Life on a Winter Wednesday

 Lazy day today.

Long hot shower where I scrubbed everything that needed scrubbing. 

Clean clothes

Clinique Happy

Coffee and paperwork in the Storyhouse library 

Followed by a film The Blitz

The library has some lovely original features mashed together with modern design

The ceiling above my head

I was quoted in the Trelawnyd Community Association newsletter yesterday too

What fun

lol

Forgive the coffee stains , as usual I had a major dribbling moment down my front .

I’ve just got time to update you all,on Bun & Weaver

Weaver, is a funny little soul. She’s quiet and aloof and just keeps herself away from me and the dogs and life it would seem. Perhaps she’s just self contained , 

Perhaps not. 

She’s happiest with her sister and sits for long periods watching the ponies in their field.

Bun however has suddenly become affectionate and loving, cuddling up,to me on the couch when Mary is absent and falling asleep on my hip when im in bed.

EOL

 The hospice acronym for someone who is actively dying is EOL 

END OF LIFE

It signifies that the full force of hospice care is in progress 

I’m listening with interest, discussions around the Assisted Dying Bill which will debated in Parliament on the 29th of November. 

The bill, in its many forms is presently working in parts of Australia, Canada, The Netherlands and  Spain and the British legislation will be little different as the patient involved has to be actively dying within a sixth month period, a time limit which may cause disagreement between the two doctor referees. 

In my view a number of patients who want the  chance of self determination will essentially not be given it. The MND patients, the  MS and the head and Spinally injured. 

Many of these conditions are not life limiting of six months and therefore will not qualify.

I remember my brother who had motor neurone disease reviewing his chances of dignitas

It was all too much for him

It overfaces many.

Good EOL and palliative care should be a priority 

Everyone should have access to hospice care

And hospices should be financially supported to take all appropriate referral's

Assisted dying , if it arrives will help a few

But it will fail many others who want it but don’t qualify its strict criteria. 

I am saddened by their losses.

 

Home Front

I know I had a great uncle who served in Burma during the war. 

I forget his name , but he was a good looking man with a killer moustache.

I think he survived the war,

My father was an airman in the RAF and navigated Lancasters. 

I’m still not sure if his war record

My family , from their own oral histories, fought the war more on the home front.

My Grandmother , mother and Uncle Jim were bombed out of their house on Louisa Street, Everton in the Blitz and were sheltering under an upturned sofa as the windows blew in and an unexplored flying torpedo lodged itself under the kitchen floor. 

During the May Blitz my great grandfather was killed when their family shelter took a direct hit. A shelter my Grandmother and Mother was running for before the bombs proceeded them.

During all of this horrendous time my Grandfather was a fireman in the Auxiliary Fire Service, who spent days and days fighting the fires in dockland Liverpool.

You can understand just why my family moved to the quiet and prejudice of North Wales.

Tonight I was late for work. Bun was up the bookcase waving paws at Roger who was fed up with the excitement. Suddenly a black shape the side on an envelope fell from the shelves onto the floor 

It was my Grandfather’s Fire Badge which he saved from his wartime uniform nearly 80 years ago. It is the only physical memory I have of my Grandfather

Funny how it turned up today,

 

Christmas

 I have from the 21st of December to the 28th off.

This is unheard of to have all of Christmas off work.

A modern day miracle. 

When I was a ward manager invariably I would do the late shift on Christmas Day

But then extra shifts would creep in, holes would appear to be plugged and before you knew it, I might have Boxing Day off after working Christmas Eve and Christmas night .

Last year I did a long day Christmas Day and said rather vociferously that that was it, no more Christmas Shifts for me.

7 days over Christmas how wonderful

My octernagerian counsellor , in her sing song voice asked me what I had planned. 

My supervisor promptly gave her opinion that I enjoy it with people,

So far I am spending Christmas Day with family 

So the first time in years I have a dilemma 

What am I going to do the rest of the time?

You sound like a fucked up 63 year old gay Bridget Jones! 

Was one of my friend’s responses when I asked him,

So I brought this helpful comment up at my counselling session 

Who is Bridget Jones?  she asked 

 A Neurotic weight obsessed unlucky in love 30 something I explained 

My counsellor kept quiet.

So what am I going to do over Christmas ? When the love lorned swap jumpers with holes in them?

Answers on a postcard please 

Burrito

The clay family regard the kitchen with disdain

It’s a mess

I’m sat contemplating what to do about it,

Hiding behind my blog….at the kitchen table

Since the twins arrived the cottage resembles a war zone

I saw my friend Polly for brunch

She was a doctor at the hospice and we see each other every few months for a chat and a catch up

She is bright and intelligent and warm.

We ate a dry brunch fry up at Bryn Williams whch needed some sauce to it, like it always does but still I said nothing to the waiter.

It suddenly felt like Christmas , after she had gone and I walked the dogs down Colwyn Bay Promenade like people do so much on Boxing Day. 

Diverting from the talk in hand I’ve been stalking one of the lisping choir members , he’s a delightfully animated  character ( see  1.58 into the video)

I’ve been wasting time watching his hips roll, he looks a Happy soul

Ok the washing up needs doing!!!!

My clay family frown at my frivolity and they glare

I stop stalking Geraldo and contemplate the cat nip stuffed toy my sister ann gave the twins only yesterday.

It lies in at least 14 tufts on the kitchen floor.

Geraldo rolls his hands and sings lustily about a Spanish donkey in my mind

But alas, the cottage needs a clean 

Hey ho

 

Oil over water

 I’m a sucker for a kind word.

They go a long way with people and oil the choppy waters of everyday life.

They cost nothing either.

I had a discussion about examining the motivations in people with my supervisor yesterday.

And the conclusion stood

Some people can be nasty arseholes at times

Period

Others can have motivations so hidden and ingrained that a wizard couldn’t unearth them 

People are complex and chaotic 

Seldom are we linear

 

Frame of Reference

 In supervision I am always being reminded to see things from my clients frame of reference, ie from their unique perspective. 

It’s a hard skill to develop and to learn as we all analyse and unpick people on the hoof so to speak. I’m trying to view Trump’s apparent victory from the American voters point of view.

Most want more money in their pay checks, cheaper prices in the shops and a life free of the anxiety of illegal migration 

Not that much different to the aspirations of the voters in the UK Brexit vote of 2016 me thinks.

I’m sad that Trump got in again. 

He’s a liar, and a buffoon. 

And America wanted you

Sing For Water - Ise Oluwa.mov

Five years ago exactly I was going through the worst time of my divorce life

And five years ago I had joined a choir 

This song was one we were being taught my Jamie and his 1940s RAF moustache 

And the choir couldn’t quite catch the power or the harmony

So Jamie told us to sing it one last time , in the cold village hall in Gwaenysgor , and as we did  

He turned the lights off in the hall

Devoid of self consciousness, our choir sang beautifully 

And when the lights flickered on most of the choir was crying 

I will always remember that moment  as it pulled me through the worst time in my life 

And it’s a time that should be celebrated like Christmas 

Trelawnyd @ Night

 

I have slept most of the day 

The virus’ worst day 

I took the Welsh out for a proper walk late on

It was well after 9 pm 

This never happens now.

But they needed the outing.

Every house I knew had a light on, curtains drawn  . Mrs Trellis the only exception, as she was playing her piano at the window, her tongue out of the side of her mouth in concentration .

The Randa’s cottage had flowers in the windows as always and the Hoose’s, Smith’s, Richard’s, Ackroyds, ,Velvet voiced Linda’s cottages were little pools of colour and light in the dark and the cold . 

I saw no living person , not one apart from Trellis 

But I felt their lives behind glowing windows and solar light in the garden. 

Even the pub looked quiet and closing and no one except me and Mary ( Roger typically missed it) saw a large vixen totter up High Street , her head held high 

We walked home and the Turpin house and Margaret’s bungalow on London Road looked cheerful, and welcoming as did the the little semicircle of houses on Rhodfa Arthur. 

Someone has hung solar fairy lights around the lytchgate of the Church 

( Islwyn?) 

And the walk home was gently illuminated by Christmas lights 

How sweet

Anger

 

King Filipe and Queen Letizia were pelted with mud by some of the frustrated and angry residents of Valencia today. I was saddened by the footage today, saddened for the people and saddened for the royal family, whose intentions were sincere.

As a nurse, and now a trainee therapist, I’ve always known that anger, is the easiest emotion to mobilise when things goes tits up

It’s the most irrational emotional  and hardest to deal with, and from what I could tell Filipe and Letizia did their very best against incredible odds. 

I remember as a staff nurse on intensive care being wing man to a consultant who was giving bad news to a family. I remember so clearly the Blind fury of the father as he raised his fist to strike the doctor as I stood between them and “ shushed” him as a mother would do to crying child. 

The shushing worked, it diffused the anger, but not the pain

Thank goodness 

I’m still feeling rough, and I write this in bed, with the kittens purring like aircraft 

Mac n Cheese

 The virus is worse today, apparantly that’s how it’s presenting itself

I had a lemsip and filled up at the Spanish reaction to the flooding.

Mostly young people

A credit to their country.

I was going to have Yorkshire puddings filled with Mac’n cheese for lunch but Roger ate them in the back of Bluebell.

I’ve lost my appetite

And lost it even more when I caught these two with their heads in the macaroni cheese

 

 

Kid, You’re On Your Own!

 I’ve got that virus that comes back with a vengeance . Several of the older members of the hospice have it and this morning we were comparing health notes like old ladies do at a bus stop.

If you are a singleton and poorly, you only have your dogs to lick your feet better. Ok Diane the  support worker I worked with last night, who has a heart the size of a fridge, gave me her curry supper to eat as well as furnishing me with copious amounts of sweet tea, but generally kid , you’re on your own.

Hence the lucozade. 

Now when I was a child, Lucozade was classed as a medical drink. A gloriously golden sweet fizzy drink wrapped up in yellow selophane, that could only be bought at the chemists. 

It was expensive

It was wonderful and it was a treat.

Your mother really loved you when she bought you a bottle, and you had to drink it quick sticks before anyone well got there nasty little mits on it.

It was the ambrosia of the 1970s

So I bought myself a bottle today

From Tescos

There was a whole section filled with lucozade

Lucozade light, lucozade sport, lucozade high energy

All in common plastic bottles

No cellophane

No tradition.

I bought a bottle of lucozade original

And drank it in the car park

I could have wept

Ok I got a sense of the real taste of childhood

But the drink was just a fizz

A shadow of its former self

And no panacea to a snotty, painful head.

 

Videos

 The lisping choir was quiet for this piece and I remember how gentle the Metropolitan Orchestra was.

Tik tok made the following video without me hardly doing anything , how scary is AI .

I will leave it to your imagination why the third video popped up

I’ve seen clients today then went to bed.just getting up for a night shift

Falling Asleep at the cinema

 

The Room Next Door is my kind of film . 

Typically lush and heavy with its colours andwith a heavy orchestral score this quiet melodrama about euthanasia on the surface is more Almodòvar than Almodòvar .

I went to Chester Picturehouse to see it. With its plush seats and warm interiors, I sat my coffee down on my little armrest, and took,in the first arty meeting between old friends Tilda Swindon and Julianne Moore  before falling fast asleep with , what I was presuming to be a snore that could out do the average warthog

.

I knew nothing except Tilda was found dead in full battle makeup and Moore was being all soft spoken to the police. 

The credits- the end.

I was mortified 

Not for me but for the half dozen other patrons who would have had to coped with an hours plus of my night noises. 

At the end of the credits. I apologised to a couple two seats behind, who gallantly waved me away with a smile

Perhaps it was the seats, perhaps I need that blood test to check just why I’m so tired, or perhaps  my psychi just doesn’t want to deal with another story of preparation for death and a story of the dying

Who knows.? 

Answers on a postcard please

Emilia Pèrez

 I need a deep breath to explain this one.

Ok, here goes….French director Jacques Audiard has directed a Spanish language Almodóvar-esque musical about the violent drug cartel in urban Mexico.

Violent killer drug Barron Manitas has to disappear, so stages his own death and pays a bright lawyer Rita ( Zoe Saldana ) to spirit his trashy wife Jessi (Selina Gomez) and his children to Switzerland. In the meantime Manitas is transformed into Emilia at a Swiss clinic and after years transforming re enters Mexican society as Manitas sister ( The extraordinary Karla Sofia Gascon)

Are you still with me?  

Now Rita reenters the story by bringing the clueless  Jessi and her boys to live with their aunt back in Mexico and the story complicates even more by Jessie’s new relationship ,Rita and Emilia’s new found work locating the remains of thousands of drug crime victims in Mexico and the tender new relationship between Emilia and poor housewife Epifania ( Adriana Paz)

Bloody Hell

gascon as Emilia

Audiard ( a non Spanish speaker ) adds to the melodrama by some wonderfully bonkers musical set pieces and trans actress Gascon totally steals the show as the throaty, suddenly big hearted and transformed Emilia, Statuesque, Broad shouldered, sexy and at times an incredibly vulnerable former killer she dominates every scene

It’s bonkers , but I loved it 

Osmosis

 I’ve not pushed it

I’ve let it happen organically 

But Bun and Mary

Finally have broken down their natural barbers tonight 

I’m off to bed and snapped this photo of a friendship which both want but which both have sabotaged 

Repeatedly.

  

Big Breaths

 A couple of my colleagues at work feel unwell today. Everyone’s coming down with colds. 

I’ve lost my voice.

It not stopped us laughing

We sounded like a room full of dirty phone callers when we were checking drugs.

Another fit of coughing giggles.

When I was a Samaritan up to 40% of my calls were either abusive or sexual

I remember one guy who yelled out a quick and despirate 

“ Before you disappear I’m not a pervert I have COPD “ 

Planets

 

With my bottle of water, box of strepsils, and pockets full of tissues I braved the journey to Liverpool again to see The Planet Suite.

It didn’t disappoint.

Jupiter the Bringer of Jollity, was so powerful that I noticed a couple of people dabbing their eyes.

I was a tad disappointed that great hunk of spunk Domingo Hindoyan was not conducting this time (Andrew Manze having the honour) but it was the music that counts and last night was a real treat.

I’m in bed now after walking the dogs and feeding the twins.

And feel rotten 

I shall refrain from telling any jokes about my Uranus being a Magician 

Lemsips and rest are the mantra for the day

Bun ( I think ) is sitting on the clothes horse watching the lane

Saturday

 I’m full of cold, a product of Mersey rail on Wednesday 

Last night I went to The Crown for a meal with my family which was lovely but I slept badly so after dog walks this morning we’ve all gone back to bed . 

The animals are playing cowboys and Indians with the Welsh playing the settlers  laying safe between my legs and the twins playing the marauding injuns.

I’m just drinking coffee from my American 1940s diner mug and will fall again to sleep soon

The Philharmonic later

Respect

 It was Rowena’s funeral today

And a day of respect it was , to be sure.

Her nephew, Village Elder Islwyn and his brother had dug her grave themselves which I thought was intensely moving and another mark of respect as Rowena’s father was the village gravedigger at one time, Islwyn isn’t a young man, and I’m sure the hard work has taken its toll. 

Kudos to the both of them

The service was held in Llanasa, who has a pretty Norman Church, and the church was full as Rowena’s family is large and spans every part of Trelawnyd and its environs .

Auntie Glad always warned me to be early for popular character’s funerals , so I was and still was beaten to the back pew by the ladies from the friendship group, Animal Helper Pat, Christine from Church, Pippa and Tom, the velvet voiced Linda, sailor John and Mandy and Mrs Trellis.

Trendy Vicar Gregor ( with his flowing cape and neat beard )  did his best with the Welsh parts of the service which was lovely and by the time the funeral cars returned to Trelawnyd I had collected the Welsh and was standing with Pat Mr Poznan and others a respectful distance away.

We watched as the family followed the coffin into the graveyard, and in the grey skys over Trelawnyd groups of seagulls took off in the breeze in the fields next to the riding stables , looping west towards the valley and the sea