I'm sat at my work table in the kitchen, preparing to write today's blog alongside my bucket of coffee.
My Shadow is watching every move after her morning walk and night curled up next to me and Mary on a comfy duvet.
I'm making sour bread later.
She will be watching every move no doubt.
Anxious bulldogs can be very needy,
It's a good job, I'm an old hand at all this.
I've been training up a new Samaritan recently and have asked him to shadow other experienced sams in the weeks that follow. " Pick and choose those great replies you hear other sams give their callers !" I advised " Be sure to steal them for your own interactions !"
We all steal words and phrases we hear others use.
Sometimes those words have such resonance they burn themselves in your own vocabulary for life.
All of us sponges...for the different, the funny.....the pertinent.
In the late 90s I nursed a somewhat taciturn man for many months.
He was a formidable character, every inch a stereotypical policeman from say a 1970s tv drama...sli butch, unsmiling and ever slightly distant....think Valquez from Aliens and you'll get where I'm coming from.
He was difficult to engage and only seemed to perk up when he was visited by his police colleagues both male and women.
One policeman that visited seemed to be more smiley and less frivolous than the other visitors and I suspected with my gaydar at full beep that they may have been closeted lovers.
One day, when the visitor was leaving, I noticed my patient murmur " S R A" almost under his breath and this three letter goodbye was noticeably used too as a greeting after several visitations .
A week or who later , when I was teaching the patient how to manage his own bladder I asked him if I could ask a personal question and given the intimacy of the situation he surprisingly agreed , albeit gruffly.
"When your mate comes to visit ....what does SRA mean?"
I busied myself with preparing the nursing equipment as he looked at me squarely and after a long pause he said carefully
" It means a Sudden Rush of Affection!"
A hidden code between lovers
My Shadow is watching every move after her morning walk and night curled up next to me and Mary on a comfy duvet.
I'm making sour bread later.
She will be watching every move no doubt.
Anxious bulldogs can be very needy,
It's a good job, I'm an old hand at all this.
I've been training up a new Samaritan recently and have asked him to shadow other experienced sams in the weeks that follow. " Pick and choose those great replies you hear other sams give their callers !" I advised " Be sure to steal them for your own interactions !"
We all steal words and phrases we hear others use.
Sometimes those words have such resonance they burn themselves in your own vocabulary for life.
All of us sponges...for the different, the funny.....the pertinent.
In the late 90s I nursed a somewhat taciturn man for many months.
He was a formidable character, every inch a stereotypical policeman from say a 1970s tv drama...sli butch, unsmiling and ever slightly distant....think Valquez from Aliens and you'll get where I'm coming from.
He was difficult to engage and only seemed to perk up when he was visited by his police colleagues both male and women.
One policeman that visited seemed to be more smiley and less frivolous than the other visitors and I suspected with my gaydar at full beep that they may have been closeted lovers.
One day, when the visitor was leaving, I noticed my patient murmur " S R A" almost under his breath and this three letter goodbye was noticeably used too as a greeting after several visitations .
A week or who later , when I was teaching the patient how to manage his own bladder I asked him if I could ask a personal question and given the intimacy of the situation he surprisingly agreed , albeit gruffly.
"When your mate comes to visit ....what does SRA mean?"
I busied myself with preparing the nursing equipment as he looked at me squarely and after a long pause he said carefully
" It means a Sudden Rush of Affection!"
A hidden code between lovers
