I was bursting with pride for this piece. It’s as if Grupo Talia is my own choir
Chatwins
Im early for my own counselling today and so have popped in to Chatwins for a coffee. The staff are cheerful and serve good food. Ruthin is a pretty and busy market town.
I took my great nephew to college this morning and we had a conversation, Ive nothing much in common with 16 year olds save for The Walking Dead, but he chatted all way which was nice.
I couldnt find my specs so was wearing my mr Motto spares.
He didnt notice.
My counsellor wont notice my glasses also, not important. I cried for half an hour after the last session and slept in a layby for over half an hour afterwards. I was exhausted
I felt words were like fies,spewed out of the mouth of john Coffey in The Green Mile
Tomorrow Ruth and I are having a tradional home made Korean meal with friends Ben and Sokyo, friends roll on
I finish my coffee and outside it's started to rain.
The tudor houses nearby melt as the cafe windows get wet and a pretty schoolgirl with a welsh look came in to buy cakes.
How the road meanders when you think of what brought you here.
.
More Plans
I've taken my eye off the ball when it comes to planning nice things to do and experience. Everything feels as though its a tad serious and work orientated, which it is.
I work two full days a week, am counselling one full day and and in college another, so by the time the litter tray has been emptied (oh God that's an awful job) and I've watched Call My Bluff on a Monday night, the week is suddenly over.
Jesus how effin boring.
The remaining arse end of October I have booked tickets for my sister and I to see the English National Ballet's version of Giselle in Liverpool and got the very last ticket (and I'm not joking) to Holst The Planets at Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall.
November I am popping up to Sheffield for a day and a half. The Rocky Horror Picture Show with my friend Jane and a leisurely Sunday lunch with friends Mike and Bev.
I've even toyed with a post Christmas weekend to Madrid to see my ( "My" choir!!) but couldn't quite make the numbers work for me.
so I've booked five days in Rome in March
bosh!!!
all this, is a challenge to the approaching winter.
a panacea to ward away low moods
I'm writing this on my break at work, its 5 am and light rain is falling on the Hospice. I've just listened to a podcast of Rob Delaney's Desert Island Disc choices. It is a sobering and incredibly moving piece of Radio, where Delaney talks eloquently about the death of his baby son. Like Lauren Lavern I was moved into silence by his emotional honesty.
its the village Apple festival on Saturday, I'm helping with the judging
Pat Thistlethwaite
Roger’s been wearing a white feather on his head, something picked up from jamming his bonce into the hedgerows early this morning. It’s still there now after our jaunt to McDonalds for a large white coffee for me and cheesy bacon flatbread for them. I’ve just sat down with said coffee ( drumming up bravery to accost the litter tray in the back bedroom which now resembles a public toilet at Glastonbury.) when I saw that the son of Weaver Of Grass had just emailed .
His message was brief “ Just to let you know that Pat passed away on Thursday.She was getting plenty of morphine and sedation and everything went as well as these things can go. Thank you everyone for your support”
The news was very Weaver
Understated, unfussy , no drama
The feather wouldn’t be her either, no way……but it’s nice to think it might of been
We shall miss the old girl.
I shall miss her.
Flirt
Met my friend Colin for lunch and a much needed laugh. I told him how much I over reacted to our new male Iberian vet when Mary had her ears reviewed and he giggled loudly when I admitted I simpered like a schoolboy when the vet told me that Roger ( who had come along for ballast) was a fine specimen of terrier. To be honest I would have smiled and laughed if the vet had read out the first quarter of the local telephone directory, those deep Spanish tones.
Like a moist Antonio Bandares on toast
Colin, reminded me that I wasn’t too old to flirt even though it was somewhat unsavoury to laugh at absolutely everything the object of my affection had said
Note to self next time tone it down
On another Spanish note, this is the final piece I enjoyed at the Madrid concert this year. The look of intensity in the eyes of the dancer could be seen and felt by me in the one of the back rows of the auditorium .
Amazing
I suddenly want to be back in Madrid
Rowenna
Old Rowenna died this morning. She was 92. islwyn’s aunt and matriarch to many still in Trelawnyd, she was a lady of purpose and opinion. When she was well Rowenna marched rather than ambled, she marched that older ladies March with the handbag tightly looped over their left arm.
Rowenna, ( far right) with some of the village People.
Arriving at my last garden open
Later I met my sister in law for lunch at the Red Lion in Dyserth, and had proper thick Welsh rabbit and tea. What a bloody treat!
When I got home it was getting cooler ,
Tomatoes had been left in a bag upon the kitchen wall by Animal Helper Pat
No where else to go today.
No where else I’d rather be
Nap soon on the couch
Dogs fed, kittens fed, fire lit
George Grundy crying on The Archers
Friday night
No messages on my phone
A Tight Perm
" Pay particular attention to the details of your work.
Paying attention to detail makes for the personal touch...it is thoughtful and it is kind"
This was a particular manra of my tutor Mr Brint , back in my psychiatric days
I remember it well as in one lession we had, the class was taught how to put ladies hair rollers in!
The ladies were a group of "patient volunteers" from the long stay ward and Mr Brint and a tired looking Occupational therapist were showing us all how to shampoo and set!
" Hair and make up are vital for good self esteem" Mr Brint trilled " Everyone can be made to feel beautiful "
He looked over at me as I manfully tried to roll my patient's grey locks around a roller which resembled a hairy caterpillar
" And how is your lady looking Nurse Gray?" he purred
I looked at my lady's head thick with haphazard looking rollers
" She looks like a German mine!" I told him honestly
His heart was always in the right place
Speaking of tutors, my out standing essay was finally second marked yesterday
I’m averaging a B for last year’s academic work which is bloody good going, given that I’m a definite bit of a plodder.
Hey ho
Wednesday
I watched the paper thin but entertaining comedy crime drama Ludvig tonight in my underwear,
My uniform lies next to the washing machine
Only a few minutes are left in a long day.
Not enough time to read blog comments
Mary is stalking BUN and Weaver, hoping for a Bottom lick
They are United and a force to reckon with
Roger is on my knee looking worried, if he was a real toddler
He’d be sucking his thumb
I watched two minutes of the following news and gave up
To depressing.
My counselling day tomorrow
Bed again
Conflict
My thoughts are with fellow blogger Yael tonight
As the bombs reign on Israel in this fruitless, mad stupid conflict
I’m tired after a full day in college and I’m off to bed early before another 12 hour shift tomorrow
Bake Off then bed.
Very rock n roll
Bun melts
Mary and Bun
The affair continues, almost side by side tonight during Call My Bluff
Roger is frightened of both kittens
Tracy
Tracy circa 1987
My time in York (1986-1989) is when I grew up.
I was by no means wild, Gawd forbid that!
But I chose a new and wide set of friends, I had a moderate amount of sex and I assumed some responsibility at work
Tracey B was a part of this journey. She assumed the position of the two sisters I had left at home.
She liked me, she mothered me but I also made her laugh, which was a skill, I had learned through my psychiatric training.
You were liked if you were funny..
Over the past 48 hours Tracy and I have shared little snippet's of our lives.
“ Oh by the way …sort of things”
Perhaps a little fearful of over facing the other.
I have always been attracted by strong warm characters when I left York for Sheffield, Nu was waiting for me and in a swirl of a red skirt and a twirl of a Spanish like wrist , Tracy was gone.
No mobile phones or internet then
People did disappear .
I have the opportunity now to thank her for her warmth and friendship.
I was gauche and very Welsh and uninformed when I went to York.
I was just 24 and a young 24,
She was of similar age but a life time ahead of me and I was dazzled by her Sophia Loren smile and her wild hair and the way that people reacted to her.
My York years were my own very personal salad days.
Through Ally ( an OT friend of Tracy’s) I developed my love of the stage and for Opera. Through Dave was clumsy sexual awakenings and from Cheryl my ability of becoming a good friend.
Tracy made me laugh, though.
Laugh, long and hard without shame or worry.
Boy, and did she make me laugh
Sunday
This piece gave me shivers, when he was singing the woman next to me grabbed my arm briefly in a gesture of pure astonishment. The lisping choir have just performed a glorious Beethoven which I would have loved to see.
It’s 6.16 am and I look like a panda
I feel happy this morning , nothing to do with work but everything to do with Facebook which allowed to me to reunited with an old friend from psychiatry who I lost contact with in 1986.
Tracy B looked like Sophia Loren, she was an exotic creature who always wore red skirts and dresses with high heels to match. A brunette with piles of curls , framing a Mediterranean face and a smile like a split watermelon, she was a beautiful creature that charmed everyone who met her.
Why she would “ adopt” me as a friend bugger only knew, what with my sad jumpers and bow tie, but during our shared work on Ward One at Bootham Park Hospital in York we were good friends. In a vein of Holly Golightly mates in Breakfast in Tiffineys.
Bed
I haven’t worked two twelve hour day shifts over a weekend for a long time.
I leave at 6.30 and return at 20.45.
It’s well after 9.15pm when I sit down with my bean and chorizo soup made from the slow cooker.
The dogs are eating their dinner in the kitchen
The twins I think are upstairs eating theirs.
I miss Winnie as my feed need sucking
I’m buggered
Another similar shift tomorrow.
I’m Watching some nameless reality shit on tv for a half hour
Then either Bun or Weaver balanced their arse over the side of my mother in law’s tongue on the window ledge
And gently shat in it!
I’m off to bed!!!!!!
California Suite (1978) |
A good thirty years before she was made infamous for her washpish one liners in Downton, Maggie Smith proved herself to be an incredibly comedy actress in the likes of Neil Simon’s Californian Suite.
She died recently, reducing the living British Natural Treasure tally to just, Judi Dench, Alan Bennett and Ian McClellan.
Any National Treasures I’ve missed?
I’m working long days this weekend so now I have been cooking some healthy meals
A hearty bean and chorizo soup, pandan noodles with prawns, a Cumberland sausage stew
Long Day
I had three clients and a supervision hour today
It felt a long day.
I worked 10am to 3pm
Instead of going home we drove into Cheshire to have tea with an old friend on the last day of his holiday.
He’s recently became a widower after 36 years and cried after Roger hugged him crossed legged in only the way Welsh terriers do
The dogs loved the pampering.
It rained all the way home and I’ve realised that I don’t enjoy driving at night
Another nasty realisation that I’m getting older.
The twins bounced downstairs when we arrived after dark
And walked, yowling, inbetween everyone’s legs before dinner was served.
I hate coming home to a dark house,
But the kittens , as Albert did before them,
Make it feel like home.
Bake Off
The thing that remains wholesome about Bake Off are the contestants,who are generally shown to be pretty nice people. That’s the strength of the entire programme. Of course the Welsh woman had to have a chicken called Fanny around which she designed her first showstopper , freeing Alison Hammond to call out gleefully How Does Fanny Taste ? One of a whole plethora of double entendres we will be subjected to,no doubt this year.
Ps….I spoke to Weaver’s son today at his request, and was happy to help with some practical issues. She remains with us , but is incredibly frail, as you would expect.
I will keep you posted.
Tv
I have only a few favourite tv programmes
Reruns of the zombie apocalypse The Walking Dead. ( of course)
The boffin quiz Only Connect
The silly and playful Taskmaster
And now on Monday nights reruns of CALL MY BLUFF, plucked from around 1974
Bluff was glorious. Not much playing around , but with enough humour to tickle, we had Frank Muir and Patrick Campbell playing a parlour game about the correct definition of words.Muir was a famous comedy writer and Campbell a journalist and The 3rd Baron Genavy and both played the programme for gentle laughs. I loved it when I watched with my mother when I was 10 and I love it now over 50 years later. Tonight we had the sailor Robin Knox Johnson taking part, a real hottie
Mortimer and Lighthouse go fishing is another sweet watch
This is another simple premise where the two old friends ( and stand up comics) chat over time spent fishing in a river . It’s a lovely piece of tv where real affection between two funny men surface constantly
Oh and Gogglebox
Caught short
I took the Welsh out for a wee and stopped to talk to Trendy Carol ( blonde streaks and new Ponytail v nice) she told me that villager Glenys had passed away. She had been ill for some time and leaves a gentle sad husband who I often talked to over the kitchen wall.
I dropped a sympathy card off at his house and as I drove off Bluebell’s gear stick came off in my hand !
Luckily I was pointing for home downhill, so I coasted back to the Church and waited for the RAC to help, which they did wonderfully. The technician loved my Garfield T shirt which made me preen like a schoolboy. After he had gone I was caught short and had to hide behind the lytch Gate in order to have a desperate and crafty pee.
For gods sake I’m 62
My sister called around to give me an unwanted Victorian armchair which has replaced the cheerful yellow chair in the living room.
I’m not sure if I’m well enough for University tomorrow , but this week I have a nursing study day, my counselling day and then two long days at hospice over the weekend.
I’m of to bed early tonight.
Hey ho
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