Yael

 A few days ago I contacted Rachel to see if Israeli blogger Yael was ok. 

She told us that she was safe

I emailed a Yael myself too and have just got a message saying she was ok

It feels more real to hear from her in person

What an awful time

Fix It

 

I didn’t know that I’d lost my voice until I took the dogs out and called Roger to keep up

A rather strangled “Ro—-Ger!”, something Lady Bracknell would come out with echoed forth. 

I’ve COVID free but feel rough.

So not much to report today. 

I’ve caught up of the Jimmy Saville docu/drama The Reckoning is a chilling a sobering look at another era which didn’t see abuse in plain sight.

I remember meeting him at the Guttman Games in 1990, which is when all of the eleven spinal injury units in British met up in Stoke Mandeville Hospital to play wheelchair sports. 

I knew nothing of his sexual reputation save for the fact that most of the Aylesbury nurses disliked him intently

To me he was a creepy patronising old freak, a gob shite that wore too much jewellery and who tried to have a say about patients when he had not authority to do so. 

He was Stoke Mandeville’s cash cow , with his own office in the new wing

And I disliked the Spinal Injury Unit’s need to be sucking up to him.

Steve Coogan is excellent in the role of Saville, a complicated, lonely damaged man

The vanilla slice incident

 I feel rotten.

A product of sitting on a crowded train, tube, theatre last week I suppose

I’d booked myself an IT tutorial for University this afternoon and got up early after a short sleep to take a neighbour in to hospital for a blood test.

I’ve cancelled the tutorial until Wednesday 

I doubt I will be in university tomorrow either

At least I’m covid free.

I called into Sainsburys and bought flowers,  vicks, and a vanilla slice ( to soothe my throat) 

Unfortunately I lost most of it trying to negotiate  the Rhuddlan roundabout at speed

Never bite into a vanilla slice whilst turning a sharp bend and changing gear.

I could have wept

Bitches

 Just occasionally the two bitches will fly at each other 

It’s rare, and it’s frightening to watch but often it’s more noisy than anything else

But it happens

Bitches like people fall out

And bitches, unlike dogs

Never forget a fight.

All this happened when I was cooking Thai noodles with chicken

Dorothy has been grumbling at Mary for days now, usually over a position which is closer to me, and when she gave Mary a last growl when they shared the reading chair mary flipped and the fight started.

Well it was less a fight more a latch on and growl fest, but whist  Mary is smaller and has less power, her heart is true terrier and she will never back down .

I tried the wet mop head, and a couple of belts with a croc, but they weren’t having any of it. Roger complicated matters by bouncing around them, bring ineffectual as always, so eventually I sat down and waited for the girls to tire.

There was no blood, but after what seemed like an age, they were still locked together but noticeably quieter

A final loud, shout and a quick slap with the crock and they reluctantly separated only to be told off smartly by me then totally ignored. 

The girls hate that the most. 

Im off to work shortly 

And still I haven’t looked at either of them

The Choir Concert

I needed the Choir concert tonight 

It was the perfect and what’s more importantly local, home grown quality concert that reminded me that not everything nice can be found over the border.

The Trelawnyd Male Voice Choir (https://trelawnydmalevoicechoir.com/index.php?id=4)

peformed a set of three quarter Welsh Songs supported by a quartet of teenage singers from Ruthin School who were an absolute revelation and delight 

It’s was a lovely night

Made better by the above impromptu moment in the interval when half the choir sang happy birthday to 8 year old villager Sophia who is the delightfully polite daughter of Polish Monika, the hall’s caretaker.

Lots of the village turned out, Village Elders Ian and Helen , The velvet voiced Linda, Bridget and Andrew, Mrs Trellis ( looking lovely in pearls) Pippa, TCA Dave and Jean ,Mr Poznan in a bow tie, Gill and Gentleman farmer Peter from my Choir, et al

Ps they sang Gwahoddiad perfectly

Just like this

Spitalfield’s Vase

 

The dogs have been spoilt rotten by Trendy Carol and her hubby, but were still happy to see me. We’ve had a long walk this morning in the showers and they 

are now steaming quietly in the kitchen reading chair and are asleep.

It’s the charity concert by the village MaleVoice Choir in aid of the TCA tonight, but in the meantime I’m doing chores

I bought this vase at Spitalfields Market and filled it with garden flowers

Drying Your Bra

 Small disasters often make a few days away, funny and memorable.

I thought our train cancellation was unfortunate and symbolic of the bad luck I’ve had all this year with travel plans but after some judicious train swaps we made our superb supper reservation at the Opera House with two minutes to spare.   

Our hotel was the bijou hotel Mimi’s in soho. 

It’s central, and much cheaper than even the basic travelogues, but the rooms are comfortable ( if small) and the coffee good.

My room resembled a small, very smart one berth caravan 

Janet’s room sprang a leak through the ceiling at 4 am and the leak soaked her suitcase .

Unbeknown to me she had organised a change of rooms and had spent a merry few hours drying her bra and knickers with a hairdryer ( a video I thankfully missed because I was fast asleep)

Janet’s not a complainer but I am and I managed to get back a hefty rebate on the room by an unsmiling manager who found Janet’s wet bra tales somewhat beneath him.

The restaurant I picked on speck last night was an Italian meat place called Macellaoi and that was made special by the off duty manager who sat next to us at the bar where we managed to wangle a pre show supper. He was working on his laptop but I think noticed that the waiter was more attentive over an Á La carte group of diners than us. He took our orders then substituted bits on the menu for more expensive articles even giving us a bottle of Italian wine cheaper because the one I ordered was out of stock.

Being looked after at a restaurant is a lovely treat, and I twittered my thanks to him this morning .

It’s been a lovely few days, made better, in some ways by the bra incident which was something to laugh about.

Laughter is something I don’t find hard with my sisters 

Even though their bras may be sodden

Revisiting Les Miserables

 Les Miserables was a class act, and believe me, I’m an expert on the show having seen it a score of times in the 1980s and early 1990s

Ok there are a few changes from the original. There is no revolving stage, there is no dramatic reconstruction of the barricades and the whole thing seems paced quicker than what I remember . Interestingly there is also some omissions of language including some anti Semitic references spoken by the nasty Thenardiers in the wedding scene .but the new version is a quality piece with some beautifully performed set pieces with universally beautiful singing

We had a fantastic meal at Soho Italian Meat Restaurant Macellaio beforehand and received some lovely treats from the delightfully attractive manager there who seemed to suddenly take a liking to us. 

He was very sweet and made a lovely evening even more lovely.

Buggered

 Exhausted.

Janet’s leading the adventure as it’s her birthday treat

Spitalfields market this morning was lovely and she’s never been on the Thames , so we caught the London Clippers through London’s central zone.

It of shopping on Oxford Street then back to the hotel .

Les Miserables tonight

Don Quixote

 

I have a new favourite ballet.

The joyous, warm, beautifully danced Don Quixote at the Royal Opera House

It’s a pure delight..and the leads Marianela Nuñez and Vadim Muntagirov were adorable

And I was in tears when the old knight rode off into the Spanish sunset on his donkey waved away by a score of cheerful villagers

Of course , my run of bad travel look couldn’t continue , and Janet and I arrived for supper at the Opera house dead on time. 

I adored booking the balcony restaurant as we had a place to go back to during intervals to sip a cocktail and to drink coffee.

It was lovely and the perfect backdrop, dinner and ballet for Janet to experience on her first visit.

Sod’s Law

 

The only straight through train to London was cancelled at the last minute.

Fuck

We were on it. 

Managed to get to Crewe where we didn’t follow the crowds battling for the Euston trains and jumped on an empty delayed train which means we should get to the Opera house in time for supper

Hey fucking ho

Check in on those around you | #WorldMentalHealthDay 💛💚 #youarenotalone

Morning

 Reflective post yesterday 

Today it’s purely practical stuff at University

I’m off early to have some library time

Thank you all for your comments 

The validation was appreciated xx

The Andre Rieu of Blogging

Me and Nu in Kenmare 2018 my lowest ebb

Sometimes I wonder just what people get from Going Gently?

Some, I feel,  like it’s humour, and I get that, totally! 

For the most part, on line blogs can be generally dry and somewhat serious affairs .( with the exception of the gays and fag hag blogs who generally produce snatches of delightful bitchiness and entertaining asides) …you KNOW who you are !!!

For others, it’s the glimpse into the view, I delight to be a part of , and that is a positive, healthy, romanticised and generally honest view of a Welsh Village and it’s struggles to keep some sort of community identity in a world who seems intent of changing it into a housing estate in the country.

Of course we have the village characters ( all based on real people) and the animals which provide the anchor and the grounding of the blog.

Animals are the heart of a home

They, like children are honest and pure and real

And they alongside my village friends have seen me through some very dark days .

As you have , my readers and followers.

Going Gently has never changed in that respect for since 2006 it is my diary, my comfort and my old friend who has housed my thoughts and daily journal for seventeen years now.

Of happy days 

And sad ones

And of mundane ones too, devoid of political debate and world news and of highbrow thought and debate….I’m not an overly educated man. 

I’m a bright one, for sure, but I’m not an intellectual

I married one and even though I still love the man deeply, he wasn’t always a bag of laughs in real life. 

So Going Gently doesn’t discuss serious politics and the like

It remains touchy feely with a sense of arch.

And the trolls will always remind me of the arch.

I will never apologise for my occasional waspishness

For these are occasional and in my mind warranted and unlike some of my fellow bloggers I am not really quick to judge despite my words.

I am flawed , and emotive, and shallow at times.

But I’m emotionally intelligent too

And I know, despite my troll input , I will make a credible counsellor 

I know myself warts and all that’s how I know.

And so I will continue to blog

Sometimes about nothing….the sushi I made for tea  because it felt good

And then about the lonely day I spent not talking to anyone.

Of the bulldog Dorothy’s diva antics 

And the moment at work I felt like child in need of a hug when things went wrong 

Of the films I watched which allayed my loneliness 

And the friends I have that make life worthwhile again 

If you read Going Gently You read it for a reason 

And I’m grateful most of you seem to enjoy it

I am everyone here…..flawed and hopeful ….

Yes……and even hopeful

Roses

 Islwyn has opened the field gate for the undertaker to bring his digger around.

I suspect the funeral is tomorrow. 

I don’t know who has died.

It’s warm and slightly humid today, and a third late bloom of ice cream roses have flowered in the front garden which looks neat after my sister went to town on it yesterday 

This morning I drove to Llandrillo College to,use the library and managed to find some research papers to critique for tomorrow’s lesson. The promenade in nearby Llandudno was busy, and I sat there for a while, drinking coffee and people watching. I couldn’t stay that long as the dogs needed another walk but they were all asleep when I got home.

This afternoon I washed and ironed ( !) some clothes for London 

Passacaglia - Handel/ Halvorsen

There are some pieces of music that just capture your heart

And piano solos can do that, sometimes almost without trying

This is my all time favourite.

Halvorsens adaptation of Handel’s Passacaglia

A flowing piece of beauty.

I’d like to add this cover of Barbara Pravi’s Eurovision hit Voila which in itself couldn’t be more French if it was wrapped in a baguette, covered in Fromage and buried in a pair of Edith Piaf’s knickers

A Long Term Relationship

 You never stop learning being a nurse.

Sometimes it’s about drugs, or procedures or conditions or biochemistry 

Mostly it’s all about being human.

I had a patient who was in their 80s. 

He was single, worked hard all of his life and was very much a part of the community in which he grew up in.

He had visitors twice a day. Many the same ones 

Many different . 

Most his age and younger.

All concerned and interested and sometimes emotional.

Some stoic and grey faced 

Others hopeful with arms full of flowers 

All had respect for him, several from childhood.

“ I never married John” he shared once “ I never had a long term relationship “ 

And I nodded, accepting the regret in his voice and the sadness in his words

Then I remembered his visitors . 

The long line of friends that came every day without fail.

“I know what you mean”, I told him “ But you are kind of wrong when you say you haven’t had a long term relationship” 

He stopped short and blinked at me like a mole in a searchlight.

“ As far as I can see you’ve had scores of long term relationships” I said, “your friends from home , and work and Church and school, you have kept and nurtured them for years and years. 

You’ve had a good dozen of them” 

And I was right, and he knew it, and I was right and it was a surprise to me too until that moment.

We may say that  we’ve been unsuccessful in a continuous romantic relationship . But if we have lifelong friends, we have been successful in a whole series of long term relationships. 

Any one that features when the chips are finally down and the fat lady is singing.

Chat Bombs et al

 I got to Liverpool just around 5 pm and got the phone call that Grayson Perry had cancelled his performance due to a bad throat soon after. 

I thought fuck it ,  and met my friend Colin anyway at Mowgli for yogurt chat bombs and lamb chops. The night will be rescheduled and fingers crossed I will be off .

I’m sat at the kitchen table , setting up zoom

I have a lecture with city lit at 10.30 about Philip Marlow and Sherlock Holmes as they are portrayed in cinema. Then I can have a cheeky sleep before my fourth night ( and final one) of the week 

We have a postman who is a bit of hunk and he’s just knocked with a package ( fannar fannar) He made a banal joke about bending over to get under my honeysuckle and I laughed like a drain.

I’m very embarrassing .

Note to self, stop making a dick out of yourself when postie calls

The package was a delightfully wrapped two books from Gemma’s Person

Humours of Village Life ( Tales from Yorkshire) by J.Fairfax- Blakeborough ( 1932) 

and The Valley Of Animals by Elma M Williams ( 1963) 

I will start reading them tonight 

I am constantly reminded of how kind people are, emails, cards, gifts , books and best wishes regularly arrive from blog readers and I’m always grateful for them

I will leave you with this incredibly moving piece of physical art by Yoann Bourgeois depicting the journey of life

Have a lovely weekend

Nipples

 I think I will resurrect the International Novelty fruit& Veg Competition in next years Trelawnyd Flower Show. 

What do you think?

Speaking of nipples

Anyhow, my favourite " nipple" story hails from 1986.
I was a very new Registered Psychiatric staff nurse on a " mother and baby" unit in York and was attending one my very first staff meetings in the day room which led off the main entrance . The ward sister was a phenomenally calm and obese woman who never raised her voice even in the most fraught of situations and I remember that right in the middle of discussing a particularly knotty nursing problem , she stopped and raised her hand.

" now I don't want anyone to turn around, or to react in any way" she murmured quietly
" but some unfortunate lady is trying to push her nipples under the sash window"

Now that's professionalism !

We Can See Your Charlie

What did you do in the war father?

Everyone’s too old for that question now.

I used to ask it a lot of my mother and grandparents and always received a robust reply

Last night I was asked by a patient 

How was your lockdown ?

I think she was referring to work and PPE and end of life care.

But a whole kaleidoscope  of memories came flooding back, most funny a few poignant.  

All I could think of were zooms with friends , and 80 ribald gay men each with their own window , of Lyndi’s Charlie and miming at Choir, of kind volunteers leaving shopping on the kitchen wall and of Winifred’s bravura death with her rubber chicken. 

Lockdown was a lonely , awful black time much of it during winter where all I would experience at night working was death and those linked to it, but outside this I’m recognising the humour that lifted many of us singletons through, when we’re we’re home, alone.

Choir continued every week , which is impossible on zoom as you can’t effectively sing together properly.but sing we did, and the tradition of sitting at the laptop looking into each other’s homes grew more and more important than the singing itself. Pets started to infiltrate the cameras with tenor Lydi enjoying our pantomime calls of “ We can see your Charlie!!!!!” When her old lurcher wandered into view. 

I still tear up everytime I hear I raise You Up , the song that we adopted as our LOCKDOWN anthem 

We sang it every week at the end of choir , and waved merrily at each other afterwards in order to keep the spirits up.

The Big Gay Quiz was on zoom every Friday evening, and at its height had well over a hundred queens from all over the world logging in to groan and bicker and chatter and laugh over a pub quiz that was run on military lines by an leather queer with control issues. 

This clip was from winter 2021

“ Face washed ( tick)

Hair brushed ( tick) 

Clean shirt checked for food stains ( check) - there was only one small splash of pot noodle..no one would notice ...tee hee

Background looking interesting behind me ( double check ) 

I was ready.

I squirted myself with a blast of Clinique Happy as a gay moral booster, as if it mattered”

Lockdown meant painting and cooking alongside my old friend Nia  in Sydney and clandestine meetings with Chic Eleanor in McDonald’s car park , where we sat, each in our own cars , chatting a distance chat over coffee

This morning I drove up to McDonald’s to meet Chic Eleanor in the carpark for coffee.

The weather was atrocious but she looked fresh faced and as smiley as ever

“ Darling John..it’s almost like a tryst “ she admitted almost guiltily, pulling a green cashmere scarf tighter around her neck. “ Chin chin “ 

We raised our coffee cups from our respective driver’s seats, our breaths steaming in the cold air

She reminds me of the actress Lee Remick.“ 

Velvet Voiced Linda galvanised the village volunteer group and things never felt as bad or as lonely in the Village after that 

My family zoomed and Sheffield folk I “saw” every week but I do recall one moment that hurt more than anything else and which reminded me I was, very much alone 

When Winnie died, chomping on a rubber chicken with all of the gusto of a Viking chewing a ham, I left her valiant body with Albert and said chicken for an age. She had collapsed behind the kitchen door and I couldn’t get though so had to go around the cottage to move her. 

That is, at ten pm that night

I couldn’t move her

She was just too big, too dead a weight for me to carry

So I knocked on next door and asked Sailor John if he could help

Lockdown meant he shouldn’t come into contact with me, 

But it was something I couldn’t do alone and looking at my red blotchy face and snotty nose he smiled kindly and nodded……

that he would………

My darling Winnie , the Queen of Tonga