La La Land

I was in two minds about seeing LaLa Land.
On the one hand come the multiple plaudits from the critics
On the other.......anecdotal so so reviews from ordinary cinema goers.
So I went with an open mind.

As it turned out, La La Land is a sweet movie; a modern day musical which starts as it means to go on with commuters stuck in sunbright LA traffic singing and dancing around their cars in a multicoloured explosion of bon vivre! 
The story is suitably cheesy.
Aspiring actress Mia (Emma Stone) meets up with Jazz bore Sebastian ( Ryan Gosling) a pianist down on his luck.
Over a year we witness their courtship in Los Angeles, the " city of dreams" as both try their best to attain their dreams in Hollywood and it's a courtship punctuated with a whole plethora of musical set pieces with the leads singing and dancing on the Hollywoods Hills, on the Warner Brothers' back set and and in one magical sequence weightless inside the city's planetarium!
Gosling is delightful as the puppy eyed Sebastian, playing the piano as easily as he sings and dances.
Stone is impressive too and almost steals the film with a plucky charm and warmth. They are incredibly sweet in their many scenes together.
La La Land doesn't quite reinvent the Hollywood musical, but it does kick start the genre somewhat.
Having said this I could done without the Jazz ( I am not a lover of it) and some of the final quarter of the movie sags just a tiny bit, but I dare you to watch the powerhouse sequence of Mia's final audition    
( sung by Stone as the camera revolves around her) without crying...it's a lovely bit of cinema.
8/10

Gravitas

A rough looking type and his missus parked their car behind the cottage in order to check over the plot of land which is up for sale just up the lane
He half blocked old Trevor's driveway and returning home Trevor beeped his horn for the bloke to move.
" You can get a fucking bus through there!" the man snapped angrily and taking an instant dislike to him I stopped the dogs as I passed
" He's an old man and he needs you to move your car!" I said carefully giving the man a very direct look and irritably he did as he was instructed, scowling at me as he did so
Only when I returned home did I realise what I was wearing

My " plucked chicken" hat does not quite give me the gravitas I thought I possessed!

I'm sick of all of this bad news.....

....hate....all of the bad feeling..........

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm had the right idea

Let's be optimistic 

U-S-A

The Prof and I have just been watching the inauguration on tv

Baby Boomers

I found myself explaining the phenomenon of " The Baby Boomer" to a 25 year old colleague the other day...they had not heard the phrase before, and why would they? What do they know of those " oldies" that were born between 1948 and 1964.
I was born in 1962, so just came in under the wire as did one other nurse on duty, and the younger staff seemed genuinely  surprised as we brainstormed baby boomer norms! Norms that would make modern parents run screaming to child protective services!


As children my sister and I would sit in a living room as my parents would chain smoke cigarettes until the walls ran brown with nicotine.

My father would drive us all home after babysitting my sister's kids on a Saturday night much the worse for drink!

No one ever Ever wore seat belts!

We used to walk 2 miles to and from school alone and in the dark with shorts on!

If you ever was allowed to use the home phone you had to sit in a cold hallway to do so ( and were timed! )

One playtime venue was the local rat infested public tip!

The coal fire heated a small square of the living room nothing else

We ate left overs on Monday and were often served things like mince, liver and onions and offal

Had a bath only on Sunday nights!

We coped with three tv channels and no daytime tv on weekdays ( unless you watched school programmes!)

Relatives and perfect strangers could reprimand you and be supported in the fact by your mother and father

Every winter there was snow

Being Heard

I once nursed a woman who had been seriously ill for several months.
For much of that time she was unconscious, floating between life and death and that strange half world in between,  where the body is propped up with drugs, and machines and that tenuous strength a body shows when the chips are down. Later during her admission, her sedation was finally turned off and her tracheostomy uncuffed in an attempt to get her body to function on it's own.
In the middle of the night as I was administering medication through her nasogastric tube, her eyes opened, they were watery red and tired .
I asked her if she was in pain and she shook her head .I asked her if she knew where she was and she mouthed the word " hospital" and as I pottered around doing nursey things she reached out a weak arm and touched my face with her hand.
Moments later she cried out with an unearthly wail.
This was followed by another and another... each one louder than the last and there was something almost animalistic in the way it sounded.
I hurried to the bedside.
No she was not in physical pain, that was the first question I asked again, but again and again she cried out like a baby does when it is distressed in the night .
I tried to placate her. I massaged her hands with cream in an effort to sooth her and I tried to engage her in a way of diverting her distress but finally, as she half spoke half whispered the words " I want to " I realised that finding her voice was a final statement of " I'm here and I feel so bad" 
Her cries validated her.

It was hard but I gathered my nursing notes in order to write a report of the night and closed the side room door to the main ward. With them on my knee I quietly sat next to her and started to write my notes as she shrieked and wailed like an banshee.
Twenty minutes later she had cried herself to sleep..

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Postscript to this week's dog attack.

Arrrhhh the power of the blog......this afternoon the owner of the husky called around to the cottage to discuss the dogfight on Tuesday evening.
She had read the blog and wanted to put things straight which was very big of her and we had a frank and open discussion about the incident.
The husky, as I thought,  is a somewhat damaged animal. She is clearly cared for by a devoted owner who understands dog psychology but the bitch indeed sounds a bit of a nightmare to care for due to previous abuse and trauma and by the sounds of things the owner has done everything in her power to rectify her problems.
I finally suggested a dog trainer I have heard of who specializes in aggressive large dogs and we parted on good terms.
I wish her and her dog well.

Frantic Fanny Friction

I'm glad I'm working tonight.
I'm somewhat jaded with ideas that backfire, and need a night of peace with bleeping ventilators and screaming monitors.
Talking to like minded friends and colleagues would be good too!

Mary and Winnie ( like women do I am reliably informed) have synchronized their seasons and as the elderly eunuchs William and George sleep their relaxed old dog sleep, the girls have embarked on an extended, strenuous and rather unsavoury bout of simulated sex play.
When we first bought Mary we played around with the plan that one litter of puppies would be a grand idea but with all of this puffing and panting and rubbing of toilet parts upon toilet parts

I think I have changed my mind.

Dog Attack

There must be perhaps fifty dogs in the village.
All sizes and all temprements.
Just three are overly agressive. A fat black labrador from the other side of Trelawnyd, Dr Barnsley's mongrel Meg ( who for some unknown reason hates the terriers) and a white husky type dog from Erw Wen.
The last two are big dogs and it troubles me somewhat that their owners have real trouble controlling them in the street.
Uncontrollable dogs are dangerous dogs plain and simple.
Last night when I took William and Mary out for their last walk we ran into the white husky.
He was on one side of the main road and we were  perhaps sixty feet away on the other. It was very dark so old William with his cataracts was unaware of his presence . Mary however saw him and stopped dead in her tracks.
The husky's owner stiffened and started to wrap it's lead around his hand but the husky on seeing the Welsh terriers lurched forward barking furiously.
I don't know if the lead snapped or it's collar slipped but suddenly the dog burst free and attacked.
In the couple of seconds it took to dart across the road ( stopping the traffic)  I managed to position myself between it and the terriers behind me and as it lunged towards them I kicked it  hard in the head.
The husky hesitated so I bellowed at it to keep away and stamped at it again and moments later  frightened by me, the stopped car's headlights and it's panicked owner  the husky galloped off in the direction of home.

We were lucky last night for William and Mary are no match for such an aggressive dog.
Winnie, with her bulk, and intelligence could fend off such an assault but a blind elderly terrier such as William and a delicate juvenile like Mary could well have been seriously injured or even killed.
Large aggressive  breeds are often kept as status symbols with little thought given to their potential

I know that this husky has not been socialised with other dogs. It is only walked in the " safety " of deserted night streets by an owner who has not been trained to deal with it.
I aim to tell the owner this when I see him.
I didn't have the chance last night
Hopefully it will be at a time when emotions run just a little calmer.