Telephone Etiquette

Our Phone: which actually  still works!

Hearing the phone ring at "odd" hours is always potentially fraught with anxiety and stress.
To me, a "chit-chat" phone call only happens between the perimeters of say 9.00am to 9.30pm....outside  those times phone calls are usually a sign that something is amiss.
This morning the phone rang three times  well before 8am.
To put it delicately, I was busy "in the loo!" so had to be content with checking the answer phone to find out just why someone would be ringing me at such an antisocial time.
Luckily there was no real "disaster" to deal with, just a somewhat garbled phone message from an elderly villager who needed a hand to sort out a computer problem, but the phone call got me to thinking about acceptable and unacceptable telephone etiquette in this, our age where everyone and his mother owns a mobile phone.
I have received my fair share of "out of hours" phone calls which heralded the death of a loved one and there is nothing quite as blood chilling as that "ringggggg- ringgggg....ringggggg-ringggggg" that jars you out of a peaceful sleep and makes you gallop downstairs with a heavy heart and a lump in your throat.


I have had to make numerous of these kind of phone calls in my time. Mostly at work to be sure, but to be honest I have had to make quite a few that have been much more personal, and none of them have ever been easy calls to make.
Nurses never have any training in this sort of thing...you just pick it up as you go along. But there are several rules with this sort of thing that haves to be adhered to.
The first is that by hook and by crook, you should avoid making the phone call in the first place. Relatives and next of kin should be aware, if at all possible that their loved one is deteriorating and that they should come to the hospital immediately. In many of these kind of cases the patient often dies before the relatives arrive, but at least the nurse can break the bad news face to face, where physical as well as psychological support can be given personally and hopefully with some sensitivity.
If you have to break bad news over the phone, the rule is that it has to be done carefully, briefly and most importantly CLEARLY, as relatives will only hear a couple of words that you actually say to them.
All they will hear is "Hospital.....I am very sorry..... and "has died" very little else will register, especially in the lonely darkness of 2am in the morning.
Perhaps my work experience has coloured just how I feel about "inappropriately timed" phone calls. 
So, if it is not an emergency please do not call me "out of hours"
... it's not rocket science!

Up in the night with a sexy nurse

I feel hungover this morning

Not that any alcohol was drunk last night....it wasn't

It is just the fact that I was woken up at 1.30am, again at 2.30am and didn't fall asleep until well after 4am

I feel jetlagged  and somewhat jaded.

and the reason for this, I hear you ask?

yes, it was my one and only black indian runner duck

Over the past month or so, several of the runners have gone missing on an evening. All have eventually returned after dark, only to be found quacking in hysterical circles outside their locked duckhouse in the wee small hours.

I suspect that the young and inexperienced females may have been sitting on eggs, only to be driven off them when the dark frightened them home.

The same thing, I suspected, happened to the black runner last night. as at dusk Halleh, the lone drake could be seen  standing nervously at the far border of the field looking out at the fields beyond as if he was searching for her.

But as the heavens opened and hens all trouped back to their damp hen houses, the black runner sadly never appeared.

I went out with a torch at 11pm, and again at 12 midnight, and still the duck failed to turn up, so I went to bed with the bedroom window open, just so I could listen out for any homecoming quacking in the middle of the night.

At 1.30 I was woken up and I was sure I heard the duck ( now I think I may have been dreaming)

so out I went in the torrential rain to search for her, but there was nothing to be heard or seen

I was up again soon after, and then was wide awake listening to the rain thundering on the cottage roof until 2.30 when I finally made a cup of tea and sat down to watch the French film "À Bout Portant"

Gilles Lellouche..... unlike most nurses I have ever met!

I would recommend A Bout Portant ( English title Point Blank) to anyone who is wide awake in the middle of a miserable night for it is a silly but entertaining thriller about a Parisian nurse Giles Lellouche ( who, by the way, has a pair of brooding Gallic eyes to die for) and his drastic attempts to save his wife from a gang of criminal kidnappers.

The film has lot's of  exhilarating chases, gunfights, and silly plot twists and turns to enjoy  and it's all a bit daft, but like I said, when you are up worrying about a lost duck during a storm, the film proved to be an ideal panacea to all the ills in the world.

Hey Ho

I had THE phone call the other day.

A tearful, slightly upset plea from a concerned bulldog owner

Could I rehome another lovable middle aged bulldog bitch who possessed her own set of problems that needed ironing out by someone with patience, some time and and a love of the breed.

I discussed it with Chris and have thought about it for an age, and today I rang the breeder back with my answer.

My answer was a reluctant  "no."

This evening I found myself telling fellow chicken keeper, Margaret the news as she walked her terriers past the field and she nodded in that understanding way only a dog owner could do

"I am glad you've said no", she said after a pause "Your heart is far too bruised"

and do you know what?....... she's right.

House Names

Dirty Clouds over the Gop Yesterday

The United States is stealing our weather...they are overly hot and dry...we are overly wet and damp. It's just not fair!

I have not been able to get my hands dirty on bosoms as yet this week and the weeds are high as an elephant's eye!.....oh for a bit of sun and clear skies.

The cottage smells of damp dog at the moment as yet again we got soaked on our morning walk..it's been a f*cking crap summer so far.

George, steaming gently

I walked the dogs in nearby Prestatyn this morning. I had gone down to drop a belated birthday card off for my sister, so she could get it when she arrives back off holiday later today. I left her some flowers on the door step too as a little morale booster, for right in the middle of her break in Spain, her on suite toilet spring a leak and soaked her newly decorated living room with devastating force.

A neighbour saw me leaving the flowers and looked so worried that I felt I needed to explain that no one had, in fact died !....
"Her bog has flooded the house" I called out in way of an explaination
They left looking just as worried!

My sister lives in an affluent leafy suburb....Built in the 1920s, the  houses are all surrounded by wide tree lined avenues and have the look of middle England at it's most peaceful. It's a nice place to walk, and it's a nice place to "house watch"...and to be honest, when it's pissing down with rain, it's a slightly cleaner place to walk the dogs!

Upper Prestatyn

 I have always found the names that people choose for their houses interesting. For an estate like the one I walked around this morning, there is no obvious need for the naming of the houses, for all the homes have clear numbers unlike most of the older houses here in Trelawnyd who have to have their own names to differentiate them from each other "postally". But name them, people do, and I must admit that I found the list of house names oddly fascinating.

Of course the old stalwarts of "The Willows", "Fairfields", "Kenwoods" and "Chatsworths" figured highly alongside of the more traditional Welsh names of  "Bryn Newydd" (New Hill) and "Bryn Teg" ( fine Hill) , but now and again a more "individual" name came into the mix

"Nellandy" might have been owned once by Nellie and Andrew...."Sea Whispers" must have a owner with a bit of a dramatic flair and I'll be buggered if I know just why "Gunther Place" was called "Gunther Place"

The motivation for naming such extensions of self, perhaps can tell a great deal about a person.

"The old Rectory"- which is just around the privet hedge from my Sister ( and which has never in it's life ever had a vicar near it) of course has delusions of grandeur

(see Telegraph cli[pping) while "The Haven" and "Sunnyside" provide a bit of optimism in this uncertain world... and I always liked the name of a house I once saw in Netheredge in Sheffield, as it was called "Witts End".......

My favourite house name comes from a novel and more famously from the filmed version of that novel.... the film is Mrs Miniver and the house name in  question is "STARLINGS"....that middle class haven of Englishness where Walter Pidgeon and Greer Garson won their own little parts of the war!

Starlings as English as bagels

Our Cottage is  Called Bwthyn-y-llan by the way..... which literally means Church Cottage......a little nicer than it's historic general name of Tan-y-fynwent (below the cemetery!)

What is your house name? I would be interested to know!
Funny what you think about when it's pissing down with rain!

Yellow Room!

 

For Those that may be interested in what Chris' new room looks like

Here is a sneak peek!

  

 

Is it all a bit much?

Ok he's a quick look

(The stately Home wallpaper has been left intact on the other wall!)

He's seen the photo and liked it!

Scones, Yellow Walls And A Despot's Big Up

Auntie Glad's infamous scones

The weather yesterday was truly atrocious. I ventured out only to look after the animals and to walk the dogs. Old Islwyn Thomas was the only villager I met when I was braving the rain in the morning....He cheerfully called out that he didn't think that we would have many entries for the flower show this year because of the wet.......apparently he says every year: a fact that Auntie Gladys  reminded me of a little later when I was summonsed by telephone to collect the scones she had promised would be ready in the early evening
The weather was getting Gladys down somewhat as she has reported with some frustration that she has only sold 100 ticket books for the Flower Show raffle since Friday because of the blustery conditions!.....
ONLY 100!
the woman is bloody 92 for god's sake!

Anyhow,I spent the entire  damp,day cleaning then painting the office, and below is a small taster of the "work in progress"

I will refrain from a "changing rooms" type reveal, until Chris returns home from Cambridge on Thursday (which is very restrained of me I think)

I think he should be the first to see his newly appointed  custard yellow office!

Jason

 

I will leave my "thoughts for the day" with a final big up for cheerful village despot Jason who is taking part in the three peaks challenge on the 7th of July in aid of the Cancer Unit at our local hospital.

His "Just Giving" page can be seen at http://www.justgiving.com/Jason-Randa0

He'll have legs like over stretched elastic bands when he's finished!

Good luck matey

A Room of One's Own

Erddig Hall

Old Joan

It has always tickled me that we have a spare room that is  wallpapered in the style of one of the most luxurious bedrooms from the National Trust Stately Home Erddig Hall
Our back bedroom/office is around 12 feet long and 6 wide, a fact that does not quite lend itself to the grand designs of a Regency house...but Chris always wanted an office with delusions of grandeur and so the "Blue Bedroom" which is located in what I now call "The East Wing" of the cottage, was born, 

Trelawnyd Towers, "The East Wing Blue Bedroom" back in 2006

Today, the bedroom looks like a typical academic's bolt hole. Papers cover every surface ( as does the dust) and the whole place looks tired,uninviting and all a bit sad, so given the fact that Chris is working away until Thursday, I am going to give the whole room a bit of a make over and a lick of paint
And what is the inspiration for this "new room"?
Hummmm. wait and see

Well I need a bit of a project!

The heavens have continued to open and it's too bloody wet to do much outside

Welcome July!

A Slippery Little Sucker

Last Night was a bitch of a shift,
Four admissions,one death, a staff at full stretch and at one slightly surreal moment, a broken sink tap and an unexpected flood.
As always, the predominantly Filipino staff soldiered on with good humour but by 8.30am after 13 hours on my feet I was ready to kick the shit out of the noisy monitor system without any hint of unprofessional irony.

George, being "quietly cheerful"

I had a 90 minute sleep covered in dogs when I got home then went out for a walk up the Gop then around the village where I bumped into the ever cheerful Sandra, who was out on her allotment.
"do you want an extra hen?" she called out as I passed "she's a good layer!"
"what's wrong with her?" I called back and Sandra explained that she was a constant escapee from her allotment hen house and an avid eater of young plants from not only her veg patch but from the vegetable plots from all her neighbours allotments
"she's a slippery little sucker" she laughed!
and so, remembering the film where the heroine uses a version of that line ..a new Rhone Island Red who has a passion for escapology will be arriving today. Her name? Vivian Ward....of course!
Now name that film?