Bra

 The Ghost stories of followers have yet again proved more interesting than my original post. I’ve read most at lunchtime at work and shared some with my workmates who found them highly entertaining .

I finished work at 8 pm 

When I’m on day shifts I don’t get home much before a quarter to nine. By the time I’ve collected the dogs from Trendy Carol, fed and walked them, fuelled Albert and lit the fire, I don’t get to sit down until 9.30pm or so. 

It was a bit after that tonight because Dorothy didn’t want to leave the warmth of Trendy Carol’s trendy sofa.

That upset me

As I sat down my phone beeped cheerfully 

It was a co worker from today 

She is my age 

The message simply read

“ I’ve found my first bunion, I’ve ran out of Bacardi  and my bra is now a dirty grey...I’m too old for this shit!”

The Fast Ghost

I didn’t tell you all but I think I saw a ghost the other week.

I wasn’t shocked or frightened, just rather intrigued. 

I was at work. 

It was around four am in the morning and I just told my colleagues that I was going to pop out to my car to collect some paperwork. 

When I got up, so did they for when I returned we had a succession of turns and syringe driver checks to do, and as I exited the unit through the electric doors I felt and sort of saw Ruth , my fellow nurse,  move very quickly behind me to enter a patient’s room immediately to my right. 

I collected the paperwork from my car, and as I returned to the hospice , I felt strangely unsettled by the “ quickness “ of Ruth’s movement, so much so that I asked if she had indeed entered the patient’s room so rapidly. 

She denied that she had. Nor indeed had our fellow fellow support worker, the only other able bodied person inside the unit .

But I knew what I felt.

I felt and half saw a figure move behind me into the patients room with some gusto.

Last week I worked nights again but this time with another nurse. This nurse is well known for her spiritual experiences and comically is referred to by her colleagues being a bit of a white witch. 

She is also one of the most pragmatic and talented hospice nurses I have ever had the pleasure of working with.

I asked her about her experiences on nights without explaining any details of my own “ visitation’  and 

she told me that knew only of two recent ‘visitors’ . 

One she described as a man , who stands quietly on one corner of the hospice away from any other activity 

“ And the other? “ I pressed her

“ oh the other is an odd bod” she said cheerfully “ it’s a figure that moves from this corridor into the first of the  patient bedrooms” she pointed to where I had seen my “ ghost” 

“ she really IS  a odd bod too ,” my colleague added

“ why’s that? “ I asked gingerly 

“She always moves very fast like a bullet ...always from right to left” she told me with a gentle smile

This used to scare me shitless as a child 

Shame

 

The exceptional Russell T Davies series It’s a sin, has brought back many old memories of the gay world from the 1980s. 

I wasn’t officially gay then .

No, the hatred and misinformed ideas of gay plagues and gay lifestyles shamed me into the closet so deep that not even my emotional intelligence could reach it.

This was the story of many young gay men of my generation .

We would be destined to come out later when the 1980s gave way to a more enlightened 1990s.

There was no internet then, no phones no apps ......if you were confident and ‘serious’ in having a relationship you met another man in a gay bar or from adds in the newspapers. If you weren’t you trolled around the same gay bars or else ambled around the parks after dusk.

I met my first proper boyfriend through the Sheffield Star.

He was closeted and angry and was generous and exciting and the relationship was a real abuse disaster waiting to happen. 

The abuse did happen and a couple of years I walked away with my head kind of held high and my mind firmly fixed about what I would and would not accept from a relationship with a man. 

I would never again accept that it was alright to be denied, to be hidden away, to be lied about.

I deserved better than that.

Before I met my husband, I dated a guy from chesterfield . He was a lovely, big teddy bear of a man, a broad country speaking animal feed wholesaler who worked through the Pennines and for several months we were happy with me visiting him , mainly at weekends or visa versa. One week day he unexpectedly found himself working in Sheffield and we met up for coffee and before we sat down I saw the wedding ring on his finger.

It wasn’t one of those he’s married kind of scenarios  at all

But it was a case of him wearing a wedding ring to pretend he was straight in the eyes of his colleagues and his customers. 

I reluctantly walked away from the relationship and didn’t look back 

Shame has no place in being gay

Shame has no place in being anything

Three Hours later x

 Three hours on zoom and messenger 

And I’m back to some sort of supported normality 

My friends ........the gold bars of covid 

Typical Lockdown Day

 

“Oh Darling John, I am now invigorated for the day!”

Chic Eleanor was on good form this morning.

We met in McDonald’s car park and drank our coffee in our respective cars 

No pashmina but in place was looped a long dark green woollen scarf.

Her hair looked glorious

Later Ive seen The German Lady and The Uber Couple out on my walk and said hello to all 

At home I’ve made vegetable soup spiced up with horseradish 

And I’ve lit the fire early, it’s cold and wet and miserable 

I will go to zoom choir tonight, I haven’t been for over a month 

I’m a bit lonely today

It’s a Sin

 It’s a sin

The reality of this 1980 s based Russell T Davis  tv Drama  set in the gay world during the aids crisis wasn’t part of my world and indeed of my history but boy is it a powerfully emotional glimpse into a piece of history where a whole generation of men were failed

A wonderfully evocative, moving and important piece of filmmaking 

I sort of recognised myself in the characters but boy did I recognise Nu 

Rubber Chicken Abuse

Somehow Mary has gotten hold of Winnie’s rubber chicken

For the last 65 minutes she has been attempting to kill it in the East Wing upstairs

The calm of the evening is lost forever 

Negativity

 I love this photograph 

The character in the blue could be anything...it could be covid, a toxic relationship or just life at its very worst, but we have all, at one time or another, felt it’s pull and experienced it’s draining feeling.

“ She could suck the lifeblood from out of a lemon” was a saying my mother would employ about a negative and chronically pessimistic friend oblivious that she would act the same with confines of her own family

What do you think of when you look at the photograph 

Answers on a postcard please 

Beautiful

 The view from the Gop above the village today 

Bloody Hell

 

Night shift, so it’s sleep all day.

Everything goes tits up in that 45 minutes in between waking and leaving for work.

Dorothy had projectile vomit all over the bedroom and landing ( probably due to a large piece of her leash that she had managed to chew off and SWALLOW ) 

I found the offending article amid a pile of steaming stomach contents  lying at an astonished Albert’s feet in the east wing. 

Another job for the carpet cleaner on my days off, I told myself

The vomiting thing made me late, so I just managed to grab my uniform and a pre made salmon salad from the fridge before emptying the post box and setting off for work.

I wish I hadn’t collected the post for in it were two ...yes TWO !  speeding fine documents 

Apparently on one of the few day off I had, when I ventured to the supermarket I had been clocked doing 35 miles an hour in a 30 zone TWICE !!!!

Once on the way to the supermarket and the other on the way back twenty minutes later.

Now before Miss Angry from Tumbridge Wells Leaves a snotty comment, I KNOW, I am to blame, but I do think it is a bit rich, certainly given the area I was caught in.....

  

Hitchcock, Wind and A Night Train To Venice

 

I’ve missed last Big Gay Quiz because of work but I shall return to the zoom session next week.

Last night I did some research in the quiet corners of the shift and took a leaf out Rachel’s book and booked myself some online study lectures from London’s City Literary Institute   

And so over the next few weeks I shall be looking at the Spy Thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock and how the spy genre responded to changing political and cultural contexts as well as exploring The Wind In Film ( which strangely speaks for itself) 

I’m a bit tired of tv box sets and crap tv.

Anyhow all is now booked and debit card has been emptied yet again.

I’m also looking to book the night train from Paris to Venice for later in the year.....I’ll tick that fantasy of sleeping on a train very soon.......

Recipe and The German Lady

If you want a full proof recipe for a heart winter soup here’s mine for Broad Bean & Chorizo Soup 

 Chorizo and broad bean soup

Three large tins of broad beans

Vegetable stock

1 large onion.

2 cloves garlic

1 small chorizo ring

Large tablespoon low fat Creme Fresh.

Black pepper

This is the best of homemade winter soups!

Gently fry off the onion with chopped chorizo, 

The oil will ooze out of the sausage and stain the onions .

Add garlic and fry off.

Add beans with their tinned juice and stock and bring to boil

Then simmer gently for at least an hour

Liquidise, add creme fresh and season 

Bloody lovely

I’ve turned into fucking Nigella ....

After making soup I took the dogs for a walk and as usual bumped into Uber Couple and after them German Lady. 

I like German Lady

We only say hello, but I like her genuine smile, her jaunty terrier who is always ready for a row with Mary and her flared jeans .

Her hello is friendly and almost overwhelmed by her thick German accent 

Today she said Hello, then added “ Your old Bulldog? Has she died?” as she stopped.

I told her that she had and the woman nodded sympathetically 

“ She alvays made me laff” she said “ You must ave many good memories of her” 

I liked the fact that the woman immediately went for the positives of the situation.

Further down the lane my best memory came back to me and I almost turned to look for German Lady in order to tell her about it. 

It was just over two years ago.

Christmas day late morning 

I was sat on an empty Promenade by the sea

It was a grey cold day and I was newly separated from the Prof and grieving not only him but William, who had died in his sleep a couple of weeks before. I remember George and Mary were sat on my left pressed hard against the cold and Winnie sat on my right sulking.

Winnie was annoyed in a way only bulldogs get annoyed , 

She was livid .

I had not only brought her out for a cold walk on the beach and not her usual sheltered railway walkway, but I had made her walk, far too long along cold concrete , then made her sit with her fat face facing the wind. 

She wanted to go home and she “ Harumphed “ loudly when I started to play with my phone, in order to get the best of Christmas selfies 

Twenty minutes later she finally lost it

And grabbing my shoulders with her massive paws she heaved herself up and looked me square in the face.

Eyeball to eyeball

Her expression said it all

“Now Fuck off ...Im Cold.....I want to go home”

I snapped the “ look” in a selfie

I miss those knowing looks and those quietly authoritative temper tantrums of hers.

 

Nominations & Big Ups ( village social media)

Today’s blog feels very community and social media based....

Our Hattie has reached the final of a National Heroes competition !

See  https://www.leaderlive.co.uk/news/19022389.flintshire-woman-reaches-final-national-urban-jungles-heroes-competition/?ref=fbshr&fbclid=IwAR09fqMvlIoUkRjVIf6V2IOLYGResEjk-yeSW8qT_wDMw6xQR30DIMyJxG8

So the news shared our local paper! How lovely is that ? She sooo deserves to win

The villagers have been busy voting the pub The Crown one of the top businesses in Flintshire too, a business that is facing a bloody hard time due to the covid restrictions . The new landlady and hubby chef just reopened the pub to much adulation a short while ago, only to be forced to shut , days after the successful re launch, and both have battled hard to come up with a takeaway service to keep the wolves from the door. 

The takeaway menu is wonderful and eclectic  

Storm Christophè has caused some local flooding here. Pippa from the rectory  posted this photo on the wardens social media page yesterday and messages bounced around from village leaders ian and Helen’s home which is called y felin which means Mill in welsh . Their house lies down the valley from me and was the position of an old water mill. 

It is surrounded by water. 

Sandbags may need to be moved there in the morning ......watch this space...

The lane just around from my cottage

More social media news. I got a tag from liv Randa yesterday evening who finished and loved the book I bought for her

It was Little Women 

The family  Sent me a photo of happy baby sitting days ....well with old William doing the babysitting 

Liv and the book

Covid has increased community spirit here...as it has done globally 

Peace

 Lady Gaga’s Golden dove of peace said it all

I shed a tear at Biden’s speech.......sanity.......sometimes there are days when you need to lend a hand and days when you have take a hand

Amanda Gorman ...amazing

Let’s move on

 Whatever your politics, the President of the United States must be articulate and calm and possess a sense of humour. Biden and Kamala Harris seem to have have those traits.

Good luck America

Cheers

 I may know a single man in the village who would benefit from meeting Chic Eleanor .

We talked about him today and laughed about it. 

She’s a delight for she’s not adverse at meeting someone new.

We talked about it today in McDonald’s car park 

She asked me who I would like to meet, the kind of guy she could look for

I laughed 

“ A man with an easy smile , who wears a jumper with a hole in it” I told her seriously

She understood where I was coming from 

And we raised our coffee cups in our respective cars......

Cheers 

We toasted 

And she smiled her warm Lee Remick smile

Training Dorothy and Coffee with Eleanor

 

For over a year I have been walking Dorothy along the site of the Prestatyn / Dyserth railway 

https://www.denbighshirecountryside.org.uk/prestatyn---dyserth-way/

Yesterday we passed a couple who I have nicknamed The Uber Couple, they are a couple I bump into regularly .

Now The Uber Couple are always together and always dressed in some sort of Lycra. In their late fifties they have hips and cheek bones to die for and always walk with a sheepdog collie who is trained to behave within an inch of his life.

Their buttocks glint with the flash of polished steel.

The sheepdog is never leashed, but to be fair he doesn’t have to be because with one click of their fit fingers his owners have him under more control than Trump had over Melania. 

The Uber Couple know about dogs and about dog training and their superiority is palpable 

I always feel like the poor relation when we pass....

Poor relation because when  William and George were alive they used to behave ,as terriers so often do when confronted with farm dogs, they behaved badly .

I did explain to The Uber Couple that the boys had been once attacked by a collie dog at the farm above the village , so they smiled their thin smiles of understanding as their dog trotted by with his nose in the air and  William and George yapped with the zeal of two chihuahuas fighting over a gravy stain.

Winnie of course added to their slightly patronising eyebrow raising as she would deliberately walk in between all of them with a sanguine dry smile and a look which never wavered from the road ahead.

Her amble gave all three of them a massive “ fuck you” message

Anyway Mary has long since followed the William And George school of terrier behaviour and she growls   rather magnificently when we pass but Dorothy with all of her neuroses has tottered forward on her lead with her frightened expression turned away from any strangers.

Now over the past six months I have been letting Dorothy off her lead for short periods whilst down the walkway and when another walker with a dog would come into view I would call her gently to return to be leashed, an order she would always comply to. This habit, we have adhered to until recently, when I felt that Dorothy’s confidence was at its highest. 

Yesterday Uber Couple approached us with all muscles flexed ( they even had on matching bobble hats! ) and as Mary stiffened for some bad behaviour I clicked my fingers and asked Dorothy who was trotting ten feet ahead to return to my side where she walked with what I hoped would be the precision of a police dog.

And she  did so, without a murmur and after we passed the Ubers the lady Uber turned around and commented 

“ You’ve done a great job training that dog .... well done ”

I preened at the praise , so much more than I should of done. 

I almost shed a tear too as Dorothy tottered forward and

With Mary still growling at the end of her lead.

This morning I drove up to McDonald’s to meet Chic Eleanor in the carpark for coffee.

The weather was atrocious but she looked fresh faced and as smiley as ever

“ Darling John..it’s almost like a tryst “ she admitted almost guiltily, pulling a green cashmere scarf tighter around her neck. “ Chin chin “ 

We raised our coffee cups from our respective driver’s seats, our breaths steaming in the cold air

She reminds me of the actress Lee Remick.

12.31

 

I try to write something everyday.

I seldom plan what goes down in print for ideas and words just seem to there, ready to be written, but I must admit with lockdown and covid and the isolation that accompanies the pandemic still in its final clutches, having something of any note to say is proving more and more difficult.

This morning is a case in point. 

I’ve shampooed the spare bedroom carpet in the east wing and have cleaned the washer afterwards. 

I’ve walked the dogs and was proud when Dorothy received praise from a regular dog walker for behaving well off her lead . 

The dog walker was one of those country type ladies who ooze brusque efficiency  

I’m working later on a late shift which is pointless and most hated one as you come into work cold and have to hit the work running.

But that’s later.

Now I’m drinking from my bucket of coffee sat at the kitchen table.

It’s cold, the kitchen that is not the coffee.

I’m irritated by the loud workmen who are constructing a small house behind the cottage. 

They have harsh local accents and play their music overly loud but luckily I cannot seem most of the new build because my buddliea bush screens things nicely. 

The new owners live on the far side of the village and own a large pack of yappy dogs.I am concerned that our peaceful days down on this part of Trelawnyd  may be numbered , but I will keep an open mind for now.

I’ve been making a list of things that need doing in between writing sentences and gulps of coffee

Albert is sat by my right shoulder , untidily eating his cat food which is placed on the window sill. The window is flecked with dried on meat and splashes of gravy 

I add clean windows to my list, just below the cancel Winnie’s insurance reminder and chase up rubber chicken picture.

I gave away some furniture yesterday.

I could have sold it , but gifting it doomed the right thing to do.

Antiques you never own, you just look after them for a while  is a favourite saying of mine. 

Hattie had my old grandmother clock  from out of the study and another friend had an old school clock and some occasional tables and a sewing box on legs. 

More de cluttering my office

And decluttering my head.

Oh lord it’s 12.31pm 

I need to leave for work by 1.15pm

And as Terry Wogan used to say on the radio when I was a boy

“ and there’s not a child in the house washed “

An All About Eve Night

I’ve always been a “ looker afterer” 

That’s the nearest I can find for an accurate description of myself 

I’ve never been happier than when I cook, feed  and nurture someone.

By doing so

I nurture myself .

Yesterday I caught up with my covid bubble friend Ruth

She has had a bloody awful time recently and so I thought quick sticks that a night in together was the order of the day.

It was a simple evening to organise for her..... 

A massive cottage pie with thick gravy flavoured with garlic and cranberry jelly

2 glasses of red

Mary cuddles all night 

And a darkened living room watching All About Eve...a classic she had never seen before.

It was a lovely night.

I say this from my own perspective .

For I knew Ruth felt recharged and enjoyed herself as she said as much taking her leave at 11 pm to sleep in the cottage’s west wing  with Mary tucked firmly under her arm.

Her climbing of the stairs reminded me of when the Prof went to bed with George galloping behind him

That used to please me more than anything .

Cooking for someone who is hurting is a joy. 

Cooking for someone is a joy....I have so missed it.

Tucking someone up on my new couch as if they lived here made me feel good, and their  laughs at Eve’s many one liners reenforced my enjoyment of Bette on her best form.

We are never truly altruistic 

We do things that make ourselves feel good

All about Eve is not just a witty and incisive look at theatre life 

It has a lot to say about long term friendships, friendships I was reminded of as we watched.

Yesterday I video chatted with my friend John from Sheffield 

It was a warm and sweet and loving interaction 

Chic Eleanor texted to sort out a coffee at McDonald’s car park next week 

She sat in her car ......, me sat in mine.a conversation between two open windows 

Darling john it’s been too long she typed 

I so agreed.

If you haven’t watched All About Eve , please do so

Love the one liners, the acting, the clever manipulation of plot and gayness 

But don’t forget the thrust of the story

It’s a really a message of friendships , of recognising and nurturing those friendships and the power of being kind

The Gay Men’s Pub Quiz

 

I think that I am a Welsh 58 year old gay Bridget Jones..

I don’t quite know what I was expecting but The Gay Men’s Pub Quiz last night proved to be a rather good natured and strangely hilarious affair.

Some 80 Middle aged gay men from all over the UK were marshalled onto zoom by a professionally adept quiz master called Kenneth  , who presumably was well versed in herding cats and sounded as though he had performed centre stage at the Old Vic. 

Like with the RAF yesterday , there was no messing with Kenneth!

With a headteacher’s authority , Kenneth split us into groups quite quickly , so I just had time to check myself in the mirrored oven cover before the get go.

Face washed ( tick)

Hair brushed ( tick) 

Clean shirt checked for food stains ( check) - there was only one small splash of pot noodle..no one would notice ...tee hee

Background looking interesting behind me ( double check ) 

I was ready.

I squirted myself with a blast of Clinique Happy as a gay moral booster, as if it mattered

My group was a nice bunch. Gerry and David, a couple from the Sheffield/ Derbyshire border in their late sixties were a riot. They bantered and bickered gently and told bad jokes throughout the evening so much so that at one stage I had a complete attack of the giggles and corpsed dreadfully throughout one session of questions . Alistair was a gently spoken and smiley  fellow nurse from Chester and Richard was a well spoken but very deaf elderly man from The Isle Of Man. I spied a Zimmer frame in the background of his spare room! which intrigued me. 

Fifty questions were set between a 7.30 start and a 10.30pm finish , but booked into the quiz was the nice opportunity to chat with a luckily nice group of men . 

We came around  6th out of 15 groups which wasn’t bad at all 

I’m not really a gay guy who has to seek the ghetto of a group of gay men , but I really did enjoy the good natured banter of some nice guys with a ribald ( and stereotypically gay)  senses of humour