Maddie 2003-2010

Chris finally got to Prestatyn at 11am. I took him home and he promptly went to bed. With Sorrel coming tomorrow for a visit, I got on with sorting the cottage out and bought in a few items that she needed. I also picked up Maddie's headstone from the engravers and placed it carefully onto her grave, which is located next to my first allotment on the field.
Surrounded by the hens , geese and one of the serious looking turkey hens, I took a moment to sit next to the simple headstone and remember our loyal, grumpy old Scottie who was so much part of our lives since 2003.
With Winnie nibbling gently at my wellingtons, and with a light rain starting to fall, I shed a few all-too-late tears for a dog that had dug herself so gently into my heart

A night alone

I had to laugh at the pithy comment on show at the Pope's recent visit to the UK (above)I have been trolling the news websites this evening as Chris has been stranded up in Glasgow due to an unexpected cancellation of his flight but there is only so much you can flick through on a tiny netbook when your your eye sight is failing ( I need an eye test! another sign ( with my exercise intolerant flatulence)that I am getting older!)

Anyhow without Chris here, I have resorted to "single man" ish lifestyle evening! I have eaten fish finger sandwiches in my underpants, had a long gossipy telephone conversation with Nuala and am now just about to watch The Poseidon Adventure with the volume full blast

Bliss

Edith Marimbirie

I worked night shift last Saturday night.
A member of staff on his break was reading one of those cheapo, nasty newspaper comics and had noticed a somewhat excitable story of a woman who had fallen head first from a lap dancing pole and had broken her neck. The unfortunate woman had been paralysed and permanently ventilated and the staff nurse only showed me the clipping as he noticed that she had been admitted to my old unit in Sheffield.
Our conversation widened around my previous workplace and we ambled through discussions about routine differences, managerial styles and staff make up.
In Sheffield our staffing was generally more eclectic than it is in North Wales. There was ,as usual a smattering of local born and bred Yorkshire nurses (untrained support workers made up the largest number of Sheffield born staff) but as it is common with a large city teaching hospital, most of the other trained staff members hailed from all over the UK and from other countries such as a the Philippines and Southern Africa.
Apart from a knot of Filipino staff nurses here in Wales, most of the staff I work alongside of are locals and I must admit that I do miss that eclectic mix of ideas,perceptions and experiences that come from a multicultural staff mix.
And I do miss working alongside the African nurses in particular.
Formal, polite and unhurried, they gave to a sometimes exhausting and frenetic ward the sense of order and calm. Sometimes this very calmness of nature could by some be viewed as being somewhat laisser -faire, but I loved their unflappability and warmth .
Of all of my previous staff one nurse in particular sticks in my memory. Edith Marimbirie was a senior nurse midwife supervisor in Zimbabwe and left her country after the gorvernment had destroyed most of the healthcare, economy and educational infrastructure.
In the UK she accepted a job as a junior nurse on our Spinal Unit despite being grossly over qualified for the position and I remember well interviewing her for the job as she had a warmth and a dignity that was striking.
Edith was well loved and respected by her colleagues,had a sing-song voice that was always laughing and made a point of holding your hand when she spoke to you; she never raised her voice, had an ample motherly bosom and walked by swinging her arms from left to right and even five years down the line from working with her, I still wonder just what she is doing now. ( These blog thoughts have been prompted by Eric's post on losing a trusted member of staff from his cafe-
http://mountainrambler.blogspot.com/
funny where your mind leads you eh?

Update for Linda

Linda from Farm daze emailed me yesterday asking me for a video update on the ghosts....and what a difference a few months have made to these fat old girls. Apologies for the commentary....it was a little blustery last night but I think you will get a flavour of their benign characters

...One girl (against everything I have read about battery eating hens) laid her first egg this morning, so I do not feel that guilty at not eating these sweet birds.

Mind you I have kept the fact that I have not eaten the ghosts carefully from the Red Faced Welsh Farmer, you may remember that he obtained them for me many months ago now......he would see my sentimentality as rather cloying

Mad As A Box Of Frogs

The second video is an update for Dan....His ducklings are doing very well indeed...........buxom, healthy and bloody girly!

Tea, cakes and drugs

I was looking forward to a rainy afternoon in front of a good movie. After an hour's sleep I drove down to the video shop in Prestatyn, picked out a movie and then walked the dogs.

When I go home Chris was waving frantically by the back door! "what now" I thought to myself, before he informed me that some very distant cousins of his, were stopping by on a flying visit.

There is nothing worse that trying to get your house in order without warning....we've all done it....and it is exhausting....I broke the speed limit and shot up to the garage shop for sickly cakes and posh biscuits ( they didn't sell napkins!!!) whist Chris ran amok with a toilet brush and the hoover! One or two squirts with an air freshener and a flick round with a duster and I was almost ready for small talk, tea making and being "the hostess with the mostess"......not easy when you look like a bus had run over your face eh?

The couple stayed part of the afternoon. William got frantically excited over their Yorkshire Terrier ( he had never seen a dog the size of a peanut before!) and he promptly peed all over the floorboards in the bedroom (I dare not think if any pee slipped in between the gaps in the ancient floorboards)....but the tea was all drunk and the cake eaten and everyone seemed happy enough.

Last night was a busy shift....and I actually learnt something new and potentially rather shocking about the "fight against drug crime" here along the North Wales Coast..........I know that addicts that are addicted to heroin can be treated with the likes of methadone, but I learnt that users that inject narcotics can and are being offered Naloxone injections in case of "accidental" opiate overdose. Naloxone counteracts the effects of say heroin over dosage and is used regularly within health care settings.......its usage by the drug users themselves raised an interesting ethical debate amongst the nurses on duty last night........ I will give the subject some more thought when I am more awake..but the whole policy does leave a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth

Saturday Thoughts

When I discuss village life on this forum, I try very hard NOT to make the place sound saccharine and unreal.........Words sometimes can belie your true meaning of a situation....and I know I can sound a little “Pollyanna-ish” on occasion, but that is not my intention I can assure you.
Today I am remembering those small actions of thoughtfulness that occur when your life rubs alongside that of others in a small community. This week I was presented with a large bunch of dahlias from a neighbour after I made an off the cuff remark about how stunning they were waving in the back of her garden and a couple of days before that we were given a lovely apple pie by a lady who I had given some fruit to at the allotment open.( funnily enough she made a point for me not to mention her name on the “blog”)
Yesterday an elderly couple made the effort to call around to give me a teaching session on how to re design the back garden flower beds (I have a tendency to over-plant Everything) and I have not even started to describe the flurry of little packages of stale bread, pasta, old fruit for Boris and plastic bags full of egg cartons that are left with regularity on the cottage wall without ceremony.
There is one main reason why these small kindnesses occur ( apart from me being a lovely person tee hee) and that is time. I luckily have the time in this modern, rushed and frenetic world to interact with people within the village, and that others that work full time, just do not have the opportunity to do what I have the privilege to do.
Ok, I will also concede that I do make the effort with people also... and small kindnesses on my part, do go a long way........but generally I have learnt that a change from the modern hysteria of "getting things done" has opened up the positives of social interaction and barter.

I am working nights tonight and with the stupid change of when weekdays start at work ( they now start on a Sunday) I will be working all of next weekend...so today we will perhaps go out for lunch.

I harvested my artichokes yesterday which I steamed for a starter last night, and they were lovely! Artichokes for tea....very grown up!

The news is full of the Pope's visit......and although I am pretty ambivalent about him in general, I do hope that he has a positive visit.... The Vatican's vocal and outdated views on homosexuality leaves me absolutely cold and means that I effectively have turned my back on what else the Roman Catholic Church has to say.. To me Pope Benedict has experienced all of the problems that Kate Winslet faces with her reinvention of Joan Crawford's much loved role of Mildred Pierce.... he has stepped into the Papal slippers of the saintly and humble Pope John Paul........and to many he will always resemble a poor second.

I wonder what PR staff the Vatican employs?

ps. A lady left me a huge bunch of quail eggs yesterday....20 are now in the incubator!!!

Notes at 3.20am

I have no trouble sleeping as a rule.
We. like most couples have our own routine, and it is a routine which has become fixed and unchanging over the years.
Chris likes to retire early and will read before sleep. He and George will creep off to bed together, a treat which George absolutely loves, and the cottage is always filled with the scottie calls of "arrrrwwwwoooooo" when George rubs himself excitedly over the duvet and eiderdown when he has Chris' attention all to himself.

The Welsh terriers remain with me downstairs, and unfortunately both have now gotten into the habit of clambering onto the bed in the wee small hours after I retire , a thing which creates some logistical problems when you want to turn over,or even go to the toilet in the middle of the night.
Last night I was forced awake by some rather nasty breath wafting into my face. It was Meg looking earnestly right at me. As usual she had climbed onto the bed, commando style and had assumed her usual position effectively separating me from Chris. Now for those that don't know, Meg has a hero fixation on me, she cannot be out of my sight for the shortest of times ( and will even follow me to the toilet) , a habit which can be a little cloying at times.
Now I usually cope with this infatuation very well, but I must say that before last night's bed reunion she had been indulging herself in her one and only nasty habit! she had been eating her own poo!
It was all a little too much..this poo breath! , so I squeezed myself from under the duvet William, George AND Albert and sneaked downstairs to make myself a cup of tea. It was 3.20 am.
Now, I don't usually have the luxury of sitting in silence with nothing really to do in the middle of the night, and I found it a rather interesting experience.
All houses have a sound, and an atmosphere of their own at night. Unlike our old Victorian terrace in Sheffield, the cottage does not creak and groan when it settles down in the early morning. The only noises that you can make out here is the howl of the wind around the eaves, the faint buzz of the fridge in the kitchen and the very faint "pad,pad, pad" from Albert as he stalks back and forth from Kitchen to bedroom the rest of the time...there is silence.
Your mind can wander at these times and I got to thinking about all of the previous owners that preceded us since the cottage was first built in the late 1700s. Who were they? what did they do for a living? and were they happy?
The cottage , years ago had a tiny byre for a couple of cows and a pig sty located in front of the orchard; at another time it was thought to be some sort of tiny tavern and at another period had some connection to the Church way back in the far and dim distant past: I resolved myself, this morning, to find out all I can about the cottage's previous tenants and owners and to document all I can about the history of the place.
Anyhow, Meg with her toilet breath and her sad needy eyes finally joined me in the living room and we trouped back to bed to face the gauntlet of bodies on the duvet yet again. It was well past 4am when the whistling of the wind lulled me to sleep