What Knockers!

I'm in bed with my knees bent
I'm still snotty and coughing but at least the space hopper which had been inserted into my head has now been deflated somewhat. The pulled muscles cause by my mega cough/ fart episode of yesterday are still giving me gip, but after some experimentation I have found that if I stand up to cough the pain is more bearable .

I have had to call in sick for night shift tonight which I am loath to do. The sickness policy is mightily strict and it's easy to receive an official warning for just a couple of episodes of sickness.
Hey ho

Anyway I thought I would complete this questionnaire which was sent to me a few months ago by Andrea from Willow Tree Cottage .I know it's lazy blogging but seeing I can just about bend to sit on the bog without groaning, it's the best thing I can offer on this misty and miserable Sunday morning.

A) What does the last text you sent say? And to whom?
As I have lost my mobile phone for the 100th time , I have absolutely no idea....I suspect I used it when I went to Sheffield to see an old friend dressed up as a camp Nazi
( like you do)

B) What does the last text you received say? And from whom?
It was from Chris , and it simply said " X x"

C) What time do you wake up most mornings?
In winter 7.30 am

D) Are you afraid of walking alone at night?
What an odd question? If I went to bed and woke up alone, I would be afraid given the fact that one hairy arsed academic, at least two dogs and one wide eyed cat would have been asleep in bed when I got in!

E) What do you do to relax at the end of a stressful day?
Reading blogs. Trying to fathom what in the world is going on in Rachel's head. Watching re runs of Only Connect on YouTube .
I am lucky I seldom have overly stressful days

F) Where did your last kiss take place and with whom?
How VERY DARE YOU! - ask Chris that one.

G) Do/did you get into trouble a lot at school?
I never got into trouble. I was a swot in class who tagged alongside the more " robust lads"

H) Do you enjoy your job? If unemployed, are you content being so?
I still enjoy nursing but I am ready to leave the politics, policies, procedures and bullshit which accompanies the profession nowadays.

I) Do you often pick up on double entendres and innuendos?
Oooohhhhh Matron ! Of course....just look at my blog titles!
( one of my favourites must be from the film YOUNG Frankenstein - [Frankenstein, Igor and Inga in front of HUGE castle doors]
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: What knockers.
Inga: Oh, thank you doctor.

J) Have you ever been offered drugs but declined?
No.....I have not been offered any drugs

K) Have you ever met someone who has completely altered your way of thinking?
Many people.....many indeed. Leslie Brint, my old tutor in psychiatry, who was a conscientious objector during the war, had a profound effect on me as a student nurse. His gentle and accepting way of seeing the world challenged many of my " small town" attitudes and beliefs
In a similar vein experienced practitioners such as sisters Lu Bastiman and Anne o' Neil made me 

look at life from a patient's perspective rather than through my own.
When you start thinking about this subject the list, strangely becomes endless

L) Have you ever been offered drugs and accepted?
I have eaten flap jacks laced with pot, but wasn't offered them, I just ate a few and was told " after the event" so to speak......I was bonged out of my head only after going to bed hours later!

M) Tell us something weird that turns you on.
Scotch Eggs,

N) When did someone last admit romantic or sexual feelings for you? Was the feeling mutual?
I have absolutely no idea,before I ever met Chris..so I wouldn't be able to remember....bloody hell, I can't even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday!

O) What is something you have given a lot of thought to lately?
How to keep zombies out of the cottage come the inevitable zombie apocalypse

P) When did you last swallow your beliefs to avoid an argument or confrontation?
Not something I do well. The older I get, the less I am able to bite my tongue. A vague homophobic comment at work was gently flagged up as being appropriate by me fairly recently. I think it's inappropriate to always go in with all guns blazing.

Q) Do you usually initiate hugs?
I am not one of those sickly " group hug" people but I will be demonstrative when I want to be

R) Are you a very affectionate person?

It depends on the situation. I am a warm person, isn't that the same thing?


S) Can you roll your own cigarettes?
Yes.

T) What are you looking forward to?
Lunch

U) Do you have any tattoos. Do you want any/more?
No tattoos.... I would like one tiny one that one could see........how much of a rebel am I?

V) Are you mentally strong?
Yes, when the chips are down, I think I am......

W) Are you physically strong?
Today...absolutely not

X) Do you think you’re a good person?
Don't we all?

Y) Name one thing you wish you could change about your life right now.
My inability to cough and fart without pain


Z) What do you usually eat for breakfast
Coffee

right!... i want everyone to complete the questionaire!

I wish I was 20

I feel a bit less snotty today

I am getting bleeding sick of feeling sick

Things were looking a little better until teatime

When

I was just sitting down to watch 

Strictly

When, I let out a huge cough

Farted at the same time

And heard something pop in my back on the left hand side just under my rib cage

I think I have pulled a few muscles

It's excruciatingly painful when I cough though not when I breath

Oh tits

I'm off to bed

Great Uncle Richie

I was thrilled this evening when my sister in law found this photo of my great uncle Richie

I remember instinctively " liking" the man in the photo as a child

And now we are exploring the family tree,

, we have refound him so to speak.

Sit & Watch

I didnt sleep much last night and so fell asleep for an hour in the armchair this afternoon-

Watched over by a slightly concerned william 

Who knew he was late for his walk

Welsh terriers are known for their natural habit of sitting and watching

Cosmo

In 1980 I briefly dated a local girl called Sandra B.
We met at the " Stables" disco in nearby St Asaph, and sucked each other's faces off after drinking Pernod and lemonade beneath the ultra violet lights which always had a nasty habit of showing up any dandruff problem.
This morning I bumped into her in a supermarket ten miles from Trelawnyd.
I had just dropped Chris off for a boffin meeting, she, like me was doing the weekly shop.
We haven't spoken for 34 years.
Chic and well groomed, she looked ten years younger than her 52 years, and I recognised her immediately as she looked at me at the checkout with a slightly quizzical look.
Now I know that I am not looking at my best today, but despite the red snotty nose, the grubby woollen hoodie, the bloodshot eyes and the grey beard ( dotted with breakfast Muesli) she did indeed recognise me.

I know, I know...I look like shit

Now, I don't know about you, but catching up in a supermarket check out , looking and feeling like shit is not the easiest of jobs ....especially as the last time we met up, I had a 32 inch waist, wore a bow tie and was a straight bank clerk!
It was one of those silly conversations
" I've been married -divorced, have three grown up kids and am now dating again" Sandra chirped in way of a life CV
" I've been a nurse in Yorkshire most of my life, am getting married next year and am gay" I recipocated with a snotty smile
" How Cosmopolitan" Sandra said without pausing
I could see the check out girl looking me up and down
I couldn't have looked any less cosmopolitan if I had tried.

Bollocks

Some days don't work out too well do they?

Only 24 hours after telling Chris I have not suffered a cold all year

I have come down with a stinker.

I went to bed early last night with a lemsip, thermal long johns and my lumberjack hat on

and subsequently was wide awake at 5 am

I walked the dogs,

Cleaned the cottage and fell back asleep and overslept.

This had the neighbours knocking on the door to see if I hadn't died in my sleep

When I hurried out to let the animals out, I fell over on the field.

I then drove down to Prestatyn to drop off my great neice's birthday pressie 

and got a parking ticket.

Now I have earache and I have just dropped a tray of meatballs I've made for supper

It's only 12.30 pm too!
At least Albert has stopped limping

So I'm off for a hot bath with Vic

So will leave you with this video....

It did make me titter to myself

Who Do I Think I am? ( & a sex starved Bichon Frisé)

Adelaide

My elder sister has been researching our family tree. She has been concentrating on our maternal grandmother's family and after just a few night's research on line we now have a list of rural Irish and English  ancestors stretching back to the 1700 's .
My sister is like me, in the respect that she doesn't have a " need " to visit family graves, but given the nostalgia of her search, she took herself off to find my grandparent's grave , a visit that resulted in a mini panic attack when she couldn't quite locate the exact spot where my grandparents were buried.
I have been thinking about my Grandmother's early life today.
These thoughts were sparked by my sister's research and by a book loaned to me by affable despot Jason which chronicled the photographic work of Horace Warner in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Warner took some extraordinary photographs of the street children from the slums of Spitalfirlds, and one such photo of a young girl called Adelaide Springett, dressed in what was described as her best clothes, almost broke my heart
My grandmother was born into a poor Irish/ Liverpudlian family in 1900. The family lived in basement rooms near the infamous Scotty Road and were no strangers to poverty, Gran was estranged from them  when she married my grandfather, who wasn't a catholic and She seldom talked of her blood family as an older woman.
The sadness of my grandmother's early years seemed to have been compartmentalized as we grandchildren  always remember her as being one of the few fun people in our growing up lives.

Today on the way back from walking the dogs on the beach, I took a detour and stopped at Coed Bell Cemetery. I wondered if I could remember where my grandparents were buried.
Leaving the dogs in the car, I walked up the hill , through the stones and crosses and strangely walked straight up to the grave. There was absolutely no hesitation at all.

In our modern day world of benefits for the poor and needy, and council initiatives and social housing, it is easy to forget that only 100 years ago, the poor were effectively on their own. 

My grandmother was no stranger to the pawn shop, fear of the rent man and scrubbing other people's floors. She left her husband and two young children to waitress tables in the Isle Of Man to make money. She put camphor candles out each night to ward off the cockroaches and learnt to waste nothing at all in the kitchen.....

She lived in a world that was so different to our own. That photograph of little Adelaide is a reminder of just this.......

I spent a good half hour in the rain and the wind with my thoughts about all this

But was suddenly transported back to "John Gray world " when I returned to the dogs in the car.

I had parked in the tiny car park in front of the Graveyard and the trusty Berlingo was standing right up close to a white estate car. 

A slightly harassed looking middle aged woman was sitting in the passenger seat with a hyperventilating Bichon Frise bouncing around on her knee. And as I started to unlock my driver's door the little fella tried to claw his way out of his window towards me gasping and gagging like that cartoon Tasmanian devil!

" I don't know what's gotten into him" the woman explained as the little bastard's eyes rolled back in his head..." he's usually so well mannered with other dogs nearby"

One look at the berlingo' back window told me all I needed to know.

Winnie was standing in her best " come hither" pose, with her fanny positioned directly in the open window crack!

Hormones are very powerful things!

I own a slut

John Lewis = class

The countdown has begun