You Have Mail

My hotmail email inbox had six messages in it this morning.

Six little lines

Five names that I knew

Six people that wanted me to know something.

There they were, silent and waiting.

Six messages.

One from a dear friend shared sad news of a family death.

The next was an upbeat message from the blind cockerel's previous owner seeking information on a much missed pet

and the next was a chatty story from a friend suffering from depression, that could not quite hide the mental pain in her heart, despite an effort to be upbeat and positive.

The fourth,was from a work colleague, excited at her imminent trip to New York (she emailed from the airport I think)....and the fifth was a business like news from a rural animal feed company offering cheap poultry wormer.

The sixth was some spam which had somehow made it into my inbox....it was marked " top secret" and was supposedly sent "from" someone called lawel Garba.....lawel was deleted away without a thought.

Six messages...four of note.

All sent within minutes of each other.......

It's a strange world.......

A Welsh Soap Opera

Now for those that thought the pretty Americans in the previous soap video were not quite to their taste, I thought you all would like to have a look at the one and only Welsh soap Opera "Pobol y Cwm" (People of the Valley)

Now here is a soap I could watch

Now I never as a rule watch any soaps.....too depressing, too silly, too boring...
But I could watch this silly froth from the US.....
sometimes all you need is a pretty face and a bad script

True Grit

The pigs have had a week's reprieve. The butcher's son couldn't pick them up and the "transport" that was going to fill in so to speak, never materialised, so after flagging down the red faced welsh farmer on the main road and enlisting his help, I have provisionally booked them in for next Tuesday.

It's been another gloomy wet day here and I feel it has been a bit of a waste hanging around for phonecalls and the like, however in between the showers, I have spent a little time getting to know Rooster Cogburn, the blind cockerel from Alton Towers.

He's a sweet natured lad, who is well used to being handled, and despite not really knowing me or my voice as yet , he sat carefully on my knee when I picked him up and stayed calm and still as I stroked his feathers and checked his eyes.

Eating and drinking for him seems not to be a major problem as I think he can just make out his bright green feeding bowl in his one barely functioning eye, however all it takes is a finger splashing the water in his water bowl or a rhythmic shake of his corn and his head is immediately down eager to find out what is available.

Putting Vinegar tits in with him was a bit of an inspiration, for he seems to love the company of another bird, and I have found it rather touching to watch him occasionally reaching out with his beak to comb through her feathers in a gentle gesture of contact

Yes he is useless, he has not even got enough meat on him to make 4 points on a weightwater's supper, but looking at him sitting still in his run, alert and careful I think that there is something quite valiant about him and his gentle ability to keep going

Laurel & Hardy

When I took the dogs on their afternoon walk we passed a couple of guys unloading a trailer in the village....
The men were making a real bloody hash of the work and even the terriers sat there half amused by their antics as they dropped box after box...
"You two remind me of Laurel and Hardy" I chirped up when the younger guy dropped yet another package and I had had to smile when the other guy asked "who the bloody hell are they?"
Bloody Heathens.........

Baby Steps

When we, the nurses arrive at work, we line up at the nurses' station waiting to be allocated to a patient for the shift by the nurse in charge. The whole routine smacks of those long distant school days when we lined up waiting to be picked for the games teams, and last night, after handover I sort of just knew which patient I was going to be working with.

I was paired with a very poorly patient who was dying. Unconscious and sedated, the man was fading fast and I had to take a deep breath when I saw him with his wife and his son at his bedside as he could have been my brother albeit a slightly older version of him.

It had to come, I suppose, and it had to be coped with.

Luckily there was a lot to do, a lot to get busy with, and as I "got on with things" a warm natured Irish nurse who was going off duty  stopped briefly and reached over and squeezed my arm as I was introducing myself to the family..

She didn't say anything, she didn't have to.

Her touch was enough.

With it, she said clearly and with feeling " it's tough for you and I recognise that it is"

and do you know..... it helped.

The patient died not long into the shift.

... I think I looked after him and his family ok

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btw

Weight watchers weigh in this morning weight 15 stone 2 lbs

                                                          weight loss this week 2lbs

                                                          Total weight loss since 2nd Jan 12 lbs

Exciting Days

I went to bed for a few hours yesterday afternoon in preparation for a Saturday night shift only to be woken up by a rather irate Chris informing me that I was in fact due to work this evening instead!

Humm a siesta in the afternoon.....proved to be an unexpected treat.

This morning,before my little snooze this afternoon,we took George up on the millennium trail above the village to see the observation cairn that was erected in 2003. ( I had never bothered to go and see it before)

I was impressed with the view of the village and will go up there again to take some photos when I have time as there is a lovely view of the village from up there , all huddled away out of the wind in the shelter of Gop Hill.

The dovecot at Gop farm on the millennium trail

I have no real news today, the walk was bracing, the coffee and cake afterwards very welcome and I am about to have 40 winks before night shift tonight!...

This on line diary is knicker wetting in it's excitement!!!....

Iron Lady

There is a scene in the film The Iron Lady

where the Conservative party spin doctors give Maggie Thatcher's budding Prime Minister a style make over in order to boost her popularity amongst the electorate and her party. What they should have employed even then, was a budding actress called Meryl Steep, for it is her performance in this story of Lady Thatcher's Journey through dementia, that gives the former Prime Minister, substance, heart, a certain likability and indeed soul.
She would have made a cracking style guru!

It is clearly one of Streep's best performances to date.

The story outlines Thatcher's twilight years, where the fading Maggie is virtually under house arrest with only the ghost of husband Denis ( a fabulous Jim Broadbent) for company. Through flashbacks, the increasing confused Thatcher surveys her political career from its early days in her Grantham Grocers shop to her resignation from number 10, and in between we touch upon the Miner's strike, The Falklands Conflict and even Thatcher's famous waltz with President Reagan

However, for me, those parts of the film proved to be far less interesting than the film's real message, and that is the heartbreaking and dreadfully moving story of a woman dealing with grief and coping with dementia, and it is in this portrayal that Streep is so good. She gives her character a cunning, guile, balancing out Thatcher's vagueness with flashes of clever confabulation and steely resolve. (The scene when Thatcher outwits her patronising psychiatrist  is a real stand out)....it is a lovely,intelligent and impressive Oscar worthy performance

8/10

Off to work tonight.....
BTW I have placed Rooster Cogburn   in his own run with ( of all hens ) Vinegar Tits, who has been a bit under the weather recently....... when I last checked on them both were sharing a bowl of corn! ( cue smiles all round)