Business

 A blog reader sent me some of my own business cards today.

A kind gift for sure and I must admit that’s it’s weird to see myself in print so to speak, even though I write here daily.

Today was my counselling day, with me seeing five clients in total. 

Nice navy jumper in place 

And no gravy stains

And finally AI is good for something

This rather moved me

Remembering Camilla Parker Bowles

 This is a lovely blog memory, ignited by the long v’s of geese flying away from their feeding grounds near the Elwy Estuary.

A typically autumnal memory from a decade ago

  

Camilla Parker Bowles Takes To The Skies.

That's two and a half hours I won't ever get back.

Foolishly, I let Mary have a gallop around the field this afternoon.
Goo-goo eyed she chased the sheep, (undaunted by their brief show of horn and stamping feet ) and like a lunatic rounded up the remaining hens and boxed them into a coop before scattering them again  to the four winds.
She was impossible to catch.
I almost grabbed her several times, but like most puppies, she sensed the chase to be a game and bounced under the gate into the lower field where the geese had been hiding.
The domestic geese, Russell, Jo and Kate all stood their ground and hissed and honked their displeasure as Mary galloped around them , only Camilla panicked and in a fit of hysteria took off from the field.
Now Camilla, is essentially a wild Canada goose so should,on paper , retain her ability to fly, but since I raised her, she has more or less followed her adopted flock's sedentary grassed based existence.  In four years she has perhaps glided a mere 100 feet, and on two occasions has crash landed  into the fields next door on windy days.
Today, Camilla took off like a jet fighter. She circled the field in an untidy loop at a height of perhaps a hundred and fifty feet, then, buffeted by a gust of wind  she soared away over the Church and out of sight past the Rectory.
" Shiiiiiitttttttttttt!"
I managed to grab Mary and locked her inside a hen house before galloping like a loon through the Churchyard in pursuit but Camilla was no where to be seen.
I searched the livery stable fields, Pippa's field where the alpacas eyed me nervously , The Rectory gardens and the village green beyond, but there was no sign.
I even raised a few eyebrows down nearby Well Street by calling " CAMILLA!" down alleyways and driveways, but that part of the village was deserted too.
Menna, The lady from Abbott House looked particularly surprised when I told her that I was looking for a black and white goose called Camilla Parker Bowles.....like you do.
Systematically, I extended the search.
I checked behind the pub and the chapel and behind the cottages on London Road and still there was no sign, so I went up Byron Street and knocked on a few doors.
An  old chap who was washing his car told me that he had seen a " low flying goose" heading East
" she was honking like a train" he said.
I was onto something
Now on the far east part of Trelawnyd is an upmarket housing estate of say ten houses and beyond that are Basil the farmer's sheep fields. So I took a chance and climbed over a few fences and nearly two hours after the whole bloody mess started, I found Camilla sitting open beaked where she had crash landed in the centre of a flock of ewes.

I carried her all the way home
And after I introduced her back with her flock mates I returned to the cottage for a restorative cup of coffee and a custard tart.
It was only then , that I remembered Mary locked away in the hen house!

Mado Kara Mieru

I’ve just finished nights so will leave you with some entertaining videos.

The AI Queen is famously doing the rounds as is my sexy Italian baker. 

And the Japanese choral Mado Kara Mieru is all rather sublime doesn’t you think? 

Just found out that IKEA has just opened just over the border into England , around 25 minutes from the cottage, I know where I’m going on Tuesday

The Gop

 Look at the photo of Trelawnyd carefully and you can see Gop Hill behind. The burial mound atop the Gop is around 800 feet above sea level. The village is around 550 feet. Many of the fir trees have recently been cut down, giving the hill a slightly unframed look, which I understand was how it looked 100 years ago before the saplings were planted

The village, feels braced for winer. Many of the field hedges have been trimmed and the community  orchard strimmed and cleared of fruit . In two weeks the village apple festival takes place at the school and the ponies may return soon across the lane from the cottage.

My sister is talking about Christmas

Every Brilliant Thing

 The trains have been cancelled from Thames Ditton , but I’m ok. The station has internet and good coffee so I can muse about yesterday’s theatre. 

Every Brilliant Thing is a unique production, part one woman show, part audience participation it features an unnamed girl, who we witness navigating the tricky path of  the daughter of a mom with severe mental illness. The mother attempts suicide ( several times) during the child’s and then adult character’s life and several members of the audience are roped in to play important life characters such as a vet, the child’s father, a school therapist, a college tutor and finally the girl’s boyfriend.

Of course these parts are brief and accessible by the public who gamely join in , but I was surprisingly moved by several of the performances. The woman who played the therapist for example looked and acted as a therapist , using a sock glove puppet to gently cajole the girl into talking about her fears.

Minnie Driver is a revelation here too, before the performance started we watched her carefully select her characters, grooming them gently into their roles with charm and wit. During the performance she guided them effortlessly giving the narrative a flow and pathos all of its own.

The title Every Brilliant Thing refers to the girl’s coping mechanism. She uses an ever growing list of things to be thankful for , as a panacea to the bewildering hurt she is experiencing. The list grows with the audience shouting out more obscure brilliant things as we watch, incredibly moved , as the girl grows into a damaged young woman having to cope with the eventual suicide of her mother.

The last time I was so moved by a piece of theatre was Come From Away and that was just after lockdown, so Every Brilliant Thing was a wonderful surprise

After the play we had a drink in soho then a lovely Chinese meal in Chinatown before home. Apart from a rapt time in the theatre Nu and I caught up with hours of chat

And I feel replenished, this morning, even though the trains have been cancelled

Mindful

 A common theme in counselling is wellbeing and wellness. Helping the client to recognise strategies and mechanisms that enhance the nurturing of self.

To some it’s an alien concept.

Others may feel unworthy of such “selfishness” 

I recognise the benefits of it, now and won’t automatically put others first as I often once did. 

I am worth looking after, I have worth and rights and needs

And from that perspective I try to share my belief in self care to my clients.

This week is a case in point. I’m working sat and Sunday , and have already done a shift on Monday. Wednesday was my Counselling day 

I’m on the train to London where I know my batteries will recharge under the ever mindful Nu.

I will leave you with the delightful Celia Imrie in Celebrity Traitors. Her total lack of guile is charming as it is hysterical 

New Coat

 Trendy Carol bought Mary a winter coat today . It was comfortably in place when I picked both dogs up after counselling. Trendy Carol loves treating Mary ,indulgences I never mind, and Mary is toasty warm tonight , a night which is chilly and very autumnal. 

Even Weaver has softened herself enough to sit in front of the log burner, ( but still has not had her flea treatment : the bitch lol)

Tomorrow I’m off to London to meet with Nu and to watch Every Brilliant Thing with Minnie Driver .

I’ve missed Nu so, 

I can’t wait to see her

Weaver From Hell

 I’m overdue with flea treatment 

Well Bun is sorted at least, that’s the easy job. Bloody Hell she’s over me like a proverbial rash 

No it’s Weaver’s turn 

And like Maggie Thatcher “ Weaver’s NOT for turning” 

She knew something was afoot after I had sat down on the sofa today, gently waving a piece of chicken at her. I was whistling which probably gave me away, but I had to do something, an hour had already gone past with me pretending to doze on the bed, ready to give her neck a squirt is she forgot herself and walked within touching distance. 

The flea spray pippette had been secreted in the folds of my jumper, but the bad tempered cat had already figured this subterfuge out and deliberately swiped my paper sculpture of the Sagrada Familia from my desk top, before staring at me with narrow eyes.

She a Nazi and  knows just how much I love that little keep sake.

I threw a tiny bit of chicken at her and she gave me one of her now famous fuck off looks and ignored it 

The Mexican Standoff had begun. 

That was around twelve noon. 

It’s now almost four and I still have to corner my most bad tempered of pets.

I did get close, just the once , after I had lulled Weaver into a false sense of security by pretending to watch Antiques Roadtrip in the arm chair, a piece of meat, lazily dropped on my jumper front

This time she managed to take the chicken piece AND bite me and still have time to smack Roger a vicariously evil blow on the bottom as she ran outside.

She’s been outside ever since, mentally flipping me off, as she watches the kitchen activity with all the look of disgusted serial killer. 

Goodbye

 Saying goodbye to a work colleague who you like and respect , I think is the easiest goodbye you can make. If you are friends the friendship will often continue, if you both move on, you have the knowledge that you have touched each other’s lives for as long as you were part of that work team and you now wish each other well. Julie ( centre) has been a nurse longer than I have. 

We are old school nurses, brought up to follow our guts rather than pure protocol and audit and have spent many hours in that drug room, with me trying very hard to get her to wet herself with silly jokes and observations. 

That laughter is a typical nursing coping mechanism, especially within palliative care, 

And I’m lucky I work with a nice group of people.

What Larks Pip

The oddity that is the kitchen wall was underlined this morning by a plastic container full of Indian “ nibbles” complete with raita! 

No name, but a yellow post it instructing me to Enjoy! 

I’m on three nights and a favourite patient of mine passed away last night, so the treat was welcomed warmly.

Indian food for breakfast

What larks Pip! 

 

Katherine Priddy - A Boat on the River

The last lines of this song have a resonance  

“ All that I want is to live slow and easy

One day at a time is enough speed to please me
A dog by the door and someone to sing me to sleep”

Enjoy

Who would you call in those last 18 minutes?

 

Kathryn Bigalow’s nuclear war thriller is a clever piece of filmmaking 

Seen in six or so 18 minute set pieces each portraying the same time line from different perspectives . We watch the US response to the arrival of a single nuclear missile heading towards Chicago from an unknown source. 

Each official response and episode is muddled and unsure. Military Chief (Tracy Letts ) is gung ho and war proactive whilst young Defence advisor Jake ( Gabriel Brasso) is cautious and hopeful. Analyst Olivia ( Rebecca Ferguson) rings her husband in order to save him and their baby and Chief of Defence Baker (Jared Harris) whose daughter is in Chicago, rings her for one last contact before horrifyingly killing himself ( the most shocking scene in the movie)  

Finally we follow the enigmatic President ( Idris Elber) who is away from the drama in an Airforce one helicopter , it is his final scenes of indecision and horror which are the most sobering , as he has the final say on the military response with what it would seem the least preparation and objectiveness of anyone.

It’s a cracking film with all the tension of new bra strap but I must also add a mention to Bigalow’s clever use of recorded  sound here. Not until the last reel do we actually see Elber as the President , we only hear him indistinctly through the failing PA system, and I must admit his way of speaking reminded me directly of Trump and his directness. Bigalow subtly reminds the audience that Elber could indeed in reality be Trump with that last desperate decision , his alone to take.

Like the lessons we learned from 9/11, the thrust of the drama is whose do you want to talk to or be with in those final moments. The mobile phone is centre stage here. Little nuggets of gold that are able to link loved ones in such terrible times. 

We all have the urge to say 

I love you 

When faced with disaster..those last few minutes? 

I wonder who I would contact? To reach out to ?

If I was honest? 

I think I would ring my sisters and Nu of course

And I’d text a few close friends 

Hey ho

Who would you ring/ message in those last 18 minutes? 

Chess

The storyhouse in Chester, pleases me

It always did even when it was a cinema back in the early 1980s

Minutes after I had plonked myself down with a flat white, a friendly Dutchman asked if I would like to play chess with him which I proceeded to do rather badly. 

My adversary proved to be a rather amiable mature student in Chester University who enjoyed the chat rather than the game, itself. 

He still beat me after only 20 minutes, but flattered me by saying that he’d heard that most Welshman didn’t have a sense of humour, a trait contradicted by my giggling efforts in pronouncing schaakspel the dutch word for chess.

Im watching the movie A House Of Dynamite soon

WTF?

 It’s a hundred yards to Trendy Carol’s

Shes been going to a gym recently and looks gorg and svelte in pants reminiscent of Emma Peel’s from The Avengers. 

The dogs and I stopped to talk last night only to see Bun standing outside the cottage mewing loudly at us with some attitude and bad temper

“Bloody Hell is that yours?” Trendy Carol sung out and we both watched with interest as Bun bellowed out a shrill call of “ Fucking well come home” again

She’s been doing it a lot at the moment , a behaviour I can’t quite understand 

We hurried home and Bun danced in a circle for a second or two before storming into the cottage where she then ignored us all.

What’s that all about? 

I’m more a dog person than a cat, and Albert was such a simple soul, compared to these two personality challenged individuals.

Has anyone else seen this kind of behaviour?

Jumpers

 I’m not a saint. 

Far from it. But then you all know this fact, some more than others, I dare say.

I have been reminded of my lack of sartorial elegance by this morning’s annual troll through the jumpers initiative. 

It’s autumn and the jumpers and cardigans have been released from their shelves again, but this time it’s for my counselling day, where I need to look suitably professional but relaxed enough to trust. 

Finding a suitable jumper without the obligatory food stains down the front has proved to be a difficult task.

I’m annoyed by my own slutty behaviour! 

For even after washing several still have the ghosts of gravy and soup once enjoyed !

Eventually I found a rather nice blue arran, but alas, this had a doggy rip in the sleeve so I eventually settled for a Scandinavian number in blue

Bette Midler - Wind Beneath My Wings - Yankee Stadium 2001, a short Essay about bravery

The highlight of one of many trips to New York I’ve made was watching Bette Middler perform her one woman show at Radio City.

She was a typhoon of an act, funny, strong , exhausting, and genuine 

Her smiling and brave performance at the 9/11 memorial is a tour de force of smiling bravely . 

Watch her singing in video. 

No self pity 

No emotional romping

She grabs the song’s importance by the scruff of the neck and delivers it with the broadest of smiles

It’s the bravest performance I’ve ever seen. 

And it galvanised a nation and part of the world.

I see such bravery every day. 

The daughter of a patient who refuses to back down in her advocacy 

The friend who is facing cancer again who shoots out with a sassy comment with steel blue teary eyes

Another friend who sees their spouse fading, raising their chin to all observers 

A lonely person who joins a village group without self pity,

An old Welsh terrier, refusing to bow to semi blindness

Mr Posňan walking all the way to the village hall to check the building works despite the pain in his hips

A villager who has endured 100 eye injections without ever complaining to the internet audience

We all see such bravery every day

That urge and need to set one foot in front of another

To march on

Village Productions Present……..

This is the logo for our “ Village Production Presents “ team 

Things are moving along quite nicely for our premier production   

 

HBA1c

 I saw my practice nurse today, she’s my diabetic go to, and she is a bright sort of gal my own age.

My sugar levels are 42 ( down from 119) and are normal

She seemed more pleased than I was. 

She told me to lose more weight and to move quicker and then I will taken off my medication

I asked her if I could have a pair of new knees

She told me to dangle a carrot in front of me 

I may dangle a photo of king Filipe 

That may help

In a burst of energy I scrubbed the kitchen cabinet doors with cleaner after the consultation…..Roger has a terrible habit of rubbing his bum on them which is just as revolting as it sounds.  Village Elder Islwyn stopped to greet him , when I was scrubbing, and I could hear him chatter to Roge over the kitchen wall.

Mary only gets up if she hears a female voice.

Men tend to bore her.

It’s the village show meeting tonight at 6pm 

Tomorrow I’m meeting  Chic Eleanor for breakfast 

Yesterday I saw the Leonardo Di Caprio movie One Battle After Another. I liked it but it’s so complicated I can’t be arsed giving it a review. 

It was warm and sunny today after storm AMY, but tonight it feels autumnal 

Mary as a girl

 The autumn of 2018 wasn’t a happy time for me  but Facebook did remind me of one lovely memory 

Me and Mary looking at the view across the valley from the top of the Gop

It was cold and I had wrapped her in my jacket

They break your heart don’t they just?

Siegfried, Patricia Routledge, and thoughts about a lost dog and the Sound Of Music

 My first crush in literature was the vet Siegfried Farnon, the rather strict older brother of Tristan and boss of James Herriot. To me he wasn’t the bad tempered, somewhat old character played by Robert Hardy in the tv series but a late thirtyish batchelor with the weight of the world on his shoulders. 

Even then I had an empathy for him.

In the recent tv series , Siegfried is played quite wonderfully by Samuel West and boy have I been transported back to my teenage crush years , I can just see Samuel with a hole in his jumper.

The next video is a heartbreaker

A young dog went missing for a week and her distraught owners finally located her with a collection of wonderful strangers who sent drones up to find the frightened animal. 

The reunion is wonderfully uplifting 

Two days ago I watched the Sound Of Music for the first time as an adult. Most of the story I had forgotten, ( I was 6 or 7 when my mother took me and my sister Janet ) but I do remember that the film was overlong and I was bored.

As a 63 year old, who was overstimulated by a child by the LP  continually played by sister Ann, I had an open mind , but I really loved it . 

Julie Andrews was a revelation, she really dominated every scene she was in and only once was she out shadowed and that was when Mother Superior Peggy Wood belted out Climb Every Mountain from the shadows of her office. 

The children were delightful, Eleanor Parker proved to be a suitable sort of baddie, and the nuns knowing smiles made the movie for me .

It was gayer than any gay I have ever known 

Wonderful 

And lastly my other hero Patricia Routledge has died in her 90s . I first loved her as Victoria Wood’s Kitty in the 1980s but she has always been a firm favourite with middle England for her real life portrayal of a British spinster. Her performance of a sad, inconsequential character in Alan Bennett’s A Woman Of No Importance , broke your heart in its pathos and proved that the old gal was not only a talented comedian but an actress of worth

And finally storm Amy is almost over, we have been left with blustery winds still but the sunshine is back this morning and Bun and Weaver have gone back outside for the first time in two days