Friend with Benefits

I’m going to London for a flying visit next week.

I’m meeting my friend Alex who lives in Poland.

We are going out to eat, we are going to the National Theatre and he’s sharing my hotel room 

in the nice trendy hotel in Covent Garden.

We are, after last years meet ups ..what is unfortunately termed friends with benefits 

Something my gay mate Dave rolled his eyes rather theatrically at.

“ Now John”, (Dave gave me lecture over the phone) “ one of the rules of friends with benefits is that you never have a sleepover,” 

I didn’t know that rule.

More eye rolling from Dave 

He helpfully listed the rules for me 

“make sure you are emotionally adult for this relationship…..don’t be lovely dovey, set boundaries, don’t expect too much, prioritise friendship over sex, don’t fall in love”

I listened with interest 

Now I’m not Mary Poppins people, and I’m not a fool either. I like Alex as a friend and I like him as a FwB but it’s clear we will never be anything more than that and I’m ok with that 

But Dave knew something else was bothering me

“ What’s up babe?” He asked 

I told him I’ve not shared a bed overnight with someone who fancies me and whom I fancy since my separation 

“ Arrhhuh the first non platonic OVERNIGHT bed share !” Dave laughed “How sweet! “ 

As a Single gay man of a certain age , it’s not that hard to have sex if you want it….hard sometimes but often not THAT hard.

Like I said I’m not Mary Poppins in this respect but nor am I Claudius’ Messalina or indeed Don Juan.

But Dave hit on a nerve..sharing a bed all night is a different thing than rolling about on a cotton duvet for an hour before saying your goodbyes.

Dave gave me the best advice anyhow 

“ Darling man ….enjoy your evening , try not to snore, share a hot shower  …don’t think too much……… oh and don’t dribble gravy on your top”

He knows me very well

Hey ho

Short post

 

Pond and Mincemeat.

 I wanted to do something restful today

I’ve just worked two twelve hour shifts and am about to do two more.

Today I wanted to mooch…quietly

I should have helped the community Association volunteers in their planting out of the newly reconstructed village pond but I went to the cinema instead. 

This may have rested my sore neck ( my work physio almost pulled my head off during a somewhat energetic therapy session) but resting in the cinema wasnt really therapy as the film wasn’t as good as I expected …hey ho.

I went up to the pond later on  to survey their work and I was impressed.

Not only has the pond been dredged of silt and mud. Aquatic plants and reeds have been planted on its borders with shrubs, annuals and woodland plants framing it nicely

The movie was Operation Mincemeat, a true wartime story of MI5s efforts to try to deceive the Germans by posing the body of Welsh tramp as a British Officer with forged top secret instructions outlining the allied invasion of Greece instead of the intended target of  Sicily. It’s a story that was filmed more successfully back in 1956 in The Man That Never Was.

This version has a cast to die for . Mathew Macfadyen, Colin Firth, Penelope Wilton, Jason Issacs, Mark Gatiss, and Kelly MacDonald, but Firth was miscast as the lead role and the whole thing I found somewhat dreary.

Hot Air

The hospice is located just right of those houses

 I have always loved that first blast of hot, dry air you get when exiting an aircraft in a Mediterranean airport. 

That faint blast of hot tarmac, sunshine and aircraft fumes 

Mixed together with waft of bougainvillaea, beaches and distant sewerage.

Conversely I also love leaving work and feeling the cool evening Welsh air on my face as I stand for a moment in the hospice car park

Air, cooled by the Irish Sea blowing over and down the Orme 

The grand peninsula overlooking Llandudno 

An island of limestone dotted with the goats made famous from lockdown.

Whereas the Spanish and Greek blast almost takes your breath away.

The Welsh breeze rejuvenates and cools.

Tonight, I needed a bit more Welsh breeze.

I needed to blow the day away.

I took the girls down the lane when I got home

And in the dark, with common pipistrelle bats flashing under the fairly lights at Trendy Carol’s, we stand at Graham the shepherd’s field gate with our heads to the sky feeling the faint cooling, sea smelling wind from the South hills.

It felt good

A Sausage Apology

 No doubt I’m in store of some sort of internet backlash but I admit I locked the dogs inside the cottage by mistake this morning.

I only knew my mistake when I ventured a quick glance at my phone messages on my break at 11.30 am .

It was a earlier message from Trendy Carol I noticed first

“ I can’t get in ! “ it said plaintively 

I had double locked the back door 

The dogs are never left home alone more than four hours when I’m at work. Today they were left nearly fourteen.

I felt like a right heel 

Now if my mistake had occurred when Winnifred was alive, I would have faced a sulk worthy of Mariah Carey who had not been presented with her usual dressing room full of puppies and kittens but after being released from the cottage , Mary & Dorothy bounced forward like a pair of Bonnie Langfords on acid.

Ive just taken them for a long walk, then cleaned the kitchen of bodily fluids before treating both girls with the  nectar of the terriers 

Cheap, plastic looking hot dog sausages 

They adore them with a passion .

Even Winnie would have been won over if I had waved one Gayly in her direction ….

It’s been a busy day at work …but a productive one

I will be cutting my hours from 150 a month to 96 on the First of July

Cockerel On Time

 

Where has the day gone? 

It’s 6.30 and the bantam rooster has just tapped on the window for his supper.

I’m not going to choir

It’s been cancelled again 

More covid.

Sigh.

Greg, my little bathroom man came this morning and has arranged to start work, the week after next .

His quote is well under what I expected 

His electrician will repair the faulty cooker extractor fan too.

We talked a lot about dogs.

He also suggested that I book a skip.

I went to see our work counsellor this afternoon. 

She will support my counselling course and will supervise me in practice 

Everything seems to be slipping into place

Pottery Results

The “ landscape” letter rack turned out a bit lurid 

 

But my fat camel looked pretty sweet

As did the octopus 

My salt spoon looked as though a five year old had made it lol

Gongs and Bhajis

 It’s 14 degrees, warmish, slightly overcast with a breeze from the south East. The cattle in the fields West of the village are all sat with their faces to the weak sun . Their backs to the wind.

The cottage smells of turmeric and mild curry powder.

I’m making low fat vegetable bhajis.

I’ve decided that the tulips I bought will last another week if I’m lucky, a Walker in the lane commented only last week that he always like the fact I have flowers in a vase in the lane window.

He mentioned that my wisteria had started to sprout on the garden arch.

I hadn’t noticed.

Last night I watched the Olivier Awards. 

The compare Jason Manford set the tone straight away by joking with the audience that “ This is an evening of back-slapping, not face-slapping!”

I think everyone seemed to appreciate the comment. 

Lovely to see Sheffield’s own Life Of Pi do so well and I was made up to see the four leading actors in Cabaret winning a gong too….especially Elliot Levy and Lisa Sadovy the old German couple who find love in the twilight of their lives.

The bhajis have turned out exceptionally well.

So much so that I will post the recipe 

One large onion, thinly sliced

One large sweet potato grated

One large carrot, grated

2 cm fresh ginger grated

2 tsp curry powder

1 tsp turmeric

50 g of chick pea flour

Zest and juice of a lime

1 red chilli chopped

Mix ingredients into patties

Cook in hot oven 200 for half an hour

Serve with soya yogurt flavoured with mango chutney

It’s the half season finale for The Walking Dead later

Mindfullness

 I remembered a nurse called Olga today .

I’m sure she has died by now.

She was an older woman when I worked with her many moons ago 

I didn’t like Olga. 

She was brusque and prickly and she never really liked the patients she cared for.

Having said that, 

She never really liked her co workers either.

However Olga liked flowers.

She would bring bunches in from her garden at home, or would send the more biddable patients out when  the daffodils filled the hospital flower beds and would cram a myriad of glass vases with blooms , placing  displays on window ledges and on tables and anywhere they could be seen . 

Weekly she would empty each vase and would hand wash them with hot soapy water in the ward sluice 

It was a ritual she always completed on her own 

Hot soapy water

Cleaning the glass inside and out

Then rinsing each vase before leaving them to air dry 

“ It’s my restful time “she explained once “my time” 

A woman who didn’t really like people enjoying a mindless , repetitive job 

I thought of Olga today as I cleaned my collection of Burleigh Ware  Art Deco crockery. 

I had placed it all on top of my kitchen cabinets five years ago where it has become greasy and dirty with cooking and dust and soot from the fire and slowly and deliberately I have soaked each piece and cleaned away the dirt until my fingers wrinkled from the soaking and the bleach.

It’s been a mindful afternoon with the ticking of the kitchen clock and the sound of bird sound from the garden my only company.

Freya & Mary

 The problem with always being busy is that sometimes when you stop, you can come down, just a little,  with a bump. 

I was feeling like that this evening, feeling I wanted to do something but at the same time feeling tired and sore 

Then the above photo was sent to me .

It was from Hattie .

Of her daughter Freya with the toy of  Mary I had given her when she was born  

It’s made my day.

Effin Knackered

 This morning I helped with a new Community project.

On a small plot of land on the east boundary of the village a small orchard of fruit trees have been planted.

Apple, cherry, pear and plum trees, ten of them all told have been planted and staked this morning, the fruit from which can be utilised by any of the village population .

It’s a lovely idea.

But I must admit Laurie ( from Well street) and I were effing knackered by the end of it.

Kate Bush - And A Night Without Kate

Sometimes a little gem of a show comes along and grabs you by the balls.

A Night Without Kate is one of those shows. Part tribute act, part stand up, and part cabaret it is a tour de force one woman show by actress singer Sarah Louise Young who fell in love with Kate Bush as a school girl and who has never wanted to forget her idol.

Using costume, humour and stage effects Young performs some lovely versions of Bush’s most famous songs and in one memorable moment of pure theatre she asked a older couple in the audience who was “interviewed “ in the warm up to dance together on the stage as she sang Don’t Give Up

It was a beautiful and incredibly moving moment in a warm, engaging and nostalgic show

I loved it.

I’m glad Gorgeous Dave liked it too, although being in his thirties, he was unaware of most of the songs

The Lion King - The Emotional First Rehearsal into Broadway's Return

I think I’ve posted this before , but the sheer exuberance and emotion of it is worth seeing again.

I’ve done an extra night at work last night because the new covid variant has laid low a few staff. 

I’ve banked the shift so will take the time back when it suits me…I don’t mind.

It’s also been a fairly quiet night , so in between jobs , I’ve booked my sister 60th birthday treats

My sister doesn’t get to London at all often, so I’ve booked the things she would like.

The Beatrix Potter exhibition at the V&A, a boutique hotel, 

Kew Gardens and a good seat at The Lion King which means she sees the Elephant close up as it walks down the aisle.

There is something lovely experiencing something nice and new through another’s eyes 

Vicarious pleasure as they call it.

Milky Peaks

 Ok , big breaths

Imagine this.

In the small faded mountain/seaside Welsh town of Milky Peaks, Dewi ( Seiriol Davies) a hotel clerk comes out during the towns celebrations at being nominated as Best British Town of the year. His staunchly welsh Friend Mam ( Lisa Jên Brown) spends her time at salsa in an effort to forget her husband wants to leave her and faded, vomit stained drag Queen Pariah Carey ( Mathew Blake) dreams of better things  and wants to play the lead in the town’s production of My Fair Lady. 

Add to the mix a shadowy property tycoon ( Tanya Bridgeman) a drama coach with a murky past (Miriam O’Brien) and far right Judge of the competition who wants to set the town up to be  a centre of a new all white facist community(Sophie Winter) 

Are you with me so far? 

Now, picture costumes c/o StartlightExpress and Pricilla Queen of the Desert , frenetic musical numbers from the 1980s songs covering dogging, Welsh Folklore, echos of the Nazis in Cabaret , politics, gay culture, sexual identity, big business, racism, sexism, misogyny, and Britishness .

There is even a talking toilet wall and a Welsh dragon ( drag-on gettit ?) 

Blink and you will miss a pithy joke and an “ important” message….

It’s funny yet exhausting 

Witty but somewhat overwhelming. 

It’s a bit like drinking two litres of Coca-Cola after eating 4 chocolate eclairs

I drove home in silence 

Divorce Kindness & Milky Peaks

 I heard on the radio this morning that people can now apply for a no fault divorce. 

I am pleased to hear this, I really am, for it brings a kindness into an often unkind situation .

This is a no blame blog today, it’s just a reflective one , so please respect my wishes in any of your comments…the last time I used the word kindness in a blog title the shit really hit the fan.

I was sited in my divorce as behaving unreasonably during the marriage 

I remember reading the words in that little box the reasons behind them with disbelief and shock.

I was stung by the unfairness and fallaciousness of it all.

I remember my dumpy Welsh solicitor supplying me with sweet coffee and tissues at the time and she kept saying “Ignore the words , they are not personal” and I understood just why they were used as there was no other get out clause for my husband to go use and because he wanted to end the marriage he had to say the appropriate words to get the divorce wheels in motion 

And on reflection this was unfair on both of us.

Terribly unfair.

The new law with its no blame culture is kinder all round 

And I celebrate and welcome it.

Anyway that was my reflection this morning.

Over coffee.

I rang HR with my request to drop my work hours today. The counselling course will be a return to things I know and use but it will be an updated and new way of learning for me as it’s more theoretical side will challenge my naturally lazy academic streak.

Cutting my hours clinically will give space for my counselling course without everything becoming too much. 

I’m not about to let go of my post lockdown freedoms now 

Not for anything

And so in the spirit of all that I’m meeting a friend shortly for a walk followed by brunch and tonight I’m meeting another friend to see Milky Peaks which is a gay musical which takes a side swipe at Welsh Nationalism and identity within a North Wales mountain town.

Like you do……..

Okolo Hradišťa

We sang this new song in choir tonight and after another covid hiatus, it was wonderful to be back again singing. It was conductor Jamie’s birthday, so like a good pupil I bought him some flowers, he’s a good sort putting practice over birthday celebrations .

We sang happy birthday to him and five other choristers, whose birthdays we have missed because of covid ( we sing in in harmony to an old Slovakian hymn)

I could see Heulwen, getting emotional as she stood listening when it was her turn.

Today has been a good day. 

I finally cleared the attic cupboard and took the crap to the recycling centre. Then I popped some homemade brownies to a friend who is off work with stress and finally I cleaned Bluebell inside and out. Affable Despot Jason stopped briefly with his rambunctious dogs straining at their leads at Mrs Trellis with Blue who was walking back up the lane . Neither me or he was anyway surprised when Mrs Trellis disappeared up my drive to hide behind Bluebell until he had passed.

It’s a habit she does when meeting any dog in the village. 

 

Hill of Arrows

Today I have got very little planned.

After a think at the kitchen table with a bucket of coffee, I decided to clear the cupboard in my bedroom that leads up to the attic.

When my little Bathroom man arrives , he will need access up there to put in an electric shower.

The whole cupboard was crammed with junk.

A broken Lloyd loom laundry basket, a broken lampshade, old papers and moulding eiderdown, the usual crap you hide away from sight …everything was thrown into the front garden much to the surprise of locals walking up and down the lane.

In a rather dusty old suitcase I found a photocopied publication dating from 1910. I have no recollection of having it.

Tucked behind the Welsh text was a translation of the this book which was described as thus

This is the winning Essay

Submitted for the Newmarket Eisteddfod

Held on the 1st August 1910

Written in welsh by R.T Williams ( pseudonym Trevor Mon)

Entitled

“ Newmarket, it’s Antiquity, Biography and Present History”

For those that don’t know Newmarket is the old name for Trelawnyd.

I fell into a few hours of reading, sat in the window seat of my bedroom. The book sharing the history of the village from as far back as the Welsh tribes who lived on the land before the Romans arrived.

It’s a fascinating read and much of the information within its pages was new to me. The old, ancient names of hills that surround the village interested me the most. Bryn Y Saethau ( Hill of Arrows) , Bryn Y Lladdfa ( The Hill Of Slaughter) and Bryn Y Coaches ( Hill Of The War Chariots) all conjure up ancient battles and folklore 

The text also features biographies on local ( men) from the turn of the century as well as detailed descriptions of local houses and their histories, forays into local folklore, and discussions about Marriages  and everyday life of an Edwardian Welsh Village.

I’m happy to provide anyone local who is interested in reading this essay a copy . All I ask is that they pay a 5£ fee which will be donated to the Memorial Hall.

Wateringtocan

I bought a fucking useless watering can today

Just because I liked the look of it 

 

Getting On

Nurse’ humour is, I know , an acquired taste.

I watched Getting On the other night, which was a sitcom based in an over worked and fraught nhs hospital ward. It’s a work of genius and captures perfectly the screwball nature of very dark humour.

I was reminded of a conversation I had fairly recently with a patient who was somewhat challenging in nature.

He asked me to do something that I was not prepared to do and the subsequent conversation was roughly as follows after he had sworn at me and was now sulking

Patient :”Have you always been a nurse who argues with their patients?” 

Me “ I like to think I’m assertive but fair“ 

Patient: “ I will take that as a yes then” 

Me (smiling  sweetly) “ no problem”

Patient: “ Have you killed anyone this week?” 

Pause

Me “Only two this week”

Patient: “ Only two?”

Me”It’s been a slack week”

Patient laughs

Patient: “What’s your name again? …I might have to report you”

Me “Beverly Allitt”

Patient laughs again

Being Gay

 

Sometimes it’s nice to have a gay old day.

I got to Liverpool early and bought the outstanding remaining pieces of my dinner service from John Lewis. I couldn’t find the cutlery section , as it had been moved. I told the very camp salesman I was in a hurry and he let the charge to the right shelves with a wave of the arm and a merry “ Tallyho”

I met my friend Colin at The Italian Club just on time and we drooled like schoolboys over the army of bearcub waiters on duty, with their heavily dyed beards and big hairy arms .

When Colin payed the bill, one such waiter gave his hand a cheeky caress which made my friend blush Pinkly and made me laugh like a drain.

We went to the Philharmonic Hall to watch the Liverpool Symphony Orchestra play Beethoven Leonore Overture, Sibelius’ violin Concerto with sololist Maria Dueñas and Prokofiev’s Symphony No 5 .

The music was , as usual top notch , but we both were watching conductor ( the floppy haired Venezuelan Domingo Hindoyan) like predatory hawks