The way this is performed
Breaks your heart
Dressing up
This morning I met Chic Eleanor for a walk and breakfast and wore a new shirt to mark the occasion.
She noticed it too, as she has a want to notice everything and made a fuss accordingly
“Darling, I’m loving the LOOK !”she called out kissing me three times on the cheeks
And I preened with embarrassment.
It was lovely to catch up with her this morning.
Sometimes my blog comments are more entertaining than the blog entries themselves.
Yesterday’s telling off from the troll is one example ….priceless
The Daffodils of Sheffield
Small hangover this morning.
Not a huge one…..I don’t do them any more, but one big enough to warrant my best filter coffee and not a coffee bag this morning.
When I was a singleton in Sheffield I was a big drinker.
Thursday nights were always “ Nurse” nights at The Ledmill where taxies home were only a fiver and cheesy chips could still be bought on Hillsborough corner before locking up.
Monday night was always a pub quiz in Walkley. Then Walkley was a cross between an up-and-coming and a down-in-heel residential village perched on one of Sheffield’s seven hills.
It was full of terraced houses, mostly filled by nurses and University Staff who couldn’t afford Crooks and Broomhill and often on my drunken walks home to Hillsborough , down in the valley, I would help myself to flowers growing in the tiny front gardens, no bigger than an average coffin.
( as you may realise my relationship with cut flowers stems many years)
One day, after a rather heavy lock in post quiz , I remember waking up to hundreds of daffodils , all crammed in a plethora of containers , cups, vases, saucepans, milk bottles, The KETTLE !
There were hundreds of them all over the house
Several hundred in fact……
And perched, pride of place, inside my Charlotte Rhead vase was a single, and obviously much prized, black tulip
God knows where I got that from
Hic
The last time I went to Linda & Nick’s lovely cosy cottage for an unofficial TCA (Trelawnyd Community Association) catch up I turned into Helen Keller by 10 pm and had to feel my way home, given the amount of gin I consumed.
Tonight I was better behaved but still had a small stagger when I slid into Well Street after dark.
Linda’s argument is that we do our best brainstorming after a gin and bitter lemon.
And fellow trustees Bridget and I couldn’t disagree with her.
The object of our conversation was centred about the Christmas Fayre and I was quite proud of my suggestion of getting the school children to make a lantern each in school to parade to the pond with their parents and other villagers to leave the lanterns there ready for a pond open day the next week.
Before my third gin, we had dispensed with official brainstorming and just sat around their kitchen table gossiping and laughing .
It was nice to hear about Boffin Cameron having a new girlfriend ( amongst other stories), and how good the food swap was doing in the telephone kiosk.
That’s the only bit of gossip I can share here, lol.
I love going around to Linda and Nick’s for they, like Bridget and the other members of the TCA are bright, caring people who value their community, and who do that caring with a smile and with good nature.
Hic
It took me an age to find my front door keyhole in the dark when I got home
Potting up
I drove to Llandudno with the leaving cards for two staff nurses. I get a little irritated by the usual practice of a sad envelope left on the side of a noticeboard which is often filled by the flotsam of change in pockets and purses. I favour a proper collection with someone “ in charge”
And so I’ve had to put my money where my mouth is .
And I’ve collected the monies personally.
I stopped on the way home and had a coffee at Parisella’s new cafe but didn’t stop long as the place was descended upon by four sets of helicopter parents and a gaggle of Toby’s and Lilly’s
The children were fine, but the noise from the parents as they frantically ran around “ organising juices” and seeing if little Archie wanted a panini ! was dreadful.
This afternoon, I’ve spent most of my day repotting Chinese Money Plants
Informal catch up TCA meeting tonight at the velvet voiced Linda’s
She’ll have the gin cooled
2023 Lists
no shit Sherlock!
On my break tonight, I started a list of to dos
after all we are entering the Autumn of 2023 and the year has shot past like the fucking Japanese Bullet train with little to show for a life fairly well spent
The objective of my list is to have something of note to do once a week. This is to balance out my full one day in University and my two days at work.
That's 17 weeks to sort.
Now from the 12th of this month I return to choir on Tuesdays and so I'm not counting that because its on a Uni day but I am counting the three short On line film courses I booked way back in January
so to the list so far
Three film courses over 2 weeks
One Night at the Liverpool Philharmonic , an orchestral accompaniment to the film Psycho
An Evening with Lucy Worsley discussing Agatha Christie
An Evening with Grayson Perry
Fascinating Aida in Chester
Les Miserables at the Guilgud
Don Quixote at The Royal Ballet
The TCA Big Night Out,
Rome!!!
Backstairs Billy at the Duke of Yorks
The lantern and Light Christmas night at Chester Zoo!!! (Cheesy I know)
Giselle at Venue Cymru
Waiting (A play based in the May Blitz in Liverpool)
Any cinema visits will be extras…..,!
Giselle at Venue Cymru
Waiting (A play based in the May Blitz in Liverpool)
Any cinema visits will be extras…..,!
Baba Ganoush
It’s bank holiday here in Wales and I’m rostered for one night tonight
I’ve never quite “ got” the enjoyment of the odd bank holiday , as more often or not, I’ve worked them over the past 40 years or so, like I am tonight.
It’s sunny and quiet here. My sister is on the patio gardening and is surrounded by dogs all intent on a cuddle. They are polite and diffident but persistent .
I’ve been in the front room in the shade of the houseplants…reading for most of the morning but
made baba ganoush for brunch which I ate with toasted bagels as I had no pitas in.
My mobile rang twice but I’m not in a chatty mood so I haven’t checked it
I haven’t turned the radio on either
I fancied silence this morning.
The little art nouveau writing desk by the front door has captured the warmth of the sun through the honeysuckle and the living room feels cosy and friendly as I always wanted it to.
Things To Do
It’s just past ten and already we have had a long walk and a trip to MacDonalds for a proper coffee.
Yesterday was a nothing day; the days after night shift usually are as by early morning you have already worked an 8 hour shift that day and after a few hours sleep…….that day is a bust
I knew I’d need something to do today.
It’s just figuring just what!
Sundays are a couple and family day.
I get that and don’t usually encroach.
But today my single friends are as rare as hen’s teeth
Chic Eleanor is away. Colin has been unwell, there is nothing much on at the cinema, either art house or mainstream and even FACT over in Liverpool has little on that interests me.
I feel like company today
Sod’s law I haven’t any
Postscript ….
And that’s fine…after coffee, I set to returning all of my refugee clothing to my bedroom. It’s amazing how piles of t shirts accumulate in corners and how dollops of underpants show their gusset holes on top of Roger’s crate. So I’ve washed and folded and put away a whole shop’s worth of clothes and made room for books and bits and pieces on the bedroom bookshelves .
I’m glad I did for I found two precious belongings tucked away behind the paperbacks
The first was my grandmother’s bible
It’s missing a cover and it looks pretty sad for itself , but tucked away in Samuel was the stalk of a button hole, the stain on long gone flower petals on the pages which pressed it.
It was my grandfather’s button hole from his wedding and is 100 years old
It was lovely to visit it again.
And keeping it company was a rustic woollen ewe made by Ma Manley
She made it from the wool I collected from Irene
It’s the only thing I have now of the soay ewes after Roger decimated my woolly hat last year.
It was nice to see her too.
The bedroom now looks clean and ordered.
I washed the floorboards and opened the windows wide to blow away the cobwebs
This afternoon , I made meatballs from scratch and used tomatoes from the telephone box food bank ( I swapped for packets of stock cubes) to make a rich sauce. There were lots of spring onions in the bank too so I made garlic and spring onion mash too
Blogs
I mentioned in the previous blog that Gill , the patient mentioned had made me an embroidered scene which I had framed and which I still keep ever since 1988. Jackie asked to see it.
So here it is.
I’m a little saddened with some activity on blogland recently too …I’m not talking about trolls….their activity is absolutely of no consequence to me but I’ve seen Silly one sided fallings out by old friends on line that to me seem petty and pointless .
Blogland , for some , is the bubble , certain people find themselves in when driving their car.
Road rage and comments are safe to throw out, nasty insults and fall outs can be verbalised on line where they would never be voiced in a month of Sundays to someone’s face.
I’m having an aperol spritzer tonight, the fire is lit, and I’m mellow watching Northern Soul at the Proms
Sister Anne
I have just shared a story with a colleague at work.
There was a reason I did, but that’s not for here and now.
It was a moment of ironic level headedness that was as inspired as it was funny
And it showed absolute leadership and confidence.
I once had a ward manager in psychiatry called Anne.
She was a massive lady, clinically incredibly obese and terribly unwell who was a stone’s throw away from a cardiac arrest, yet she ran her ward with all the intelligence and energy of a much younger woman in her prime.
One of our patients was a young woman called Gill. I cannot remember much about her except for the fact she ran circles around the more inexperienced nurses on the ward. She was histrionic and personal and would not only insult the nursing staff but would belittle them and shock them in equal measures. Sometimes using physical violence and intimidation .
She would also regularly self Harm by slicing her arms and legs with razor blades.
When I was a new staff nurse, incredibly wet behind the ears, I was asked to come off the ward to attend a staff meeting. It was a teaching session too and a debrief that was designed to help staff cope with Gill and some of her behaviours and it was facilitated by Anne, who provided a tray of tea and a plate of biscuits for her staff.
Just as we were getting started Gill opened the door to the office and ran in. Her mouth was held wide open, showing all the staff a mouthful of unswallowed paracemol tablets and she moved like a zombie to one staff member to another moaning loudly.
Not one person moved.
Everyone waited for Anne to react
And slowly and with dignity she did just that.
Without even looking at Gill she picked up the nearest cup of tea from the tray and handed it to the patient . Who in surprise took it.
And for the longest time no one moved a hair, until still holding her cup, Gill walked slowly out of the office , her mouth still gaping wide with tablets.
Anne kicked the door shut with her foot as Gill crossed the threshold
And Anne quietly said
“ As I was saying…..” with the tiniest of smiles on her face
And Just Like That
Carrie's "Last Supper" where she got together her nearest and dearest friends to say goodbye to her old apartment/life is something most of us would love to do at one period of our lives.
Friends are the family you choose and by having so many on screen (16 or so) is a testament of just how loved you are.
For Gawd's sake even Samantha almost turned up but due to a blip with British Airways found herself back in the taxi back to Chelsea.
AJLT comes from a world that lasts in just 2 minute bursts. it would be lovely but exhausting to live that strange fantasy life for real. sex is always on satin sheets and last exactly four thrusts before intercutting with another friend bedding another man.....and poor Antony, almost forced into anal at his ripe age just because everyone has to be everything to everyone.
And Just Like That is rubbish
but its now a 50 something rubbish show that the fans have followed so loyally over the years and we forgive the holes in the script for the little gems of sassy dialogue that occasionally remain.
Miranda now is being kind to her exes in a touching scene worthy of the 1998 production and the whole thing is left a little hanging so that season 3 can be commissioned, which it unsurprisingly has been
I suspect season three will be the last we will see of the large ensemble cast of multicultural ladies. Good as the African American, Latina and Middle Eastern actors are, their characters are never more defined as the original three Caucasian ones, which is a shame
I also predict Samantha will return again.
Kim Cattrall always stole the show in the first place
Catching Leaves
On my walk this morning I caught a leaf.
It was raining and the wind made heavy by the raindrops hit a patch of trees like a slap, letting several horse chestnut leaves spin, first up in the air and then downwards to where we stood.
Roger and Mary looked up and watched them and on impulse I caught the nearest one in my hand.
According to Sue Belfrage in her book Down to the River and Up To The Trees, there is an old British tradition that catching leaves is lucky.
Keep the leaf in your pocket, till dried out and fragile it crumbles, she suggests
I carried it home and left it on the dash board in Bluebell
It’s feel like autumn today
Shampoo and Gifts
Dorothy needs a shower today.
I’m gearing myself for it, because it ain’t going to be pretty.
Unlike the Welsh who adore a hot shower, the very mention of one will send Dorothy into a state of High dudgeon.
She will put on, what I can only describe as her I am just about to a terribly abused face and will make a run for the garden, where after a brief struggle she will go limp and will reluctantly be half dragged half carried to the bathroom
I’ve treated myself to a MacDonald’s coffee and hash brown this morning in anticipation
The last time she was showered she had a dirty protest under the shower head and pooed on my IKEA stone effect shower mat.
I think she has already sussed the situation, for I’ve put her baby shampoo on the table .
She is hiding in the front room under my desk.
The war will begin very soon.
Oh and I was given a delightful gift today. Margaret from London Road made me this beautiful felt seascape after I fell in love with the one she entered into the Flower Show arts class
I was rather moved by it
Ps……post shower
The bathroom looks as though a buffalo had been massacred in it
Dorothy is presently sulking but smelling lovely.
She is lying on the couch with her head under the cushions
I am going to have a lie down in a darkened bedroom
The Highfields
The best neighbours I ever had was Bev and John in Hillsborough, Sheffield
When we first met they were a youngish married couple with a pre teen daughter
I was a lumpy middle aged gay man negotiating the end of a fairly destructive relationship.
We strangely hit it off !
Despite our differences we became firm friends and have been for the past twenty six years.
They have been a constant in my life, always there , always supportive.
They came to my wedding and I braved a white out snowstorm to be at their daughters’ wedding and I know if I needed them they would be there for me as I would be for them.
John was the showbiz reporter for the Sheffield Star and for years I was his plus one , attending every performance at the Crucible or the Lyceum.loving every minute of it.
He is arch and camp and showbiz and fun and has recently dealt with some ill Heath with alacrity and chutzpah
It was lovely to sit and talk to him in Llandudno today man to man,
Not enough time …..
I love them both dearly….
And I want them both to know that x
What fun
Let's Hear It for the Boy (s)
Last night was another film night, this time with Gorgeous Dave who dressed up for the occasion ! He has a new rather glam girlfriend so the glam is rubbing off.
As usual I had gravy stains on my t shirt
I won’t review the movie Joy Ride as it was only mildly amusing and not very good, but I enjoyed the night as we always have big chats to and from the venue, in-dispersed with lots of laughs.
It’s been a testosterone filled few days with me meeting up with a gaggle of male friends . Nigel, Colin, Dave and today I’m catching up with an old Sheffield friend John who is in holiday in Llandudno.
He was an old neighbour who turned into a best mate
I’ve always gotten on better with women than I have men. Only in later life have I cultivated male friendships and have a good dozen men, straight and gay who I am close to.
I find that most men are more emotionally intelligent than they used to be.
I know that’s a sweeping statement but for the good of all, I think they are and that, I think, underpins why I have more man friends than I did 20 years ago.
How good is that…..
On The Promenade
I’ve just met the guy I had that date with
I wanted to see him face to face and tell him I didn’t want to go on another
Of course he wanted to know why and I told him.
I thought he wasn’t ready to date as I felt he wasn’t over the death of his long term partner three years ago now.
When he asked me what made me think that, I stopped myself from saying
“Duh the way you cried, everytime you mentioned his name !”
I merely asked him if he thought he was ready…..
and his eyes filled with tears and after an age
he shook his head.
We left things on good terms and hugged in the car park
I stood on the promenade and watched the sea, overlooked by the reclaimed cormorant statue.
And felt a little tired
L'immensitÃ
Anyone who grew up in the 1970s may identify with this Emanuel Crialese’s autobiographical study of a dysfunctional family negotiating the ups and downs of life in the affluent suburbs of Rome.
Children growing up with little help and despite the adults of the household .
Clara ( Penelope Cruz) is the loving yet emotionally unstable mother of three children. Her eldest girl Ariana ( Luana Giulani) identifies as a boy called Andrew, middle son Gino ( Patritzio Francioni) overeats and defecates in the closet and youngest Diana ( Maria Charia Goretti) gamely tries to keep the peace as a bemused father ( Vincenzo Amato) shouts and bullies.
Everyone exists in their own bubbles, with Clara’s illness reinforcing the children’s fantasy life instead of helping them.
Ariana is especially affected by her mother’s reinforcement to her differences , as she explores a chaste romance with a local girl from a transient workers camp and together mother and “daughter” with the rest of the family have to face clara’s admission to psychiatric hospital and subsequent return home without the benefit of support or therapy.
It’s a strong, emotionally honest film, which sticks to its guns and Cruz and Giulani are magnificent)
There are no epiphany moments, no high resolution final moments,
Just a sad girl and her loving mom seeking solace and fantasy in tv variety show moments
Chubby Lesbians down Watergate
Pride flags photographed of Eastgate
I forgot it was Chester Pride today and the city was full of rainbows and very jolly people .
I met Nigel and we sat chatting in the cathedral gardens before having a late lunch in the Storyhouse
Midnight Cowboy is one of his favourite movies , so we had a lovely film debrief before he caught the train home to Manchester.
It was lovely to see him and the film which I think I’ve never seen in it’s entirety.
We’ve know each other over thirty years so we laugh together easily using shorthand jokes and phrases
I love him dearly
I left him at the cross in Chester, as he needed to walk to the railway station and I needed to go to my car parked by the racecourse
….and moments later I was surrounded by a gaggle of chubby lesbians all screaming Madonna’s Save A Prayer on Watergate and all wearing rainbow Stetsons
How very gay!
So what happens now?
I’m not the teenage mistress of Juan Perón and my suitcase is not standing in another hall but I do sing the phrase to myself from time to time.
Not in a depressing sort of way, but I am just interested in how things will pan out.
How things will go!
I’m 61 and the rest of this year is planned out.
I start University in September. Course fees are paid for.
Time off organized, and there is a psychological shift in my head from Hospice to University.
That much is sorted. I'll work two days and have one whole day studying.
2024 however, comes with its own uncertainties
My mortgage is up for renewal next November , so I have a little time for interest rates to balance and stabilise. But my final year’s fees need to be found and more expenses such as a new car factored in too.
But I have time to look at things without the panic of last minute.
Socially I’m ok….more than ok.
I am blessed with friends in the village and beyond its borders and although there is a yearning to have someone else special in my life I’m not getting bogged down in the game of gay dating. The apps are fickle creatures, often like the men who inhabit them and I’m not settling for anything.
In four years I’ve dated a handful of men, some nice, some not, and I’m too long in the tooth to be cavalier with my own or indeed other people’s feelings.
I want to be like Charlotte York Goldenblatt from And Just Like That….romantic and hopeful where men are concerned but I’m not I’m afraid. I have the Miranda Hobbs “ realist” head on me despite what I say about romantic holes in jumpers.
Romance in older men's lives can be a car crash of sorts.
I’m also well past waiting to be saved by my ex. It’s a common go to place when people are in grief after divorce. Lassie doesn't always come home,
Nothing is neat and tidy .
I’m lucky. I can afford theatre trips and cinema when and where I please. It’s Rome in four weeks and London soon after that…
I’m doing ok, more than ok
Sometimes I need to remind myself of that.
Carrie Bradshaw was right, I’m only as much as a fictional icon be right in a tv programme written by gay men can be right
If only life was so simple
Parkinson
When I was twelve or so it was 1974
A time of beige and orange, Watergate and hijacked planes.
Disaster films and second year in secondary school.
My mother often babysat for my sister on Saturday nights so we went along too, not being picked up by my over-the-limit father when the Conservative Club rang last orders around eleven.
Parkinson would be on the tv before we left and even though I often had restless legs from being overtired I can remember his easy Yorkshire tones and his ability to make a guest feel at home.
Michael Parkinson was a journalist, so unlike his American counterparts who often knew their guests before their chat, he researched them forensically.
He was calm and collected and very British in a David Niven like way and suddenly became a favourite with Hollywood stars and politicians alike, all of whom warmed to his character and Northern Ways.
I always enjoyed the natural storyteller guests, who were given space to perform their tales. Peter Ustinov, David Niven, Kenneth Williams, Peter Cook, Spike Milligan
Billy Connolly and Barry Humphrey came slightly later…..I remember them too….fondly.
Best of British Michael Parkinson …..Rest In Peace
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Wat's funny about stealing? Those people will have worked hard for the money to buy bulbs and some scrote steals them.
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