Sometimes We All Need A Sneaky Sausage!

Just as the planets spin around the central axis of the sun, the cottage animals seem to circle and re circle the constant anchor of an ageing Scottish terrier.
This morning was a case in point.
Albert shot through the kitchen followed by Mary and Winnie and legged it up the stairs amid a hammering of paws on floorboards. Moments later they all reappeared together , this time with William in tow and the group flowed through the kitchen door then back again like a hairy tidal wave.
This is a normal event  when the sun shines and the cottage is airing .
Even I am pottering around back and forth, as I search for a craft folder full of odds and ends...I am picking up Liv and Eve from school today and I want them to design some greetings cards

George is the only one still and quiet.

I hoover the house with Mary angrily barking at the hoover nozzle,and William yaps at the garden gate as Pippa tries to sneak past the cottage with her bad tempered Meg. By this time Winnie is snoring loudly in the arm chair and Albert has put his head in the dumpling mix I have left in a bowl on the kitchen table.
The electricity meter reader knocks on the front window and the cottage bursts back into more confusion and noise . It's the kind of situation when the Professor will often bellow out a lusty
" I can't stand this !" Remark, not understanding that he is indeed adding to the confusion.

Only George is still watching the mayhem from his quiet place on the couch.

I catch The goo goo eyed Mary and put her and William on their leads in readiness for their two mile march around the village . Winnie snores her bulldog snores as Albert stalks off to bed, and I retrieve a left over sausage from the fridge and drop it into George's lap before we leave .

There's got to be some compensation for being the calm eye of the storm.

Old George

A Pain In The Glass

I met two people in the village this morning . One chap I know fairly well, he's the owner of Podrick the black Labrador puppy, who at only a few months old is already a beautifully trained sweetheart.
The other chap I didn't know at all, he was walking back from the garage shop with a newspaper.
Both men mentioned the blog.
Podrick's owner was tickled pink, that at puppy class in the village of Ffynnongroew ( go on you Americans try pronouncing that  one!) a woman had recognised his dog from my blog, whilst the other chap stopped to tell me that his wife had found Going Gently and had found something funny in it.
I know that some locals read it to catch up on the local news......perhaps that's a reflection that we no longer have a village centre shop anymore . Who knows.
If the chap with the newspaper pops in here today, he won't find too much to laugh about although Mandy from next door did catch me feeding the sheep in my pyjamas this morning......I don't know how I did it but they were inside out so the pockets ( yes they have pockets) were flapping around my hips like elephant's ears. She's used to such sights so barely gave me a second glance.....I still had my pyjamas on under my trousers when I met the villagers .....but I don't care...
  I've been spending my time organising the kitchen cupboards again......
...The kitchen is a tip and from time to time a girl just has to pull himself up by the bra straps and take control.
There's two of us in the house so why oh why do we have hundreds of drinking glasses?
I've just bleached, cleaned, sorted and polished hundreds of the little buggers

Same with the food cupboard....I've just found a packed of lasagna dated 1998 as well as a tin of baked beans which probably got sold when Harold Wilson was still puffing his pipe.
So organisation and streamlining is the order of the day.....as well as lots of coffee and good radio.
Friday I am ordering the new kitchen flooring......then we'll really have a kitchen fit for Mary Berry

The Walking Dead Review (Spoiler)- The Next World

Well a supplement blog entry just for me and a few die hard Walking Dead fans.....

Michonne and Rick 

Finally, a bit of lightness hits the show weeks after the Anderson family got chomped on at the fall of Alexandria, .Rick and Daryl go all bromance and have a jousting adventure with the new bright and wily opportunist Jesus. Tara and lumpy likeable doctor Denise are now an item ( though Denise let slip that Tara is off on a supply run for two weeks - ohh no!), Enid and Carl play at being moody teens, Spencer gets some closure when he finds his walker mother and alpha female Michonne, finally gets jiggy jiggy with her mirror alpha predator Rick.( a fact that has been three series in the making)
Sex and the zombie apocalypse has strangely been thin on the ground for most of the characters in The Walking Dead....a fact that has always surprised me somewhat given the " this could be our last night on earth" mentality of the show.......
I'm surprised that they all haven't been shagging like rabbits..
Nice to see a change of pace for one episode at least!
Daryl's scenes with Jesus were especially bouncy .....watch that space! There's a connection there!

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.