The Crow and other nothings

12 hours on my feet yesterday coupled with a two mile round robin with Mary this morning and my knee gave up the ghost again . True I had just then started to bleach the toilet, which necessitated me to kneel on a hard bit of lino, which was, I am afraid,  the straw that broke the camel's knee cap.
But you don't need to know such trivialities.
It's a warm day here in Trelawnyd and apart from walking the dogs, I've already checked on Pat the animal helper's seedlings in her greenhouse ( she's on a cruise) and have photographed another villager's facial skin graft over the garden wall so he has a record of it improving.
I don't mind being asked about health matters as long as I know what I'm talking about
Gay Gordon saw me limping slightly the other day and told me quite bluntly to loose weight.

Everyone has an opinion.

The good news today is that the crow survived!
Do you remember a few weeks ago that I noticed that a crow had broken into an unoccupied cottage up near the Gop and had become trapped? Well , I passed the same cottage today and the owner was on one of his rare visits and was tidying up the garden.
I asked him about the bird and he told me that he had arrived home a week later to find the bird very much alive and well. The thing must have been kept going on toilet water and odds and sods from the kitchen shelves, but it had survived which pleased me greatly.

I'm off to trim the Montana clematis now, Mrs Trellis complained that it had overgrown the small metal arch over our kitchen garden gate and that she'd caught her hair and spectacles in the tangle of growth when she had last visited.
" It could have had my eye out" she trilled.


    

A Thank You

Remember that I gave a lecture to a group of seven year olds at the village school?
Well the mother of one of the lads popped up to the cottage yesterday evening with a sick bantam in a box.
The Prof snorted a warning comment of " No more sick bastard hens in this house" before I marched out, but he need not have worried, as the little bantam was literally beyond any help I could offer.
I examined the little bird and gave some pointers to the lady of how to keep her comfortable and she left secure in the thought that she had now done her best.
I know this as when I locked the birds up for the night , on the garden gate there was hung a small package of scotch eggs with two cream scones in a bag.
A thank you for my consultation.
After a shitty night shift and before an even busier day shift today.
It was a bloody lovely treat!

This Is How I Feel Today

This is how I feel today

Blog Break

Whilst a selected few intensive care nurses live it up in Marbella this weekend, grunts like me get the bum deal with shifts to cover the unit. I worked night shift last night and am due back for a twelve hour shift tomorrow daytime .
Hope my colleagues are enjoying their pina coladas! 

Shoot The Damm Dog

It very much looks as though the journalist, magazine editor and agony aunt Sally Brampton took her own life earlier this week.
She has written much about her life long experience with depression, indeed before I started work as a Samaritan, her book Shoot The Damm Dog- a Memoir Of Depression was one of my suggested background reads.
Last night, I was reminded of a quote from that book. It is, perhaps, the most graphic yet simple explanation of the suicidal act.

" Killing oneself, anyway is a misnomer. We don't kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness, people are apt to say, with a note of approval, "He fought so hard." And they are inclined to think, about a suicide, that no fight was involved, that somebody simply gave up. This is quite wrong.”

Postscript

A postscript to the last post....a comment by another Trelawnyd-ite forwarded on to me this evening

" He usually has a box of dog biscuits in that basket ready for any passing dog walker...he's such a character, he makes me laugh...when I had finish my chemotherapy and my hair was just growing back (you know the fledging look!) he briskly strolled past me in the village hall calling out in his booming voice..."hello flower, wow your barber is even worse than mine!" You've got to laugh! Xxx" 

Another Day, Another Lunatic

A sunny day and the " Marian " lane seemed almost black with mayflies this morning. Everyone seems out in the sunshine. Fan of  The Walking Dead pensione John  escorted Auntie Glad to the town bus still holding his mug of tea and policeman Ian could be seen chatting to Basil the farmer at the top of High Street, they both waved. I thought I'd spied Trendy Carol driving by, wearing something interesting in chiffon but I couldn't be sure. The sun was too bright on the main road.

Mary and I had just reached  The Crown ( for those that don't know, The Crown in the village pub) when, far in the distance we spied a strange figure emerging from the heat haze on the road.
The vision looked almost ethereal
It reminded me of Omar Sharif on that camel scene in Lawrence Of Arabia
Slowly......details started to emerge from out of the mirage,
Until finally Gay Gordon on his invalid trolley trundled magnificently into view
" Hello Flower" he bellowed " Nice day for a drive!" Obviously oblivious of the string of usually fast moving traffic wanting to pass....
" You'll kill yourself on that thing" I called out after the final lorry had rumbled by
And Gordon bellowed out a lusty laugh....." My legs needed an airing" pointing at his corned beef shins.........bugger knows just where he had been!
Mary bounced up into his lap,she as most dogs seem to like this strange loud  village character and Gordon was thrilled to find out her name as his " lady friend" with whom he shares his life is also called Mary. Big Mary, as you may remember looks like a large cheerful scatter cushion with half the stuffing removed.!

A delivery van wizzed by, inches from Gordon's oversized shopping basket, but he didn't seem to notice and I said my goodbyes. " see you soon!" I called
"TALLY HO!" He sang out as the invalid trolley shot off into the village!
There is something almost valiant about Gordon I always think!

A Masterclass

I'm not a fan of the actor of Tom Hanks but after just listening to him on the podcast of Desert Island Discs I found him to be a charming and rather delightful individual.
His memory of his lonely, movie filled childhood had a certain resonance with me, especially his explanation of how, at the time, he didn't understand or had the vocabulary to explain or articulate to himself, what bothered or upset him.
The interview was a fascinating testament to how loneliness made him a great actor.
It also underlined just how good Kirsty Young is as an interviewer; she led him exactly where she wanted him to go.
Wonderful Radio

Not much happened to me today.
Oh I did slip out of my right croc and stumbled into a shop dummy in the woman's section of Marks & Spencers.