Going Gently

Happy Birthday Prof x

It's the professor's birthday tomorrow

And we will be doing little birthday "treat" things all day
He never works on the anniversary of his birth
It's a tradition

And so I will warm him some chocolate hot cross buns for breakfast
I will line up his cards and pressies in bed ( for the " official opening")
And I will keep my everyday chicken husbandry and dog Clingon removal to a minimum today
He will come first... Which is a rarity when the usual competition is group of needy animals.
He's a big kid when birthdays are involved

I have to say that we are a good team, the prof and ,I and we have been so for over 13 years now........
He gives me grounding, objectivity, security and love

I give him warmth, humour, a home reminiscent of Miss Marple's cottage and a constant headache.........it's a good partnership.......
it works........
.....and so ...... Today.......all ..I will say......is " Happy birthday my old doll"
You don't look 44...................
...........
.............much
J x

Emotonal Romps ( with Friends and On Trains)

The Peace Gardens in Sheffield.......site of my Scotch Egg tea picnic

Last Night I met up with five old friends.

Our histories have intertwined for two decades, through thick and thin....at work and leisure...and through much laughter and occasionally quite a bit of pain. I have passed through my thirties and forties and now have crept into my fifties and still they are there...a little greyer, a little older but still constants in my life, albeit now more intermittent contacts than they were when I lived in the old steel city.

I miss them.

I miss my neighbour and friend John swishing his arms like a demented Bette Davis in my back garden.

I miss Jane's warmth and ability to laugh at anything, I miss Mike's sensible geniality, Sarah's unflappable nature and I miss Ruth's machine gun "Frankie Howard" repartee.

Life and distance can get in the way of friendships if you let them so

it was good to touch base...........a year was far too long to be apart.

We chatted and laughed, like we have always done and like we will undoubtedly do again in a few months time when I get my arse into gear again to make the short trip across from Wales..........

and I went to bed at midnight happy in the fact that somethings in life dont really change

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Have you ever cried on a train?
I have...well just a little that is......I have just watched the Israeli film "Yossi" which is a surprisingly unsentimental yet incredibly moving portrayal of the long tern grief suffered by the 34 year old closeted gay cardiologist Yossi after the death of his soldier lover during their army service in the Lebanon a decade previously.
Yossi is an over weight, workaholic loner who spends his life in a quiet, emotionally flat sort of desperation, a sad, lonely existence that is challenged quite unexpectedly by a chance meeting with four young soldiers to whom he gives a lift to.

Eytan Fox has produced a little gem of a movie a decade after his breakthrough first feature Yossie and Jagger( 2002) , ( which is the story of the original doomed love affair between the two twenty somethings boy soldiers.) for Yossi is a quiet and measured study of depression and loneliness without the usual Hollywood histrionics and emotional romping

Ohad Knoller reprises his original title role quite magnificently. In hushed tones and with sad whipped puppy eyes he portrays Yossi as a character who is not only still grieving for a past life and love but who is an emotionally flat, unconfident lump of a man reminiscent, a little, of Ernest Borgnine's Marty.
It's an incredibly restrained performance in a rather understated, moving film.
9/10

Gay Israeli Soldiers, Zombie Repeats & An Overdue Catch Up

Yossi

I usually read when I am on the train, but as My Ipad has dragged my sorry arse into the 21st Century this year, I have downloaded a few cinematic and TV treats to enjoy as the slow train chugs through Manchester and over the Pennines to Sheffield.

My arthouse watch is Yossi, an Israeli film which centres upon the long term grief and loss suffered by a former defence force soldier for his fellow officer and partner, who was killed in the Lebanon.....while my indulgent watches will be two episodes from the first series of The Walking Dead

and the Norwegian Horror movie Død Snø ( Dead Snow).

Don't worry, I have headphones

I am not meeting up with the first of my friends until early evening, so will have a few hours city time this afternoon......

I will do John Lewis, have a mooch around the city, and if the mood takes me, will even buy myself a superior quality scotch Egg from the deli on West Street to eat slowly and carefully in the Peace Gardens next to the city hall

I am so easily pleased...........

My Bosoms Are Ready

A pair of bosoms have kept me up all night

I bet you never thought you'd hear me ever say that did you.?

Yesterday I did too much work, clearing stones and preparing the allotments

Bosoms' first two plots are now ready for fencing ( which should arrive today)

And then planting.

However all the lugging and carrying yesterday has had it's effect on my sciatica

Which has kept me awake for most of the night.

Buttock aches at 3am are not a laughing matter.

Anyhow, I think I need to remind people just why my allotment has been given the name of bosoms in the first place.

I have to thank the RFWF for that one.

A year or so ago, I asked him to think of a nickname for the allotments.. Like Cro has for his vegetable plot ( he calls his Haddocks)

The RFWF looked at me as if I was a loon, but gave the job a little thought when I added that the nickname could be something he perhaps liked or indeed greatly admired

I rest my case

Bosoms was thus named.

Anyhow I will have a day off from bosoms,geese and from country ways tomorrow as I am off to South Yorkshire for a long overdue catch up with some old friends.

I am having " tea" with my old spinal injury days matron " ohhhhh matron!" then will catch up with Zara wearing old queen John, comic fan Mike and old girlfriend Jane....

I've even ironed a clean top for the occasion

....as a box of frogs.......

It was 7.30 this morning,when I was right in the middle of having a long awaited and satisfying dump in the loo when I heard the slightly familiar " Yooooooo hooooo" from the "mad lady of the village"
The bathroom window was open so with some difficulty I did that slight limbo dance, all people tend to do when they are caught "halfway through a job" and I popped my head through the window and called down with a rather testy " I won't be a minute" .....I have worked out recently that I can't really keep her waiting.
"Mad lady" is thankfully only visiting the village...apparantly she leaves today....
Now, I only say thankfully here, because she has a noticeable " pressure of speech" and has a difficult tendency to keep you talking when there is much to do...but she has a thing for fresh eggs, which she has bought on almost a daily basis for a week or two now and seems to gain a great deal of pleasure talking to Bingley, who because of his hormones, is spending most of his time watching passers by at the fence by the gate.
A few years ago, before the Professor and I arrived in Trelawnyd,there was a really disturbed character living in the village who went by the name of "Mad Mick". He was infamous for slashing the tyres and damaging the bodywork of scores of cars up high street and with a drink problem compounding mental health issues, he was not a guy to be trifled with....

I notice I have used the word mad three times in this blog entry. As a previous psychiatric nurse I should really know better, but as a generic description of " not the norm" I find it lazily useful....
In fact " mad as a box of frogs" is one of my most favourite of phrases.... But like I said, I really should know better.

Anyhow, I sold another six eggs to my early morning customer this morning and before I said my goodbyes ( so I could return for a comfortable read of Empire Magazine on the loo) I rooted through our freezer and gave the lady a juicy bit of home grown pork " for being such a good egg customer"
She gave it straight back to me, before I had even said " goodbye"
" I don't eat pigs " she said cheerfully " they carry diseases"
Nuff said..........

She's Let Herself Go

Irene ..not looking her best

"She's let herself go"

It was a common enough phrase in my mother's era, which perfectly described an acquaintance who had perhaps fallen on somewhat difficult times.....

Perhaps the shampoo and set wasn't quite right.....perhaps the woman in question was seen down at the off licence in her carpet slippers.......or perhaps her net curtains had gone a dismal shade of grey....whatever the reason.....in those long aspiring middle class, Abilgail's Party days, you were only as good as your decor and personal grooming......

Going to the supermarket in your PJs could have sent you to a social wilderness from which there was no return.....

Today I caught a couple slagging off my Soay ewe, Irene.

Ok, I will admit, she has seen better days,

To be honest, she looks as though she's been forced to hide inside a tumble dryer for an hour

But spring means just one thing to a Soay sheep

It means that they moult their winter wool..

A causal observer could be forgiven that Irene had been abandoned somewhat for she does look remarkably slutty, what with her dirty brown coat hanging around her ankles for most of the time...but overhearing a remark that was being mistreated got my dander up.....

It's a bit like parent hearing from another that her child has given the whole class head lice....

Oh the shame of it all!

I explained to the couple of the ways of Scottish Highland Sheep......and they looked suitably dubious when I pointed out that they didn't actually needed shearing .....the phrase

" she's let herself go" still resonated in my mind...and probably now in theirs!

Control

Did I tell any of you that I am a bit of a control freak?
Oh yes..... I am!
I am certainly the " cock of the walk" when it come to home life
I control furniture arranging duties within the cottage,
I choose the decor,
I do the gardening and the DIY
I even have sole responsibility for naming the pets.
It's all me, me , me, me me!

Well I have just taken the first baby steps in relinquishing control over something at home!
It was tough!
And I have had to bite the old tongue several times ,
But I have done it!
Today I have let the Professor start work ALONE on the cottage garden.