Caterina Valente - Malagueña

I was going to post about Robert Flack today but found this wonderful video of Catarina Valente  this is only an aside as I wanted to blog about Bun today who has developed into a delightfully affectionate cat. 

Last night she spent an age cuddling my bare foot

Every night , she joins me in bed and as I lay on my side, she perches on my hip like a little black limpet .

She is gentle and sweet, and gentle and playful which is a direct opposite to Weaver who remains shy and remote and distant unless she is being fed. 

Occasionally Weaver allows me to rub her head until a tiny purr is emitted but that’s only when I am in bed and safely under the duvet, and that contact is limited by her. I don’t push her interaction. I leave it to her, as she reminds me of Albert who limited his contact with me to head bumps.

Both cats don’t go out much. Their cat flat is open during the day, a fact they are fully aware of, but I seldom see them outside but in the evenings , when the fire is lit and the Welsh are huddled on my trendy blue couch with me, they appear around nine pm to cuddle each other in front of the log burner until lights out . 

They are what I always suspected they would be 

A constant backdrop to cottage life x

This afternoon I’m off to Abergele Hospital which is a tiny orthopaedic based unit in the hills. My friend Ruth has had a total knee replacement and I’m visiting her a day after her surgery .

I’m one of her next of kin contacts which moved me , and I’ve bought her grapes and a good book to read

The cottage cleaning has finished this morning with a spruce up of the patio. I’ve had enough of the work.

Time to relax a little

Spring Clean Day Two

 

Dog walk and breakfast.

I had McDonalds porridge

The Welsh shared a cheesy flatbread, 

And ate it in seconds, with little moans of delight.

Coffee then down to work. 

The living room needs a spruce

The sun is shining and the windows are wide open. 

The laundry is hanging in the sun by the front door and my T shirts are folded and airing

The cottage smells of clean washing and I am reminded of my grandmother who used to visit the family home on Mondays to do the ironing.

Affable Despot Jason, was out in the. Village as I returned with my coffee. He’s sporting longer hair and looks like a Rock chick. Terry waved as did Mrs Trellis ( hers was a vague wave in response to me tooting her) and the village looks bright and welcoming in the pre spring sun.

I will leave you with another choir, not my lisping Spanish choir but a Welsh one

Enjoy

20 pairs of reading Glasses

 I’ve spring cleaned my bedroom and the bathroom. 

It’s taken  me the entire day

20 pairs of reading glasses have been found tucked into corners, gathering dust under the bed and lying under the mountain of clothes, heaped in the corner like a mound of elephant dung.

I’ve also washed two dozen old T shirts which now fit me

Weigh in was this morning, I’ve lost another 6 lbs!!!

I’m buggered

Spring

 The lisping choir et Al doing a cracking job. I loved this and I was there at the back cheering when this was performed.

I’m spring cleaning today and have only left the cottage to walk the dogs

Marinko

 

In Spinal Injury Nursing, you will always have your favourite patients; the admission to a spinal rehab centre lasts for up to and in many cases well beyond 6 months, so there is plenty of opportunity to really get to know your patient and their families so very well.

In general our unit in Sheffield had on average 100 "new" admissions yearly so in my time there I must have seen around 1600 people coming through the doors and into our lives .
I can think of ten or so patients that will always linger in my mind. Eve, an affable despot and serial socializer from Nottingham, Richard, a difficult but ever so likable teenage quadraplegic that I used to use many unprofessional type nursing methods on to just to get him to eat; Neil , the charismatic army guy with a big heart and courage to match his many injuries; Hatim the 13 year old boy injured in the Iraq war who finally adopted a Yorkshire accent when he left us and who loved Finlay with a passion; Sue, a brittle and hilarious salt-of-the-earth fitness fanatic from Manchester--The list could go on and on and on. Many of these characters I still keep in touch with, and their life stories after spinal cord injury have been many and indeed varied .

Marinko was one of these people. I first met him when he was admitted to us in the early 1990s after a fall from a ship in Great Yarmouth when he sustained a lower back fracture and total paraplegia.
A non English speaker from Croatia, he was a challenge on so many levels to nurse. We had to get students from Sheffield University to act as interpreters ( as I remember,one was not as good as the others and confused the Croatian for pillow with the word for chicken- which in its own way caused much hilarity)

Marinko also had problems with, shall we say , assertive Sheffield women, and had quite an "old fashioned" Eastern European attitude to gender roles, which was a challenge to him and us, as most of his carers were opinionated Yorkshire women.
But he was charming and funny and "blossomed" under the intimate and at times unrealistic environment a rehabilitation centre provides and I considered him to be a friend when he left us to be with his family in a tiny village outside the city of Split

The day we said goodbye, he gave me a bunch of flowers,wrapped in brown paper .we shook hands and hugged and he kissed me hard on each cheek and called me “ brother” and I had to bite my lip as he wheeled away to an uncertain future

Over the past 16 years or so, we have always communicated infrequently by letter. His correspondence was always charming and on the surface optimistic, but it did hint at the huge adaptation problem Marinko had with his disability.
A few Christmas’ ago, I was surprised not to have seen a card from him, and I was saddened to receive a letter from Marinko's brother a few months after that.
In a note that sounded very much like Marinko his brother states simply:-

Dear Mr Gray,
I am using this opportunity to inform you that my dear brother and your friend Marinko has lost a long battle with his disease and passed away on the 29th of December 2007. The funeral was held in the local cemetery on 31st December 2007
I wish also to extend my honest gratitude for all your support,true and sincere friendship you have been providing to Marinko through all these years.
Sincerely

Maiodrag.

iLOVE

This short film is a little gem and it’s Spanish which makes it so much more appealing 

Enjoy……

No News

There are not enough hours in my day

The older I get the more I think this.

Night shifts exaggerate this somewhat as they encroach on more than the night at work, but Tuesdays I’m in college all day and Thursdays I’m seeing my own clients for most of the day in the next County.

I also have a presentation to write and which links humanistic therapy with Gestalt thinking and another essay to plan for centred around diversity.

My academic marks are improving and my last three pieces of work were B+ A- and A- which I’m pleased about

Today I’ve walked the Welsh, and pottered around chasing up medications, picking up a glucose monitor, cat wormers and the like. 

Whoosh the morning has gone

When it’s just you at home, there’s just you to sort these things out

That’s a brief moan, more an observation.

As you can see there’s not much to discuss or say today

I saw Terry walking his dog and he told me I’d lost weight, which pleased me

I’ve lost a stone and a half

My cord pants almost fell down in a sainsburys the other day as a result

Ps. I’ve just reweighed myself . I’ve lost 2 stone

This Is Hospice Care

It’s been a tough day. I have had two complex counselling patients and needed my supervisors calming and sensible voice on the other end of the phone before leaving for home

An unapologetically lazy post today, I’m not in the mood for writing 

This advert for hospice support is impressive as it is sad, sad that it’s not funded by the government 

Day Off

 Today is my only proper day off, so I met my friend Ruth for lunch and an exhibition at Mostyn Gallery. The lunch ( Greek salad with chicken) was lovely and the exhibition by Vanessa da Silva rather beautiful. 

Ruth bought me an original sketch of an old dog which was delightful and I bought a small globe from a shop in town. I used to have one that lit up as a child and have always wanted to own another. 

Then we sat on the Promenade in the cold and watched the world walk by

Sunshine and Meatballs

 Apparantly it’s a thing….

Yesterday was a wake up call.

Roger off his lead like a loon

Things can go tits up in an instant.

One wrong move, one accident of fate, 

And whoosh 

Roger has been at Trendy Carol’s all day.

I’ve been in college

Both he and Mary were stood by Carol’s Trendy Conservatory and when they saw me, Roger galloped over with his sister tottering slowly behind

And the welcome broke my heart just a little.

A dim silly boy with a gentle heart and a scruffy old bitch with tired eyes

They are my world and my sunshine

And I’m glad I bought them a packet of Swedish meatballs from the garage on the way home( see link below)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqv6DfiKJYE

My Sunshine

 

Roger slipped his lead this afternoon and in a fit of excitement got himself lost on the Dyserth walkway for over two hours! .

I was frantic as his dim nature belies any common sense homing instinct and was filled with that hollow dread any parent feels when their child slips a hand and gets lost in the crowd.

I walked up and down the old railway line until dusk with Mary tiredly in tow, until a young couple told me that he was sat in the car park with their mother after climbing into their car in the faint hope he was going home.

He whimpered when he saw us, wrapping his paws around my forearm until I got him home and there he sat on my knee as I rocked him like a baby .

I found myself tearfully half-singing a song to him as he fell fast asleep, his muddy paws twitching gently in tired stress

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

You make me happy when skys are Grey, 

You’ll never know dear, 

How much I love you, 

please don’t take my sunshine away ……

MÚSICA Y JUGUETES - CARROS DE FUEGO

The metropolitan Orchestra of Madrid and lisping Talia Choir massacre Chariots of fire

It’s all rather fun.

Off to bed for a sneaky sleep as I’m back on nights. The Welsh have been walked in the cold and when I got back, I ordered Mary a coat from Amazon.

I will leave you with this video

It made me smile

Filthy Bitch

 Family meal for my brother in law’s 70th. Great fun.

Nice to see everyone. We were all still full of Bridget Jones and would have drunk some Filthy Bitch 

Cocktails if they made them.

 

Valentine

 I’ve never bothered too much about Valentine’s Day

And today I realise that I never will.

At 63 I’ve given up on the idea of romance in its most romantic of terms now.

And that’s fine

It’s also realistic, and positive 

Concentrate on other things

On friends and family , 

Work and study, 

Pastimes and new experiences

Hey ho

There’s hope For All Of Us

 

Renée Zellweger has always made a lovable Bridget Jones. She is everyone, every woman and every man , she is flawed, sweet, well meaning and oh so lucky. Now a widow, she has two children who love her, an urban family that adore her, a beautiful quirky home in  romanticised London and a 29 year old boyfriend ….she also has a Randy wisecracking friend and baby sitter ( Hugh Grant) on wonderful form btw , a down to earth stand in GP (a scene stealing Emma Thompson) and a glam tv front woman (Josette Simon) below who brings the house down with a simple well timed  fuck off.

Emma Thompson

It’s a funny , and properly funny and strangely sad film, which has a lot to say about grief and the power of friendships as it does about romance, hope and reinvention .

She’s a hopeful hero who I cried buckets over

Bridget gives us all hope.

Hope that any of us ordinary folk can be happy at the end of the day .

Hands

 I have a new doctor.

He’s thorough, polite, unhurried and personable 

I like and respect him and healthcare is not the chore it once was. 

I watched him tap away at his computer and realised that he had tiny hands.

A surgeon’s hands I thought

My blood results are fine

Pity the doctor’s remit doesn’t cover diabetes

The nurse hasn’t impressed me as yet.

September 5

 

Magaro

 I didn’t know the story behind the live reporting of the hostage fiasco that was the 1972 Munich Olympics. Sure I knew that 11 Israeli athletes and their coaches were held at gunpoint by members of the black September terrorist group and that all of the hostages were killed mainly due to the inept response by the German police, but what I didn’t know what it was the first international terrorist attack that was filmed and reported on live television. 

September 5 is a gripping, claustrophobic and taunt retelling of the story from the perspective of the American ABC on site sports department team, who assumed responsibility ( over the US based News Team) to run and report the drama.

Although a professional tv team, the technicians and producers, were totally out of their depth , however they did rise to the occasion ( helped by a quick thinking and cool German interpreter Leonie Benench.) 

Rookie producer Geoffrey Mason ( a sexy, intense John Magaro) leads the team well through the crisis supported by the always interesting Peter Sarsgaard as his tv veteran boss, and everything is filmed by hand held cameras giving the film an authentic 1970s feel to it. 

The inexperience of the sports reporters showed in one pivotal moment when they all suddenly realised that the terrorists were actually gaining the upper hand by watching their live feed on tvs in the Olympic village

. A  Chilling and terrifying moment in an impressive historical drama

I loved it

Can I Thrust By …..I’m a Diabetic ?

 The dietitian over faced me with information today.

Teaching wasn’t her forte

My head was reeling and by the time she explained what whole foods where I could have stuck an avocado up my arse and called myself a salad. 

When I got up to leave she asked me what I’d got planned for the rest of the day 

She didn’t laugh when I told her I was off to McDonald’s 

Ps I wasn’t btw

I have my insulin and needles but no one yet to officially teach me what to do with them.

Thank goodness my blood sugars are more stable this week , at least I have enough energy to get out of bed.

I went to the surgery for a blood pressure check and the nursing assistant told me it was dangerously high

I’m not bleeding surprised I told her but had the presence of mind to give her a collection of my blood pressure readings taken from the week at home, which placated her

No one in primary care today seemed to have a sense of humour today 

Hey ho

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/victoria-wood-greatest-sketch-julie-walters/

It’s a start

 It’s chilly, 

On one of those murky, winter days when everything feels damp and cold and miserable.

Mrs Trellis was out in her winter coat and erect bobble hat. But she was the only one in the village I saw, as everyone else were hidden away behind curtains and blinds backed by the cheerful glow of lamps and fires.

It is a night for fires, and throws and for wrapping my lovely green cashmere scarf around my head like a 

Bedouin.

It’s not a good look

But it’s warm 

The twins are in front of the fire and I’m pleased that Bun walked over to sit on my knee next to Roger who was so surprised he showed Goo goo eyes whoever was watching.

They sat together for twenty minutes

It’s a start

A busy week ahead , 

Too busy

Dean Martin & Caterina Valente - One Note Samba

Enjoy