Mantelpiece

Bloody Hell I'm knackered. Night shift was particularly busy last night.
I've been finding it a little hard getting going today......so I shall be brief.

This is our mantelpiece. I love cards and postcards on mantelpieces. Getting correspondence through the mail seems to be a rarity nowadays what with the internet and texts, but , for me it remains a bit of a treat.
On show we have two birthday party invitations ( one in the village Hall and one in a posh London venue) , a sweet card from a friend in Derbyshire which accompanied a box of coffee, our valentine's cards ( mine is more classy) and a postcard from Spain, a greeting from one of our Flower Show committee members who has emigrated to a warmer life.
A hand written card, placed in an envelope and stamped and Posted takes more of an effort than thumbs on a phone keypad or fingers on an email
It says you're worth it.........

Sunday Thoughts

Cottage Still life

" Bulldog and fire with daffs"

I'm doing a Rachel  today as I have got 12 minutes in which to type this post .
Lunch goes into the cooker at 12.40
Today it' s Waitrose salmon........(we went yesterday and I got all excited at the pristine conditions and the polite non sports wearing customers.)
Sunday lunchtime is my favourite time of the week. The Prof is in church, the dogs all asleep after walks and breakfast and the cottage is silent.
It always feels a little like Christmas morning before the action starts.
Today I walked around the Marian with William and Mary. There is a cottage up on the hill, where an Alsatian lives, it attacked the terriers last week and got booted by me for it's trouble and I was going " to have a word" with the owner  but was stopped short.
The owner is having a bad time at the moment.
He recognised me the other day and stopped for a sad chat. He recognised me from visiting the hospital. Unshaven and tired , he is coping with illness at home, so the security of a maladjusted dog is the last thing on his mind.
How quickly can a life change.
Our meeting unsettled me somewhat. A Sudden and devastating illness is not a rarity in people of middle years, we only have a pack of dogs, a cat with a bent leg, scruffy sheep, and a motley crew of birds because I am in the position of caring for them. The worry of " what will become of my children if I am ill? " is sadly not the prerogative of just the modern parents of this world....

Hey ho.

Darn it...I am one minute over ...........need to go that salmon won't cook itself xxxx

Tit

What's Happened today?

Lovely lunch out in Chester,

 Bit of shopping

Got home

Walked dogs into churchyard to see alpacas in church glebe

Spied that Gaynor Mad organist was pottering alone in the church

Got a bit silly , put anorak hood way over head, pressed head against vestry window

Made loud moaning noises and scratched fingers on window

( pretending to be a zombie)

carried on like this for a good minute or so, 

Until a loud cough brought me up short

Apologised profusely  to two ladies who suddenly appeared walking down Church path

Maggie The Cat

Phwore......

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof is one of my favourite plays. I've always liked that Williams threw everything including the kitchen sink into a tale of repressed homosexuality, mother love, life, death, envy, sex, sibling rivelry, ambition and greed.
It's a cracking actor's piece
Tonight we went to see the latest version at Theatre Clwyd and it was a rare treat, for the acting was as impressive as anything that has been seen on screen or in the West End.
Catrin Stewart more than holds her own as the strong as iron Maggie and Gareth David Lloyd almost acts himself out of a skimpy bath towel as the drunk Brick , a man of ambigious sexuality and marked self loathing . Desmond Barrit strikes a memorable and rather moving performance as a tired but not down Big Daddy and is  ably sported by the Abigail McKern as the tragic Big Mama
I loved it

The Nature Of The Beast

When I was a psychiatric nurse in training, one phrase was always drummed into us students when dealing with " difficult" patients
" Reject the a behaviour never the person"
Sometimes it's a difficult rule to follow.

Last night I worked a late shift at Samaritans. The late night/early morning stint is usually a busy one with the phones constantly ringing, call after call after call. It can be a challenging and rewarding shift , and it one that I prefer to work on given the fact I am mentoring two new volunteers who would gain invaluable experience with the different myriad of callers.

Recently The Samaritans have implemented a freephone number and subsequently there has been an increased demand for the service. Anecdotally, I have noticed an increase in " crank" calls getting through to volunteers with sex callers making up a significant proportion of these incoming calls.

Of course the intensive Samaritan training covers strategies for dealing with sex callers. The caller is not rejected but the behaviour is , and the Samaritan is trained to take charge of the call, firmly but kindly bringing the call to an end unless the challenge opens up another avenue of discussion.

However sometimes it is difficult to remain upbeat when time after time you have been asked to describe the colour of your pants , or to listen to a caller in the throws of masturbation, and it's a little heartbreaking to see the disappointment on the face of the new volunteers after another crank call blocks the lines, preventing a genuine caller from getting through to some help.

Last night, we must have received a dozen such calls, and I must admit, instead of the usual " I am ending this call" conclusion to one man who wanted me to listen to what he wanted to do to small girls , I asked him gently if he understood that he was blocking the line from callers who were in genuine distress.
Characteristically the line went dead.
And seconds late the same man, with the same story was talking to my colleague.

Such is the nature of the beast. 

Room

With the Prof away in London and needing a soft seat for my bleached bum, I took myself off to a very early one off showing of the movie Room 
It's a strangely powerful film to be sure.
Joy( Brie Lawson) and her five year old son Jack ( Jacob Tremblay) are imprisoned in a grubby single room by the mostly unseen character called old Nick. Jack was born in the room and understands only what his mother has taught him about the world. As their living conditions deteriorate, Joy hatches a plan for Jack to escape , a plan that finally liberates the both of them , and the story then explores how mother and son adjust to life in the " normal " world.
As a study of the power of the mother / child relationship Room excels wonderfully. Room also has a great deal to say about the fragility and the transient nature of childhood, as the more " plastic" and sponge like Jack adapts better to his bewildering new freedom than his fiesty but suddenly directionless Mother.
Brie Lawson and the tiny nine year old Tremblay are simply stunning in the lead roles, indeed they have to be as the whole of the first half of the movie is essentially a two hander between the two of them. Joan Allen pops up in a quietly effective turn as Joy's mother as does William H Macy as her father who cannot accept Jack's existence.
Room  is not an easy watch. But it's a worthy one.
8/10

Btw.....our zip wire experience ( booked for Saturday) has been cancelled due to the weather........
Me thinks that The Prof Is secretly pleased..

Shit!!!!!

Shit , I've just done it again

I've burnt my arse on the toilet

after bleaching the bowl this morning

( I have a fat arse so keep the seat up when I have to " sit" )
You don't need to know the details
Anyhow
It's taken a few hours to hit home....but

It's now itchy as hell!
Bugger!

Whore!

I'm such a whore.....
last night I posted an article on dog fencing, which was in fact a blatant advertisement of a potentially very useful product.
I was approached by the company who produces the fencing and asked if I could blog about it, and for my trouble , I would be rewarded by a small fee!
It all seems cosha but I couldn't help feeling all a bit uncomfortable about it all,
I know Going Gently is a collection of stories and thoughts and ideas ( mostly about something or nothing) but essentially all of those stories and thoughts and ideas are all mine and no one else's .
Publicising electric fencing, no matter how good it is , is not quite my raison d'etre.
All of a sudden I feel like Julia Roberts to Richard Gere's sidekick from Pretty Woman....having said this, I still published the advert with my empty hand outstretched, like I said , I'm a whore.

And so I now feel a need to steer Going Gently back to safe waters.....and those waters made me laugh right out loud this morning during a rather wet and cold rainstorm over a very miserable and soggy Trelawnyd.
It was around midday when I finished walking the generally bouncy and very damp terriers and so with a slightly heavy heart I entered the living room in search of Winnie.
Winnie hates morning walks . She particularly detests morning walks in rain, and will endeavour to blend chameleon like into the scatter cushions on the couch or arm chair in an effort not to be dragged outside, even though her bladder may be the size of the average watermelon.
That is the very reason, I now, no longer walk her with the others, they just cant stomach the palaver.
I called her and she kept her eyes very firmly shut. I knew she was awake and was just trying to ignore me , so I slapped her hard on the bottom and ordered her to get up
She opened one eye, with a look of " youuuuuu baasssstard " 
This is the game we play every single day.
More bottom slaps, calls and orders later Winnie finally will stand sulking at the back door. If it is dry and warm, she will put up with the following walk with bored alacrity but , if, like today, the weather is cold and particularly wet, she will always stand in the doorway with a look Bette Davis always  gave Joan Crawford in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. 
It says " You've got to be fucking kidding!" 
Now even bulldogs need to go to the toilet , and understanding that the quicker she " goes" the quicker she can return to the warmth of the Prof's armchair makes Winnie , the Einstein of the cottage animals, for this lunchtime , she side swiped me with the lead in my hand, bounced up into the  garden and with superhuman effort promptly opened her bladder then bowels in the centre of the  gravel path.
She then whirled around with a triumphant look which simply said " Traaaadaaaaaaaaah" 
Then she trotted back through the rain , back through the kitchen and was up in her armchair with her eyes tightly shut before I had even got my coat off.