We Miss

Things We kind of miss ( after discussion with the patient I was looking after last night)

Paper library cards ( the ones the little book card was slipped into)
Milkmen
Yellow ice cream sandwiched between two wafers
Squares of Cheese and pineapple  on cocktail sticks at parties
Exploring on the local rubbish tip ( as a kid)
C B radio
Shelling peas
Cinematic first features
Smoke from everyone's chimneys
Women wearing aprons
Standing for the National Anthem
Pint glasses with handles
Valerie Singleton on Blue Peter
Ironmongers
Loose Tea in teapots
Crissy Evert ! ( before she was Lloyd)
Chester zoo in 1975
My grandmother telling stories whilst ironing
Shopping every day rather one  big shop once a week
Those tin Math sets from school ( protractors, compass, ruler etc)
Balaclavas
Land line phone calls on New Year's Eve
Robust walnut whips
Radio top twenty on Sunday evenings

We only stopped when his night sedation kicked in

Bubble & Fart

Chris is working in London all week

I worked last night

Before he left we ate huge plates of bubble & squeak at the kitchen table

And so I was farting like a baby hippo at work all night 

It got so bad that around 3 am I had to  make up a reason to collect some patient belongings from the wards in order 

to have a crafty flurry of farts in the hospital lifts!

I am off to bed covered in dogs and a cat now....

So I will leave you all with the above video 

A delightfully clever IKEA  commercial

Xxx

Bad Service

We went to collect our wedding rings yesterday afternoon.
Picking them out was a delightful experience thanks primarily to the sterling efforts of the saleswoman who, quite rightly made a big fuss of us.
Expecting a similar experience, we stood in front of a tired looking frump at the counter, who emptied the plastic bagged rings with a plop .
It didn't bode well.
The woman then launched into a rather depressing and monotone list of dos and donts before suggesting that my ring was not perhaps the best choice for a nurse to pick given the amount hand gel I may use . She also criticized the fact that we chose less robust rings ( we both hate chunky rings ) Which was the icing on the cake.
She made the whole thing feel rather lacklustre and I immediately wondered if her sales pitch would have been any different if a straight couple was standing before her.

I took a step back, knowing fully what was about to happen and let Chris give her both barrels.Which he did with all the killer instinct of a shark eating a tuna
Now Chris seldom looses his cool. But bad service is something that will get both of his Roger Moore eyebrows lifting at the same time.
In a cool voice he smartly told the woman that her attitude stank , and all she had done was to take the shine out of a potentially joyful experience.
The woman then made another mistake
She started to argue back
I tried to give her a look of " you silly bitch, say nothing more"- you don't know who you are dealing with
But it was too late
The  full , just fury of an articulate PhD was unleashed in its entirety
Heads turned, and the shop went incredibly quiet as the woman silently wrapped the rings up with a big bow.
" It was a pleasure to meet you" she said finally handing me the rings in a desperate ploy to regain some control of the situation.
I let Chris have the last word
" well it wasn't a pleasure meeting you"  he replied loudly before we swished out of the shop......

Hey ho

Going Gently- The Franchise

Pageviews yesterday

2,727

Pageviews last month

78,048

Pageviews all time history

1,938,571

Today we are off to Chester for a nice lunch in a trendy bar called " Aubergine" .....in reality the bar is called " Artichoke" but Chris has problems remembering the fact.

I am shallow enough to happily say that "Going Gently" is trundling towards it's 2 millionth visitor.

I am also  a gnat's crotchet away from my 800th follower which I guess is some small achievement compared with the fact that a ten year old child can have 1000 friends on Facebook without ever leaving the comfort of the sofa....but I will take a positive wherever a positive can be squeezed.

I think " Going Gently" would make a lovely feature film.....

Of course there could be a typical Hollywood twist on the story.....you know where the mentally ill , Julia Roberts character moves into Trelawnyd after losing her family in a place crash, only to be wooed back into reality by one of Auntie Gladys' scones and by a firm talking to by Gay Gordon  and Big Mary at the bus stop!

Russell Crowe is now too old to play me of course,so perhaps Danial Craig in heavy make up and prosthetics could be brought in? 

John Hurt ( Tom Stephenson), Juliet Stephenson ( Rachel) and Rosie O'Donnell ( as most of the North American bloggers) could make up the supporting cast ( bloggers that club together to raise funds for the surviving villagers caught up in the disastrous  Gop Hill landslide) alongside stalwarts such as Hugh Bonniville ( as Dr Chris) Maggie Smith ( Auntie Glad) ,Dame Helen Mirren as Pat the animal helper And a special appearance by Sir Ian McKelken as the vicar!

The little white egret didn't make it

Hummm I can also see a mini series in the making?......Trelawnyd will have to open a tea room!

And extend the car park!

So  who will play you in the movie?

Answers on a postcard.......

Hey ho...we can all dream

Dogs Up The Aisle

There is a funeral In the village today

Chris asked me to check if the central heating had come on

So just after dawn I took the dogs out for their walk and popped in to the church to check and

for some strange reason the terriers ran up and down the aisle like little boys in a supermarket

Yesterday, was bright, cold and sunny

Here are a few observations of the day

• I was cleaning the log burner out when Mrs Trellis burst into the kitchen with a bag of egg boxes., it always amuses me that she never knocks.. Apparently her bad tempered dog Satan had suffered a paralysis of his back legs last week, which she treated overnight with an intensive dose of homoeopathic medication administered every 15 minutes to the dogs gums!.....he has since made a full recovery!
• Gay Gordon is back from hospital and has moved in with his girlfriend big  Mary.....I caught their neighbours with arm loads of belongings helping out with the move yesterday afternoon
• The village schoolchildren sang at the friendship group at the village hall yesterday afternoon, chapel street was full of chatter and laughter when the group members left for home. I love moments like these. The village feels vibrant and alive.
• Village elder Islwyn was seen mooching around the field borders with his trusty wheelbarrow. Without being asked he has , off his own bat, liaised with gentleman farmer Ralph to repair the gap in the hawthorn hedge in order to prevent the livery stables horses from grazing in the Ukrainian village

And all the while

Meg watches the world through Albert's cat flap.

Churchill's Crane Tribute

I guess this dovetails on my earlier post somewhat

But the bowing of the cranes at Churchill's funeral

Moved me to tears when I saw it  on a recent trailer for a tv documentary

What a tribute eh?

Love & Death

I took the body of the egret over to the badger run early this morning and left it there for the big sow to eat when she's up and around . It'll hardly make a mouthful .
The beauty of this little bird had totally evaporated sometime during the night and what was left was a few feather scraps and a pair of odd looking yellow feet.

It's that certain " life force" that gives any living thing  beauty.
Look at this photo of Jessie Gallen
At 109 she is Scotland's oldest woman
She's just as beautiful as that delicate little egret appeared yesterday afternoon.

I was 21 when I first administered the " last Offices" to a patient, I must have done it hundreds and hundreds of times since

The elderly man had lived seventy years of his life in an asylum .

He had no family, no friends and had a life devoid of the normal happiness's that the rest of us take for granted. 

He had no belongings to speak of and even his clothes were picked from the generic clothes store and I remember feeling incredibly sad at the overwhelming " emptiness " of a life not lived.

A nicotine stained enrolled nurse in her sixties had the job of talking me through the procedure of " 

laying out" , a job , I am glad to say, she took incredibly seriously.

She showed me how to shave the patient, wash him with a reverence he deserved and dress him carefully in a shroud . We combed his hair precisely then wrapped the body in a sheet, securing the last fold over his face with a safety pin and a gentle comment of " good night"

When we had finished, the enrolled nurse lit a cigarette and took a big drag of it.

Sensing I was still a bit shaken by the whole experience , she offered me a fag which I refused,  then shared with me her own personal philosophy on the situation.

" Every life is important" she said carefully ......."no matter how it is lived..remember that fact" 

That was in November 1983 on Irby Ward at the West Cheshire Hospital 

 I have never forgotten it.

Little Egret

I am convinced that there is always SOMETHING  that makes

a day an interesting one.

Today, I was sure,  it wasn't going to be one of those days, 

That was until  Carys from the large cottage on London Road knocked on the side window of the cottage just before dusk.

She told me that one of my hens was unwell and sat outside our garden gate

So I duly went out and found this little chap sitting quietly in the snow

He's dreadfully light, exhausted and a long way from home

But is one of the most beautiful things I have seen in a long long time