Going Gently

Resignation

I caught up with Chic Eleanor this morning for a 2 metre coffee
She apologised again for being in her scruffs
But swirled a beautiful silk scarf around her neck as she frothed up the hot milk
Darling John ! What is your news? She purred
I told her that I had just resigned from Samaritans
That is where we had met several years ago now
Eleanor understood immediately my reasons now for resigning.
She herself is a part time counsellor

I have no reserves left for Samaritans to utilise
I say that without drama but with a little regret
Working for the charity had provided me an outlet for a set of skills I was under utilising in life.
I was a husband, a hobby smallerholder, a very part time ITU nurse and needed the challenge working on the call lines can give.
And I was a Good Samaritan
If you can forgive the phrase....

But I recognise I have no reserves to give to the charity anymore.
My priority is my work
And my major priority is myself

I suggested to Eleanor that we meet with another couple of mutual Sam friends very soon. A socially distant picnic of West Shore with wine and laughter and she twirled her imaginary pashmina in delight
Darling John, that would be absolute perfection!

She always has the ability to make the mundane sound delightfully grand

Anger

I was accompanied , on my last three nights by a fresh faced young nurse called Niamh

In her early twenties she is feeling her way as a professional , but shows great promise I think.

I told her so, during our long hours together

And by doing so found that she bounced ideas and problems against me, as she valadated her own clinical decisions

I listened with interest to her interaction with a patient who was somewhat disgruntled

He wasn't having the best of days at the hospice and was spiky and curt even though at every turn Niamh examined the problems patiently and professionally

We explored how the patient made her feel afterwards in the quiet of the staff room and I suggested that it was just ok to accept that he was angry without trying to solve every problem .

Patient Anger Is not something nurses cope well with.

I was then reminded of a moment long ago now when I used to care for my brother every Thursday daytime. He was confined mostly to bed then, with a bubbling tracheostomy and the cruelty that is motor Neurone disease.
My presence was more a confidence boost for my sister in law , so she felt content to leave the house for a days' shopping and apart from the occasional mess round and tracheal suction my day would be peaceful as the dogs would run amok in the garden as my brother slept or watched crap tv.
I remember one afternoon he had a coughing fit and needed his tracheostomy inner tube changed and his airways cleared .
To me this procedure is second nature but that day my brother had become irritated and difficult.
He was angry, and had no voice and as I fiddled with the tubes and catheters his eyes flashed red with anger
Moments later he slapped my hand hard as I reached forward with a suction catheter and shocked and suddenly upset I paused for just one second and said a slightly exasperated " I'm sorry"
I remember my brother closing his eyes and flopping back on his pillow as I finished the procedure and without saying anything more I cleaned up the equipment and busied myself with task orientation.
I was ten years younger than my brother and we couldn't be more different in personality if we tried.
I knew I would often irritate him but I never quite knew just why that was.
Initially the gay thing was an issue , but I knew it wasn't really that that irritated him.
It was more me, and I get that, me coupled with hidden sibling riverly so often experienced between brothers.
I felt that slap long long after it had happened though
And I remembered my training too on spinal injuries as I watched bulldog Mabel bounce around the edge of the pond. The pond she would fall into a week later
Training which said Internal anger was so much harder to deal with than external anger.

This memory is almost nine years old. I had to look it up on Going Gently finding the post where Mabel finally swan dived into the pond like Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure
See
https://disasterfilm.blogspot.com/2011/11/sock-down-trouser-leg.html

But I suddenly remembered it as though it was yesterday.
I also remember how the afternoon ended as an hour or two later when I went to check on my brother he gestured to a crappy quiz programme on the tv.
It was our habit to watch it together with me inanely shouting out the answers
And he gestured for me to sit to do the same
There was no need to revisit the burst of anger
It was there and it was out,
And it was finished with.

Chatter

Burnt by the May sun and now stripped..the blank canvas

Apart from work, the predominant thing in my life this week is the fact my sister Janet has refashioned my front garden into a semi blank canvas, ready for replanting
For some strange reason I have not had the motivation to re stamp myself onto the plot which has more or less retained its original grass and border set up since the cottage was purchased.
Now with her expert eye on the case, old plants have been ruthlessly dispatched, the dead wood removed and soil now can be seen between the growing clumps of evergreens, buddleia and my one standard rose who enjoys the full sun in the garden which faces south towards the hills.
I want sunburst clumps of agapanthus, Veronica, rubeckia, salvia and echinacea, with geranium in pots and lavender near the door
I'm looking forward to this small venture
It's another way of stamping a new personality on the cottage

The commute to work last night was lovely
On an average day it's a 40 minute drive door to door and last night I was entertained by Radio 4 's The News Quiz and Front Row, where the resident concert pianist Víkingr Ólafsson played Bach so beautifully, I took the long way to work and parked briefly along the Promenade to watch the sunset and in order to listen.

I am aware that I have nothing really of note to say.
Life is plodding on.
A friend is trying to set me up with a blind date with an Ecuadorian hotel manager called Fernando
an enterprise which is ripe with comic asides enough to fill at least three blogs .
He has a kind face
But then so have I, or so I've been told.

I'm off two short days then back on nights for five.
If we didn't have any restrictions , I clearly have my own.
Night shifts shackle independent endeavours

But after this I am on holiday from work.
Two whole weeks.
Some of which I had earmarked for some time in Sitges
Now I need to review my plans
I hear the old Santa Maria Hotel has changed hands in the lockdown,
Time for new hotels in new places me thinks

I've been thinking a lot recently, I think we all have

Going Gently has always ostensibly been a diary
Thoughts and news, and opinions and reflections of a mundane life

I have stopped trying to make it interesting

It is what it is..........

The Ocean Is Calling

Yesterday my sister was pottering around my front garden, completing jobs and planning the new flower beds.
The dogs knowing someone was there was restless and woke me early not long after I had gone to bed.
Tired but needing something to do, I washed up, cleaned the kitchen and retrieved a parcel from the back door. The parcel was a poster frame I had ordered and I hung the Art Deco poster I had bought from America the other night
It looks good behind my arm chair
Pleased with myself I went to bed and tried to sleep again but to no avail
Subsequently I'm tired now, and it's going on three am .....only five hours to go before hometime

I have a sore throat too
But no temperature

Desert Island Discs

We played Desert Island Discs at work

The other nurses I worked with have never heard of the radio 4 programme

I felt old explaining the concept

Here are my eight Discs

The great Diana Damrau belting out the Queen Of The Night Aria

From Mozart's The Magic Flute

I saw the performance at the New York Met on a magical evening

which took my breath away

1992

Sheffield, drunk with three friends

Singing and dancing to this on the roof of Weston Park Hospital

Salad days

This song is synonymous with my best friend, Nuala

My constant of. 31 years

Well I have to have at least one classic movie theme

Moon river has it all.

This version is by Lea Selonga who took the original lead in Miss Saigon

Another set of lovely memories of old friends from musical theatre

This ticks a few boxes

My Liverpool heritage ( Mother and grandparents- who adored this hymn)

Hillsborough where I lived for many very happy years

And My home town of Sheffield

Still dear in my heart

This was playing constantly on the radio when I had to take my

First dog Finlay back and forward to the animal hospital before he died

The song and his death broke my heart

my overall favourite song sung by my own choir

Beautiful

A Spanish / Jewish lullaby

Durme Durme

And finally a song that underlines optimism

Hope , moving forward, and the importance of humour

What's yours

Basil

The rain finally came early doors and the air was warm and moist and not humid when we ventured down the lane as the burnt greenery of the fields and gardens took their first deep gulp of water.
I had bought several pots of growing basil yesterday and had placed the herbs on the old pine set of bedroom drawers so that they could perfume my bed space after I returned to bed
The smell of basil for me is synonymous with salad lunches and bright sunshine

I'm on nights tonight. I'm working a set of three then after that a set of five
Night shift means more pay.
I have the car brakes, my annual nurse registration payment of 120£ and the dog walker to pay for
I'm not complaining.....I have a job to go to.

The racist news from America lies heavy on my heart today
Boris' statement that he is now going to take control of the covid fight is even more troubling
Almost 10 weeks without rain feels like a metaphore for false positivity
Reality hidden away, just a little , behind bright sun and summer clothes.

Burnt Bonce

I met two friends today.

I met them in separate meets
one in a garden
The other outside Theatr Clwyd

I burnt my head in the hot sun at the theatre and
I have to say I travelled a little longer than my allotted but suggested 5 miles
(14.9 miles to be exact)
But in Wales driving 5 miles gets you nowhere.
Literally nowhere

Having no coffee room to go to , it was initially strange meeting my friend on the long grass outside the theatre. Theatr Clwyd looked fallorn
Unused and unloved and silent. My friend and I lay in the grass like schoolboys and swapped stories whilst watching the sky.
We were suddenly boys in the school yard and not 50 something men
Talking while watching the clouds amble by.

Tonight was our 10 th Weekly choir meet on Zoom
This week was more like group therapy with the choir sharing " lockdown" photographs of each of our lives with a discussion of each.
Jamie , sans his 1940s RAF moustache has done a sterling job organising it all
Such is the talent of the wartime forces

I've been uncharacteristically gay this evening
Moisturiser on face, moisturiser booties on my feet ( thank you Wendy and Alun), and several bulldog covered naps which cooled a hot forehead

The weather is said to break tomorrow....
It's time for rain

Trolls

My sister's homemade birthday card me in PPE !

Yesterday I foolishly took on a particularly nasty troll and a blogger who enabled the troll to vent her bile .
This was on another blog, so it wasn't my fight
But sometimes you have to say what you know is right.
Especially if you consider the blogger, an old friend

The troll turned her venom on me and foolishly I reacted
The first rule of psychiatric nurse training!
Never engage with a mean drunk!

The troll delighted in reminding me that I was now living alone
Mental illness sharpening the presence of a half hidden wound
And amid other insults I finally left her to vomit her bile alone

I've not had a lonely birthday
Lots of cards and gifts from the get go.
Villager Heulwen left a cake with a ribbon on it. Hattie ,a mug with Mary's photo on it and the Velvet Voiced Linda called down with a bottle wine from her and her hubby
The Randa girls brought a hand delivered card and school gossip
A lily and goodies from Wendy and Alun
And Mrs Trellis left a mars bar wrapped in a napkin!
( it melted before I could open the wrapper)

I spoke to friends Nigel in Manchester and Nu in London and missed a call from AM in Phily
And my oldest friend Nia called filled with warmth from Australia .
Last night was filled with giggles with Sheffield Jane and Colin in Liverpool
But Nia's made me tear up when goodbyes came around again.

I caught up with family at tea time.
Gifts of cheerful geranium in terracotta pots, homemade cushions, bespoke gin and a pair of tracksuit bottoms to replace the ones Dorothy ripped the arse out of , but ones I still wear.

Facebook friends said hello, more emails, blog best wishes and messages too this afternoon. I even reminded my nephew it was my birthday by text and he promised me a review of the Korean disaster movies I sent him

A lonely birthday?

Naw!

The troll got it wrong

Birfday

I slept in today,
And am now still sat at the trusty kitchen table with my bucket of coffee waiting for the postman who always drops my post last in the village
Thank you all for your thoughts, cards, calls, gifts and notes.
I'm very humbled by everyone's best wishes
Everyone who understands my irritation of nice over kindness
Well today, I've experienced everything kind!!!!!
( apart from one troll on another blog tee hee)
Special thanks to CAZ who sent me the above lino print of Dorothy)
It perfectly captures her brittleness!

I will be going to my twin sister's house later today with gifts and my own tea in a thermos

The Scent Of Honeysuckle

Yesterday one of the sisters on our local intensive care unit sent me a photo of the staff accepting Mrs Trellis' sponsored walk monies.
She asked me to forward it on which I will do
I will probably frame it for her also.
A nice momento for the kitchen wall.

Siri? What day is it today?
Sunday! Crikey ...it's the last day of May today !!!
It's June 1st tomorrow ....

I'm making a tomato, papaya, salmon and mozzarella salad for lunch
The ones I used to love in Sitges
But I've forgotton the fucking basil !
Bollocks

I wasn't going to blog today but my sister in law just video messaged me worried that I had not blogged for a few days .( she had not refreshed her Going Gently page )
At least if I ever succumb to a serious illness , I will always be found by a worried relative or friend before the dogs start eating my face off!

That's the down side of blogging sometimes.
Everyone seems to know your news but you don't always know theirs
A one way mirror of sorts.

Lockdown changes here tomorrow and I will go and see my sister to give her my birthday gifts.
I think it's going to be as hot as it is here today so we shall sit in her garden and I shall drink tea out of my own cup and saucer, and made by me in my sturdy thermos!

How different we do things?

I can't tell you how glorious it is here
Right in this one small moment of time
I have the front door of the cottage open and the sun is heating the honeysuckle flowers that adorns the front of Bwthyn y llan so that the whole house is filled with the scent of a June birthday!

The intensity of the fragrance cannot be described, it's so strong and heady
The carpet needs a hoover, Winnie has kicked around three of the fifteen scatter cushions in temper as she waits for her lunch and Albert needs a feeding .
I haven't made my bed yet
And there are dishes to wash up
Oh and all of the plants on the patio need watering after which underpants need fetching from their sunning places on the garden shrubs

But the cottage is full of honeysuckle , and I'm not moving for a few more moments yet!!

Awakenings equinox

Last night , just before bed the five of us walked slowly over to the field to sit in the last

Rays of the sun

I found this piece of music recently and listened to it on my headphones as the dogs

Slipped into comfortable lumps at my side and lap.

Albert tiptoed amid the bodies to sit

And typical of his breed, he narrowed his eyes towards the sunset

Thoughts at the Kitchen Table.

This photo brought back some lovely memories today
Thank you Facebook for randomly choosing this photo to remind me of times past
The ones you usually fucking pick for me, invariably piss me off big style.

This one shows me teaching my nephew how to give a sick ghost hen it's medication
It was perhaps eight years ago now, at the height of the Ukrainian Village boom

He had undiagnosed Aspergers then so was seen to be slightly awkward and somewhat heavy handed., but I do remember his abject concentration at the task in hand once I had showed him how to master the vagaries of a one ml insulin syringe full of antibiotic.

I will be posting some of my lockdown dvds to him today. Some Korean disaster movies as I am trying to widen his interests away from Star Wars and Marvel

The lockdown has sort of cemented some of my relationships and have helped to blossom other newer ones.
I'm presently at the kitchen table and have sat through two recorded short stories written by a friend of a friend who has become my friend over the last few weeks. Later I will give the author some feedback
Oh I'm never short of an opinion

Daily my two Hospice besties Ben and Ruth will sign in on our shared messager channel for a natter. Nothing sparkling, some gossip at work, a shared dough story, a kind word and from Monday we may even be able to sit in each other's gardens with a glass of Ben's homemade beer
Hey ho

Days off at home amble to their own pace now
I've hit that wall that so often happens on the second week of a much anticipated holiday
I've relaxed.

Just looking at the masses of potted geraniums and antirrhinum lined up next to my agapanthus and violas in the sun of the patio is enough for me this morning. I have no blistering need to plant them out not just yet
It's too hot anyway.

The shapes on the greenery are my underpants drying in the sun

Mary is out walking with Hattie.
Winnie is sucking the life blood out of a charred pizza which I left far too long in the oven last night
and Dorothy is probably contemplating having a piss of my newly laundered bed spread
The one my twin sister was getting rid of
I called her down a few minutes ago and she sat in my arms for a few mintes as I listened to the taped stories, rocking back and forth like a worried baby, her eyes never leaving mine
She's a damaged little soul
And will, I suspect, remain one all of her life

I've bought salad and king prawns for tea and have planned a chicken salad for work tomorrow.
I had a text from one of the hospice support workers thanking me for explaining PPE properly to her whilst she was stressed and fraught and fearful
It's nice to get feedback
But looking at the photo taken of me instructing my nephew in animal husbandry

I think I've always been a good teacher

Clacker Problem

Hattie' s recent oil painting of the Church

It's the illustration which represents the village Warden Group

At the 8pm clap Hattie and I made a truly miserable social isolating attempt at pulling the Church Bell for the briefest of times .
We had left a donation for Church Funds and hope the vicar has enough to buy a new clacker as I am sure it was the clacker and not us to blame for the poor bell ringing.

Like naughty school girls we both emerged from the vestry , red faced from our poor attempt, and were greeted by the Randas who were less than impressed with the performance ! Affable Despot Jason later wrote on the village what's app forum thus....
" I went down to listen .....like most artists, I feel Johnstruggled to match his first album !"

At least old Trevor from Cwm Road was happy . He was born in the village 95 years ago and was holding his phone up to his equally aged sister in nearby Prestatyn so she could here the bell ring!!!

Village leader Ian texted " you'll have to do some practice on your rhythm John...."
Which was answered by The Velvet Voiced Linda who cuttingly said " Anyway what about the bell?

Everyone's a critic !!!!

Pride

Mrs Trellis and her famous bobble hat at the Christmas Fayre

There is something quite moving and incredibly charming about someone's unexpected pride in something they have achieved.
Tonight was a case in point.
The jungle telegraph from The Velvet Voiced Linda and her Trelawnyd Street Wardens was that Mrs Trellis had raised 500£ from her sponsored walk, money which would be earmarked for the staff of my own former Intensive Care Unit
I caught Mrs Trellis out near Byron Street and I told her just how proud we all were of her
Looking beyond the laughter, and the chatter and the matter-of-factness of our conversation
I suddenly recognised a slight waiver of the chin and a watery glint in her eyes and as I repeated the words " Well Done"
The old lady raised her head proudly and firmly nodded her acknowledgement to something rather special

And her sudden tearful pride made my heart soar like the swallows over Well Street

lonely

I couldn't sleep that well last night and was up around 5 am bathing before thinking about going to work.
A flapping at the window signalled the arrival of the now single bantam cockerel on his way to the gardens towards Trendy Carol's for the morning.
He sat on the window sill looking at me for a moment
Then sat some more
Quietly and without panic as I splashed quietly away
In the first time in his life that has spanned over two years now, he is alone
And I am sure he sat watching me , because he recognised me as someone who occasionally feeds him.
He's in his own lockdown now.
Alone and suddenly lonely
And sat a few feet away from someone he was familiar with
A moment that may have made him feel just a tiny bit better.

Double Entendre

Knock on the lane window around 1.30 pm
It was old "Mr Hughes" brandishing an Aldi Carrier bag

He's a brusque fellow, not really known for his warmth,
I came out to the kitchen wall and said hello

Apparantly his street Warden had given him a couple of ready meals that were not quite to his taste
" I thought your dogs may like them!" he said with uncharacteristic generosity
I looked at the container

" I hate offal" he said seriously and I laughed
" Oh I haven't had a nice faggot for an absolute age !" I replied ....giddy as a kipper!!!

Mr Hughes sort of half smiled and there was a faint twinkle in his eye

" Aye..... that's the lockdown for you we've all had to make sacrifices "

Some may a bit of help to get this joke
See

faggot

/ˈfaɡət/

See definitions in:

All

Sex

Savoury

Needlework

noun

1.

INFORMAL•OFFENSIVE

a male homosexual.
2.

a bundle of sticks bound together as fuel.

Nearly 58

My back garden

I've done practically nothing today

I was still so tired.

I've read more of the wonderful book " On The Red Hill " by Mike Parker surrounded by bulldogs and only moved to go to the loo where I continued to read, still surrounded by bulldogs before returning to my original resting place

The lane was busy with walkers, so when I eventually ventured outside to buy pet food conversations were had with German Bernard and Marjorie, Animal Helper Pat ( who was adding her garden waste to my field bonfire) and Meirion ( a meeting I cut short with the excuse of feeding the animals as he likes a rather long chat)

I returned to the sofa soon after and was interrupted by a neighbour who was worried about the disappearance of one bantam cockerels who live the gardens around here.

Mary, Dorothy and I went for a scout round and found lumps of sad feathers in a nearby field
I remember well, my livestock keeping days, they taught me well the ways and habits of the fox and badger

I will break the news to the locals later . They all have grown to love the bachelor cockerels.

The single surviving bantam quietly made his way across my garden to his roosting tree in the graveyard at dusk tonight.

It's sad to see him alone.

My sister has just asked what I want for my birthday and after long think I've asked her to upgrade by tiny front garden with her green fingers and some colourful planting.

We are 58 in a week's time

58! The last time I really noticed I was 40
My sisters are a constant in my life...I've known them both 58 years!

Where does the time go?

Flip Flop

Over two days of twelve hour shifts I have run the gauntlet of PPE
I'm not complaining , it's just a statement of fact
IMAGINE a large pink hairy pig being squeezed into a flaccid sky blue condom
Add to the mix a tight plastic mask , the size of a large breathless yogurt pot, clinging blue latex gloves and a steamed up visor which looked as though it may have been born in Chenobyl and you may get the gist of what I have looked like since early yesterday morning.
One of my colleagues , whilst finally helping to peel the sweaty plastic mess from my slug like body summed it up thus
" Jesus!!!!!You smell like fucking Gandi 's Flip Flop!"

I Say

This week I wanted to say this to someone I know

" You are a nice person

But you'll never be a kind one "

but of course I didn't

In the great scheme of things .....
It's not important

But Inso need to say it !
Hey ho

What We Shall Remember

Do you remember the covid lockdown daddy?
The nights we had Zoom night quizzes with the family?
Where The Mummy, A cowboy, Indiana Jones, Johnny Depp, Charlie Chaplin and Princess Leia amongst others battled for a single Cadbury's cream egg!
Do you remember those days daddy?
Do you remember?