O2

A comment left on yesterday's blog by Should Fish More brought back some bittersweet memories for me. He described a neighbour of his who was completing some chores whilst being connected to a cylinder of home oxygen and the picture he painted reminded me of what always seemed to happen on my day off from Ward management  in the early 2000's.

Then my mother was still alive. 

In failing health, she had been admitted to a care home in Prestatyn, where she proved to be a rather  challenging client. A long term chain smoker who suffered from COPD , she spent her days balancing her waking hours between nebuliser oxygen and crafty fag breaks, breaks the home staff or her visitors would have to take her outside for. 

Every week I would drive over from Sheffield to take her out for a couple of hours. And every week I would " borrow" a four foot oxygen tank and a spare wheelchair from work which I would bundle in the back of our tiny Nissan mica  usually with the help of one of the ward staff who I roped in to help with the heavy lifting 

After driving the 100 miles to Wales , I would get my mother parked in the passenger seat ( on a selection of incontinence pads) , plug her up to the oxygen and off we would go for our usual trip out.

Now where do you think we went to...on these little jaunts of ours?

A local botanical gardens?

A tea room perhaps?

Llandudno sea front even?

No.....our weekly outings took the same pattern every time.
Week in....week out

A trip to Sainsbury's 

And a visit to the car park on Prestatyn's Promenade.

It was my mother's choice.

In Sainsbury's , she would dictate to me a list of her wants from the supermarket.

I would then go in to shop whilst she would sit in the car and smoke as many fags as was humanly possible for someone to smoke when their oxygen had been removed!

( For the sake of public safety I would insist the oxygen cylinder would be switched off when the fags were out!)
In between cigarettes, she would spend the time doing crosswords and drinking a double gin and tonic which I had provided in a plastic cup.the gin and most of the cigarettes would be gone by the time I had finished.

(To this day, I still get a little pang when I see any of the following items when Wandering around  
Sainsbury's when out doing the weekly shop)
I loved my mother despite all that happened between us...but I have to be honest, I didn't like her very much

Crossword magazines

Strawberry tarts,

Miniature gin bottles

Small boxes of tissues

Lambet and Butler cigarettes 

Cough sweets 

Individual raspberry trifles

Her shopping list seldom ever changed.

After shopping, we would drive around for a bit, then we would buy fish and chips ( with mushy peas) and we would eat them in the car in the car park by the sea. 

My mother wouldn't eat much of hers and would often cough her peas all around the car  when a breathless coughing fit ensued . (Chris would be finding them all week in the foot wells on his way to work.) but she enjoyed what she ate as long as it was smothered in salt and vinegar .

This routine went on for sometime before her sudden death in 2002

We never had any deep conversations in that car with the massive oxygen tank in it

There was no final sharing of emotion

There was no final last words

There was no major emotional romping

My mother was just not the sort

There was just fish and chips and mushy peas

And a large handful of cigarette butts in a usually pristine and empty ashtray.

To do...........

Real life often gets in the way of real life, don't you think?

I am sat at the kitchen table trying to find a new fridge on line

The old one has given up the ghost and I am in the process of trying to prise open the freezer door
With a bread knife
It's a work in progress which I have taken  some time out from
Real life jobs can be bleeding irritating
There is a mouse that needs catching in the living room
( we saw it last night bouncing around the draught excluder)
And Chris had nominated me to help a neighbour sort out his car insurance on line this morning
( which was kind)
The neighbour is 90, so part of me wants to say
Why the hell bother?
But I will dutifully go around after I deliver eggs, walk the dogs and water pat- the- animal helper's
tomatoes......she's still away on a cruise !
But first I need another coffee
So I make one
And I sit with my friend, my blog,
Thinking of all of those other mindless little jobs that I need to chase up today

Call in to see my sister to see if I can borrow her chimney sweep brushes ( sweeping the chimney is a thankless autumn job)
Clear the weeds from the lane against the cottage as Mrs X commented just how scruffy the place is looking
Post a job reference I wrote for a friend,
Scrub the bathtub within an inch of it's life after giving Winnie a much needed fanny bath this morning
Real life......we all experience it's charm
Anyhow
The dogs have not stirred from bed yet... So I have a couple of minutes  yet to find a fridge
Last night's mouse must be dead as Albert is happily dozing  amid the canines
I took this photo to prove it

Now.......

 What's next?

Cry

I can cry quite easily
When the wind is in the right direction....

I inherited this " skill" from my father
Who would cry at a soppy birthday card

I have cried a few times this past week

I have cried three times TODAY,!

I have cried at David Sedaris' essay on radio 4. It was the story of how his family

coped after the suicide of his sister.

I have cried at the emotional jacuzzi which is Davina McCall's Long Lost Family on tv

and 

I  cried, just a tad, when old Meg climbed painfully into my lap after she fell up the stone steps of the garden path.

I need to get a grip

Formal Introductions

Like a wife and a mistress the sheep and the dogs have known of each other's existence but they have never " met" in real life. Sheep by definition are thick characters who have a talent for banging into things when upset. Dogs often like to chase thick characters who bump into things.
It's the way of the world.
Anyhow, I've gotten a little tired of putting the ewes in the lower field when the dogs arrive in the upper, so today, I thought it time that the two factions finally met.
The dogs split up as they entered the field. The Welsh terriers skipped around in lazy circles, George  tottered off on his own in the hopeful search for eggs and Winnie stood quietly by the gate, watching everything with her sad little piggy eyes.
The sheep had no idea who to go to first.

.....they finally faced off George to start.

I suppose it was a case of pick on the little guy first. 

Now sheep are huge bluffers when it comes to confrontation. They stamp their sharp little hooves and sweep their horns menacingly but will try whenever possible  not to make contact with a threat unless it is moving. If you are small and run, you are likely to be butted

George, is no fool when it comes to confrontation. This is a product of being the lowest in the dog pack's pecking order all of his life. He did what he has done for the past seven and a half years when faced with a threat.. He quietly ignored it and pretended to be interested in something else.

The ewes watched him carefully as he pottered around sniffing absently at the daisies then decided to change tack to face off the Welsh who continued to skip around in circles like excited psychiatric patients at a asylum disco .

Meg backs off

This was the danger point.  Excited dogs and bad tempered sheep , could prove disastrous if things were left to become silly, but I need not have worried. Meg, at almost nine backed off, letting William to run all goo-goo eyed around Sylvia and Irene for a minute or so until he too became bored. Luckily the sheep didn't bolt. Dogs love a chase.

Winnie steams in

And so this finally left Winnie.

Trotting like a pigmy hippo, she arrived on the scene ready for action, and unlike all of her pack mates, she was having non of this gently gently approach.

Winnie's approach to everything in life is to push her way into the centre of things, appear depressed and uninterested, and wait for a reaction

Think of Buster Keaton running right up to your face with an off stage trumpet of " TRAAAAAADAAAA," as way of fanfare and you will get where I am coming from..

It was the final straw for the two pea brained ewes. As I dished out the layers pellets to the chickens and filled the water feeders with fresh cool water, they put their heads down to graze as Albert walked past, and sniffed at them.

It was the right day for formal introductions.

An anticlimax all round.

Swan Song

I noted that Hugh Jackman sang at Joan Rivers' funeral

His piece was the emotional romping Judy Garland swan song

" quiet please there's a lady on Stage"

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OMLdtEmufAQ

It's a wonderfully indulgent song to have at a funeral.

Now I love picking songs to be played at my funeral

I drive Chris potty with the game

Walt Disney has an ideal collection to choose from

Every one would slay 'em in the aisles

This is my latest choice

Rather apt I thought....

What is your swan song?

And why?

Modern Parenting

Perhaps I needed more coffee this morning?

I'm not in a bad mood...honest governor!
I'm just mildly irritated.
But what is it with some parents of small children
Now I am not about to bash all modern parents here.
Most, I will admit have a right old time of balancing modern life pressures, after school activities, psychological support, academic performance, play needs and the odd chipped tooth and scraped knee.
No, but I am about to bash that small minority of parents that think that their child is the most important thing in the world....and when I say that, I mean that they thik that their child is the most important thing in the world in a social and public setting!
Are you still with me vicar?
I had just returned to the small car park at the Dyserth walkway with the dogs when I was confronted with a large group of kids around 20) with around fifteen adults, all on bikes. The children were lined up excitedly having their photographs taken by the parents and the scene was a happy one all around.
The old berlingo was parked in the centre of all this , so I walked up to the group and waited patiently
I waited
And I waited
The cameras clicked
There was much chattering in welsh
And I waited some more.
The dogs all sat down.
I suddenly began to feel invisible
Finally one woman who was filming the whole thing on her phone, turned to me and said
" do you want to get passed?"
I smiled  and said , not  unreasonably I thought, " no , I'm just waiting to get into my car"
I smiled again and walked past her and the other chattering moms and dads and got into the car
No one moved
Everyone chatted, more photographs were taken, I was surrounded the worst type of modern parent known to man.
Modern parents who only could see their children and nothing else
It was as though I had gate crashed  a private event.
I was invisible .
I waited for , some astute adult to realise that when someone returned to a car park, their general next move was to start the car and leave.,but that just was not on anyones radar. The group had effectively taken over the car park and I ( not having a child ) didn't figure .

I took a deep breath and reminded myself that perhaps they hadn't really noticed a 14 stone middle aged man in a lurid green t shirt dragging a 25 kilo bulldog ( who was sporting a very bright Canadian flag bandana) as well as  two welsh terriers with a loud Scottie called George in tow, through their ranks.....
And so I sat in the car waiting for the bikes to move behind me so I could reverse out of the car park.
Not one bugger moved,
They only had eyes and ears for their little Megans' and their little Dafydds'
There was no little waves of " sorry" when I eventually started the car
Just a few dirty looks as bikes had to be moved and kids had to be shepherded to " safety"

This modern parent arrogance gets right on my tits!

Anyhow I will leave you with a sweet , happy photo
Albert and Winnie in a playful embrace this morning
( and not a fucking modern parent in sight)

An Eyeball On The Carpet

Chris has been musing about promotion 

A city university

With clean lines, red bricks and wall to wall civility

This morning the Bette Davis strains of

" OH MY GOD," 

had me leaping from my bed

Chris had spied the headless corpse of a rabbit at the foot of the stairs

" There is a single eyeball lying next to the body" he said weakly

and he was right 

a lone and rather  morose eye looked at us from the carpet

" please remove it" chris ordered 

He sounded and looked like the Dowager from Downton Abbey

I sighed

Sometimes the countryside  with a rabbit  serial killing  feline does get him down!

Goodnight Jim Bob

I'm looking my age

 I've suddenly friggin turned into a cross between Grandma Walton and Mary Berry. Admittedly I think the start of it all could have been the blue gingham style shirt I stole from Chris' " never again" part of the wardrobe, but the success of the baked pies last night, I think, have gotten  me all " let's prepare for the snows of winter"
Before Chris put down his empty boiled egg shell ( breakfast in bed I have you know) I had collected a load of over ripe tomatoes from Bosoms and from animal helper Pat's greenhouse and was busy making pasta sauce for freezing.

Since then I have baked more apple pies for the freezer, stewed more apple which I have boxed up for the freezer also and made a stew which again has been ferreted away

All I need to do now, is to look slightly exasperated , dust the flour from my forearms at the porch door and shout at the young 'uns who are having all sorts of Blue Mountain adventures in 1930s  Virginia.
It' has been a little all too much for Chris
He's gone back to work in the 21th century University!
At least I haven't found a pair of dungarees to wear!
So he can thank goodness for small mercies.

Chris is in his usual " I love  Canada" mood.... So because of this Winnie has been wearing her Canadian Flag Bandana all day!
I'm off to cook some grits..........and there's a load of firewood to chop before I amble down to the creek to fish for supper
Yeah ha

And to end with.............. Who thinks she knew EXACTLY what she was doing?