 4.30 am. She prepared lunches for two children and a working husband, sorted out the home and was dropped off on a bus route by her husband at 6 am. He then went to work after dropping off a third child to the childminder.
She then waited over one hour at a cold bus stop for another bus to come in order to get to work.
She arrived at the nursing home just before 8am.
She then worked a twelve hour shift providing holistic care for 19 elderly Brits, and did so with a smile on her face and just one hour's break
She did this three or four times a week.
It was her last shift doing the work she loved as she was just too tired and run down to continue with the slog
She'd found a job in a local discount shop fifteen minutes from home, she'd never consider benefits...she'd worked all her life

Bloody lazy immigrants eh?

Coal Bunker Blues

Mary spent Sunday night frightened and alone in the coal bunker

She had been obsessed with my log store all day and had watched it constantly through the cat flap ( probably looking for a mouse which had scuttled away to safety from Albert clutches ) and so some time during the night she had managed to squeeze herself though, finding herself trapped outside in the cold and in the coal

She went hysterical when she saw me at 9 am yesterday, the only way dogs can do when they reunite with their Alpha owners and she hasn't left my side since . 

(The vigil  includes two sit down toilet stops and a bath)

I snapped these photos just now as I complete paperwork at the kitchen table. 

She's not even an arm's length away and fell asleep sat up after watching me so carefully.

Going

Going

Gone

On The Ice

I'm on my break. It's 2.20 am
If a buzzer goes Im not on my break any longer
Thats the way it goes.
Ive just answered a call inbetween sentences here....the lady. Red eyed from sleep patted me on the shoulder and told me that I was a "bonnie big boy of a man!"
Ive been called worse
I've decided I am not going to get old.
Before I am too feeble to be able to wander unseen and unchallenged into the sunset. I will do what old eskimos do and will sit in the snow in their underpants until everything including my heart muscle goes blue.
My brother when he faced the end of his journey with motor neurone disease tentatively mentioned dignatas but the comment felt throwaway amid the reality of the everyday details of his care.
Sometimes conversations as important as these should be had with yourself when you are well
When I am old I dont want to be that burden to nephews or to strangers who are paid to care.
I expected to grow old along side an aging academic who would wear tweed and have hair growing out of his ears..thats now gone tits up!

I now aim to disappear into that snowstorm like little Eliza in Uncle Toms Cabin but dont worry Im not going just yet....its maybe 20+ years down the line.........when life is different
But it will happen
I am sure of it

I'm buggered

Monday night! It returns!!!

I'm buggered!!!!!
Home after night shift and no food in the fridge even though it was my fault was a somewhat irritating experience.
I just opened the fridge door and repeated fuckity fuck fuck until I made myself chuckle
So it was beans on dry toast for breakfast followed by an orange
Yes all very wartime rationing !
I'm off to bed without even a wash.....
Another twelve hour shift starts tonight

Dear Deirdre and other support systems

The first thing you are taught in Samaritans is not to give advice to the callers.
This is a surprisingly hard thing to do, especially when you think the solution to a certain problem is a matter of commen sense and obvious to all.
Invariably it is not obvious to all.
I have given advice to one caller who I recognised was probably in the throws of a major heart attack.  He soon forgot about the reasons for his call in the first place when I told him calmly and clearly to ring an ambulance!!!!!!!!!!
I am sure Chad Varah would have forgiven my lapse of protocol.
My favourite " Dear Deirdre" letter was one I think I read in Viz magazine
It said simply

" Dear Deirdre,

             Should I be worried ? I have just had my very first period.
         
              Regards

              Dave 31"

I'm working all weekend now..night shift tonight and night shift tomorrow. 😞
So my question today dear readers is...
What is the best or worst bit of advice you have ever been told?
Answers on a post card please!

Ps....Going Gently it is said, can be a slightly romanticised view of the small insular world of a bland Welsh Village. Perhaps there is some truth in that statement and view but after today,  I would disagree wholeheartedly with anyone who says I sugar coat the characters I know here.
This morning I popped in to the village Hall with Winnie and Mary to have a coffee and to swap a few books .
Affable Despot Jason rang me as I was mulling over an unread Patricia Cornwell, he knew I was working the weekend  and had agreed to give me a lift to work tonight...." You may as well use my car for the weekend" he said brightly a gesture that couldn't be sweeter given that awful feeling only night staff have when faced with an uncertain journey back home to bed.
In the hall Alan W came over with the offer of ripe tomatoes from his greenhouse and asked with a direct stare if I was ok. " You are well thought of in this village" he told me without a hint of embarrassment and I accepted the statement without the difficulty I once felt.
This directness is kind.
As we sauntered down London Road for home Robert C pulled up in his 4x4. I haven't seen him in an age. A large and very busy bear of a man, Robert is married to Sandra C who is caretaker of the hall we have been friendly for years
" Glad I've seen you" he panted over through the passenger's window and he invited me to spend Christmas with him and the family. Like Alan, he was direct and incredibly sincere, and it almost sounded like a sweet conspiracy when he said "we think a great deal of you" without any guile or self consciousness

It's been a hard week all told . One which was capped off with another trip to the vets with Mary last night and the subsequent thought of the hassle of a forthcoming operation on that bloody infected ear! But today even though I'm working, skint, put a pound on at fat club, and feel like a mouldy old pongo, I feel happy to be here........hey ho

My Life In A Line

I'm selling an Art Deco Grandmother clock which has been hidden away in a corner of the bedroom for over a decade. I'm selling it on line.
It's a small typical-of-it's-time piece that I won't make a fortune on
But I need the money at the moment.

A chap came over to the cottage yesterday to view the clock, and although he liked it, it was a tad too small for where he had in mind for it to go however it was not entirely a wasted journey as he is interested in buying our old Deco dining room table which lies dust covered in old Trevor's garage.

Before he left, my visitor commented on the line of framed objects lined up on top of the kitchen radiator. He liked the " look" of the collection and thought the informality of the subjects interesting.
He was bound to be gay, I thought, only gay blokes think at this level
I went through the collection

A photo of some the Former Flowet Show committee 

Derek, sailor John, matriarch Irene, Cameron theboffin, Terry, Trendy Carol ( in nice blue top) and smiling Ann

Next to an ink sketching of an alpine villa bought from a little antique shop in Sheffield

The Randa girl's painting for their art entry for the Flower Show a few years back

an antique square of Kimono bought from the now closed Takashimaya store on 5th Avenue , New York I had framed in Sheffield next to AngryParsnips envelope cartoons of the cottage animals

" You're life in a line!" The man noted

A Tissue On A Chair

Before we start this is a positive post

My solicitor is a very Welsh, bright, compassionate woman.
She took her time with our meeting and pursed her lips in empathy when I went white as she outlined the costs of her representation.
I burst into tears when she asked me about what was eventually going to happen to the dogs, we had already stood up and was in the process of saying our goodbyes .
And then I sort of bolted for the door.
The solicitor works in an impressive set of offices built within the confines of an old Chapel. The Chapel is a stones thrown from the only local cathedral and blotchy faced I took myself up High Street across a small green and into the cathedral proper where I found a quiet dark spot and sat down on a red chair to gather my thoughts.
Places of worship are calm, cool silent places. If I had been in Trelawnyd and had felt the same, I would have taken myself off to St Michaels
I hadn't been sat there that long, perhaps only a few minutes when I sensed a movement to my left. A faceless woman stopped briefly and placed a paper napkin  on the seat next to me
" There's tea and coffee to the right of the door" she half whispered before moving on

And I blew my nose, and felt a bit better.

Just Before Dawn

There is a verse in the Everything But The Girl song We Walk The Same Line which goes

And I bet you could tell me 
How slowly four follows three
And you're most forlorn
Just before dawn

I've never suffered from insomnia.
I'm not suffering from it now, but this morning I was wide awake at 4 am lying in bed with my eyes as large and round as a bushbaby's.
I have a reason to be awake.
I have a solicitor's appointment later this morning.
So thoughts have been running through my head with the constant roar of tube trains through acentral line tunnel.
I've cleaned the kitchen floor. I've walked four disgruntled dogs and I've had breakfast.
I've rearranged every cushion in the living room after Winnie had scattered them last night and I've read the on line paper.

Apparently insomnia is on the rise and  the reason for this is said to be our increasing use of smart phones and iPads.
Like I said, I usually sleep like a baby, so this in-the -middle -of -the-night thing is a new horror for me.

Aznavour

I didn't know Charles Aznovour was gay friendly
Only today did I learn a bit more about the singer, someone who peppered my childhood 1970s with a oh so individual sounding soundtrack.
This was a brave song for him to sing, for What Makes a Man is the story of a drag queen living a lonely life with his mother. It's a melancholic piece in the vein of Eponine's On My Own from Les Miserables  and Aznavour's unique delivery somehow makes the whole thing slightly more tragic .

The tragic drag queen is such a mainstay of queer culture it's now become an accepted norm. Having said this, my only experience of drag was a few awful cabaret pub performances - a backdrop to my salad days and Harvey Feirsten's Torch Song Trilogy 
Oh and back in 1987 I once found myself slumped at the bar of Roxy  nightclub in York next to the ugliest drag queen I have ever seen.
She had two day old stubble, a nasty permed black wig and a long ill fitting sheath gown on and she was swigging from a bottle of what looked like pale ale.
And as she took a drag from her cigarette and fixed me with a drunken red eyed look I chirped up with a " Christ you look like my mother!" remark.
I never saw the punch coming ......

Big Voice

Mary got charged by a loose Dalmatian  yesterday.
It had its head up and meant business,
Mary was on her lead
I employed my usual , well used defences, at it ran forward.
I stood in front of Mary with my hand up and bellowed " NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" at the top of my voice
The Dalmatian stopped short suddenly unsure of itself.
Another " Nooooo!" had it turning on its heels
I didn't care that it's owner thought I was a loon

This behaviour can work with bullying people too!
I remember being stopped in the village by a man who wanted to take me to task about something I had written on the blog.
I brought the confrontation to a finite end by raising my voice to a level which could be heard over a thousand yards followed by a definite and rather forceful  "Fuck off!"

I always liked the story repeated by ( I think) the actress Shiela Hancock who had a friend who would always yell " OUT BEFORE IN!!!"  to waiting commuters standing nose to nipple in front of her train door after she arrived at every station .
People are like dogs and any animal.  They need to know exactly where they stand.

Miriam Margolyes, that famous darling of the late night chat show often trolls out a " shocking" story of when she was once frotted against by a man on the tube.
In her best Lady Bracknell voice she said she bellowed the unlikely response of " WILL YOU GET YOUR COCK OUT OF MY ARSE!!!!!" a statement that may soften any erection in a second as well as get a chat show audience to love you.

Being loud can empower
But it also can get your head kicked in