Spam

 Blogger has been playing up. 

Thanks to Rachel, who put out the word, it’s been diverting many of your comments into my spam folder without any justification. It seems to be a regular problem with many bloggs

So apologies for that . I will endeavour to check my folders more regularly in future 

Thank You Covid

 

We are almost out of it !

The pandemic I mean.

Ok I can’t book any Airbnb’s in Rome in the middle of the night because the owners have to physically assess you covid wise and The Archers still hasn’t returned to it’s Friday night spot, but things have almost gotten back to normal.

Almost

How quickly have we forgotten the lockdown eh ? Quite quickly is my response , but having said that I’ve noticed that many of us are now wanting happy endings in our films and tv and social media….just look at the burst of popularity of the sweet Heartstopper and the fact ( note spoiler) that Miss Baxter and Mr Mosley finally get it together in Downton.

They say air travel will be more difficult given the numbers flying versus the airport staff in place. For me this is yet to be seen. 

I’ve booked a ferry over to Ireland in Bluebell later in the year and will meet up for a family party at Nu’s cottage in the far west of Ireland . This seemed simple enough to book  and cheaper than I expected. 

I’ve got an apartment of my own in a farmhouse in Kenmare . 

Theresa, the farmer’s wife has already told me that she’ll have some homemade scones ready for me on my arrival.

There was no talk of swabs or covid passports .

Again, it will be seen if things are as straightforward as I hope.

I’ve bought a sat nav too…..one who copes with Irish roads.

Like I said, for some the pandemic will be forgotten quickly. 

For me…less so.

Now, I think,  I’m taking from it a more proactive stance on things because of covid

I am grateful for the lessons it’s taught me.

It was a lonely and sad time to have been living in a single person household and I don’t want to venture back there again. 

And so I’ve stopped saying no to things, when no was the easy go to.

I’m pushing myself  out of my comfort zone with travel and events and with people and new experiences.

It’s a work in progress…like we all are.

But thank you covid 

You’ve taught me a lesson 

Now BBC  Please bring back The Archers on a Friday.

Do I shit In The Woods?

I’m pricing up skips ( dumpsters to you Americans) 

The smallest is 75£ which I think is an Ok price.

I need to ask Trefor if I can park it in his drive for when the Bathroom guy comes on Tuesday but that may not be a wise move . Unattended skips tend to be filled by all and sundry especially when they are located somewhere you can’t keep an eye on them.

I do enough for charity me thinks.

The one question I’ve not asked Bathroom Man yet, is how long am I going to be without a toilet.

Now unlike most dwellings nowadays I have only one functioning toilet. Now if this was the 1970s this would be a perfectly reasonable state of affairs but in the glorious 2020s , there is an expectation on many levels which expects that one will have at least one en suite in your property.

I haven’t ……

So I threw the quandary  out to my fellow night workers

“Shit in a bucket” Steve suggested

“ And how does someone my size even sit on a bucket let alone shit in one ?” I said 

“You could hover ?” Diane offered

I looked sceptical 

“ With my hips?”

“True” she agreed without laughing.

“ Borrow a commode from work? “ she added

“ I couldn’t get the legs in the car” I told her ( I had already measured them)

We bandied around various ideas from knocking on neighbours’ doors to squatting in my old field.

Suffice to say, I am very much a product of my time and the thought of not having a good sit down poo fills me with dread. 

I’ve even priced up a “ robust” camping toilet on Amazon. Which is a doable 28£ ! ( with toilet paper hanger) or the cheaper kamper Khazi which surprisingly doesn’t seem to have a weight limit

And one of the things on my bucket list is to go camping 

I must be mad 

Blognaling

Some people don’t get that Going Gently is a journal as well as being a blog.  

A Jourog or Blognal 

Call it what you wish.

As a journal I often share personal feelings and thoughts predominantly ( but not always) about my own life. Something that often elicits comments of support and sympathy but also of advice and criticism. 

This, is perhaps to be expected I guess, even if questions are seldom put out for the audience to give their thruppenny bits at.

What most people don’t get is that Blognals are cathartic  pieces really. They are there purely to process feelings and thoughts and events and are not really there to illicit comments

This is certainly true when it comes to sympathy

As it may seem to some that blogging is really about.

Attention seeking.

Now I’m going to shoot myself in the foot here , as of course blognaling is all about attention seeking. But it really is about attention seeking in the right way. 

I don’t want to hear that I’m a lovely person, or a saint or fucking Mother Theresa without the tea towel but I do like to hear that I’ve written something interesting , or well , or which has moved someone or made them laugh. 

I want one without the other 

And that isn’t how the internet works.

I get that.

I know of bloggers who are more economical with self disclosure for the very reasons I’ve outlined above.

Others have always been careful with what they post.

I am not. If I feel it, or I need to process it, I write it and obviously do from one perspective

Who knows if there is a right or wrong way of doing things.

The internet allows for people to react to the written word in a way that they would never do to anyone’s spoken ones face to face.

It also allows people to withhold sympathy (when it is perhaps needed) in the perception that you’ve had too much on line…..this is intriguing, as it would never happen in real life 

…..but that, as they say, is another story

Froth On Your Hot Chocolate

Velvet voiced Linda had told me there was a woodpecker present in the trees around the village pond last week but I only got to hear him hammer today. 

I think my early morning dawn chorus sojourn has turned me into everything birds 

I’m on nights until Monday morning. 

And so we all went to bed for an hour at 1pm and wasted the afternoon by sleeping in until 5.30. 

I cooked a prawn stir fry and walked the girls 

And I’m writing this , in my uniform , coffee in hand.

The nice bit of the day has been a trio of communications .

A friend’s carefully written and honest email; a message from a faraway friend suggesting lunch and a kind mega early birthday card with a gift of a crisp ten pound note in it.

Contacts from friends are always nice but when you are single they can be the real froth on your hot chocolate so to speak.

Flintshire county council sent me a 150 £ rebate too, to help with my fuel bills 

That was a nice gesture too

I can hear the woodpecker again, as I get ready to leave.

A Day In Two Halves

 It’s been a day of two halves . 

The dawn chorus 

Then The Play That Went Wrong at Theatr Clwyd.

Both enjoyable for completely different reasons .

I said to my sister Janet, on the way home tonight , that in this my 60th year 

I’m going to do all the things I’ve never done before as well as all of the things I like to do too

If that makes sense .

Still on my bucket list for this year

Go camping in a tent

Go to a European city  mini break with my old girlfriend Jane,

Driving through Ireland to Nu’s cottage,

A holiday break abroad totally alone,

Dance in public

Start my counselling course

Learn a totally new skill 

Walk up Snowdon 

I’ve booked five already…..

Hey ho

Birdsong

 I went on a dawn walk this morning. 

A first for me.

I saw it advertised in Holywell when I popped into Tesco

“ Dawn Walk With A Twitcher - birdsong explained”

The meeting place was in Caerwys before 5 am 

I was the last to arrive.

There was ten of us, all told, led by a quietly spoken man in his sixties called Eifion.

We were led down a bridle path by torch light and from time we’d stop to have a brief lecture 

It was an interesting and somewhat cold early morning

But an invigorating one

The robins and blackbirds and the more rare thrush, were the first on the performance with other birds such as wrens, wood pigeons  and warblers joining in.

The likes of the tits and the finches usually only start to sing when dawn has broken.

Apparently it is usually the male birds that call and at times the sound was amazingly loud

One woman in the group had a good cry at the experience and kept apologising for it.

I liked the feeling of being anonymous in the pre dawn gloom

And felt a little exposed when the day finally  lifted the dark to a translucent blue.

I’m off to meet a friend for lunch shortly.

They are going into hospital soon and are in need of a bit of calm

It’s sunny but still cool and I can see Islwyn pottering around the pony field fixing the gates

He’s like me. 

He likes to be needed.

Gay Wizards

 I disliked the Harry Potter film franchise finding it all somewhat tiresome  but I liked the first Fantastic Beasts movie , which is a prequel of sorts.

I didn’t enjoy or understand the second film in the Beast trilogy but sort of got to grips with the third-  tonight’s movie fantastic Beasts The Secrets Of Dumbledore 

I say sort of ……

The action bits were exciting , I like the Queenie and Jacob characters too but over all it is 

Jude Law who made it for me as he makes for a rather tasty gay bear dad wizard, what with his lovely beard and wide selection of hand knitted tank tops. 

“ John Gray!!!!”

I bought a nice fish dish yesterday. I’ve put my smaller money plants and cactus in it

Albert has recently amused himself by knocking the plants onto the floor

I think it’s a case of transference because Mary is chasing him a little more over mistaken jealousy over the rubber chicken

I photographed the dish 

Preempting my post of today, 

yes it’s been a slow week

 I’ve been sat in a waiting room for 28 minutes.

I’m precise because there is one of those digital clocks on the receptionist’s desk

And this is the third waiting room I’ve been in this morning and it’s only 11.23

The hospital has WiFi thank god , but not enough to stream The Walking Dead

That’s probably a godsend as zombies can be noisy when you’ve forgotten your headphones.

I’ve not seen a doctor yet, just a series of technicians . 

The ultrasound woman was a bit of a pig, so much so, I asked her if she was having a bad day

“ Staffing is dire “ she moaned behind her mask.

The phlebotomist was more sanguine she told me she was off at one and was going to Sainsbury’s to buy her daughter a birthday gift. 

Tu’s range of girls dresses are lovely and very reasonable apparently 

It took her four goes and two arms to get a sample.

I don’t want to be here

Heartstopper

A friend’s daughter told me I should be watching Heartstopper on Netflix. 

“ You’ll love it” she told me

I looked it up. 

Based on a graphic novels by Alice Oseman, it is a coming of age tv series about the lives to two teen age boys Nick and Charlie and it has a wholesome, innocent but very modern look on teenage first love.

I joined Netflix in order to watch it and I must admit it is incredibly sweet , and angst and all consuming the way love always is when you are fifteen.

Oh how I wish we had Heartstopper when I was a boy.

I’ve had a paperwork morning. I’ve sorted out travel insurance, logs, vets appointments, urology appointments , banking, theatre tickets and my counselling course, and now I’m just organising some batch cooing.

My new food bible is Slimming Eats by Siogban Wightman who is a blogger favourite of mine.

I’ve decided to get my eating under control by always cooking something flavoursome and in quantities that can be frozen as well as eaten. Therefore anything I’m tempted to eat in the house will always be homemade, slimming, tasty and easy to get hold of. 

Tonight it’s lamp balti curry with cauliflower special rice.

Old Trefor is ok today btw.

Little Bathroom man has just messaged , he hopes to start work next week.

Lamb balti and cauliflower rice

CODA

CODA (child of deaf parents) is a nice movie 

It’s not a great one, but it’s a sentimentally sweet one, the kind you enjoy of a Sunday afternoon when you have nothing to do. 

The story is a simple one. 

Ruby (Emilia Jones) is the only hearing person in her hard working fishing family. When the family business is threatened she is torn between supporting them or going to college to study singing.

It’s an appealing coming-of-age story with a lovely performance by the doe eyed Jones,and if you want a blub, just enjoy Ruby’s audition into Berklee where she signs and sings a version of Both Sides Now quite beautifully .

I was sobbing like a real man when there was a knock at the kitchen window. It was Mrs Trellis with Blue She had met up with old Trefor down the lane who had taken a bit of a turn . 

“can you come?” She looked worried 

We all piled into Bluebell 

In his late nineties , it had seemed that Trefor had walked a little too far on his daily sabbatical and was a little shaky stood at Graham’s field when we got to him and it didn’t take long to get him back home with a beef dinner on hand .

I checked him again at tea time and will do so again tomorrow morning

When I was pottering later Lywenna stopped briefly. She is the widow of Gentleman Farmer Ralph. She told me she was in the process of picking out her husband’s headstone and our eyes met briefly, in a silent acknowledgment of just how hard a job it was for her.

Lywenna has a quietness and wonderful  dignity about her, 

I’ve always envied that 

It’s been a nice day

Spring Garden

My sister arrived early on and licked the front garden into shape.

I videoed the result and have mooched around it for most of the morning. If my new neighbours are out in their back garden I try not to be around in mine, for all I seem to hear is an elderly Yorkshire terrier’s incessantly yapping followed with their incessant bellows of “ Shut up Charlie” 

It’s all a bit common.

Speaking of common I’ve just braved Tescos in Prestatyn 

Which can be a trial in itself if you aren’t in the mood for badly behaved kids and their sports wearing parents.

I soothed my nerves with a mooch around the home department of TK Max and bought a rug, and some accessories for the new bathroom.

Charlie was at full hysterical yapping stretch when I got home so I closed up the back of the cottage and opened up the front to the sun.

Hopefully he’ll have a Stroke soon 

( I only mean that a little )

The sea pinks

It’s still glorious here.

The honeysuckle which Janet so fervently cut back last year has formed the front door in dark green healthy leaves in which the hedge sparrows from the lane are presently chattering.

The sea pinks in the basket by the door have finally bloomed and are thriving in their mid air beach.

I’m going to make butter and bread and a seafood paella later.

I’ve watered the houseplants using the garden toucan and the front room now feels a little humid in the direct sunshine

FarSide and Killing Eve

 I’ve been accepted into the far side Facebook group 

Some of the old cartoons are new to me 

Love it 

Killing Eve had a lot to say about the the power of relationships 

I loved the finale tonight and cried 

Eve was always the survivor 

SRA

We treat each other on nights. The night before last, Di brought in bespoke chilli scotch eggs from Conwy 

Hand grenades of beautiful flavour.

Last night I brought in watermelon and mango and left them in the car.

I’m not pretending it was busy.

It wasn’t 

I read a lot about the use of visualisation in pain relief, in between patient care

And I’ve booked tickets to The Play That Goes Wrong, a guided tour around the famous Liverpool Liver Building , tickets for a welsh play Celebrated Virgins ( About the famous Ladies of Llangollen) 

Oh and I’ve finally found a suitable shabby chic hotel for Gorgeous Dave and I to stay in when we are in Rome.( 2 bedrooms rooms, en suite near the Vatican City)….all very La Dolce Vita

I've helped training up a student nurse recently and have asked him to listen to other experienced palliative care nurses in the weeks he’s been with us . " Pick and choose those interactions you hear nurses give their patients !" I advised " Be sure to steal them for your own interactions !"We all steal words and phrases we hear others use.
Sometimes those words have such resonance they burn themselves in your own vocabulary for life.
All of us sponges...for the different, the funny.....the pertinent.

In the late 90s I nursed a somewhat taciturn man for many months.
He was a formidable character, every inch a stereotypical policeman from say a 1970s tv drama...butch, unsmiling and ever slightly distant....think Valquez from Aliens and you'll get where I'm coming from.
He was difficult to engage and only seemed to perk up when he was visited by his police colleagues both male and women.
One policeman that visited seemed to be more smiley and less frivolous than the other visitors and I suspected with my gaydar at full beep that they may have been closeted lovers.
One day, when the visitor was leaving, I noticed my patient murmur " S R A" almost under his breath and this three letter goodbye was noticeably used too as a greeting after several visitations .
A week or who later , when I was teaching the patient how to manage his own bladder I asked him if I could ask a personal question and given the intimacy of the situation he surprisingly agreed , albeit gruffly.
"When your mate comes to visit ....what does SRA mean?"
I busied myself with preparing the nursing equipment as he looked at me squarely and after a long pause he said carefully
" It means a Sudden Rush of Affection!"

A hidden code between lovers

SQUID GAME …Grandmother’s Footsteps

On nights, When I am sleeping during the day, I am overseen and carefully monitored by Dorothy.

She will lie with her back against mine facing the door and there is method in her slightly obsessive madness as from that position she can maintain her top dog status with Mary and the ever more slightly cropped Albert.

For as I am happily snoring my best ( Poor Alex….less said about that the better) the animals embark on a strange game of Grandmother’s Footsteps.

The game is started as soon as Mary or Albert realise that I have gone to bed. One or both will then gallop up the stairs and will jump into the foot of the bed.

Then Dorothy will let out a low rumbling growl

She is staking her claim.

To stop any escalation of hostilities Mary and Albert have learned to freeze exactly where they land, and by doing so Dorothy will stop her growling. 

This tableau remains unchanged until Dorothy closes her eyes  thus allowing Welsh Terrier and cat to move another millimetre until the growling starts up again.

I’ve pieced the “ game” together now after several aborted efforts to sleep over the past two years 

And know that the growling and mini movements will continue until all animals are within a knat’s Crotchet of my body and peace reigns.

Simple

 

It’s been a long night all told

Even with a few hours sleep before I left the house last night.

My times of burning the candle at both ends feels to be somewhat over and

I’m looking forward to bed this morning.

Bed with bulldog licks on the soles of my feet.

There was a gift waiting at work for me last night

Pressed into my cubbyhole alongside papers on palliative care and mail was a gift wrapped neatly in brown paper. 

It was from my friend , one of the hospice doctors

Two artworks of Dorothy and Mary

It kinda made my day.

I will leave you with this simple thought for the day

There is a lot of psycho babble on the internet

But this wise old woman keeps it simple, to the point and uses language we all understand

Doesn’t that make life sound so……

So……….

Simple……

The Corn Is Green

 

The actor and playwright Emlyn Williams was born and bred just over a hill or so from Trelawnyd in the village of Pen Y Ffordd which literally means top or end of the road

It is said that he spent some of his childhood in or around Trelawnyd but I can’t find reference to this today. Having said this , I’m a bit blurry eyed this morning, sat, like I am in Russel Square gardens with an Americano and a slight hangover.

The Corn Is Green is Williams’ autobiographical account of how an education furnished by an astute schoolteacher gave a poor illiterate child miner a helping hand in life. 

Most of us will remember the story from the Bette Davis 1945 film.

Powerhouse spinster Lily Moffat ( Nicola Walker) inherits a Manor House in a small rural village in North Wales. Helped by an English singleton Miss Ronberry (Alice Orr Ewing) and a staunch baptist Mr Jones ( Richard Lynch) she turns the hall into a school of boys and in a difficult mission to educate the village children who would have been subscripted into mine work by the age of 10.

The play, which hasn’t really dated in since the 1930s makes use of a fantastic male chorus of singing miners, a stereotype if ever there was one, but it is one that works quite beautifully as the strains of Calon Lân and Gwahoddiad waft gently around the actors and action.

Walker is remarkable as Miss Moffat. Workmanlike and efficient in one breath and a fiery lioness on the mission in the other.she is ably supported by a cast that match her skill and although some of verbalised stage directions was a mistake , this is a production of great worth and one whose message resonates today.

I’m on the way home now. 

Like I said slightly hungover and somewhat bleary eyed .

I will have time for a shower and long dog walk and a sleep

I’m on night shift later….

London

 It’s a lovely day for a train journey

My connecting train from Crewe has been cancelled much to the angst of many passengers who are vociferously complaining that their booked seats won’t be honoured on the following train. 

I’m not meeting Alex until 5pm  and so I’ve nothing planned to miss early doors.

I will take my usual amble through Bloomsbury and may take in an exhibit at the British museum or an early movie at the Curzon. 

If the weather remains good, I may just stroll down to the river

Goodbye

 

I met my friend Ruth for breakfast this morning before she takes a leave of absence from work.

She is going to Northern Scotland for a few months to work in a community collective . Work on allotments and gardens for room and board .

She is grieving and needs to heal 

I shall miss her but her choice to go is a wise one.

We all need time to recuperate when we are emotionally damaged 

So many of us ignore  the danger signals and soldier on regardless .

And that often helps no one. 

I hope she returns.

I hate goodbyes

Always have

I once took Nu to the airport, many moons ago now, when she was leaving to work in Saudi Arabia and I had to stop on the Snake Pass from Manchester to Sheffield in order to sob over the steering wheel. So upset I was, a farming type woman in a land rover stopped to ask if I was alright.

After work when I was driving up to the village last night at dusk, I spied a rainbow arcing gracefully 

Over from the south , the tip of which seemed to lightly Land on the top of the Gop.

Several people stopped their cars in order to take the obligatory photo.

The rainbow I’d like to think is a sign from Auntie Gladys 

The old lass is 103 today and as usual the village make voice choir who originally adopted her years ago has played tribute to her

I miss her

Not so much a goodbye from the old Trelawnyd queen

But a hello

Easter Sunday

 

I'm on my break in our study  and I'm being watched

Work is quiet today, after a fraught few days,and the staff have made the most of the change of pace by sitting together discussing a glossary of Trans words.

It was an interesting and informative hour all told. 

We are sadly not up to speed with the more recent ways of describing the gender/sexuality world.

I hated Easter Sunday as a child btw

It was a boring day filled with too much chocolate and piss long biblical films on the BBC

I've never liked religious movies since

And have never been overly keen on chocolate either