I've Run Out Of Bleach

Just as I was building up for the final push of " Operation Dog Snot removal" , the plumbers arrived to play around with our ball cock. To cap it all Chris is working from home and it is pouring down, so muddy foot marks and a sink full of dishes have added to the workload
Not much to complain about in the great scheme of things, but the sons and daughter in law blog readers of a visiting mom in law will understand perfectly where I am coming from.
A clean and tidy home and guest room is respectful and underlines just a tiny bit that you are not a useless son in law!
The plumbers finished their job early. They enjoy coming because Winnie shadows their every movement and blows kisses at them when they lie on the floor to catch up with their plumbing
As she was busy, I got on with cutting the clingons from William's bum.
He hates this ritual , and looked suitably ashamed of himself as he stood on the kitchen table waiting for the  scissors to start cutting! ( I have put in this little snippet of information just for Rachel)

Mother-in-law arrives in five hours..........I may just be finished

Stuffing

Sometimes I can plan a really well crafted, entertaining, and well written blog entry
and only get  a couple of comments
So today, I thought I'd post this snippet of village life
and wonder just how many reactions I receive!
So,
I think we have a new postman

I've just heard him swearing by the front door after William snatched the post off him 

as he pushed it through the letter box.

I didnt bother checking if any fingers have been nipped

I've been too busy stuffing cannelloni
William is now smiling to himself on the couch!
He loves the sport of frightening a new virgin postie

As you can see

It's a no news day today

"You..........you..........beast!"

Apologies to the neighbours

I have just completed a three hour study session at Sams

So have just got home, locked up the birds then taken out the dogs for a pee

The Prof is working away tonight

As usual Albert followed us down the lane.

Suddenly out of the dark an old ford fiesta ( I know who you are)

Screamed down  Cwm Road

I pulled the dogs behind me out of the way and  a wide eyed Albert legged it towards the safety of Carole's gateway, missing the car's tyres by just an inch or so

Like I said apologies again to the neighbours who may have wondered who exactly was shouting rather aggressively

" YOU TWATFACE FUCKER.....FUCKING ARSEHOLE!"

at exactly 9.05 pm

A pissed off Albert around 9.30 pm

Operation Dog Snot Removal

I've done some difficult and unpleasant jobs 

and have been subjected to some rather unsavoury experiences in my time.

I've dealt with poo, and wee in bucket loads,

I have dressed pressure sores the size of a dinner plates,

Mopped up bin bag fulls of vomit 

And performed minor surgery on the impacted and putrid crop of poorly Orpington.

I have assisted the the amputation of a human leg,

Once helped in the removal of a glove ( each finger filled with a severed digit)

and was hit by an exploding bag of stomach bile thrown by a confused patient .

Suffice to day nothing much fazes me when it comes to secretions and blood.

Today I have been retching like a pussy sailor on his first voyage

So much so, that I have been gasping for breath over the back garden wall with tears in my eyes

and what has been the subject of my sudden malaise I hear you ask?

Well..........

I have been trying to brush the teeth of an aging Scottish terrier with halitosis

The toothpaste apparently is liver flavoured

To me it smells almost as bad as George's breath.

Another unsung hero job from your average house husband

This is all part of " Operation Dog Snot Removal"

My mother in law is due a visit on Thursday!

Camilla bombed

Always concentrate on what you are doing where animals are concerned.
It's a good lesson that not always remembered.
The phone went early this morning and as expected it was Olwen who told me that Bob had died peacefully.
I went out to sort the animals out and got to thinking how awful it is for anyone who has lost a loved one when the sun shines and the world looks as though it is going on as normal.
We have all been there have we not?
On the surface everyone else's life is unchanged when your reality has crumbled
My thoughts are for Olwen and her family today.

It was this preoccupation that made me sloppy this morning.
For after emptying the goose house, I crawled inside , grabbed this morning's laid eggs and stuck my head back out , squinting into the sun.
Then Something  smacked me very hard in the eye

Hell hath no fury than a broody Canada Goose called Camillla Parker Bowles

Home Nursing

There will be no church service in Trelawnyd today. Gaynor, the hilarious Church organist told us somewhat breathlessly yesterday.. The vicar took a tumble in a local stately home the other day and is recuperating at home.. I shall miss the church bell ringing before service tine.
It looks as though its going to be a bright day here today, a day to catch up with jobs. The Prof will send some time holed up in his office, which gives me a chance to deliver eggs, drop off a glut of goose eggs to Auntie Glad and Ian & Jo in the village. I am buttering Ian up with the eggs in order to get him and his partner to enter the cookery classes in the flower show ( he's a mean baker by all accounts)
I also need to call around to my friends Bob & Olwen in their neat little house in the centre of the village. Some years ago, Bob taught me how to cull a group of unwanted cockerels. An experienced and responsible poultry farmer of many years, Bob insisted that the job was done with gentleness and respect. The birds were handled in an almost zen like way, relaxing them in an almost hypnotic stupor before " the dispatch". and after the deed was done, he taught me to prepare the carcasses from plucking to gutting with considerable patience.
I felt I had the rare opportunity to learn from a master

Bob giving me my first plucking lesson!

It wasn't a buxom cockerel was it not?

I have a feeling he's still in the bottom of the freezer

Unfortunately Bob has been poorly in hospital recently and Olwen took the brave decision to nurse him at home as his condition deteriorated. Palliative care nursing at home is a hard road to walk is it not?

Chris and I have always told each other that we want to die at home. I want to be surrounded by dogs under a patchwork quilt, but that's my Hollywood version of what I want I guess.......

The reality of home nursing is sleepless nights, a whole marching band of visiting, well intentioned professionals and a home that is transformed into cross between  care home and hospital ward.

I saw all this when my mother cared for both of my grandmothers at home in the months before their deaths and I saw it all again when my brother died peacefully in his own home.

It's bloody hard work

Home nursing works, if support is ongoing, you are mentally and physically strong enough to cope with the day to day workload and you have pragmatic nursing cover.

So , I will call up to Bob and Olwen's today. I take the Sunday paper. I will offer to sit with Bob if Olwen wants to pop out and I will listen to the day's events with hopeful alacrity. That's all I can do

And Up and down the country thousands upon thousands of Olwens are home nursing their loved ones behind closed doors and curtained windows.

Hey ho

Having A Larf

Chris is having a lie in, so I am making him eggs and toast......I'm having a grey hair moment for I cant quite remember if I washed my hands after picking up a hard bit of poo from the stairs......

It'll be right.....

Anyhow I can hear Chris tittering at " Curse of the were Rabbit" which he's watching on his ipad.....and I've got to thinking just how important it is to have a good titter.

The Unalaska Police Force

The Unalaska Police Blotter has made me titter for several years now, and I think it's time to share this phenomenon with a wider audience. Unalaska is a small town situated on the tail of the Alaskan Aleutian Islands. An isolated " frontier town" Unalaska suffers from it's own very individual crime wave , which is chronicled by Sgt Jennifer Shockley, somewhat dryly in the Unalaska Police Blotter.
It makes for hilarious reading

The Unalaska Blotter ( click for link) then click on blotter dates ( right)

Below is a snippet from the " tater-tot incident"
I loved it

03/15/15              Sun        0058       Assault – Two men got into a fight after one man, attempting to protect his buddy’s tater-tots, told the tater-taker that he was the bigger and badder man. The tater-tot skirmish ended with one bloody nose and two ripped shirts.

03/15/15              Sun        0100       Trespass – Officer issued a trespass advisement, per bar management, to a belligerent patron who was instigating altercations.

03/15/15              Sun        0111       Assault – A drunk who offered to help police with an assault investigation walked up to one of the tater-tot combatants, shoved him across the face and identified him by labeling him with a vulgar, Oedipus-type epithet. Brent D. Thomas, 45 yoa, was subsequently taken into custody for Harassment II.

03/15/15              Sun        0120       Trespass – Various people involved in the tater-tot skirmish were issued trespass advisements.

If you need a smile........have a look if you have a minute or three to spare......

Autonomic Dysreflexia

This post is an example of " everything went wrong that could have gone wrong".
Yesterday, I recalled the story of Sue a patient who needed and received some excellent nursing care from a curly haired, potty mouthed and naturally funny staff nurse called Ruth, who I have been dear friends with for over 25 years.
The story, had a somewhat sad ending for after four months or so on the rehab ward, Sue suddenly suffered a major physical complication and died unexpectedly on intensive care . She was only 26 years old.
We had become very close with Sue during her admission, and so it was natural for us to want to attend her funeral, which was across the Pennines in her home city of Manchester, and so early on the morning of the service three spinal injury nurses and three spinal injury patients left Sheffield in two cars to show their support.
Now Ruth and I travelled in one car and with us was a young man called Nick who had been paralysed from the waist down in a car accident and Marie, a young woman injured from the neck down following a fall. Both were wheelchair bound and both had developed a special bond with Sue during their admission.
The other car was driven by a nurse called Paula and with her was another patient called Pete, who was able to walk very shakily on two sticks.
Things didn't bode well after we stopped at traffic lights in rural Derbyshire  for as Ruth muttered her signature oath of " Hell's Teeth!"  her car stalled and refused to start. It was only then when I realised that we were totally responsible for three patients, each one with their own individual care needs.
It was a sobering thought.
Anyhow we eventually arrived at Sue's family home in a back street of Manchester just as the hearse left for the Church, then everything went tits up.

• Ruth's car finally died, leaving us stranded with no knowledge of where we were going
• Ruth started to flag down passing cars in a desperate effort to elicit help as Paula and I managed to lift Nick and Marie into her car so that at least we could get them to the service
• Ruth then incredibly stopped a cheerful plumber called Mick who agreed to transport me, her and the patients' wheelchairs across the city as a favour. Never was a stranger so helpful
• After getting to the Church we unloaded both van and car, set the patients up in their chairs then bolted to the service which was just finishing. By this time Ruth was literally inconsolable 
• The " wake" we were then told was located in a working men's club back across the city and Sue's family insisted that we all attend, so after organising more spaces in more stranger's cars we eventually arrived fraught, sweaty, and extremely stressed at one of the grottiest  council estate clubs I have ever seen.
• Then everything REALLY took a turn for the worse. 
• As we were setting up the wheelchairs ( brought for us by a couple of pensioners driving a nissan micra), Marie suddenly complained of a pounding headache. She looked flushed and unwell and couldn't quite focus  and we all suddenly knew that she was suffering from autonomic dysreflexia, a condition that is a medical emergency in high spinal cord injury patients. The condition can occur when a urinary catheter is blocked and if the cause is not rectified patients can have a pathological rise in blood pressure which can effectively kill them. The only treatment is to immediately change the patient's catheter.
• " Get her into the club" Ruth yelled and between three of us , we lifted Marie out of the car and raced THROUGH the wake where a few hundred people were drinking beer  and eating sandwiches) 
• Luckily a white faced club official saw us coming and pointed to the " ladies snug" which was deserted and on a polished table top , Ruth and Paula managed to change the blocked catheter which immediately reversed Marie's symptoms. 
• While we were busy, several red faced drinkers had helped Nick and Pete into the club and were plying them with bottles of beer. This was just after 1pm
• By seven pm, the AA had got Ruth's car started and we were on our way home. Nick and Pete were much the worse for wear and Ruth was beside herself with the stress. " I'm going to get sooo drunk tonight " she promised as we eventually got back to the spinal injury unit and after having to explain ourselves to the matron for our late return, she did exactly that, after talking a bottle of rum from another friendly rehabing patient!

The last thing I remembered of the evening was when I opened the taxi door  outside Ruth's house in

the wee small hours and she fell out onto the road drunk as a skunk. " HELL's TEETH" she slurred cheerfully "'I think I've just broken me finger.........hey ho" ......and I am afraid to say that she indeed had...but it wasn't diagnosed until the following afternoon....

Now you all know where " hey ho" comes from!

Me, Ruth's husband Allan, their kids and Ruth on a visit to Wales

Several years ago!