Feedback

Sometimes it's nice to receive positive feedback.
Especially if that feedback is given freely  and out of the blue.
And, in my case, at a time that my ebb is at a particularly low point.
After publicising The Trelawnyd Flower Show on facebook, I've had an opportunity to check on old colleagues from my old psychiatric and spinal injury days. Some, I have had a chance to touch base with again which has been lovely, but most that have acknowledged  me as " friends" have  just clicked a button stating that in one moment in time our paths crossed.,..and thats fine.
A hundred or so old faces have given me a "blast from the past"
Last night, a former colleague left me a message out of the blue. She wasn't a friend....I was her boss at the time, and after a decade of separation, I had to think hard to remember her from work.
She told me that I had been a good manager and a good boss and her words of feedback came as an unexpected tonic in this week of heaviness.
Four other old colleagues left their own thoughts afterwards, all nurses that didn't possess the loyal complication of friendship, and it was lovely to be reminded that in a former city life I was once good at something a little more.
I have just re read this blog today and I want to say that I am not touting for more feedback of what a superb specimen of manhood I am..so please no comments saying the same ........
But if you work with someone, and you think that they do a good job........whether they be a junior apprentice or a chief executive
Tell em eh?

• 

  Jo Tinker I have to agree with the ^^^ comments John, I think I had respect back then, firm but fair & always good for a laugh, we always knew where we stood with you xx

  Like · Reply · 3 · 10 hrs

  
  

Novelty Vegetable Entry

I adore this Monster Vegetable entry

In the on line veg Flower Show Competition

Cracking! 

Keep em coming please!

Baby Sitting

This Baby Sitting lark is pretty easy when you leave the baby sitting to 

A fat bitch and a dapper Welsh Terrier

Good News

Last year our local community cinema closed because of bad management and lack of funding.The local council , in this time of austerity felt that it was throwing good money after bad and a certain apathy from the general public saw the Prestatyn Cinema doors shut after only a few years of trading.
Tomorrow the cinema re opens under new management and I have already booked  tickets for the Prof and I and my sister and her husband to see

I have a feeling that the film is going to be shite... But I don't care. The important thing here is to support the cinema's rebirth .
Its a case of use it of lose it.....so locals...please get your arses into gear and SUPPORT THE SCALA!

My friend Bob from the village has his ashes buried in a plot in the graveyard this morning, which I will be attending. He was an old farmer , so I think his family will take some consolation that from " his position" he will be surrounded by horses at the livery stable and the animals on my field.....

This afternoon I am on the school run and babysitting duties with affable despot Jason's girls.....I will get them to prepare  The Prof's evening dinner which is a turkey lasagne...... All kids like to make a mess I have been told..

Jason told me to give them a load of jobs to do...... I'll get Winnie's fanny flannels ready!

24 Hours In A & E

The Prof has gone to bed and I have been watching the channel 4 documentary " 24 Hours in A & E"
One part had me sobbing like a loon, though I knew I was crying more for Meg and less for the lady on tv with the ear infection.
George in his self contained and wise old way has just ambled up to me
He gave me  his typical scottie " arrroooo!"
And climbed into my lap which he seldom ever does
And there he has stayed, offering his fat Buddha tummy for rubbing.
I have a small black Scottish Terrier guardian Angel who has more skills in psychological care than the average psychiatrist

He has the paws AND the heart of a bear

Leader Of The Pack

I wasnt going to blog about dogs again today but the subject seems to have reared its head again
tomorrow's  post, I have promised myself WILL be about something different.....thank you for all of your comments, I have read each one with affection..indeed ....there were so many that blogger could not publish them all in one go!

There are stories aplenty that document the grieving of dogs for other dogs. We have lost four dogs in total, dogs that were clearly part of a pack, but I am yet to see any behaviour in any of the survivors which would make me think that grief was present. Sure the pecking order often changes, and I have seen minor squabbles erupt when power struggles start, but I have never seen a Greyfriers Bobby moment , even though I have perhaps wished for one.
William, was the dog that seemed closest to Meg. They would always lie together and play together and apart from sniffing meg's body briefly after I had laid her down on the floor on Monday morning , he has carried on as normal. Winnie , as I expected , didn't raise an eyebrow over the situation. Meg hated her and Winnie coped with that fact with bored alacrity. So that subtle bitch/ bitch tension has now disappeared from the cottage.
George's reaction, however has surprised me.
For it was George who sat down alongside Meg's body as she lay in the kitchen. It was George who watched carefully as I lay Meg into her grave between the rose bushes in the front garden and It was George who I caught sitting on the Meg's grave this morning after he had taken himself off into the garden as I did the washing up.
Could it be a canine awareness that Meg was around? .......Who knows.
Perhaps it's just familiar smells in disturbed earth that has attracted him
I am not a fan of giving human emotions to animals.
But his behaviour made me stop for a moment, tea towel in hand

George at the bottom of the garden

Bleaching The Fanny Flannel

Meg's death has hit The Prof rather hard today.
There is a reason for this I feel.
When It comes to the animals, I have always assumed the " traditional" 1950's housewife role, and in bleak times like we have now, I can get lost, just a little , in the minutia of caring for the group of characters with special needs.
The dogs still need to be fed, Albert still needs worming, and Winnie still needs her tuppence wiping  by the hastily resurrected " fanny flannel"  as just yesterday she has decided to come back into season.
Baby birds with their mouths open will keep a mother busy.
Unfortunately the Prof doesn't have that kind of luxury.

So this morning I took William to the groomers nice and early. He rolled his eyes in surprise when I opened the driver's door and told him to sit in the passenger seat as if it was almost as though he was waiting for Meg to beat him to it....but I needed the seat to be filled , and so I told him that it was all ok.
He sat up in rather a " full of himself" way....happy at the promotion.
It tugged just a little at the old heartstrings.

On the way home, I spied a familiar figure in a floppy hat walking down the Llanasa road and my heartstrings were tugged just a little more
It was Mrs Trellis and with her, walking gently to heel, was her new companion, a slender whippet cross called Blue.
Her face beamed as Blue said hello to me with typical whippet politeness and it was lovely to see the transformation a new dog had made to her life.

So, today, I have carer jobs to do. George and Winnie are waiting for their walk. I've got to refill the field's paddling pool as Camilla has just emptied it and after Winnie's sneaky " lie in" on our bed...the duvet cover is in drastic need of  a hot wash!
Thanks to everyone who has emailed and have left comments for us regarding Meg.....everyone has
been so kind
Anyhow

I'll leave you with two more blogger  entries to the NOVELTY VEGETABLE PHOTO COMPETITION........they are great are they not?....please keep your veg photos coming in.......they will lighten my day! ( to jgsheffield@hotmail.com)

My Co-Pilot

George and Meg as puppies

For the last ten years I have always had a diminutive co pilot.
For ever since her arrival at the cottage, Meg has always insisted that she sits next to me when we are out in the car. She has never left my side since.
The other dogs and even Chris have all bowed to her superiority when it came to her passenger position, and today, even in her weakened state, she insisted that she assumed her normal driving seat as we drove up to the vet's surgery on her final journey.
I cried quietly for all seventeen miles of the trip and the receptionist kindly ignored my blotchy face when we entered and informed me that the vet was running a " good few minutes late today" She asked us to take a seat, but I couldn't bear the wait in the impersonal, aseptic surroundings,
So I told the girl that we would just " pop out for a moment" and " would be back in ten minutes or so"....I lifted Meg back into her passenger seat, where she sat in her usual position. Back straight, head gently placed to one side facing me and off we went.
Even today, as she had always done, she watched my every move through tired brown eyes and as she did so, I rested my left hand gently around her face....

And for one final time, in a knackered old Berlingo full of egg boxes and discarded scotch egg wrappers....we drove around the country roads of North Wales together.