A Galleon In Full Sail.

 

Film studies tonight

Yesterday Llandudno was struck by sixty mile an hour gales. The force of the wind on the Great Orme 

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Orme) was so strong that many more of the Kashmiri Goats plodded down from it’s heights to see shelter in the gardens and the bus stops of West Shore.

It was my first proper day community nursing on my own. 

My sat nav failed, I got lost twice and the spectacle of me changing into PPE behind the hospice car must of made for hilarious viewing in near storm force winds as I tried to control yards of plastic apron which suddenly decided to take flight.

I did indeed look like the proverbial galleon in full sail.

Sheltering from the storm 

Today remains stormy but more manageable .

Animal Helper Pat, village Leader Ian and Mrs Trellis  stopped by at different times as I was spring cleaning Bluebell. The conversation is still all about Gentleman Farmer Ralph and his funeral. 

We all hoped that he will be brought home before the funeral so that we all can line the lane in respect.

All of us promised that we would tell the other if we heard anything more.

Pat asked me about my “ do” on Sunday and I managed to side step the conversation. 

I told her that the medical tests are in hand, which they are.

The whole subject, however has upset me, I have to be honest 

Anyhow today is Hitchcock studies day and I’ve been cooking a massive concoction of garlic spiced turkey mince with sprouts and potato which is a wonderfully tasty low fat version of corned beef hash, a dinner that will keep me going for days.

I also framed a sweet embroidered blackbird, a work of art bought from a fellow blogger which arrived today and hung it on the art wall. It has a charm all of its own . 

I will leave you with this I sing The Body Electric 

Wanting Memories

Our on line choir listened to this together tonight 

we were all moved by it and will sing it when we are eventually together

It’s been a year since we all met last

Tonight was

Twenty or so souls singing together in our living rooms, and offices and spare rooms.

It’s been a strange few days

Gravy Hands

Mortified. 

I fainted as I was eating my lunch at work today.

I’ve never fainted in my life.

Woke up with strong arms around me and faces next to mine with no idea of what happened.

My hands were covered in gravy.

I’ve come home for a sleep

Mortified.

My friend Ben described the experience thus on social media

“  John told us that vimto was an acronym of vomit then he fainted, then he put his hands in his dinner. I gave him a cuddle and he came around.” 

Lasagne Therapy

 

I’ve been a bit “ out of sorts “ this past week. I know I have and I’m sick of being up and down like the proverbial whores’ knickers ......

I fell asleep in my office covered in dogs and cat yesterday afternoon only to wake in the dark of the evening, disorientated and heady...

I even missed the Big Gay Quiz which usually bucks me up with an overdose of camp one liners.

Subsequently I didn’t sleep and spent too long and too much energy on a french zombie movie called 

The Night Eats The World.

The film had its “ hero” locked inside his Parisian apartment for much of the plot where he slowly went a bit unhinged as the zombie hoards surrounded him.....a untimely metaphor for lockdown I guess.

The constant bickering in the household has had its effect too as had my subsequent move to a new role in the community at work. A move which will mean less unsocial hour pay.......pay that I need but the new role ( overseeing hospice care given at home ) is a challenge that will be good for me .

So bra straps hiked to their shortest twang, it’s onwards and upwards today.

The cottage window ps are wide open even though it’s only 6 degrees outside and I am cooking like a demon.

I made cauliflower soup this morning and will pop it to Ralph’s wife when it has cooled, and am in the middle of constructing a massive lasagne  from scratch which my bubble friend Ruth and I will demolish a bit later.

It’s as low fat as you can make a giant lasagne and I am serving it with a Spanish salad and a crisp white Campo Viejo the wine the Santa Maria always served in Sitges.

We will watch that drag queen film later which is the best recipe for a light mood since I last dreamt than Russell Crowe was my boyfriend at my sisters wedding! ...now that WAS A CRACKING DREAM!!

The giant final lasagne

Eva Cassidy - Over The Rainbow

The best ......

We all need to subscribe ....that one day skies are and will be ............blue .....

Almost there....

The Boys Are Back In Town

 The Llandudno goats have come back into town......

It’s the bachelor groups that have left the Orme

The females with their kids are safely hidden away on the peninsular 

The hospice is taking advantage of their births

https://stdavidshospice.org.uk/product/dewi-soft-goat-toy/

Fields Of Gold

This morning I took Mary and Trendy Carol’s dog, Bengi to the groomers. Both are well trained in car travel and sit  on the back seat like statues. 

It was a pleasure to be out without the usual bouncing hysterics from Dorothy 

I wouldn’t be without her, but looking after a dog with their own unique issues can be a challenge at times.

The above video is an example of Dorothy’s odd, and needy behaviour when out walking in a group. She is totally ignoring the other dog that was playfully sitting on the sidelines as well as Chic Eleanor who was watching with some interest nearby.

Her focus lies totally with me and totally me, which can be exhausting at times, for both of us, but I can see areas where her confidence is improving which is encouraging.

I dropped a neat bunch of smart tulips off at Gentleman Ralph’s farm with a card. 

There is a strange paralysis people experience when visiting the very newly bereaved and even with my experiences within the hospice , I am not immune to the do I knock? Do I just leave the flowers on the doorstep dilemma? 

I left them on the doorstep   

The farmhouse was quiet.

I dropped Benji off, picked up a doe-eyed Dorothy and came home and prepared lentil and Chorizo soup in the slow cooker. Then the dogs, Albert and I made ourselves comfortable in my office in the East wing which I already made comfortable and warm.

I have some writing and some film scene watching to do for my film studies course 

But all I have completed so far it this blog, listened to Eva Cassidy , drank coffee from my striped bucket cup and watched the world go by , in the lane , a lane that snakes up to the church in a lazy s

Ralph, The Gentleman Farmer

This evening the Trelawnyd warden’s group let the village know that Gentleman Farmer Ralph had died tragically this morning. 

I had only seen him a day or so ago.

I had been walking the dogs around 6am before work. 

He was driving to the garage to collect his paper.

He stopped briefly to ask how I was and we laughed that despite wearing figure hugging PPE at work I was still the size of a house. 

He told me to start keeping animals on the field again in way of extra exercise.

The quietly spoken Ralph and his wife Lywenna are much loved and respected in Trelawnyd...this blog entry from 2019 perhaps underlines his kindness 

“

Gentleman farmer Ralph

Most of my regular readers will know that I live on a small lane.
The lane snakes out of the village to the south West and turns at a house and then two farms before moving away across the Valley floor.
In the second farm lives Gentleman Farmer Ralph and his gracefully polite wife Mrs L, and this morning they both stopped to pass over a Christmas Card and a couple of gifts.
I love the pragmatism of the farmer's gifts
Handed over the kitchen wall as so many gifts have been  over the years,
Was a very large lamb chop
A Christmas Card
And a high viz jacket !

Since I started work at the hospice I take Mary for a walk around 6 am in the morning and at that time Ralph drives to the village shop for his paper!
" You never wear something light in the lane" he quipped " I am worried that one day I'm going to run over you!" 

I will pop some flowers up to Lywenna tomorrow  and some homemade soup on Saturday. 

Twist In My Sobriety

Last night I watched Kramer vs Kramer after realising that I’ve never seen it.

It was one of those films you think you have seen then ten minutes into it, you realise that it was just a thought.

I enjoyed it so much.

Streep was amazing.

This morning I’ve been walking with Chic Eleanor and now I’m cooking Spiced Turkey and Bean Soup for supper. 

I’ve no news except that another Art Deco inspired print arrived today. I will hang it in my study a bit later. It arrived alongside Michelle Obama’s Becoming and a dvd of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar which my bubble friend Ruth and I will watch on Saturday.

Tonight it is My Hitchcock lecture

I’ve lit the fire

And the cottage is filled with the vague scent of woodsmoke and soup

And the music from the album Ancient Heart by Tinika Tikaram 

The Baking Cupboard

 On Saturday it will be the six year anniversary of the day I got married 

Of all the dates I need to forget , this one is the one I always seem to remember.

The morning of March 6th 2015 was very much like the one we experienced today. It was springlike and warm and sunny. 

Like this morning I was alone in the cottage, drinking coffee at the kitchen table.

Unlike this morning, I had been up and down like a fiddler’s elbow receiving cards and gifts from villagers and friends.

I remember the table being filled with bottles of champagne and boxes with bows and flowers in vases.

Around 11am I spied Auntie Gladys walking carefully down the lane. 

She wore a red woollen coat and looked frail at 95

I met her at the garden wall and she held my hand in greeting

“ I have a wedding gift for you both” she said handing me a hand written card 

I started my usual  you shouldn’t have  type reply which she waved away with a hand

“ Buy yourself something you need but would never usually buy yourself “ she said her watery blue eyes twinkling and I was suddenly moved that this old stalwart of the Church and of traditional values had just embraced her first gay marriage 

“ Thank you for being so kind , Your support means a great deal” I told her and she laughed her usual laugh and pushed her hands into her coat pockets to find a hankie 

“ It’s the law ! “ she said simply and I watched her walk back up the lane, her head to one side as though she was thinking hard.

I felt moved and humbled , as though my grandmother had just visited.

Auntie Glad’s card was traditional  and addressed to us both. Inside was several crisp ten pound notes which I rolled up and placed in the tea caddy on the mantle. 

I forgot the money until weeks later, when it was almost summer.

Back then I was planning for my beloved new kitchen and so fantasised about things I wanted to make it the best of all I had owned. Having my own baking cupboard was on my to do list.

And so, with the help of Auntie Glad’s money, I prepared for one.

I bought loaf tins and flan dishes and an old fashioned black bird with its mouth open to sit inside a steaming pie so that the pastry would not get soggy. 

I bought cake tins and a flour shaker and storage tins full of grease roof paper, food colouring and vintage Christmas cake decorations alongside vintage wooden spoons and a mixing bowl with blue embossed sides like the one my mother used to have.

Any I hid all of the bits and bobs away until the IKEA workmen had put in the kitchen, only bringing them out from their hiding place to fill my baking cupboard . The one nearest to the lane window , where the light is best to roll pastry and to kneed dough.

Today after night shift I was in my baking cupboard yet again, retrieving the ingredients to make sourdough bread  and as I kneeded the dough I remembered the day Auntie Gladys brought me a wedding present .......and continued to be a bit of a hero .

The baking Cupboard Today

Back Up

In 1991 I supported a Spinal Cord Injury charity called Back Up

https://www.backuptrust.org.uk/

I didn’t raise money, or indeed collected any but I gave my time to an organisation who stretched newly spinally injured men and women to experience sports outside their comfort zones.

That year I was one of the  nurse team who helped take paraplegic and quadraplegic patients skiing in Switzerland. Our job was to help the most paralysed patients in activities of daily living and help get them ready for the slopes, which usually meant a hard mornings’ work until 10.30 or so. 

The patients were then handed over to the ski instructors with their adapted ski, poles and seats and buggies until teatime when help was needed again to sort out bladders and bowels and to check skin  etc before dinner and the usual evening  where a great deal of serious drinking apres ski style, was achieved before bed.

Most of our charges were under the age of thirty.

And all had something to prove to themselves after months and months of inpatient care.

The ski resort, as most ski resorts are, was a rather posh place and our hotel was rather plush as I recall with a large open plan bar and restaurant decorated tastefully in 1960s style furniture and one evening after a particularly heavy bout of drinking by our back up team, I was approached by a rather well to do German lady who spoke impeccable English.

She was not happy at all

“ Please,” she asked “ Are You in Charge of zee English men in their wheelchairs? “

I told her I was not, that I was a nurse helper and could I be of any help

“ Zay are singing songs ya?” She complained earnestly “ Which are not in very gud taste”

I apologised thinking the German observers were getting a selection of British Rugby songs forced down their throats and went to investigate.

I found a dozen men and women in their wheelchairs all linking arms together, with a selection of able bodied drunk friends joining in with lusty voices and blurred expressions.

They were singing the football anthem “ You’ll never walk alone” with great emotion but had substituted their own words for the final bravura ending of the song

“ walk on, walk on with hope in your heart but we’ll never nev-er walk again!!!

WE’LL NEV-ER .....WALK AGAIN! “

As I passed the German lady on my return I merely shrugged 

“They sing very well ! “ I called out to her with a smile

“Gwnewch y pethau bychain”

 

 

The one thing I’ve always liked about the Patron Saint Of Wales is that he instructed his followers to “ do the little things” ( Gwnewch Y Pethau Bychain” that you have seen me do! 

To him it was the small kindnesses that we show each other that were important 

Please remember that when you are wearing your daffodil to work..

Yesterday ....not only did I partake in a three hour zoom lecture, I also made my own pasta from scratch. 

Inspired by the recent Celebrity Masterchef I drummed up a small plate of Spinach & Ricotta Ravioli with a herb butter and Parmesan in only 2 hours!!

Two hours!

The kitchen looked like an explosion in Sophia Loren’s villa by the time I had finished

And this was what I had to show for the entire fucking afternoon 

Back To University

 

My film studies lecture starts in a few minutes

Three hours of “ The Wind in film” 

I’ve impressed myself by setting up my wireless keyboard and with the obligatory bucket of coffee I am about to christen my first very home office all of my own.

I did have a lovely Victorian desk but that went with the ex husband in order for me to keep the grandfather clock. 

They cost similar amounts but I loved the clock more.

I like to be surrounded by things that please me and the desk does this. 

A delicate vase with miniature yellow fish on it is filled with pencils and pens, an old framed photo of Finlay, my Filofax bible covered in birds, an indoor primula and a pot of tiny yellow narcissi, a trendy toast rack doubling as a letter holder. A puffin....a gift from an unknown blog reader....

I am all set! 

Let’s hope I don’t cough and fart at the same time this morning like I did last week.

The green light went on around my box , indicating to all who was responsible. 

Thank goodness the tutor merely whispered an ironic  “ How apt” given the title of the lecture

Mad Makeover: To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995)

Click on the link watch on YouTube to see this great scene

John Leguizumo kneeling is inspired

To Woog Foo

Dorothy asleep on my feet

How tired I am with people who think they know you better than you  know yourself .

How tired I am with people who miss irony, humour and poetic licence 

How tired I am of people who know everything about everything even though they are not furnished with the full facts

How tired I am of people who think the ill in every situation and not the humour.

These are the sad facts , the things  bloggers have to put up with.

In the previous blog, a mildly amusing story of Dorothy peeing on the carpet in anger was forensically picked to pieces.

What a bad dog owner I was to allow of dog’s over full bladder to be emptied on the carpet! 

Yadda yadda yadda...

Who cares? Who knows the truth.....Dorothy may of peed in anger and frustration?  she’s certainly done things similar in tantrum ....she may of picked up some new and delicious odour in the carpet and pissed in relation to that......what she didn’t do was pee because she was desperate for a pee....she had access to the garden......but the depressingly pedantic, the know all’s and those without humour know better and their bleating voices wanted an audience to listen to their wise, humourless words...forgetting that I’m telling a story on Going Gently a story that has its own rules, characters and way of looking at the world.

I’m not really tired of such pedants , just mildly exasperated by them.....

Just fucking take it as it’s given and chill the fuck out! 

Hey ho

Anyhow ...

I’m more physically shattered after moving 100£ ‘s worth of kiln dried logs from the drive into the outhouse.

I can hardly move my covid vaccinated arm now.....

And so , I treated myself to a pot noodle, a bottle of wine , a roaring fire 

And a night in with this

Eleanor, Twt Hill and A New Desk

I just “so happened” to bump into Chic Eleanor in Rhuddlan today .

She had her winter black pashmina on and had take out sandwiches and coffee from The Old Crown at the castle tucked under her arm.

“ Darling John” she called from her car......and my heart lightened 

We walked up to Twt Hill ( the site of a Norman Castle Keep) and talked and ate on opposite sides of a long bench. I needed to see her today.

She brightened me

Like a heat lamp

This afternoon, I set up my new desk in my office in the East Wing and I’m really pleased with the set up.

I’m just waiting for a proper office chair and mini filing cabinet to arrive.

Dorothy was unhappy that I was late with her afternoon walk so pissed on the carpet in way of a tantrum 

Tonight in the Big Gay Quiz , my fellow competitors, Colin, Zack, Colin , Phil and Mavis came 3rd out of 14 groups .....great fun ...

Village Humour

 Message left on village Facebook page this morning, it amused me

“ Folks

There will be a drone flying over the school and possibly the hall on Saturday Morning. We are checking the condition of the roof. If you are sunbathing in the garden before 9:00 am please wear a rainbow towel to show support for the NHS

Dave Smith”

Zoom and Eggy Bread

 

I’m waiting for my desk to be delivered. 

I have a four hour window, so the dogs have been walked early and with the cottage windows open to the sunny frost, I am sitting on vigil with homemade sourdough eggy bread and my bucket of coffee.

It’s Friday isn’t it? 

Oh yes......I’ve got an uncharacteristically busy day.

Desk delivery this morning , then a car park coffee with Chic Eleanor at lunchtime “ Darling John I may even treat myself to a very naughty donut!” Eleanor texted excitedly.

This afternoon, it’s a team meeting at work c/o zoom which probably will be a bit of a bunfight . 

My role at the hospice will change slightly soon as I will be covering our community Hospice @ Home initiative as well as some time in the in patients department.

The staff meeting was my idea.

Tonight is the The Big Gay Quiz .....if I can set up my desk, that’s where I will quiz from 

Hey ho.

Jungle Telegraph

The food bank in the village telephone box has had a rather unpleasant set back tonight

According to social media

Someone has just pissed in it !

Bloody hell

Big Brown Eyes

 

I received my second covid jab today

This time it was from a gloriously hunky RAF serviceman instead of the cheerful oncology nurse.

His name was Will and he had big brown eyes and a voice to match.

I simpered underneath my mask like a teenage girl.

Will told me that I may have more severe side effects than I did with the first jab, but I wasn’t really listening, 

I just drooled at him from behind my mask