Going Gently

Hands On Feet

I adore my feet being rubbed...it has been a lifelong passion. If no massage is forthcoming from the academic, I will content myself with a good licking by one of the dogs.
Dogs love cheesy feet!
Years ago now, I was a reflexology " volunteer". My good friend Joy and her classmates were studying for their massage exams and needed a regular pair of feet to practice on almost on a daily basis.
I was more than happy to be their guinea pig, having my feet rubbed then was the idea panacea to the world's stresses of running a busy spinal injury ward.

One evening, I went round to Joy's house for a " rub" and got allocated to one of her new colleagues who needed some extra practice. The trainee reflexologist turned out to be a shy British Telicom workman called Charlie who had just started his training . He looked slightly awkward as I was his first " client" and he made a point of saying that all his "practical" work had been done on his wife.

Anyhow, off he went squeezing and rubbing and being the ideal reflexology model, I gave him feedback and asked appropriate questions of his technique.
Now, I never fully understood the science behind reflexology, all I know is that it feels bloody good.....so after Charlie had given my heels a particularly thorough seeing too, I made a point of complementing him by saying
" that was bloody amazing!..you could do that to me all day"
Charlie blushed and looked particularly awkward
But I pressed on regardless
" what part of the body corresponds to the heel area" I asked...trying to sound like the ideal student
Charlie coughed and looked uncomfortable
And Joy, who was rubbing another volunteer's feet nearby, leant over and stage whispered the answer into my ear
" your BUTTOCKS," she said with a smile!
I closed my eyes and tried to look invisible for the rest of the session

Attention To Detail

I was hanging washing out by the back door when a car came down the lane. The woman driving slowed down when she saw me, and thinking she wanted eggs, I half waved and turned to pick up a half dozen from the kitchen window-ledge.
The woman had been sent down the lane by her sat nav and as chance would have it, she turned out to be a former colleague from years ago.
We chatted for a moment before she had second thoughts about the eggs and asked for a mixture of duck and hen's. As I collected them she got out of the car, and stood in the doorway chatting about work and before she tucked the cartons under her arm she spied a small glass vase on the side , in which I had placed a single purple primula flower.

She pointed to the flower and cooed

" you can always tell a gay man's house from any other" she trilled "it's the attention to detail"

She fingered the flower

Isn't that just lovely!........beautiful!"

She whirled around , all excited at the sight of our gingham green kitchen tablecloth and the other vase of daffodils that sat on top of it and stopped dead at the sight of Winifred squeezing out a massive wet turd onto the centre of the patio

To keep the gay stereotypes going........I couldn't resist a loud

"TA-DAAAAAAA!" as Winnie finished in a flourish

A Six Month Review

Sunbathing and asleep, Winifred in the garden a day ago

When he took one look at those big bloodshed eyes last autumn, Chris shook his head very slowly and said in his best exasperated Lord Grantham voice " If she blots her copy book within six months ..she's out!"

Well it's now six months later, and of course, she's not out!

She wouldn't ever be out,even if she had turned out to be the bulldog version of Hannibal Lecter

That's the rule of rescue dogs

Once their feet are under the table

They are there to stay.

Like all of our re homed bulldogs, Winifred has blossomed in her new home.

Last week, I thought she had wandered off through the open garden gate and after several minutes of running around , I eventually found her sat hopefully in the back of the berlingo waiting for an extra car ride. Car journeys, walking amongst the pack and exploring the field with a lurid red plastic ball in her mouth are now highlights of her new country existence

Now although Chris remains vociferous in his " dislike" of everything bulldog, I do think that Winifred has melted one small tiny cold corner of his heart over the months.

Every night she will wander up to his place on the sofa, and will offer her big fat lips up to him for a kiss and every night he will give her a brief throwaway reply of " get lost fatty"

But I always catch him giving the old gal a brief pat on the head or a quick rub of the arse

Bosom friends they'll never be

But she's thawing the academic slowly and surely

....with her big goo goo eyes and her massive lion sized heart

The Tower

Travelling by train ( or more precisely travelling in four trains) yesterday, can be a bit of a chore, but at 51 , I have finally worked out how to download movies onto my iPad, and now can indulge myself with a bit of mindless cinematic fun to keep my mind off the great British unwashed.
Yesterday I sat through two hours of Korean disaster movie.
The Tower is a shameless rip off of ever Irwin Allen disaster flick of the 1970s. It is almost a remake of The Towering Inferno, with elements of The Poseidon Adventure , Earthquake, Backdraft and rather tastelessly 9/11 thrown in for good measure.
The production looks amazing, to be sure, and why wouldn't it ?.....(South Korea has a habit of bunging shed loads of dollars into its epics) but it despite its Hollywood roots The Tower remains reassuringly Korean in its make up as:-

All of the male characters scream VERY VERY LOUDLY and cry at a drop of a hat
There is always one googled eyed screaming comic character to " lighten" the drama
Many of the characters refer to each other quite formally as " Mr" or " Mrs"
Everything is done at breakneck speed.

It's all bleeding rubbish. But it was polished bleeding rubbish........and perhaps because it was an emotional day all round yesterday,I found the scene where a dejected cleaning lady Jeon Guk-jyang gazes up in the night sky at the artificial snow produced for the opening ceremony dreadfully moving.

The only problem with watching a movie on your iPad in a packed train, is that when you laugh, you look like a loon!
I couldnt help guffawing at the moment when at the assembled party at the top of the soon to be destroyed skyscraper, all of the dinner suited guests raised their glasses to sing out a collective cry of
" MERRY CHRISTMAS"
Possibly the hardest phrase for a set of Korean actors to shout in English!

Hey ho
Working tonight...have a good weekend

Gentleman Jim.

It was lovely to see my friends last night. It's been a year since we all met up, but like true, good old friends, we bounded back into old conversations and old ways of behaving, even before the first sip of expensive beer passed our lips.
All three chums were on good form and all three thought it slightly odd that I was going to my Uncle's funeral today. An uncle I hadn't see since 1989.
Last night, I couldn't really answer their question.
This afternoon , I still can't articulate just why I wanted to attend
But, after four train journeys and a gut wrenching experience in a speeding Rotherham taxi, I sat thinking about that very thing in the grounds of a beautifully sunny and peaceful Northern town crematorium and I came up with the simple notion that it was just the right thing to do
The service and my brief reunion with my aunt and cousin was more emotional than I expected and the Asian taxi driver who dropped me off then collected me up afterwards picked up on the fact when he was shooting through East Herringthorpe at fifty miles an hour!
" You not going to the pub?" He asked,
" no I don't need to go, I just wanted to pay my respects for old time's sake at the service" I told him honestly
Old time's sake.
My Grandmother, Jim's beloved mother, would have said that .