The Royal Ballet

The Royal Opera House House is tonight streaming for free their latest ballet Anastasia 
You can catch it on their Facebook and YouTube channels and kick off for the debut is 7 pm tonight.

I'm working later but I will be sure to watch the production some time next week.
The Royal Ballet holds a special place in my heart, and it's been over a year since I last went
Oh to be sipping a gin and tonic in the conservatory bar again

Some days are better than others

It's been a nice 24 hours
Lockdown can be nice
If you're lucky.
The roses are a gift from my elder sister. Their fragrance is wonderful and already is filling the cottage like a warm hand. She and my brother in law chatted over the garden wall in the sun.
No real news, just checking in .....
Without the tv last night , I caught up with some Sheffield friends

I'll watch the Great British Sewing Bee tonight
I hope Mark and Claire were not booted out
There was a funeral here in the village this morning.

A lady from Bron Haul who had been poorly a long time.
She kept cats which surrounded her bungalow like confetti
One of her floral tributes was black cat.....I liked that.

Village Elder Islwyn had cut open the grave very neatly before the gravedigger arrived and we chatted for a while before I bumped into the vicar by the lytchgate.
I like the new vicar
He is bright and friendly and his smile is genuine

He said he was happy for me to ring the bell on a Thursday night once it is hopefully fixed

His white surplus glowed in the spring sunshine as he stood waiting for the funeral cars to turn up.

Hattie left me a couple of chocolate brownies on the kitchen wall this morning too and I ate them as I planted out animal Helper Pat's bedding plants into containers and baskets.
The concrete square behind the kitchen wall looks softer and greener than it did

I bought and fixed up a new tv, chatted to Blog Rachel on what's app and lit the fire before 6 pm
It's cold out of the sun

And finally! And most wonderfully
Thanks to tim and Ian

Ping Pong

Dorothy pretending to be invisible in the garden

Bulldogs are like toddlers
They run against walls without braking
And have no off button!

I love them dearly , but they can drive a girl to total distraction!!!!

Yesterday afternoon the devil caught Winifred in youthfull mode .....
She and Dorothy became quite  giddy with themselves after being given a handful of cocktail
sausages each as a treat and both decided to give Albert a run for  his money as he ambled rather suavely through the cottage for a sleep  after a morning slaughtering baby rabbits on the field .

The resulting chase had bulldogs bouncing off every wall and it was only after a deafening crash when things went incredibly quiet and I ran in with eyes like ping pong balls !!!

The bulldogs had smashed the tv and they both knew they were in trouble
I had ear marked my overtime of this week to play for Winnie's vet bills
And instantly I realised I now had to use it to pay for a new 15 inch tv.
So when I walked in both Dorothy and Winnie ran for the kitchen reading chair where they were banished to for the rest of the evening!!!
And there they stayed, grunting and groaning their apologies
I may forgive them fairly soon
But it won't hurt leaving absolution for a few more hours

Keep the bitches on their toes

6 Pairs Of Underpants

Hey Siri what day is it today?
Siri never answered, she's too depressed.
I've cleaned out drawers and cupboards this morning and I've thrown away
A bin bag of out if date cooking stuff, old magazines, tons of old clothes, and six pairs of underpants with holes in the gussets!
Victoria Wood would have cut them down for pan scrubs
Every gusset a memory!!!

Animal Helper Pat , has been busy in her greenhouse and a 20£ Donation to Christian Aid has bought me a load of bedding plants for the garden.
They arrived today and filled the top of the  kitchen wall ready for watering.

The bulldogs mooched in the garden as I worked
Apart from a few phone calls and later Zoom meets with friends.
It's a slow day.
I've agreed to overtime on Friday, it will pay for Winnie's recent vet bills

Ise Oluwa

Choir tonight..........I needed some healing time, something I knew yesterday when
I messaged Jamie ( and his 1940s RAF moustache) to request we sing Ise Oluwa tonight

Ise Oluwa is an African prayer for water, and it was one of the first songs I learnt in Choir.
Sung  slightly quicker than the above example, I remember our choir wrestling somewhat with the harmony on a winter's night in the village hall.
Jamie, in a fit of insight, told us to sing one last time and as we did so, he turned off the lights so we sang in complete darkness.
Without the restraints of looking at each other, and in the stillness and the dark,
I remember the choir rose to the occasion
And with a great deal of tears in a great number of eyes

We performed the song quite beautifully 

Damm Covid

Damm Covid
Damm you for having us to make rules to keep everyone safe
Damm you for stopping a potentially covid infected family from seeing their loved one
Damm you for forcing what may be a final " goodbye" on a mobile phone
My mobile phone
One I was honoured to hold .

The Ringing Of The Bell

A quick post today. I need to go back to bed very soon.
My last night is tonight, and I was awoken by Winnie having a tantrum around 2pm
She was booting cushions around the living room with the force of Beckham's right foot.
She knows, when I am on nights she gets to play at Trendy Carol's for much of the afternoon.

On my way back to the cottage, I suddenly noticed that scaffolding had been erected around the tiny bell tower of the Church.
Work on the Church Bell has begun and I felt a prickle of emotion looking at it.

I know it doesn't sound that vital
But the prospect of having the bell ringing again has suddenly become rather important to me
Does that sound a daft thing to say?

Rising Bosoms

I'm on my coffee break, my patients are sleeping and the wind is blowing hard around the hospice eves.
It's Sunday night and for the first time I'm missing The Archers...enough of those old episode repeats!
The Velvet Voiced Linda has messaged all of the wardens in the village and we have all answered promptly with an " all is well" message
I commented that it all sounded like the end of The Waltons 
Linda replied with a pithy " Goodnight John Boy!"

I saw Trendy Carol earlier ( in a very figure hugging leopard print ensemble ) she had hijacked Mary for an afternoon cuddle...a lot of village people seem to be doing that recently.
Apart from her I have seen no one until I got to work.
My colleagues all seemed somewhat confused with Boris' new Stay Alert Message
The Welsh health minister made things clearer and more unambiguous....our message is generally Stay At Home.
The ponies have left my field now, which is a shame but the weeds and nettles have gone leaving the allotment areas free to be dug over again
" Bosoms " are on the rise again
Which is nice.

I bought the above poster for my bedroom

The View From Work

I nearly broadsided one of the wild goats of Llandudno when I got into work this evening
He was a magnificent fellow who gave me the Dead Eye as I drove into the hospice car park.
We are situated a stones through from West Shore and its magnificent views at sunset

The Church Laburnam

I couldn't engage with anything yesterday.
The VE celebrations left me cold and unmoved and instead of chasing up friends  which seems to be a daily occurance in these lockdown times,
I busied myself with mundane action move clips organised from Asian websites and the odd tiktok video of attractive but indulgent young men dancing to camera.
Things that underline the new lockdown norm.

I feel as though there is a change in the air !
Does anyone else feel this way?
My friend Nigel perhaps has underlined the restlessness I feel by explaining my last two years  in his usual understated way
" You got through it rather all rather unscathed in my opinion......I'm proud of you"

Time to plan ahead and anew ...that was the subtext of his comment ......and he is right
All of last year I coped with a series of new stressors, a new job, new responsibilities, financial ups and downs and finally a fucking emotional backward step regression revisited by a degree Absolute I thought Would never come 

Now I feel that lockdown has given me a chance to take stock and get straight.
Financially now I almost have my head if not above water at least into the shallow end of the pool and over the past few weeks I'm making a whole series of plans for myself , albeit lockdown confined plans, to move forward in this strange new world.

The travel book I bought a few months ago on the city of Venice lies open and read on the top of my book shelf as a constant reminder of future things new and hopeful.

I have my constants now
I have my dogs and my family and my friends and my job and my village position
The Cemetary laburnam has started to flower just this morning , like it does every year,
And this morning I photographed it yet again with a renewed sense of time and place that doesn't need to be stuck in the routine and the tried and tested.

The lockdown means that change isn't immediate
But like all change , it's the mindset that is the most important and when things are lifted and normality creeps back into our lives.
Instead of waiting for things to happen

I will be ready for them

Enjoy

Mrs Trellis Wins The War

The velvet Voiced Linda sent out a round robin on the Street Wardens what's app Group stating that Mrs Trellis had organised herself into a one woman, bobble hatted dynamo

 Good morning all you wonderful people and Happy VE Day. I've been contacted by Joyce aka Mrs Trellis- she is going to do a sponsored walk (3 x 1hour stints in keeping with the lockdown guidelines) to raise money for NHS charities. She will walk on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and I've said I'll collect any contributions. So, if you would like to sponsor Joyce, please will you let me know. Thank you 😘 xx

The wardens that received the app have pledged almost 200 £ in just  an hour or so , so I suspect Mrs Trellis will be tickled pink!
if  anyone wants to contribute from the village please see Velvet Voiced Linda at Well Street

Mini Drama

The girls tonight

I took the younger dogs out for a walk this morning
We walked up to Chic Eleanor's house
Leaving Winnie asleep on the lawn
We were gone perhaps half an hour
On returning to the cottage I turned the corner by Trevor's bungalow  to see a British Telicon van  stopped in the middle of road with its driver standing in the lane by the open van door.
I could see a large brown bulldog shape lying in the road

" oh god!"  I shouted out and galloped forward dragging the dogs with me and the driver suddenly grinned when he saw me
" He won't move !" He said pointing forward 
Winnie was sunbathing in the middle of the lane, right on the corner
She was grinning at both of us

A Safe Place

One of the saddest things about divorce is that you have to split joint possessions .
I managed to keep my beloved grandfather clock and sort of swapped it for an antique writing desk I bought years ago with money from my mother's estate , but on reflection it is the loss of several of the  paintings bought during our early years together that smarts the most.
Buying paintings together is something intensely personal and indelibly shared
And so the watercolour of the Bluebell wood in Derbyshire and the gentle 1930s painting of rolling wheat fields of Kent I still grieve for.
Not because of their monetary value
But because of the memories and feelings about how they were acquired.

All this talk stems from my chimney sweep
He returned yesterday morning as promised to give my flue a bit of a going over after I had experienced so many smoke problems a while ago.
" I'm one of those hidden key workers" he told me cheerfully from behind his face mask " No lockdown at home for me!!" 
Winnie blew him kisses as he beavered away with his brushes and as he walked through the kitchen on the way home, he noticed an oil painting sat against my art wall.
It was a painting I had saved up to buy for an age after seeing it in exhibition at Theatre Clwyd
" Now I like That!" he said brightly " May I?" he gestured to pick it up.
I nodded

He chose a study of a woodland scene in autumn by Irene Goodier 
"A Safe Quiet Place" he read from the label on the back of the painting"We all need one of those !"
He made a note of the painter saying that he needed something similar for his living room only larger
I told him it was my first purchase of my new collection.
" Hedy Lamar the actress, said that "a good painting is like a friend it keeps you company and inspires!" he added.......
Not something you expect a chimney sweep to say for sure
But he and Hedy nailed it
They do keep you company
And they do inspire!!!

Hallelujah Hugs

I missed most of the on line choir meeting last night due to some iPad technical problems .
Jamie and his now robust 1940's RAF moustache , had everyone donning hats and sharing personal " pink" photos which gave the meet a lightness which usually comes from Lyndi showing off her Charlie ! 
I did manage to log in as the Choir was giving Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah a good bash and as everyone sang in their own little rectangles I could see that one friend was having a hard time with the emotion of the song and instead of singing to the camera was glazing out of her window
I texted her a " hug" and she nodded its arrival

I'm a hugger, as so many of us are ......

Last week at work handover one of the support workers was saying her goodbyes on her last shift after resigning . She was crying so hard that social isolation rules went out of the window and a queue formed for hugs and kisses to be shared
I know, I know.......enough already on the lecture
Two minutes before I was standing arm in arm with the same support worker as we turned a patient
So  a hug when oh so needed, in my book was allowed .

The Lows Of Owning A Neurotic Dog

Me on the loo this morning

We all have had the experience of a neurotic relative.
Invariably they are hard work,
And often need careful handling
So dealing with them is often fraught with winced eyes and breaths held,
Owning a neurotic dog is no different.
In fact I think, caring for one is harder than looking after a person with high anxiety
For neurotic dogs can more more unpredictable and difficult to handle.

Dorothy runs on a certain high desperation level ...
She is desperate for acceptance and reassurance and is jealous of anyone or anything else who receives what she pecieves as praise or attention.

When I am on the loo she will sit on my feet content at that physical warmth my fat feet will provide and when I am talking to passing villagers , she will be stood with her paws on my thigh and pleading eyes fixed on my face in a needy request for an acknowledgement that she is still there and she is still loved.

Now Winnie's sanguine personality has helped tremendously in Dorothy's " rehabilitation." The two sleep together every night on the kitchen reading chair ( something I am very strict about) and puddles on the kitchen floor, although still common overnight, are staring to deminish in frequency and volume . Mary is another leveller when the two are out for a walk, as she just egnores Dorothy's constant lack of manners, but I am sure that the time will come that one barge too many will ignite a spat which will lead to a bitch fight of frightening proportions .

Dorothy still does not understand the rules of waiting for food
She is still quick to temper when Winnie joins her on " her part" of the couch
And she will react in the oddest of ways when suddenly she does not want to walk on this or that part of the road, an area she is fearful of moving towards.
Using a bowl she has not seen before will bring forth a sudden drop onto her belly that cannot be relieved by a kind word and a scratch on the head.

Boy is she hard work....

But it takes just one look at her desperate, needy brown eyes that makes all of the effort and the exasperation and the odd shouts of pain when sharp claws run down bare legs and the mopping of puddles worthwhile
Her fear and anxiety must be exhausting for her
She is a damaged dog who needs consistency and patience

I don't always provide both as I am only human
But I have chosen to take her on
and she  is my Dorothy to care for

Bliss

Long Day over!!!
It's 9.30 pm
And I've just realeased oedematous feet out of tight work shoes
Bliss is .........
A bulldog licking every inch of each foot with a tongue reminiscent of  warm tripe
as I sip a very large gin and tonic
And smell of tiredness

Tell me about the virus daddy

Very powerful 

Enjoy

A Drone's View

Early May means just one thing
The flowering of the garden Montana .
I photographed the flowers covering the garden arch just as the velvet voiced Linda texted for a weekly "all is well!" check up!
I noticed on the app site that one of the wardens had brought a drone in to check the condition of the Church Bell and there has been much discussion about cherry pickers and who has a head for heights!
I have downloaded two photos from the drone visit
A different perspective of my cottage!

 Bwthyn y llan ( bottom left) a stones throw from the church .

. 

The West part of the village , lying at the base of the Gop.

I'm making soup at the moment , some for me and some for Marion and John over at Bron Haul Marion fractured her pelvis and is only eating easymade sandwiches at lunchtimes
I've left out the chilli,
" chilli plays havoc with old lady's  bowels!" Marion once told me
Mary was sat at the living room window looking out for Hattie who has just turned up to take her for a walk. I made Hattie soup, she left homemade scones .
The barter of the countryside continues.

I'm going to design my chess figures today. The clay is all wrapped up carefully under the sink in readiness.
I'm got the lawn to cut and a climbing rose to prune

I think I may wear my PPE when tackling the rose, those thorns will have an eye out

A steady stream of villagers have passed by today
Animal Helper Pat  has too many bedding plants so I have arranged to buy some . She looks well if  not a bit lonely  and old Trevor at 96 walked passed for his daily 2 mile constitutional looking mighty fine

My uniforms are cleaned and are hung up behind the back door,
They are turning gently in the breeze like silent blue wind chimes

I'm back at work tomorrow.
The weekend has drifted past like giant clouds on a faint wind
Slowly and rather silently
Hey ho

snowman

I've just amended my disguise to something a bit more friendly