Untouchable

Many years ago I remember being one of ten carers that accompanied a dozen or so spinally injured people to Switzerland to go skiing.

When I look back at the whole beer soaked experience,I do so with great affection for the entire seven days proved to be an hilarious adventure where severely "disabled" individuals learnt to push themselves to the limits and tight arsed nurses learnt to relax and care by the seat of their pants.

I remember one night in particular, when after a heavy day on the slopes, all the "wheelchairs" and their "pushers" joined forces in the bar for some serious apres skiing!

Amid much laughter and clapping, the 12 ex patients formed a line and with arms held aloft they belted out the Football and Carousel Musical anthem "You'll never Walk alone!" 

Of course they substituted the words with their own

so with great amusement to us the nurses, but with much astonishment and disgust to the other drinkers, the group sang out " We'll never walk again!"

Such is the humour of true rehabilitation.

Tonight I went to see the french comedy Untouchable.

I was a little unsure about seeing the film as I thought that the story of how poor wise cracking black guy (Omar Sy) brings joy to the life of rich and cultured quadriplegic (Francois Cluzet) could be somewhat cloying and saccharine to say the least, but as I watched this joyous "study" of friendship between two "odd couple" characters, all I was reminded of , was those hilarious, drunken days when we nurses and patients  forgot our roles and our inhibitions and enjoyed each other as silly drinkers, and warts-and-all friends

The film is a smart, charismatic and incredibly funny essay on the vital nature of friendship.

Friendship that is unconditional and, well, just as it should be.......fun!

The paralysis thing was just incidental

9/10

A Message To All Trelawnyd Customers

The hens are now laying again

The Queen Mary's Hooter

Perhaps it is my age
Perhaps it's a sudden allergy to the numerous bagels I down in a week.
But over the last seven days I have been suffering from what only can be described as feelings of acute bloating and a marked increase of gastric wind.
Yes a charming subject no doubt.
Now "making one's self comfortable" whilst facing a brisk South Westerly on the field, is a somewhat easy and strangely satisfying procedure.
ie. no one can hear you fart!
But last night, during a rather busy start to my work shift ( and after some hastily snatched home made spring rolls made by one of the Filipino staff nurses) I was seriously ready to sound off BIG STYLE, so as there was a brief lull in the general proceedings , I took a secret walk towards the linen room, reversed into it like a cart horse backing into the rails of a wagon and let rip with a magnificent raspberry.
From the nearby sluice an unseen ODA ( a theatre tech) must have been processing an arterial blood gas...for in the silence that followed, a slightly amused voice rang out
"there must be fog near the lighthouse tonight"

2012- a few thoughts

I have just read (and enjoyed) Cro's Review of 2012
My own review of the year, is perhaps somewhat different.
National pride at "The jolly good show" that was the Olympics gave the country an intoxicating sense of community which was as surprising as it was welcomed.
And on a purely local level the Village Flower Show and Jubilee  Carnival celebrations had the same effect on the 300 souls that live here in Trelawnyd.
Yin and Yang
Large and small scale.
We are all the same.

On a personal level, 2012 was a time that my family "regrouped" following the death of my brother.
It was a time of introspection, and it was a time when wounds were licked.
From that point of view, it was a very tough year.

Having a sense of humour has helped. Humour always does. And of course I have been blessed with a ready made set of animal and village characters who constantly prick the giggle muscles with antics that can only be viewed by someone who observes things on a micro scale.
This year I have taken much time looking "in" at them all.
They are as comforting as a warm apple pie is on a cold day.

January saw the arrival of the valiant and blind  Rooster Cogburn, he arrived at the same time as the pigs left, and on reflection I now realize that the rearing of three amazingly robust animals like him, number 12 and number 21, taught me a great deal about doing the right thing where animals are concerned.

Village life ebbed and flowed too.
Chris had some amazing  and well deserved successes at work and I made a speech to the Woman's institute!
Friends in the village have battled illness. The likes of Mrs Jones with her sing-song voice have sadly died, and the bad weather has taken it's toll on the landscape .
Trelawnyd, like so many places in Britain needs some sunny times.
We need a summer.
When I looked back at 2012 here in GOING GENTLY one blog entry  from May 3rd caught my eye more than any other.
It is one that had over 130 responses, and it is one that for me, underlines the year more than anything else.
Forgive me for re posting it.

"Today has been Chris' birthday
We planned to go out for lunch and hoped to follow that with a visit to Bodnant Gardens to see the spring azaleas .
Not much to ask for your 43rd birthday
Simple pleasures.
Well, we did go out for lunch and the bluebells were out on the lovely Chapel walk at the gardens, and I played a game that I was enjoying the day and Chris kindly played the game that he didn't notice that really I wasn't.
It was good that we went out, the weather has been nice today

Mabel's condition deteriorated overnight. Her paws became oedematous and even though her breathing improved somewhat, it was obvious that she was suffering from a certain degree of heart failure.
The kind 14 year old vet scanned her again this morning and isolated masses on her liver and spleen, which indicated to him (with all of her other symptoms) that she was indeed suffering from a probable and widespread lymphoma. A lymphoma which had certainly affected her spinal cord
The prognosis, given her physical condition was poor.

Like I said he was very sweet.
He came out with all those tried and tested kind words that I use at work every week,
and he didn't look too embarrassed when my face crumpled like newspaper as I said my goodbyes.
She died peacefully with her big fat stupid head in my hands...
and before I left, I kissed her gently on the nose as I have done most days since she arrived in Wales

Minutes later, I was driving an empty car home as if nothing had happened.
But of course , it had

I have posted before about a psychologist that I worked with, who always used to say
"you feel what you feel", when faced with someone that questioned the validity of an emotion that they were experiencing
Well I feel guilty and slightly ashamed
That's how I feel today."

Sylvia versus The Crackhead Whores: a mini drama

Sylvia spies some extra corn left for the crackhead whores and creeps forward

The crackheads group to fend off the interloper

After two minutes of posturing horns overwhelm beaks

Earl Okin

I love slightly surreal moments.
They happen all the time if you are that way out and you have the psychi to look for them.
I suppose it's a bit like seeing ghosts.
You only see them if you're tuned into a paranormal wavelength.
or you are pissed.....it's one or another.

Anyhow, I was out up the side of Gop Hill this morning, listening to radio 4's DESERT ISLAND DISCS on my personal radio, and this strange little song entitled MY ROOM by EARL OKIN came on.
I was so taken by the very "oddness" of the piece, I had to check up on the unheard of Okin when I returned
He is indeed an oddity. With the look of a conservative MP and the humorous sexiness of an old Robbie Williams, he cuts a rather different type of rug than the usual Cabaret crooner....

I stood in the blustery wind above the village listening to him vamping it up in front of a tittering crowd, and enjoyed the whole surreal nature of it all

Where's there no sense there's......

I am working a sort of day shift today.
So I will be brief.
Remember Theresa?
The ancient turkey with one eye?
Well I didn't give her much of a chance after the barbaric attack inflicted on her by Bingley the stag, but after some antibiotics,some tasty life saving morals of raw pastry and some luck, the old gal has survived her ordeal.
Reading back through GOING GENTLY, I have only just realised that Theresa has overcome several near death experiences. She has been attacked three times now by her own kind (bugger alone knows just why). She has suffered a particularly nasty infected pressure sore (a result of over active and strenuous turkey lovemaking) and she has lost an eye.
But every time , after every disaster, the old bird bounces back.
Ok she looks as though she has been run over by a passing tractor.
But like a bedraggled and shopworn Joan Collins,
She's survived to fight another day

Old Dog

IPads are great fun, once you know just how to use them (which I don't as yet)
Chris said a worrying thing when he gave me it on Christmas Day, he said.."All of your life can be on this tablet"
Hmmm..... Worrying that.
Anyhow, as the cottage slumbers this afternoon in a heap of post Christmas Apathy, I have been creeping around playing with the video app.
I have sneaked around the place filming the natives...I have downloaded 4 tunes, joined Skype and pressed more keys than Liberace did in his camp as a row of tents lifetime.........
Who says you cannot teach an old dog new tricks?