Walking Dead "Thank You" ( Spoilers)

Glen, one of the last of the Atlanta Five

Glen ( Steven  Yeun) has been the moral compass amongst the survivors in The Walking Dead since he first appeared as a somewhat gauche pizza delivery boy in episode 2 of the first series way back in 2010. We have seen him grow up, get married and develop into a man of integrity, so it was with a very heavy heart that we apparently saw his somewhat futile death in episode three of the " Fall of Alexandria " .
Now there has been much twittering on the internet that Yeun is still filming scenes in the zombie series...so it will be interesting to see if our favourite Korean has survived his fall into the arms of a hundred dead people..........perhaps , like Bobby Ewing in Dallas..it was all a dream.
I hope so.....for Glen's relationship with the winsome Maggie has been one of the few lighter times in the whole six series....

Michonne.......a black, Clint Eastwood cowgirl

This series has been one of the best with two episodes covering the time it took to cook a basic casserole .....

" Hating Your Job"

It's been a bitty morning.
Back and forward to the station, back and forward to the vets and back and forward to the dog groomers. The girls at the grooming centre love George . He's so well behaved and polite. when I picked him up, I noted one of the grooming staff battling with a difficult pooch. she looked flushed and all out of sorts- a worker not having a good day I thought.
I stopped at a large supermarket on the way home to treat George to some chicken roll and as I got level to the customer service desk, I noticed an elderly man shouting at the sales assistant. I couldn't get the gist of it, but I did lipread the assistant when he wearily said to a colleague " I hate this fucking job" after the customer had stormed away.
This got me to thinking ....

Have I ever hated my job?
Hummm....well no.......generally as a nurse , although I have hated certain experiences, politics, colleagues  and indeed patients , I have always found more to like than to hate at work .

Ok when I was 20, I despised working as a bank clerk at the Nat West with so much bile, that I almost made myself mentally ill and I once walked out of a council summer job after only 6 hours in the role of paddle boat supervisor at Prestatyn's Ffrith Beach when three Liverpudlian teenage girls threw me into the lake . The rest of my thirty five years at work have been relatively happy ones......

So the question for this Monday, is ?
What has been your most hated job?.....and
What was the last straw that made you leave?

George is a groomers' dream

He raises morale

" You've Done This To Me, You miserable fucker!"

I few years ago, I mentioned on Going Gently that I am not a true fan of puppies. Puppies, I said, were all goo-goo eyes, sharp teeth and silliness.
I much prefer dogs a little older. Dogs who have their own personality.
At four and a half months Mary is still half stupid puppy, half quick witted bitch
It's week one and she is doing very well indeed
She's almost house trained ( two hourly toileting)
She sleeps, quietly in her crate all night ( with George sleeping next to her on his own cushion)
And she's bright enough not to overplay her hand with the other dogs and Albert.
Winnie has come around somewhat and after three days of sulking, with her face pressed firmly against the living room wall, she has reluctantly accepted the mad galloping, goggle eyed baby with all the resigned exasperation of Walter Matthau from " Grumpy Old Men"
Friday morning I caught Mary tugging manfully at the fat folds on Winnie's face. She was having a hey ho time.....After a few minutes  of chewing the puppy moved on to pastures new leaving a somewhat nonplussed Bulldog staring up at me with a clear  " you've done this to me, you miserable fucker" expression on her face
Like I said, it's all going swimmingly.

Nuff Said

Off To Work

It's 6.37am and I am sat in my still place having coffee.
I'm off to work in a moment and wont be home until after 8pm.
I had a couple of wines too many last night.
Only a couple, for I went to a ward night out . Something I rarely do nowadays.
It was a leaving bash for 6 nurses who have moved on to pastures new.
For the most part....Six talented nurses.
It was sad to see them go. But I understand why most of them have done. Sometimes we have an inflexible rota system and the off duty for full time staff can be punishingly difficult to cope with especially when you have a life outside work.
I talked to a few junior staff members too last night.

When I used to manage , all those years ago now, I like to think that I tried to make things a bit easier for all staff........
Hey ho

Eyebrows In Church

We went to my Aunt Margaret's funeral today.
It was well organised with Westlife's " You Raise me up" playing emotionally at the Crem.
The service was held at the local Parish Church which was pleasingly full of mourners.
The new vicar of Prestatyn looks a little like the vicar from Dad's Army , I tell you this just to add a little more colour to the proceedings.

The Prof and I had a pew to,ourselves, and on the way out I fell in line with a very small woman with a shock of white hair. A glimpse of two magnificently drawn on eyebrows made me stop short.
It was my Auntie Joyce
" I thought you were dead" I hissed at her
" Well I'm not" she whispered back somewhat obviously
I hadn't seen her since my mother's funeral over a decade ago

Now auntie Joyce and her hand drawn eyebrows was always a highlight at pre Christmas lunch drinks when I was a child. That is the only time we got to see her, and her eyebrows always made her look if not startled certainly mildly surprised.
Rather affectionately I always referred to her as Charlie Cairoli
Only people of a certain age will know who Charlie Cairoli was.

Auntie Joyce

A Still Place

Where is your still place?
The place where you sit and think.
The place you make lists  On pen and paper....or just in your mind.
The place where you drink coffee out of your " special" mug
The place where you write.
The place you can be still.

My place is at the kitchen table. In the mornings it is the brightest part of the cottage.
It feels a cheerful place even though we still haven't got the lino sorted.
The kitchen has three windows.
Opposite, on the outside of the fridge and in my direct line of sight is a snapshot of everyday life here.
A collection of photos and memorabilia which can only be understood by the Prof and I

My still place isn't the field, or the garden or on the top of Gop hill with it's magnificent views over the vale of Clwyd.
My still place is sat at the kitchen table................ looking at the fridge door.

Winnie Thaws

Mary has been bouncy all day.

She has been working on Winifred's Ice cold indifference

with the gusto of an Olympic champion. 

Just as things were winding down for the day, 

And in the glow of the log burner during The Archers

The two finally made friends on the living room carpet