Notre Dame de Paris Le Temps des Cathédrales

It’s humid today again, and I’m feeling fractious and ready for a fight.

In Sainsbury’s some old scrote nearly bumped Bluebell and I thought myself very well restrained with only one Cock and Twat shouted before I exited the car.

I found a red Chinese  fan left on the kitchen wall when I returned. It had a note with it scribbled on the back of a Tesco till receipt , which read, somewhat obscurely “ Be a fan to yourself” 

Mrs Trellis’ work no doubt.

I put the defunct paddling pool on the village web page free to good home and dismayed to see that one of the village schoolgirls had been stopped by two men in a car on London road last night and almost abducted.

They were thwarted by two off duty policemen in the following car and later were arrested.

Christ Almighty you are not safe anywhere. 

I’ve made noodles and gochujang sauce with a couple of runny eggs on top for brunch

And scrubbed the patio until like Blanche du Bois I needed a shower to “ calm my nerves”

Two 😂emojis on the website about the pool…no takers as yet.

Enola Gay

My colleagues on their leaving do had just arrived in a weatherspoons pub when I got to Chester this afternoon. It was hot with humidity at 85% and with being snobby about Weatherspoons ( yes I admit it, pubs where middle aged women go to with no teeth in are not somewhere I choose to enter) I  decided to to cool off in the shadow of the Cathedral and under the horse chestnut trees that flank it’s russet brown walls.

A busker was playing Enola Gay and I listened to him for an age before meeting up with the other nurses at their next pub for an hour or so before returning home a sweaty mess.

Old Home (Live)

Dillie Keane wrote this music hall-esque song twenty odd years ago when she moved house and 

It’s Victorian sentiment can be viewed as somewhat cloying and sentimental , 

But last night she told the audience that she wanted and needed to relieve it on this their old lady tour. 

Economical with any history , she said simply that she had had to move homes again and her demeanour and that of her fellow singers changed drastically.

They sang this song and you could have heard a pin drop by the end of it 

And when I got home I researched Dillie on wiki.

It transpires that her husband died, not a year ago now and that’s why she had moved from her home

Fascinating Aïda

What is not to love about Fascinating Aïda ? 

Satirical, filthy, clever and funny the ladies are older, slightly frailer but wiser and reflecting their hatred of ageing  this their “ 40th Anniversary Tour sees their irreverence for the government, widows at parties, cosmetic surgery and relationships in full flight. 

Janet and I loved it. 

Front woman Dillie Keane is still responsible for much of the hilarity as always, but now with her shock of white hair and stooped posture  she now resembles a rather foul mouthed Margaret Rutherford than the potty mouthed middle aged matron we are used to. 

She still commands the stage without even trying.

Also in her seventies is other original singer Adèle Anderson, who hilariously performed the Famous Cabaret style Leider song as a seventy year old Liza Minnelli would , with bad balancing on a saloon chair , is wonderful as is the junior soprano Lisa Pullman  who has been with the team for just 20 years.

A wonderfully rude, funny and heartwarming night

We had a blast

Sausages and water don’t mix

 

Well the 6 quid paddling pool has been a bit of a disaster.

In an effort to entice the dogs into it on one of the hottest days of the year, I emptied twenty cocktail sausages into it all of which sank to the bottom of the pool

Roger looked as me as though I was mad. 

Mary walked off 

And Dorothy hurled herself in with gay abandon with her mouth open like a pelican.

Ten sausages in, I realised that she wasn’t able to hold her breath and despite effectively drowning in four inches of water, I managed to drag her out with the eleventh sausage firmly between her lips.

A few firm slaps and several pints of water poured forth and after she took a couple of big breaths she was ready for more.

I plucked the sausages from the pool and gave them to her

Sausages and water 

And bulldogs

don’t mix

For thought

Scrapper

 

Tomorrow night I’m seeing Fascinating Aida with my sister and Saturday it’s an all day drinking session to mark two staff nurses moving on from the hospice. I think all hospices have a healthy turn over of staff, for many it’s a lot to give of themselves for an extended period of time.

I won’t be drinking on Saturday, I’m not a lover of getting tipsy in an afternoon, I just want to sleep in some corner. But I shall go,  drink a shandy and pass over the leaving gifts.

I’m often volunteering for the collection job. 

Saturday night I’m meeting Gorgeous Dave anyway so I have to get home in one piece.

So it’s what to do today? 

Yesterday I went out for lunch with an old friend today I’m meeting my sister in law for lunch, after that I think I’ll pop over to Chester to see the acclaimed British movie Scrapper

It’s overcast today so safe to take the dogs out for two walks before I go out. They will sleep the afternoon away….

Btw

I’ve had to invest on bigger poo bags because Dorothy seems to be producing copious amounts of effluent  at the moment . I have no idea where it is coming from, even though I know it’s disproportionate to what’s going in……she’s proud of her work though, always giving me or any passing Walker a proud smile ….

“ Tradaaaaaaa! “ sort of thing where she gives everyone a Kerala Settle smile with her tiny white baby teeth.

Hated the film, which was a shame. Left after three quarters of an hour which was irksome.

Bought some noodles at Chester Market to buck my mood up

Morning

 

Note to self, don’t agree to work three long days together.

It’s been a nice change, but I was so glad not to be up at 5.45 am this morning.

The dogs are happy to have me home, they realised this around 8am when I marshalled them all for their big walk. Roger danced around the garden and stood guard by the lane wall, legs akimbo.

He sleeps on guard every night. Sat in the kitchen reading chair watching the cat flap and listening for sounds of danger through it.

The roses around the garden arch have bloomed yet again in this hot weather. They are an old British breed known for their scent and that scent is glorious this morning.

The sky is a watery blue as the dew and mists burn away and it’s going to be a glorious day, and the cottage, which faces south is bathed in gold. The plant pots donated to the TCA , still full of oak saplings are dry and have just been watered as have the house plants, all 42 of them.

Dorothy has already found a cool bit of concrete on the back patio and has lowered herself nipple first onto it.

I thought I felt Albert rub my legs too when I was pottering.

It was a towel hanging over the back of the chair.

I made whole meal bread as someone had left me a jar of raspberry jam yesterday. 

I fancied jam on toast for breakfast with lashings of butter 

The sun has brightened my week, all week. I had an unexpected blip on Saturday, but I’m fine now…old strings being pulled…..but like I said, I’m ok now

I picked up my bucket of coffee and walked around the gardens, with Roger in tow.

Our bit of the village is quiet and filled with the buzzing of bees and with birdsong 

And as I now sit at the kitchen table looking at my chameleon perched in the window , both hands are around my cup and I am so glad to be home.

The baby’s paddling pool I bought last week 

Is finally being used

Go Gently

 It’s 6.20 and it’s my third 12 hour community shift

Coffee time…..the air is already humid and it feels like another hot one.

It’s a lazy post today 

The nameless actor who spoke so eloquently about the Rainbow Bridge has posted another video, this time it’s the famous Dylan Thomas Go Gently speech .

It’s quite beautiful 

I love the way some commentators missed my reason for posting the Rainbow video. It’s not the sentiment that intrigued or even pleased me ( I don’t believe in any afterlives) 

But it’s about performance and passion.

I think this actor has that in bucket loads

Enjoy

Sat in My Undies

 What a busy day….blisteringly hot on the Welsh Coast especially in full uniform in a tin can car  , but how many community nurses have to drive around medieval castles every day? Not many….

I disrobed as soon as I walked through the door and got the old cheesy feet out of my crocks without dripping anything from a glass of Spanish Sherry which was in my hot little hand within seconds. Soon after Dorothy gleefully got to work  as I sat steaming on the trendy blue sofa like a sweating bag of middle aged knackered nurse fat. 

Mary joined in ( they must have been cheesy) and I had to open my legs wide to prevent a fight

Not the best looks when sat in your underpants 

Omg anon is right…I’m writing rubbish lol 

Nite nite

Homework

I “found” my anonymous “homework” from a palliative care study day I attended a bit ago.

It was read it out to a silent group of nurses and doctors on a wet morning before my birthday 2019 

I didn’t read it  

I remembered writing this yesterday

“ I have a fantasy about my own death. 

I am lying on a clean bed, the bed I remember from Childhood with the yellow candlewick bedspread , the one with the bits pulled out by bored fat fingers

I am comfortable

The window is open and my garden lies ahead, neat and ordered. A breeze is on my face. I am wearing a white shirt that smells of starch

My dogs lie nearby, told off not to crush me . 

The cat crushes me, he doesn’t give a sod.

Fingers comb my hair” 

Community

 Early morning long walk with dogs, 

Off to work.

I’m working in the community for the next three days to cover 

Lots of MacDonald’s coffee before work

And hill  starts in the Welsh Countryside

A Man Called Otto

Saturday night, 

A night in

Feeling a bit blue 

I dug out this little gem to watch on the couch, covered in dogs

The delightful Mariana Trevinô

Hollywood seldom remakes foreign language films that well

It’s as though popularity automatically means success so let’s not work too hard in the translation . 

A Man Called Otto is based on the Swedish hit A Man Called Ove,which is a story of a suicidal man who is encouraged to start living again by the interaction of friends and neighbours of his neighbourhood association . This was a gentle and amusing film with a big heart thanks to Rolf Lassgård, it’s leading man and the remake is amusing and warm too, but not thanks to its lead Tom Hanks , who remains slightly miss cast. 

In Otto, the Hank’s character is one most of us know in one way or another. He’s a man of policy and process, a man who fights against injustice and the faceless corporations . He is a stickler for rules, is grouchy, mistrusted by neighbours and irritatingly bad tempered but when a Mexican family move in opposite , the garrulous, opinionated, heavily pregnant and big hearted mother Marisol ( a delightful Mariana Trevinò) slowly wins him over making him realising that suicide isn’t the answer to his long term depression.

Hanks as Otto and the wonderfully inept Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Marisol’s husband Tommy

The message that community heals depression and isolation is one dear to my own heart, and is one I totally identify with, and so when Otto slowly begins to thaw, I sobbed buckets .

Mariana Trevinô is the real heart of this movie, cumbersome and shrill yet exuding bucketfuls of affection and warmth , she is more than a match for Otto’s depression , literally pulling him back into the land of the living with some beautifully judged one liners and a genuinely infectious and tearful smile.

It’s a lovely, gentle film that says a great deal about community and love and genuine affection.

Want to feel good? 

Watch it

My Marisol? There’s been a few

Trefor

 

I picked Trefor up around 10 am. 

He’d forgotten I was coming but with a bit of mild panic , he donned a coat, and found his slippers and got into Bluebell with the minimum of supervision.

He’s 99 and looks well.

I brought him up to the TCA Coffee Morning where he could mix with the other grey hairs ( including myself) and chat….he did just that until lunchtime. 

The coffee morning was full  with a good sixty to seventy people there. 

On the way back to his residential home he asked me about my work and college and told me of his days as an electronics technician for the civilian RAF and we gossiped about a neighbour we both have little regard for like old ladies so often do when they are feeling a bit snide.

“ Do you ever hear from your husband ? “ he asked me suddenly as we stopped the car and I told him “ No , not any more” 

He patted my hand with his and smiled 

“ You deserve a lot better” he said in his sing song Welsh accent 

And raised his walking stick in a gesture of farewell 

I love the fact we can and will chat about anything despite the age gap

A Change Of Mood

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 

Anonymous3:35 pm

Wat's funny about stealing? Those people will have worked hard for the money to buy bulbs and some scrote steals them.

Delete

John Going Gently4:22 pm

I deserved a punch in the head , the stupidity of youth

Delete

John Going Gently8:16 pm

And it’s what’s not wat

Delete

Anonymous8:40 pm

You're hardly qualified to judge someone's English or spelling when your own is often attrocious.

Delete

John Going Gently8:42 pm

I’m still right though !! Lol 

Delete

John Going Gently8:43 pm

Ps it’s atrocious with one t

Delete

Anonymous8:44 pm

Fucking funny lol 
Diane 

Delete

JO8:46 pm

Hahaha! P'ing myself here.

Jo in Auckland

Delete

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

 

Woman's Hour on Radio 4 is still a quality magazine programme, even with the the cloying Anita Rani at the co rains. Yesterday it discussed the making of lists and made it clear ( through some spurious research) that women enjoyed list making whereas to men list making was purely functional.

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…..,!