Gusset Pain

The fitness push continues

Out bike riding with Janet earlier

I now have a gusset like chopped liver!!!!

Ohhh the pain

Choir tonight

Jamie's 1940s RAF moustache has returned

Hurrah !!!

Stand off

The war between neurotic bulldog and middle aged disabled cat has continued throughout the day
It started over the possession of a dead rabbit early this morning but over several skirmishes and one full blown claws and teeth battle on the staircase
There is now a full blow Mexican Stand off in progress in the kitchen

These animals will be the death of me

And.........R e l a x !

My sister Janet called up when I was sleeping this morning and more or less finished the front garden.
It looks a picture with neat, weed free soil waiting to be filled with more herbaceous daisies and snapdragons .
I'm very pleased
I'm also pleased that one of the support workers cut my hair after work this morning.
I feel clean and tidy and now 8 lbs lighter than I did last week.
It was weigh in day today
I finished Hattie's shopping and dropped it around , completed my own and cleaned the cottage.
I bought three cheerful bunches of flowers for the kitchen table  living room and kitchen window ledges
And as the thunder echoes away from the hills in the West, I ve watered the pots
Poured myself a large gin and slimline
And have sat under the front door honeysuckle as Dotty sucks at my feet

Good Taste

I'm two weeks into my diet and I'm now into my groove

Ok, I had one wobble when I heard McDonald's had reopened its drive through!!!!

But the single cheeseburger and fries was a bloody well deserved treat as I had just left home to go one my third of five shifts last week.( I had ate most of it before I had got onto the A55 for work!!)

The rest of the fortnight, I've been eating healthy and with extra taste 

I finish my 60 hour night stint this morning and will not buy a scotch egg when I go to Sainsbury's on my way home, but will buy fruit and turkey steaks and veg.

I also need to buy Hattie And her boyfriend some provisions as they are self isolating in the village

Covid maybe on the wane in certain parts of Britain but in North Wales numbers are still just pushing past their peak.

Like many people I have had a strange relationship with my weight over the years

Bad times I put weight on. Content times I've put weight on.

Better times I lose it and thank God, stop farting when I bend over!!!!

It's time to lose the weight now, especially as lockdown has complicated the issue somewhat.
Shift work is a problem too, but one that can be worked on with effort.

Drink piles of low calorie, non carbonated juice and make sure your food is tasty

That's the secret, it's not rocket science.

Tonight I had a massive papaya, tomato and mozzarella salad ( tiny slivers of cheese added when turkey is hot)

Topped with pieces of turkey which had been dry fried after being marinated in soy, ginger, garlic, chilli and a tiny bit of honey

Bloody lovely

I take after my grandmother, she was big boned and probably could wrestle a pig into submission if the need arose, and so I will never be a waif.....that I understand

But I've lost four stone before quite easily and will do so again the remainder of this year

It's my last goal post divorce! 

What Would Your Mother Say?

I watched a video of some of the far right so called football lads protesters crossing Hyde Park today.
I was reminded of that terrible footage of the chimps in Jane Goodall's documentary of a few years back as one domineering tribe attacked another more peaceful group of apes
These men/boys acting as animals
Obviously harnessing and enjoying the aphrodisiac qualities of anger and excitement a score of  young men stamped and pushed and spat on people sat in the sunshine

All I wanted to say to each one of them
Face to face
Eye to eye
For what it's worth
" Your Mother Would Be very proud of you"

The Old Queen Asserts Herself

Like the Queen Mary on her final voyage to California, Winnie has continued to steam about in the background of cottage life at a slow sedately pace.
Most afternoons she is able to walk the hundred yards or so to Trendy Carol's garden , where she ignores the warm shade of the privet, favouring more the comfy sofa in her all glass conservatory.
But that is as much as she does now, and remains tired enough not to leave the cottage on longer walks or even for lengthy trips in the car.
But sometimes the old girl gets a certain glint in her eye
And this is where a sense of devilment seems to overtakes her
It's a quiet humour that's often perfectly timed
Almost as if Miriam Margolyes has taken over her body in a comedy vignette

Today, quite unexpectedly she decided to come to bed with me after shift.
Now she has not done this for months and months, preferring to sit in the reading chair in the kitchen or on the couch in the living room but after several deep breaths she plodded up their staircase  with all the finesse of Big Daddy from Cat On A Hot Tin Roof  and kicked open the bedroom door with one mighty swing of a forepaw.
With dramatic effect she stood in the doorway waiting for a reaction
What do you want ? I asked her , not playing her game, and the old girl schlepped on the antique wooden floorboards until she faced the bed without glancing at me at all.
Here she sat thinking
She thinks a great deal
All bulldogs do.
Finally, and with much effort she placed both front paws on the bedrame and jumped with a loud grunt.
Mary was bright enough to have already moved out of the way of a dog the size of the Queen of Tonga landing on the duvet but Dorothy being rather challenged in the intelligence stakes lay in a direct trajectory and as Winnie landed she booted Dorothy to one side like a miniature football.
And there she stayed, spent and content.
I slept to the right of her, my head on my pillow next to her head on hers.
A massive paw rested against my shoulder rather tenderly
Both of us snoring like pigs in warm mud.
Mary, Dotty and finally Albert squished in the base of the bed as best they could
As the old Queen rested in her bulldog sleep,
Secure she had made all of her decisions herself,
Perhaps for one final time

Whatever Floats Your Boat and Tickles Your Fancy Mister!!

The first gay card I received back in 1989 from Nu

So what's it like being 58, gay and single?

The question was posed by an interested heterosexual male in his 40s
and it was a question of depth by someone with a brain

Like general life, being gay, single and in my sixth decade has its challenges for sure, but typical of us gays sex is the least of our problems as thanks to the internet and apps galore it is more than easy to find a suitable bed fellow if you so need one.

Men in general and gay men in particular seem to have varying rules when it comes down to sex.
Many ( and more than I expected to be honest) aspire to The Cake And Eat It Brigade
These are generally successful men who have a partner on their arm, some trendy furniture and a get out clause which says ( and sometimes often unsaid) that you can shag around if the mood takes you.  Often there is a caveat here....which literally says don't shit on your own doorstep, but the rules are there ....do it but Don't talk about it !!!!
I am not sure I respect the Cake and eat it Brigade as much as I do the let's all get on shag fest going Brigade. At least if you share a third person or fourth  or whatever your need is , it all open and above board with everyone knowing what the job in hand is.
I don't think my esteem could cope with The Shag Fest Brigade
I was always chosen last for games at school and in most theeesomes , one person is always on the periphery so to speak.

Then you have the App Queens, Now these vary considerably and have too many categories to list here with any detail but suffice to say every guy from 99% straight to 100% gay will be there. Some showing their face, some just teasing with a body shot at the gym that hides their identity from boyfriends, girlfriends, work, or whoever!
The anonymous ones who say they are 45 when they are well over 50 lie far too easily
In many cases a lot of these guys lie too easily.
The app encourages it.
Save for the desperate
But they are another story not for today

I'm not a prude, nor am I judging too much as the rule is that it's each to their own in the ways of the heart.
I even considered an open marriage for a while before common sense took over and I realised just wanting it is the death knell of that lovely warm feeling monogamy always gave me.

And so , I am concentrating on friends at the moment and my gay friend quota is up a few 100% s this last year alone which is not bad given lockdown.
Having said this one friend Colin has become  a real tonic through the lockdown isolation as he lives in England and our conversations over video and messenger during the long nights that singletons often experience have eased the isolation a great deal.r
Psychotherapist Jon who I met in Sitges last year remains a dear friend as does mave the rave and recently a blind "date" arranged by a work colleague with Fernando the Ecuadorean hotel manager proved to be a hilarious lesson  in social distancing and cultural differences.
I feel as though I've met an  amigo!!!


So, to sum up, what is it like to be single, gay and 58? I'll say
It's complicated, for sure. At times it's  lonely that's another given. Other times it is what it is!..you just have to get on with it.
Single and over 50 gets you judged, probably more than just being gay does nowadays.
''Tis the way of the world
But over all I think I have a clear sense of self amid the bullshit that goes along with the gay world, a world that is rather less forgiving of its seniors than most I may add

5 Questions

A blog romp
Five Questions

1. What's your Name?
2. Where do you live?
3. Why do you follow Going Gently ?
4. Say three things you like about yourself 
5. What is your favourite movie?

Gardening

A burst water main in the village caused much consternation on the village what's app group last night as everyone's water pressure disappeared before toilets could be flushed and showers taken .
The lane became a river with the water forcing itself skywards and coursing past the cottage towards the felin
The water board turned up eventually and It would seem that everyone on this side of the village were woken by pneumatic drills and heavy machinery at 4 am
I was too
And finally returned to bed at eleven am for a snooze.

This afternoon with help from my sister , the front garden has been fully replanted with plants .
Blue and white agapanthus , blue salvia, gold rubekkia, foxgloves, hostas and pink geranium
It's a work in progress but will look quite lovely once the burnt grass returns and the new plants grow to fill their new positions.
I feel that something positive has been done today even though I did rip the arse out of my sweatpants  watering the planters
The front garden will look very different than it once did
Another important step towards turning the cottage into my own
Now I'm watching a sad antiques show, as it's raining hard
Dorothy is licking my tired feet

cinema

Renata Vanni centre

I do miss my cinema
Today is a nothing kind of day after night shift
So it would be common that  I would treat myself to an afternoon's film watching
The Storyhouse in Chester
Something thought provoking with a proper coffee accompaniment
I haven't been to the cinema in an age!!!

I've had to make due with Westward The Women on TCM which is Wagon train western crossed with Tenko.. 
The best performance was by Renata Vanni , who never spoke a word of English during the movie.
My tea is bit of chicken breast wrapped in salmon with sprigs of basil

I've cleaned the cottage ,washed sheets and hung them on the field gate to dry as Trendy Carol watched the dogs.
Tomorrow is my only day off with no work this week and I've earmarked the day for finishing the garden planting

The Great British Sewing Bee tonight I hope Claire and Mark stay in

Sparrow

There is a crack above the front door
Hidden away in the honeysuckle
An electricity cable runs into the cottage
And a sparrow shuffles away on her eggs far inside.
It's driven Albert and Mary bananas today.
As the faint scrape of wings on stone echo around the living room like whispers.
The animals'  anticipation is electric and has woken me a few times during the day.with its screaming stress

I've just got up,
Eaten a punnet of tiny tomatos
Then I've returned to bed with a pillow over my head

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