Everyone in blogland seems to have gone seriously political or at least serious anyway.
I just can’t get going at all in any shape and form.
Yesterday I watched old dvds as it rained and rained
And only felt human after buying myself some Arctic Roll which I ate with cold custard from a massive serving spoon.
Today the girls and I went for breakfast at the Horizon cafe on Colwyn Bay Prom where I cut my finger rather badly after the barista dropped a milk jug onto the counter .
I hate fuss, but after I left a trail of blood worse than Tippi Hedren down that attic door so had to accept a botch first aid job from the proprietor with a roll of masking tape.
In between showers the girls have been jostling for the sunny position on the trendy blue sofa.
I have been making fat rascals for most of the morning
Between 1986 and 1989 I lived in the city of York . Before my late nursing shift start at 1 pm, I would often go to Betty’s tea rooms which is situated in St Helen’s square, to have myself a small Golden carafe of coffee and a fat rascal. There was a single table upstairs which I loved to sit in, where I would pretentiously read my book and scoff my rascal
This morning I made Fat Rascals for the very first time.
Now for those that don’t know a Fat Rascal is a cross between a scone and a bun; in actual fact it is a Rock cake which is filled with fruit, orange zest, whole bleached almonds and glacè cherries.
The last three ingredients make the rascal taste so good
They should be eaten warm with butter and should be large, two handed buns.
I made mine a little smaller than I’d like but they tasted Right Good when I tried them
Years after I had left York for Sheffield , I returned to the city to see some friends. Feeling all nostalgic for a Rascal, I turned left into the shop rather than the cafe and ordered six.
The shop waitress looked surprised at my request
I had ordered Six fat Bastards instead of Six Fat Rascals!!
She got the gist!
I will leave you with this short film called Alex And Jay
It’s a wonderfully acted piece which turns out quite charmingly
I’ve enrolled in another film study course, this one centred around exploration of gay themes within cinema.. it will keep me busy on Thursday nights.
Chic Eleanor has just messaged me, she has booked a table for dinner for us and some friends next week
“ Darling” the message read “ We are embarking on a new beginning”
I had painted half of the outside toilet ( which now houses my bike and lawn mower) when Mrs Trellis stopped to chat. She was in inquisitive mode, and wasn’t wearing her usual overly erect bobble hat She asked me what my long term plans were as she had heard through village gossip that I was about to leave Trelawnyd to live in Llandudno This tickled me I love village gossip. I reassured Mrs T that I had no long term plans And it’s true, I haven’t I haven’t got any major plans at all. Mrs Trellis frowned She didn’t know that I have a mortgage to pay until I am 72, and why would she? I told her, and joked, in true ostrich head in the sand tradition that I will face selling up and moving to a cheaper property when I have to and I will enjoy my home in the meantime . I laughed but Strangely she bit her lip and promptly burst into silent tears. This took me completely by surprise I leant over the kitchen wall but she stepped back a pace pulling Blue with her. I was touched by her sudden show of emotion . “Aren’t you worried about the future ?” She asked seriously “ No , “ I told her honestly ,” I’m here now , I’m enjoying work, I can just about pay my bills, I will face change when it happens !”
Mrs Trellis still looked worried “ I don’t want you leave “ she said rubbing her hands together
“ I’m not leaving just yet” I told her kindly
And I laughed loudly , forcing her to do the same .
I did get unhealthily excited in the cushion section of Liverpool’s John Lewis but couldn’t quite decide on what I wanted to buy, so I galloped into kitchen ware like a gay water buffalo where I bought an expensive but rather impressive utensil holder decorated with a blue whale....what larks pip!
I also managed to find some cutlery I was missing and ended my spree with a massive gaggle of birthday cards, I had a hey ho time.
For along time I sat in the centre of the city listening to the buskers sing their songs.
I felt like a sponge soaking up all the noise and the movement.
I met up with Colin too, which was lovely. We walked and talked around Greenbank Park and felt more human
Tonight I revisited it and was reminded of this song, which is one that affected me the most from the production
Lea Selonga was a revelation in the lead role but I loved the slightly shopworn character of Gigi played by Isay Alvarez. Her voice perfect for the words she sang
The desk at work looks like the wreck of the Hesperus.
As a favour I’ve come in to cover sickness but in patients remains strangely quiet , so I’m catching up on nurse revalidation paperwork and am online buying a leaving gift for a colleague .
I smell strangely expensive too....which is a first......
I smell expensive because I’ve generously squirted myself with Jicky ..extract de parfum which was a gift from one of my patients from last year. I didn’t know it can be bought for £255 quid a bottle until tonight
No more squirting Dorothy’s farty backside with it now I know.....hey ho.....I’m such a Luddite
I’m skint too, but before the troll minions start, I’m not complaining about it, just observing it.
The cinemas open soon so I’ve prebooked tickets for the recent crop of Oscar winners
Anthony Hopkins The Father, Chloe Zhad’s Namadland with Francis McDormand, Pedro Almodovar’s The Human Voice,and the Korean/ American Minari
I’ve also just booked my train to see Nu.....I’m going a few days after my birthday in June.....what fun!
There will be much shedding of tears when we meet for sure.
Tomorrow , after a sleep I will venture forth to B@Q to buy some white paint to weatherproof the back of the cottage and to give it a clean up after a wet winter
I will leave you with a brief tribute to Olympia Dukakis who died yesterday.
She was not only a fabulous actress with memorable roles in Moonstruck, Tales of the City and Steel Magnolias “ looks like two pigs fightin under a blanket,” but she was also an active advocate for LGBTQ rights.
Finally, the laburnum in the Churchyard has started to bud a hardly detectable green.
I have been worried about it not doing so.
It’s the most magnificent tree in the village.
The sun is shining but it remains cooler than you might expect and when you look at the gorse on the Gop the blooms that looked so golden only week ago , now look more muted in their radiance.
The bachelor cockerel is crowing incessantly this morning but the breeze alters the volume of his calls from faint to bearable.
There is the noise of a tractor coming from one of the fields in the valley towards Gentleman Ralph’s farm
It’s as irritating as a lawnmower on this Sunday morning, the breeze can’t change that.
The bluebells are out, in my garden and in the corner of the churchyard where I planted them two years ago.
They are luminous.
As if powered by tiny batteries
The girls have been walking in the woods, they haven’t visited in an age.
Out walking with the dogs and Dorothy in a fit of bulldog enthusiasm jumped up and ripped a long sliver of my jogging pants waist to ankle, with her claws
I had to continue the walk on a somewhat crowded walkway with my left leg and thigh provocatively poking through the gap aka Faye Dunaway in The Towering Inferno.
It happened nearly three years ago now and it a testament to serendipity.
I shared it with a loved one recently, to illustrate how things will often change for the better when you least expect life will......
Like I said it is true.
It was my first visit to my divorce lawyer.
I had to borrow a car from Jason The Affable Despot to go.
The solicitor’s office was located in St Asaph, right next door to the cathedral, and like today, it was a sunny day.
I remember little else about the interview apart from the kindness of my solicitor and the projected estimated bill of “ several thousand pounds”
I left the office numb and silently panicked
I hadn’t got a bean to my name..
How could I fight any divorce with no car, no money and no job
I sat in the cathedral for the longest of times.
Long enough for one of the ladies that ran a small coffee stall in the corner of the naive to quietly wander over to rest a serviette on the chair next to me.
Eventually, with bleary eyes I got up and drove home
Mary was racing around the cottage when I walked in. She had a chewed envelope in her mouth. Her and William had attacked the post again, in transference to pulling off the postman’s fingers.
Flat and upset I opened the letter which was covered in bites and terrier saliva
It was from a Solicitor’s office I had instructed months before to look into any PPI claims (personal Protection insurance) I had with banks and credit cards I had in the 1990s
I had long forgotten about it .
Apparently, it said , I had a claim! ........in fact, the woman on the phone said when I hurriedly rang her , I had several claims that were successful and after 30 % fees and VAT and others costs I was in line to receive over eleven thousand pounds !
Eleven thousand Pounds ........in fact the final sum was greater than that!
I told the clerk that I could kiss her .....she laughed good humouredly
That serendipitous windfall saved me . It paid for Bluebell and paid off my credit cards and overdraft and vets bills and it allowed me to put some away for the solicitor , deadening the fear and the worry of officialdom at its worst.
But I do find the presence of stuffed toys in a totally adult household , just a bit creepy.
I say this with the sudden realisation that I have three stuffed toys in the house. Colin The Chameleon, with his jaunty leg kicked sideways underneath the art wall; a cute duck billed platypus bought from Sydney Zoo is sat in my bedroom bookcase and a now almost 40 year old Garfield sat benignly in my living room cupboard with a gentle smile upon his face.
I reassure myself that owing stuffed toys only really becomes creepy when they occupy your bed, you know the sort, sat unseeing , face forward between the pillows .....that’s when toys are creepy
Garfield was given to my by my twin sister when we were in our twenties.
I liked his slightly cynical view on life back then, and that’s a riot in itself.
When most young people were saving the whale, joining Amnesty International ( which I later did lol) and stretching their political wings against the poll tax or Thatcher’s policies
What was I doing?
I was watching movies and following the mantras of a ginger cartoon character
Go figure.
It’s a lovely day today and I am in my office sorting out what to do on my holiday next week.
Right on time Mrs Trellis totters past with Blue
She doesn’t see me up at my desk
I’ve already sorted a few meet ups with friends, lunch in Liverpool with Colin. More lunch with Cheryl from Ramsbottom ( a great sounding place) Outdoor dinner with Chic Eleanor and our friends in Conwy and a family get together this weekend if the weather holds and a socially distanced picnic with the hospice staff on Llandudno’s beautiful West Shore....
It’s a little too early for a Sheffield trip but that is on the cards alongside a London trip to see Nu....
The best was when I had to meet a huge extended family of a patient for the first time one of which commented quite loudly to another in an adjoining room “:He doesn’t look like a nurse , he looks like a Samoan rugby player!
Hey ho
I left work late, and didn’t get home until well after half nine and all I could think of was a cold beer ( I had one in the fridge) a good foot licking by Dorothy and a warm roaring fire.
Well two out of three ain’t bad
When I went out to the back shed..the one bordering on the lane behind bluebell ...the door was wide open and all of my remaining kiln fired wood ( some thirty logs or so) had been stolen
My sister warned me that there was a group of nefarious types stealing dogs locally.
Apparently this has been a more common practice given the lockdown phenomenon of soaring dog prices and increased demand for designer dogs.
I saw Maggie from the village this morning and warned her as her sweet cocker made goo goo eyes at Mary
“I’m prepared” she said pragmatically showing me a specially made waist band to which she had fixed her dog’s lead to with what looked like a climber’s carabina.
“Keeps my hands free” she said, “ in case of emergencies”
I looked impressed
She pointed to a small piece of equipment on her wasteband
“ Here is my rape alarm too !”
I laughed and was just about to ask her if she was packing a gun , when she fished into a pocket and brought out a small canister
“ pepper spray !” She explained
God help anyone trying to steal Maggie’s dog I thought
This should have won the Oscar for best song last night...
It didn’t......
Even though Molly donned 48 earrings, two miles of oven tin foil and was surrounded by a gaggle of fat Icelandic cherubs all dressed in home knitted jumpers, the beautifully lit Reykjavik skyline and the whole country’s firework stores
I got up early walked the dogs , had eggs on panini toast then realised I hadn’t planned much for the day.
I went back to bed and watched internet movies and tiktok crap then day dreamed about meeting a floppy haired bear dad with no baggage and holes in his jumper at the village hall.
Of course this only happens in specialist indie movies based in Yorkshire , and so , I walked the dogs again, and returned to bed fully clothed where Albert gleefully took advantage of a group siesta and slipped in between Mary & Dorothy before the latter made herself comfortable by resting her chin protectively over mine.
We all slept until four .
I woke slightly disgusted in myself for wasting the day, so in a fit of energetic pique, I cleaning the kitchen within an inch of its life and made soup for my lunch at work tomorrow.
