It’s a medical term for the gurgling noise bowels make when they are working normally.
It made a wonderful round in tv’s Call My Bluff when the effete Arthur Marshall and Frank Muir battled it’s true meaning out, but I learned it back in 1983 in my first year of nursing school.
It’s one of those words like follow you , just underneath the surface of memory
Like mendacity, autonomic dysreflexia, and El- ahrairah ( who was a rabbit God in Watership Down)
I informed my colleague that a patient of ours had no borborygmi
She wasn’t impressed …
I need some company with whom I can talk shite with. It’s a product of being on four nights shifts in a row and needing some frivolity.
I search messenger for signs of friends on line , but it’s 2 am and all is quiet as it is here. Everyone is safely asleep except me.
One of my patients reminds me of DaVinci ‘s Ginevra De Benci
We studied her in one of my city lit groups…the general consensus suggested that she was unwell, just sixteen and plagued with expectations of total fidelity
No wonder she looked pissed off.
Tomorrow nights it’s Film Noir again. After that I’ve arranged a what’s app video meet with a friend
With the strict instructions we talk shite over a large gin
He and my sister organised a family meal in a rustic garden 1940’s tent strung with fairy lights and even though it was raining heavily a good time was had by all.
All my immediate family was there my sisters and their husbands, my sister in law, my two nephews, niece in law and great niece.
Being on night shift I turned up , briefly at 6pm and I was slightly jealous as since 4 pm a bit of wine had been quaffed and everyone was good natured and relaxed despite the weather.
The talk see sawed on to old memories and my nephews joked that when they were little , it was normal for them, as small kids, to be sat in the car at some pub car park with a bottle of coke and a bag of crisps while mum and dad were “ socialising “ inside.
Of course their memories were exaggerated for comic effect and the conversations grew wilder with everyone outdoing each other with tales of “when I was a child!”
My totally sober memory out trumped the others when I remember that my sister Janet and I being “babysat” by a family friend Uncle Cliff, a man who had marked learning and physical difficulties after he was kicked on the head by a mule in Egypt when he was four!
What were my parents thinking, even in those more relaxed days of 1970s parenting ?
Gawd knows.
My sister Janet then reminded everyone that in the 1980s the same group, that was sat under the canvas yesterday used to meet up for boozy Sunday afternoon meets where, towards Christmas we would make home made videos with a huge, shoulder carried vhs video recorder, loaned from my father’s electrical shop.
The videos would be silly affairs.
My nephew dressed as superman hanging off the back of the sofa with various family members holding pot plants running behind giving the impression he was flying.
The family dressed up in dresses and tinsel miming to ABBA’s Supertrouper
Silliness and nostalgic memories warmed by time.
I couldn’t stay long. so I left my brother in law’s gift under the table as the cake was being cut and managed to get to work seconds before I was due to start shift.
I was glad I had picked the gift that I did, one that was sparked by those silly videos of Christmases past without really knowing what the conversation would lead to
I had bought my brother in law a kit for making his own on line tiktok video!
This hymn, sung in Solomon Island Pijin, is hypnotic as it is strange.
For some strange reason it’s been going around my head today.
Translated it’s title means Jesus hold my hand
I can’t think of the last time I held someone’s hand….
Probably at work, but I can’t remember any specifics.
This scene has flashed through my mind too
And this one too
This one too
It's Glasgow, March, And we walk hand-in-hand In the park
Now it's 3:13 And I'm late, And it's time I make a choice We're both boys, You see.
If you were to go Back and look, You'd see a hundred eyes Hurry to objectify This hand-in-hand stance It's a flurried Dance Of reaction. Some smile, they're proud And they want me to know But there's a darker Shade of brow That balances the books The kind of look that challenges Like this is some chess game And I'm in check And I'm second-guessing What they might do next Point me out to all the Pawns in the crowd Spawn A following Whose glowers linger on So that our hands Are no longer holding But dragging Glare after Glare Snowballin' stares Stretching Elastic social disgrace Through this forbidden space And the scales Are well and truly tipped.
This stunning photo, is the best illustration of the presence of goats of Llandudno . Recently the council has rounded up some of the younger goats and the Billy’s of the splinter heard and have transported them to new sites in Bristol and Bournemouth, but the majority of the herd remains intact here with contraceptives administered to the females wild now on the Orme
This photo was sent to me by Facebook yesterday. It was dated 4 years ago “today” and was taken at the very last Flower Show when I was Show Chair and general dogsbody
The lady in the photo was a new exhibitor to the show. She was the mother of an ex colleague of mine who had suffered severe depression following an extensive stroke. It was her first trip out in public.
As part of some rehab, her daughter had suggested that she enter several of the art classes of the show and because of the fact she had indeed entered most she managed to nab the most points in the art section, which meant that she won the Rowenna Wrigley Cup.
When I called her name out, amid the crowded hall she promptly burst into surprised and happy tears and joyously skipped forward for me to present her with her trophy, The photo captured that moment when she hugged me her thanks.
There is something incredibly moving and infectious in someone else’s genuine happiness
Of course the lady’s stroke had made her more emotionally labile than she was normally but that didn’t detract from the sweetness of the event.
The audience sensed the importance of the moment and clapped enthusiastically
Thank you for your support and offers of assistance at the public meeting held in St Michael’s Churchyard re the future of the church. The overwhelming feeling of the meeting from the forms filled in was that the community would support St Michael’s becoming a pilgrim church and would actively support it in its new role. That support means a great deal to us, so thank you.
Just a note to update you. On Thursday 29th, The Bryn a Mor Mission Area Conference voted to allow St Michael’s Church to become a Pilgrim Church. This decision has been forwarded to the Bishop and Diocese for them to discuss and to come to a decision. August tends to be a holiday month, so we probably not hear any more until the Autumn. But I will update you of any news.
Thank you once again.
Regards David Vicar”
The vicar phoned me yesterday.
He sounded as avuncular as ever and he showed no upset of my referral to him and his sexy young curate of being like Batman & Robin in my last ecclesiastical blog entry.
He informed me of the first official meeting which may lead to the Church being saved from closure and followed the call up with an email ( see above)
It looks like we are in the hands of the Bishop and so me thinks it’s time to make some community noise and start a publicity campaign.
I shall have a word with Village Leaders Ian and Helen about our move.
The Village Community Association is holding an alternative show on Saturday and are calling for entries in their “ What did you do in Lockdown? Exhibition”
I’m on nights , but I will make a few Gyoza Dumplings as my entry
It’s much more positive that a photo of myself , chugging McDonalds, and weeping in front of the tv.
Dorothy was ok this morning. I took her back to the dyserth Walkway and she trotted to heel as always, bright and excited and as bouncy as usual
I had a date today
A bona fide date!
Now the last time I dated anyone, way back before the start of the first lockdown, “the date” became a very good friend and nothing more.
Which is a sort of lose/win situation .
Today was a bust
Three hours I’m never going to get back again.
The date in question was a guy I met several months ago in the weekly Big Gay Quiz .
He was in my small group one Friday and in the weeks that followed, he messaged me privately during subsequent quiz nights to say hi , and to swap chit chat.
He is a little younger than me, broad and built like a lumberjack
I was intrigued
Eventually I gave him my telephone number and we swapped friendly texts.
Since the constraints of lockdown had been lifted, he has texted me a few times asking for a date
So today I met him for lunch in Chester
Gawd help me, the man never stopped talking about himself .
The first hour, I let it go because I thought he could have been nervous, but as we entered the second hour and he still hadn’t asked me one question about myself, I thought it could be time to call things a day.
As hour three came, and when I was sipping my second cold coffee elbows on the table , he stopped telling me a story about one of his luxury holidays and suddenly asked me if he could as me a personal question.
I told him that he could and he pointed to a tiny patch of skin on my right elbow.
“Is that psoriasis ?” he asked
“ Yes I’m covered in it “ I replied
( I’m not btw)
A few minutes later he reminded himself and me that he had to get home for a work’s phone call.
I walked down to the River Dee and bought myself an ice cream
After three hours sleep , several dog painkillers and two bowls of hand fed roast chicken Dorothy came out from under my duvet with all of the drama of Scarlet O’Hara after she gave birth to daughter Bonnie.
I swear she was limping , even though her only injury was the bite on her neck.
I had covered the wound with antibiotic purple spray after it had been vet inspected, and lucky for Dorothy there were only two puncture wounds rather than a rip to deal with.
Having said this after the vet had examined her, she insisted on showing her injury to both vet nurses and the woman on reception, all of whom ohhhhed and arhhhhed appropriately
At home she only stopped shaking when safely under the duvet , her neck wrapped in a clean tea towel .
My poor little lost girl
She’s such a baby.
She didn’t need this drama today.
And to be honest , neither did I
In the meantime mary has been overly aggressive with her yellow bone all night
ToNight I took part in a City Lit zoom Lecture on Neo Noir (modern film noir movies )
We are studying The Long Goodbye 1973, Chinatown 1974 and Bodyheat 1981.
I really enjoyed the lecturer’s take on things even though the other “ students” may have found my “ odd eyeball rolling faces” on the grid a little bizarre as Dorothy spent 2 hours under my desk scraping the hard skin from both of my heels with her baby teeth.
My favourite film Noir movie is the 1944 thriller Double Indemnity which features the glorious Barbara Stanwick as the scheming Phylis Dietrichson .I’m so glad we will be discussing her next week !
She was such a slag .
No other news to report ….this afternoon neighbours Mandy and Sailor John and I met up with Animal Helper Pat in the lane….it was her first walk after getting over covid and she was bright as a button. We slagged off the owners of the new build behind the cottage, who have been ruining Mandy’s washing with their bonfires…Pat looked well, a year ago, pre vaccines her story may have been so different .
We all mentioned that
I’m not going to choir tomorrow tonight…I’ve told Jamie I will only go when we can sing indoors….and he understands …..so tomorrow afternoon all I am doing is buying more agapanthus for the garden…fireworks of neon blue which will burst their colourful flower heads in every corner of the cottage garden .
I will arranged them amid the hostas and hydrangeas
She laughed when I asked for something to be done tonight,
I told her it looked like shredded wheat.
Going through my trusty Filofax yesterday I noticed that I had a film Studies lecture booked for tomorrow night. The subject is film noir and it is a couple of hours after by Opera appreciation course, and so I was really looking forward to it, but I was rostered onto night shifts so had forgotten .
Luckily a colleague is covering for me , which is sweet of her.
I’ve organised my Filofax ( yes I use a Filofax and not my phone!) and crammed it with E tickets for forthcoming excitements in between black sets of nights….! What fun!
An outdoor production of a Pride and Prejudice in Chester
An Sunday afternoon showing of Now Voyager and lunch at the Jaunty Goat
A Vivaldi concert in the Botanical House in Sefton Park
Catching Comets, ( another out door Theatre Clwyd production described as an end of the world rom com)
A spinal injury reunion in York
An Evening with Nigella Lawson ( I may ask Gorgeous Dave or Jason to that one if I can cope with their erections)
And “ Spirit Hole” an evening with Simon Amstell at the Liverpool Philharmonic which was described excitedly as “ Spirit Hole is a blissful, spiritual, sensational exploration of love, sex, shame, mushrooms and more, and promises to be a night of unprecedented joy and laughter.”
Chic Eleanor texted this evening from the Italian Riviera saying she would graciously accept one of my invites.
I’ve also got Ben’s leaving do from work to fit in ( he’s a bestie a nurse who is moving to South Korea)
I’ve already sounded out Bridget from well street to see if she will make a cake with the Korean flag on the top of it.
I just noticed that I have astigmatism in my eye in the above photo
It reminded me of Nancy the cross eyed stewardess in Airport 75
Meirion gave me a lecture the other day about my downpipe.
He’s sweet, but has a habit of giving me a lecture about things.
It’s irritating because he is invariably right in what he says.
Those sort of conversations always are.
“ You’ll get damp in the upstairs bedroom if that leaks anymore” he noted seriously
I nodded, also seriously and promised to get it sorted
He’d already suggested that I stake my graveyard laburnum
I promised to do that, but haven’t got around to it.
Even though I’m a great list maker I still have lots to do
The downpipe does need fixing , but I am not the girl to do it.
I cannot go up ladders to save my life.
I’m terrified of heights even ones just ten feet from the ground.
I am a right wuss.
I suffer from the syndrome The Call Of The Void
That’s where you get the urge to jump from very high spaces
Luckily Facebook came to my aid and a quick plea for a handyman with his own ladder brought forth an offer of help, this time from said handyman’s partner who lives in the village.
I hate it when workmen come around, I try to go all butch and understanding
Winnie just to blow them kisses.
So on nights I am making more lists
The downpipe is number one, and I’ve messaged partner to organise a meeting for me
Second on my list isn’t the laburnum, I’m being bolshy about that one and am ignoring the suggestion.
Third, is the office walls which need repainting, the impetus for that is the new Bauhaus picture which will lovely of a muted yellow wall
I still haven’t finished my revalidation paperwork too……that was a job for tonight
I’ve spent too long doing other things……..typical…in between patient care, I’ve been booking theatre and cinema tickets…..hey ho
I did an overtime shift yesterday and today was a full day . Tomorrow I’m on three night shifts….yes
It’s a bit relentless after my holiday .
Thank goodness for Trendy Carol
I Picked up the girls at dusk from her conservatory, to find that she had bathed both of them and brushed Mary to perfection . Carol ( dressed in so ring floaty ) also reminded me that it was Mrs Trellis’ birthday today, a fact I had forgotten . So I popped around with a card ( I always have a selection in) .and slipped it through the letterbox .
Like many older people Mrs Trellis doesn’t like visitors after dark .
And To be honest I wasn’t quite up to a Trellis conversation .
I could see Mrs Trellis in the window of her living room
She was playing her piano with quiet concentration, her grey hair pulled back in a bun tied up with a pink ribbon
I could hear the music, seeping through the window as it started to rain gently
It was the welsh lullaby Suo Gan
It was a lovely little moment
It wasn’t the only musical moment in the village tonight
On my way home I could see the hall lit up and the first socially distanced concert with Luke Johnson performing on behalf of Folk In The Hall was in progress….
In the 1990s I was fortunate enough to be enrolled on a six month course specialising in the care of the Spinally Injured patient. This was based at the Southport Spinal Injury Unit , which then had unique experience in caring for patients who had total paralysis of their bodies, including their muscles which initiated breathing.
Many of these patients would be ventilator dependent for life.
I got very close to one man who I will call Jim.
He was in his thirties and had broken his neck in a car accident . The injury was so severe that he would need ventilatory support over night but could come off the vent during the day after which he could breath for himself albeit only for a few hours. He could feel his face and talk in a whisper but had no physical control over his limbs, body and head.
My shifts were always weekday mornings with afternoons off for study, and so every morning I would take Jim off the confines of the ventilator, wash, dress and feed him and prepare him for physiotherapy
And every morning he would cry silent tears when woken with suction or the changing of his tracheostomy inner tubes.
One day I asked him about his morning bursts of emotion
And I remember so well the conversation as we were alone in the hospital gardens, Amid the raised planters, which were specially designed to be viewed from a wheelchair.
They were full of lavender and rosemary as I remember
“ Every night I dream Im flying” he whispered “ And every morning I wake to this”
And for the first time I properly realised the impact of injuries like his.
I couldn’t speak.
What could I say?
I just nodded and rested my hand on the side of his face, where he could feel the contact.
I was going to hold his cold unfeeling hand, but the gesture would have been lost,
Jim killed himself a year or so later. One of the physiotherapists wrote to me to inform me.
He had simply stopped eating and had refused escalation of care when finally admitted to a general hospital with pressure sores and renal failure.
There was no Dignitas back then and there was no where to go for a quadriplegic who couldn’t move his own hands to explore the usual methods of ending ones life.
He had to die painfully and without dignity
Which is a place no one should go.
The above clip is from a film I watched last week called The Sea Inside ( Mar Adrendro)
It is about the struggle of a Spanish sailor Ramon Sanpedro, who fought for nearly 30 years to be allowed to die after his spinal injury accident.
It’s a hard watch
This scene brought my conversations with Jim flooding back
I met my friend John from Sheffield this evening . He is on holiday in North Wales with his family. A family I know well but haven’t seen for a long time. His wife, a soft spoken Sheffielder I last saw at my wedding. His daughter at her wedding.
Now the daughter has children of her own and I remembered when I first met her, the day I moved in next door to their terraced home in Hillsborough, when she was just a doe eyed beautiful child
John’s wife hugged me when we met and I could feel her quiet affection for me. The fact that I hadn’t seen her since my wedding suddenly and strangely hurt a little and I jumped into slightly manic jolly mode to exorcise the feeling.
I was a fair way from home so didn’t stay late,
But it was lovely to see them all.
On the way home found a lost CD in the glove compartment which Jamie out choir master ( with his RAF 1940s Moustache) had recorded for us two years ago now.
The South African song Freedom is Coming , was the one I found first
And I sang it at the top of my voice , for the three quarters of an hour drive home in the rain.
Dorothy chased Albert and knocked him over in an over exuberant moment of giddiness after I got home and so, tiredly I told her off quite vociferously, a wooden spoon waved angrily in hand.
She stormed off in a fit of pique, flinging herself dramatically onto the kitchen floor and without me knowing she has just chewed the heel straps from the back of one of my crocs
