The Darker Side of Christmas

This week I listened to a harrowing yet fascinating LBC phone in with the very talented Petrie Hosken , it centred around domestic abuse, which seems often to be heightened at Christmas time (see this BBC news article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8379798.stm)

Petrie is a warm, talented and assertive journalist, yet by her own admission she was subjected to a subtle, consistently controlling and quietly effective set of abusive behaviours by a previous partner that totally changed her life. Petrie's recollections created a tidal wave of personal stories and experiences from the station listeners and I was reminded of a time, long ago, when I was on the receiving end of a partner's abusive tongue.

The thing that you lose when you are with a controlling and angry partner is perspective. You are unable to see the wood for the trees, and over time, every little thing that makes you unhappy suddenly becomes the norm. Even though the "abuse" I experienced was not physical in nature ( although it did come to blows on one occasion I am ashamed to say), I was bullied dreadfully and I only had the courage to leave the control after two friends made their own individual interventions!

One friend John, overheard a particularly cruel and upsetting scene one night and the look of pain on his face the next day galvanised my resolve to finish what I had worked so hard to fix and accept. Finally I saw my relationship through his eyes, and it hurt!...and that was the vital steppingstone that helped me so much in letting go.

Nuala, reinforced this decision by stating simply in her own matter-of -fact way "if things are too hard, then why do them?"....and so my perspective returned alongside my self esteem and I moved on.

Last Christmas, 70 people A DAY! rang the Wales Domestic Abuse Helpline and I thought it was prudent for the agency to concentrate this years campaign on early subtle signs of abusive behaviour rather than just to give advice of what to do when this get unbearable. I just hope that the initiative helps!

In the end, Petrie Hoskin mirrored my own words today as I discussed all this with Chris....she said that in retrospect that she couldn't quite believe it had all happened.........she, like me learnt from the experience.....and both of us have never suffered the insidious, negative and damaging effects of an abusive relationship since!

We are the fortunate ones

I Am sooooo interesting....Not!

Randy from Chicken Boys forwarded this questionnaire for me to complete: so here goes
1. Name someone with the same birthday as me. My friend Nigel, Maddie (our Scottish terrier), Alanis Morissette, Morgan Freeman,Marilyn Monroe.......
2. where was your first kiss? in my imagination!
3. Have you ever seriously vandalized someone else's property? I tried to hit some tiling below a window of a bungalow with a stone when I was around 9, and got bollocked by the house owner.
4. Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex? No Never.
5. Have ever sung in front of a large number of people? No but I would love to do a Susan Boyle and do it properly.
6. What's the first thing you notice about your preferred sex? Nice Smile,
7. What really turns you off? arrogance and piercings of any sort
8. What do you order at Starbucks? do we have them in Wales? I just thought we had frothy coffee?
9. What is your biggest mistake? My previous partner!!!! never go out with a closset gay with anger issues!
10. Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose? all the time! I am so ham fisted!!.
11. Say something totally random about yourself. Bossy yet kind.
12. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity? A man recovering from a liver operation once stated I looked like the fat Russian Jeremy Spaight from Airport!
13. Do you still watch kiddie movies or TV shows? no......generally not!
14. Did you have braces? Red ones in 1980(!!!).
15. Are you comfortable with your height? It is a case of having to be.
16. What is the most romantic thing someone of the preferred sex has done for you? Chris took me on impulse to lunch at the Russian Tearooms in New York
17. When do you know it's love? When you pick up fragrant underpants in a morning!
18. Do you speak any other languages? Dog!.
19. Have you ever been to tanning salon? nope
20. Have you ever ridden in a Limo? yes a couple of times in New York from Aiport to the city- all very flash...wouldn't do it now..we just get a cab!.
21. What's something that really annoys you? Mother and baby parking spaces!.
22. What's something you really like? Being outdoors.
23. Can you dance? No, My mother always said that I dance like someone with learning difficulties (that is the polite version)
24. Have you ever been rushed by an ambulance into the emergency ? Yes once I was visiting a patient in the community when I was a psychiatric nurse and he had a heart attack at home, I helped doing CPR in the ambulance...the poor chap died!
25. What is your favorite breakfast food? Eggs Benedict

Ghosts of Christmas Past

The cold crisp weather has lifted my spirits and galvanised my Christmas juices. I received some pressies from Nia in Australia and from Nu this morning and the first "plop" of Christmas cards on the mat has meant that I can now start to hang the cards on their strings in the living room.
The fairy lights have been set up (much to the surprise of George) and Nige would be proud of my now re decorated pile of gifts (in the Laura Ashley style) sat carefully next to the fire.
The scene is set!

I am very lucky, as I have only experienced one awful Christmas in my 47 years on the planet.
That was many years ago and I was working just before and just after Christmas day in Sheffield. I had just split up from a former and rather abusive boyfriend and had to face Christmas day on my own with a Marks & Spencer dinner for one and a great deal of self pity!
The day was more tragic than anything Anton Chekov could pen!
The other Christmas days have been lovely, and I recall that I have paid tribute to my mother on his blog before, for all the great times we experienced as children.
my mother pushed the boat out from December the 20th onwards. Tirelessly, she slaved over home made cakes and sweets, organised gifts, cards (with an almost computer precise special Christmas card "book") and of course over cooked the dinner for the entire family within an inch of its life. (The table was set out in the dining room the DAY before Christmas Eve)
She loved the season and it showed in the care and preparation she gave things, and that legacy has been handed down to me and I am sure to both of my sisters who prepare their houses like photo shoots from Home & Antiques!
Christmas time for some families can be a traumatic and unhappy time. My experiences have only been positive and warm.....

Here Comes The Sun

Finally the sun is here!. OK it has been one of the wintry, watery sunny days, but at least the sky has been blue, and the rain has kept away! The first time it has been fine for what seems like months!

I have spent the whole day outside, fixing up the coops, replacing bedding and tidying up the mess left by the torrential rain, and although the ground remains saturated, the lift in the sun's intensity has been mirrored by a lift in my (and strangely enough) the animals mood and behaviours. I took a few photos in between jobs The six remaining runners remain skittish and playful by their small pond in the stream,
Mary, my favourite bantam, looking rather serious as she watched me resiting the turkey poults

George Looking wistful

The poor "indoor" guinea fowl..still waiting to go in their outside run (I am still waiting for their shed to be delivered from Helen from the feed shop) I need to sex the babies and after researching the way on the internet, I was faced with the following challenge

"Listen the guinea's call. At 2 months of age and older, a guinea will emit either a one or two syllable call. The female emits a two syllable call, which, according to folklore sounds like "buck-wheat, buck-wheat." A male emits a one syllable call that sounds like "chit chit chit chit."
So for ages this morning I was trying to sort out the "chit chits" from the "buck wheats", but gave it up as a bad job..the weather was too nice to spend inside listening to 6 hysterical birds

Throne of Blood......and the death of Christmas nights out

I always enjoyed Akira Kurosawa's Shichinin no samurai (1954)-The Seven Samurai ,but have never seen his masterpiece re telling of Macbeth, the Hammer house of Horror sounding Throne of Blood! Hazel couldn't go at the last minute, so I went to Theatre Clwyd by myself, and was thoroughly disappointed with two hours of Toshirô Mifune looking angry and shouting a lot. Some of the cinematography was ok and I did enjoy the king's hail of arrows death at the end but that was about it. I am glad I made the effort to see it though 7/10
I caught up with my old friend Mike last night by phone. He is feeling his age a little as the trials and tribulations of a lovely pre school four year old seem to have taken their toll. Both of us had a brief moan about getting older, as, with a tinge of sadness, we realised that out Christmas night out marathons we used to experience back In Sheffield, have long since become extinct
Now, having said all that I have never really enjoyed the" Christmas Ward Night out" , most of them have been all too expensive with crappy food and too much drink, but the whole "trailer trash" feel of them, was in fact part of the enjoyment of the whole event.
Strangely enough, I met Hazel, one of my two close friends from Wales, at a Christmas ward night out, after I heard her loudly stating rather snobbishly that she "didn't do Party hats and certainly wouldn't pull a paper cracker!". Her distaste of the more irritating work do traditions actually cemented our friendship!
Anyhow, I digress.
Mike and I had a reminisce about our past lives....his pre baby...mine, pre menagerie.....and even though we recognise that we have sort of "outgrown" these cheesy nights, both of us do miss having the opportunity to occassionally re live them!

Julie's Christmas Special - "Carol of the Bells"

Now the build up to Christmas is not complete for me until I have found a new version of "carol of the Bells" on YOU TUBE....this version is interesting on several levels...
1. The male voice choir featured actually Looks like a group of blue collar workers..... miners.....rough through and through!
2. Julie Andrew's dramatic nun-like entry is deliciously camp
3. The singing is first rate!
Enjoy!!!
Off to see Akira Kurosawa's "Kumonosu-jou" aka THRONE OF BLOOD tonight at Theatre Clwyd!

A "Jo March" kind of Christmas

This morning I realised that I have done bugger all in preparation for Christmas!!, Now this is a big thing for a middle aged, obsessional gay man to admit to, as it touches on neglectful behaviour that borders on the Joan Crawford! but at least the shame of it all has galvanised me into some prompt Yuletide action.
So after a brief trauma of escapee guinea fowl and pet cats ( more about this later) I organised the ingredients to make mince pies, stamped all of my non Welsh Christmas Cards, posted them with Jenny at the Post Office, dug out the Christmas decorations from under the bed, and then went Christmas shopping.
I am a whizz at Christmas shopping, I have a mental list of what I need to buy, and without distraction I go and buy them, it is swift, painless and as precise as an attack by an Exocet missile!

This year I am going for a Little Women type of Christmas wrapping paper.....yes all very American civil war....plain and classic.......Susan Sarandon would be proud as punch. (don't worry I know the gifts look a little austere...I will be decorating them tastefully with some pine cones!)- go on Nige....say something!

Now, back to the guinea fowl trauma. Just before I left with my gingham shopping basket there was a knock at the kitchen window. It turned out to be one of the ladies that took part on my last Chicken course, she had seen two baby guinea fowl sat on our garden wall and wondered if they were mine!

I couldn't believe it, I had left the shed door open for the chicks to get some air and two had somehow escaped their cage and had made a bid for freedom. Far too young to be left outside, as they were still poor flyers I galloped outside to find the two babies now walking nervously towards the main road.

The kind lady ( I couldn't remember her name!) got into the spirit of the chase and left her kids, sitting quietly in the back of her 4 x 4, to head the babies off at the pass, and like two demented dinosaurs we lumbered around the lane with the now completely hysterical chicks bouncing like ping pong balls off the Church wall in their effort to escape us.

It took an age to catch them, but catch them we did, and with her Laura Ashley pearls clinking merrily around her rather flushed face, the lady triumphantly brandished the final chick above her head and as she passed it over to me, we were interrupted by a very loud catty miaow and a bang! I couldn't quite believe it as Albert suddenly tumbled out of the bathroom window, and landed square in the centre of a large potted bamboo plant on the patio. The bamboo collapsed towards us and the yummy Mummy good Samaritan suddenly lost her middle class composure and shouted "What the fuck was that?" as Albert shot passed obviously uninjured....

Never a dull moment..

Where does the time go?

Gawd, it is almost 2010!
The older I get, the quicker the years seem to fly by, yet it is sobering to realise that Chris and I have been together for a decade now.
I know I don't wax too lyrically about Chris on the blog. In actual fact I am careful not to refer to him to excess as professionally he does not like to be splashed over the internet in a light which is not purely confined to Stroke research and his University life.
Yet, occasionally I think it is important to put flesh to his blog confined bones, as I am sure that an intermittent reader may be forgiven to think that he does not actually exist in my chicken filled, allotment obsessed country life.
I drive Chris potty from time to time; I am bossy, opinionated,slightly obsessional and very middle aged......he is forceful,opinionated, work obsessed and an intermittent smoker ( with the highs and oh so many lows that accompanies nicotine withdrawal). We banter constantly, fight occasionally and after a decade we both know that we are together for life.

All this self discussion was sparked off my a phone in on radio, I was listening to this morning as I was picking a stubborn tick from out of Gladys' ear. The discussion was centred around partnerships and was a humorous exploration of those "little things" that do your head in, when in relationships!

Chris cannot close a cupboard door after he has opened it, nor can he ever tidy up after himself. He is incredibly loud and "artistic" at times (think of Brian Blessed), sulks at the drop of a hat and has no idea of how to treat dogs on their own doggy levels, yet, of course, I wouldn't change him for anyone.
The glue the binds couples together is subtle and invisible for most of the time. Our own relationship ,to me it is neither a saccharine and sugar frosted partnership nor a partnership of necessity, it is, I know something deeper, more realistic, yet can be taken for granted, especially after ten years together.
My grandparents made nearly 60 years together, given our late start, my blood pressure (still down by the way), his stressful work life and our ages, it is unlikely that we will reach that milestone, but I suspect we will give it all a good go!

hey ho!