Titivating

 To me there are some things that make a house really feel like a home.
Clutter, antiques, dog snot on the windows, black hair on cat shapes embedded on the duvet, fruit in a bowl and photographs on the wall....the list could go on and on and on.
Ever since I bought my second home, which was a Victorian terrace  over  three floors, I had always gotten into the habit of having flowers in the house. It was a sort of promise that I made myself when the mortgage was agreed.....
It was a " flowers maketh a home" sort of thing even then.
And I have no real idea where the need came from, after all I was never a fan of Home & Gardens or anything like that.
It always used to be an expensive luxury
The florist was located just around the corner
Now, with a cottage garden in full bloom, and a lane bursting with flowers, it's cheap and easy to treat the house with vases of colour

I am such an old lady 

In The Heat Of The Night

I am not going to complain about our continued hot weather

But it does have a bit of a down side.

It took me almost 90 minutes to water Bosoms by hand this morning

And after a week of blistering hot sunshine all of the animals have become slow, lethargic and

And somewhat listless.

I have even had to lift some of the very  elderly hens from their perches in the mornings

Egg production has tailed off,

The sheep now spend their lives in the cool of the hawthorn hedges 

And the dogs are bickering with each other over  dinner times.

Welsh animals are not used to long periods of old fashioned summer

Another Busy Day In Paradise

There is nothing more rewarding that seeing your acutely ill patient, improve in front of your very eyes
One of my patients did just that today
I stopped his sedation, and waited for him to wake up. If he woke appropriately and safely. I would be able to remove the horrendous endroteacheal tube from his throat ( the big tube connecting him to his life supporting ventilator) so that he could breath on his own.
My ill patient started to wake up.
I repeated his name and where he was to orientate him
" Steven, you are on intensive care, you have a tube in your throat helping you to breath, you are quite safe Steven...... When you wake up a little more , I will remove it."
The patient gestured to me
"Steven can you understand me? You are on intensive care...you' ve been poorly....I am here to help you....Steven nod if you understand me"
Steven nodded......he tried to speak but the tube prevented him
" Steven? Can you squeeze my hands?" I asked
And he squeezed my hands
The anaesthetist gave me the thumbs up and I  said
"Steven, let me remove this tube"
Seconds later I removed the tube from Steven's throat
And he took his first deep breath of room air
" are you ok? " I asked him gently
And he smiled weakly holding my hand

" yes..I'm ok...........but my name's Graham" he croaked with a smile........

Dinner On The Field

 It's been a busy day on intensive care. I got home after 8pm to find my sisters and their husbands ( and my sis in law )on the field grilling sausages on a charcoal fire. We sat eating until dark fell, and blankets and rugs were dished out as the chickens wandered slowly to their beds and the owls started to hoot in the Churchyard Elms

Off to bed.....another full day at the hospital tomorrow

Tomorrow's Blog Today

I am working tomorrow all day

And again all day Sunday

So this is tomorrow's post so to speak

Slingbacks, Camp Queens & Flower Show Cups

The Royal Mail service , we are told is being privatised. courier services, we are also told are flourishing in competition. Such is the way of the postal world.
I have been waiting for a delivery of fertile guinea fowl eggs all week. The lady I bought them from has been chasing up the delivery company she uses, and I was promised that the eggs ( eggs that needed to placed under the warm arse of a broody buff Orpington ASAP ) would be finally delivered yesterday.
I left non cryptic notes all over the cottage informing any driver that I would be shovelling chicken shit on the field and finally at 4pm I noticed a rather fearful teenage delivery man , quickly tiptoeing past Bingley onto the field.
I signed for the package, made sure that the broody hen was still on her nest, and ripped open the box to check on the guinea eggs.
This is what I found

" Bleeding Great!!"

Another minor disappointment was a trip to the cinema last night. Chris and I went to see the Beneath The Candelabra , the much acclaimed story of Liberace's relationship with his  chauffeur Scott Thorson. 

Once you get past Michael Douglas' flabby arsed,campy old queen performance ( a role which he gives his all by the way) the whole film shares very little about the real people within the story, relying much more on costume and make up to give a flavour of those danger, hidden gay days of  the early 1980s. It is a shame that  Beneath The Candelabra, has no real heart . It is a cold study of damaged people that does not quite explain the attraction that buff chicken Thorson ( a rather bland Matt Damon)  has for the old showman...and that's a shame.

I give the whole thing a boring 5/10

Mind you I did find the Rob Lowe's cameo performance as an over botoxed, drunk Hollywood plastic surgeon hysterically amusing.

An Almost unrecognisable Mr Lowe

The good news of the day, is that the " Finlay Memorial Cup" has been anonymously returned to the flower Show Committee after an absence of several years. Chris and I donated the 1930s solid silver trophy and we were really upset when it went " missing"

Now it's back. A bit battered and dinged , but back.

Hey ho

Wings

On the back of the previous post, I was sorting through some old " stuff " this afternoon and came across an old assignment I wrote when I was in my first semester of film studies at Sheffield Hallam University . The assignment rather pretentiously discussed the " mise en scene" from clips from ancient silent movie WINGS .....which was a cracking love triangle melodrama of its day
Have a look at this clip, which holds up rather well, even by today's sophisticated standards.....
But beware.....get your hankies ready

Stuff

We have a great deal of stuff.
Too much for one small cottage to cope with.
Every corner seems to have a much loved nick- nack shoved into it.
Something to cherish
Something to dust.

If there was a fire....what would I save?
The burleigh potty? Mrs Roberts' grandfather clock? One of our watercolours?

A Carltonware lobster fruit bowl? Family photos?

Who knows?

Stuff is just stuff

When we are dead and gone..

The flotsam and jetsam of our life together

will be shelf clutter in a charity shop or antique centre

You never " own" stuff

You only look after it for a while..........................