Going Gently

Dog Fights

Constance: Wet and unbowed

Terriers and I have something in common........we never let anything lie...

Today that irritating tenacity rebounded on Welsh terrier Meg somewhat after she got all too excited chasing squirrels in my brother's garden.

We had gone up today rather than my more usual Thursday because my sister in law needed to run a few errands, as just as I was in the middle of my second cup of coffee in the day the sounds of yapping echoed around the garden.

I watched as Meg flew one way and another after a two squirrels who had crossed the garden to stuff their faces on the contents of the bid table. She was frustrated and angry and as she bounced past Constance who was watching the action with benign apathy she snapped at her in frustration

Not a good idea!

Bitches, unlike dogs have a tendency to hold grudges and will fly at each other when provoked, and the one snap was all it took for a full scale dog fight to start.

Of course Constance always had the upper hand, weighing in at 25 kilos she quite easily could have floored Hattie Jacques let alone a 10 kilo Welsh terrier bitch, so knowing the Meg would not back down even though she would be literally crushed flat by Constance, I hurried outside, picked up a handy bucket of water I had used to water them earlier and doused both bitches thoroughly which did the trick

Constance withdrew to a sunny spot hyperventilating and sulking at the indignity of the soaking whilst Meg had to dragged away with a kind of " leave it...she's not worth it" kind of struggle usually seen on somewhere like Jeremy Kyle.

Constance was bloody but with as it turned out Meg's blood as the terrier had almost lost a canine tooth in the fight.....I am typing this waiting for Pat,Andrew's mother in a law to come back from the vets....she kindly agreed to take her down to her practice in Denbigh as I couldn't leave my brother .......

sigh,

Why can't bitches flight like a couple of girly girls in the movies eh?

A tiny bit of hair pulling..a brief slap and lots of tears before bedtime

I have posted this charming young lady fight for Tom and Chris...thought that their red blooded hetero natures would enjoy the spectacle

Post Night shift

Stanley marching past the laptop

Does anyone remember lessons on the playing field?
It never happened very often, but very, very occasionally a "maverick" teacher would up sticks from the drudgery of SRA cards ( does anyone remember those?) and lead her class of senior 4 infants to the playing fields for a story in the sun.
Of course the girls would all make daisy chains and the boys would start thumping each other ( I can't remember if I actually did either?) but the change of routine was always something special.

This morning I am typing this on the field. Its gloriously warm and sunny and fresh....and I am enjoying being a human scarecrow during the time it takes for my water butts to be filled by next door,s outside tap...The crows have been eating the animal feed, and have taken over as number one Trelawnyd pest, so as I scare them away still dressed in my uniform pants!, I am sat in the lovely sunshine recreating that sense of outdoor teaching I recall from being a ten year old.

The Churchyard from the South Wall

I don't feel morbid this morning, just thoughtful and a little tired as part of my shift had been taken up with discussions with a patient about death. This subject dovetails into my post from Saturday...and for a few minutes this morning it is good to sit with the field animals who only know how to live and get on with the daily activities a peanut sized brain tells them to get on with...the quiet pace of their activity is very healing
As I sit, recharging from the night's events, a goose nibbling at my feet ,
it's nice to realise that you are very much alive and well

Goose attentions

No more Soddin' cake

My brother in law Tim, Sister Janet , Aunt Judy and me before the cake hungrey hordes from Prestatyn decended on the open day

I won't wax too lyrically about the second of the family open days organised to raise money for the Motor Neurone Association, I will leave that up to Janet on her blog site....suffice to say that well over a hundred people turned up in the sunshine to see Ann and Tim's garden and to stuff themselves with dozens of home made cakes.....

After a few hours of slicing victoria sponges and dropping scones onto plates...I quite happily could have not spied another piece of confectionary for a couple of years...... but the slog has been worth it....

I am knackered now......have just dropped some left over fairy cakes and quiche to the pigs ( who sucked up the egg and cheese filling with their eyes shut in blissful excitement!) and am now going to try to catch half an hours sleep before going to work on nights

"Cakes" as far as the eye could see

A Protocol for death

In hospital we now have a whole variety of "pathways" which outline a whole set of good practice steps which need to be followed to ensure the best medical and nursing care is given to our patients.
Today I had to implement the somewhat frightening sounding " end of life" pathway for the patient under my care, and I found it interesting to have to "tick a box" in a set of protocol statements to ensure ( or prove) that I was providing the appropriate care to a dying patient.
Now don't get me wrong, these pathways are excellent tools for ensuring standardised quality care, but a little piece of me balked ever so slightly as I made sure the small pamphlet boxes were ticked after every hour passed by on my 13 hour shift..

Dealing with the dying patient is a skill a nurse should learn to develop very early in their careers. It is often a challenging and sometimes very upsetting experience that can be hugely satisfying when it has been done well and with thought and care and I am passionate that junior staff are supported and mentored in a supportive but no nonsense way in order to be able to deal sensitively with this the ultimate aspect of good nursing care.

"Pathway literature" , like I said, can be useful but they are, in my mind, just a guide to good practice. Excellent practice is only given when the nurse uses, those subtle personal skills of warmth , intuition and appropriate psychological skills which make the difference. This is where feedback is vital. It is up to the senior nurse to reflect good practice and not only praise it but celebrate it when they see it in the clinical areas.
Unfortunately that doesn't always happen as much as I would like.....

Many years ago when I was a 21 year old nurse, I remember looking after a dying patient who had suffered from dementia for many years. He had no relatives, he had no friends, and I remember thinking that him dying alone, even though he had no idea of "self", was the most awful thing for anyone to go through.
As he was dying I remember taking my drink from the staff room on my break and I sat with him as he passed away in the corner of a large asylum dormitory. I was not making a point or showing off...I did so as it just felt right to me....and I remember to this day the words of a gruff charge nurse called Johnny Crimes as I left duty for the day. He said without any fuss " that was a good job today John!"
His acknowledgement of my work meant more to me than anything else...it taught me to accept and to follow my instincts...
that sort of comment is worth more than any protocol
It gives one a sense of validation

"Save The Pig....Name The Pig"

CJ is a real sweetheart. He/she needs a daily dose of garden time, when I take him out for a graze, a walk and a bit of "daddy" time.
Badger cannot quite deal with this daily separation and will chirp and cluck like a adolescent boyfriend who has just split up with his first girlfriend until peace is restored and the gosling is returned to the safety of the shed.
It is a cold miserable day today, so after outside jobs have been completed I am about to sit down to plan my Open Allotment Day which takes place on the 17th of July.
There is a great deal to do, and many lists to be made.
Volunteers for the day have been provisionally booked:- My Elder Sister Ann will be on the gate and raffle with Chris. twin sister Janet, friend Nigel and aunt Judy and her sister Bridget will be manning the tea tent

Last years cakes

Flower Show committee members Sylvia and Irene will be selling cakes , jams and homemade bread whilst publicizing the Flower Show in their own tent and friends Chris and daughter Helen will be running the bric-a-brac stall as well as overseeing the "Save the Pig and name the pig" competition.....

"Save the pig and name the pig"...will be a sort of raffle, where the general public will be asked to offer names for no 21 (for a small fee).....The best name will be given a prize and a certificate stating that by naming number 21 officially, they have saved her from being eaten!
How's that for emotional blackmail?

I have a chap who is running a flower and vegetable stall and hopefully one of the neighbours will be selling her own ice cream on the day (let's hope it's a nice day!)

I have printed up most of my Trelawnyd History blog so that we can set up a small exhibition of all of the stories and I am inviting local people to advertise their own businesses and initiatives on another stall (such as the new shop which is being set up in The Crown) and Hefin's quality hen enterprise (he's the chap I got some of my wonderful buffs from)........I thought it was a good idea

So all I need to do is to make a load of lists,organise all the housekeeping issues, flyer the whole village, collect the gazebos,tables and chairs and conscript a whole army of people into baking me cakes or donating a raffle prize....
so if there are any locals reading this....beware I shall be asking for some help very soon

Blog Boosts

Yesterday I caught up with Iola Endres.

Her father had owned the village shop (siop Ganol) from 1929 to 1969, after which she and her husband ran it until the mid 1980s and interviewing her, I knew would be a real boost to My Trelawnyd History blog.

She proved to be a mine of information and resources and gave me a whole file of information to sift through, which included old photographs of the village and an ancient newspaper article out of the The Welsh Coast Pioneer (which proclaimed itself as being the "best paper in North Wales") The article showed a hitherto unseen photograph of the chapel on Chapel street before its refurbishment and the newspaper clipping itself was dated around 1908

My favourite photograph must be however a small snapshot of a biplane which came down in the Gop fields around 1938. Iola is the baby who is being carried by Megan Lewis

At last a good Welsh film!!!

Think of Susan Townsend's Adrian Mole.....add to his character a bit of the wisecracking Ellen Page from Juno and sprinkle with the seriousness of say a young Donnie Darko and you will have the slightly depressive,fifteen year old character of Oliver Tate. (Craig Roberts), a self obsessed Welsh teen living an ordinary life in the 1986 South Wales based film Submarine
.
Oliver has two worries in his young life....the first is his wish to sleep with his emotionally distant girlfriend Jordana (Yasmin Paige ) a girl who likes to watch occasional bullying of the school saddos and the odd bout of setting fire to his leg hair and the second is the potential affair his repressed mother (Sally Hawkins ) may be embarking on with new age, spiritualist Graham (Paddy Considine).

Director and writer Richard Ayoade (From tv's Mighty Boosh) has playfully used every trick in the film genre cookbook ( French New Wave visuals/ wisecracking voice overs/ and even the red coat from Don't look Now) and has crafted a hugely funny ( I guffawed several times in the near empty cinema which is a rare, rare event I can tell you) and refreshingly entertaining coming of age movie which has people of my age bouncing down the bittersweet nostalgia route as it recalls the secretive painful times of puberty.

Craig Roberts is a real find, he plays the self pitying Oliver with a dead pan sadness of say Bud Cort in Harold and Maud....and carries the film with a huge amount of confidence for someone so young.
I absolutely loved it

Morning Update for Beatrice Fickle

Ok Mid Western Beatrice Fickle has been emailing again, I have been remiss and have not given her an update on the field population..so while I wait for the dog groomer to turn up here is a quick snapshot of this mornings going on......
I am being a giddy kipper later....I am off to the cinema for a matinee performance of the indi movie Submarine