Bring Him Home

This blog should be viewed after the proceeding one if that makes sense.

Bear with me....if you follow my instructions, it will make sense.

Seventy people more or less filled St Michael's Church for Colin Endres' memorial service. Seventy people is not a bad turn out for someone in their mid eighties I thought.

Every pew was filled.

Sailor John and Mandy, Animal Helper Pat and her daughter Joanne, Farmer Basil, Jenny the former postmistress, old Trevor, Sheep man Graham, the head of the community council, and a score of old faces sat at the back of the Church as the family took the front pews.

Gaynor, the mad organist looked natty in her checked jacket.

The vicar looked traditional in his long frock. 

It was a nice service. 

The funeral usher came from Denbigh and was a practised baritone. He provided a spirited descant to the chorus of Calon Lan.

After  the service, Yola, Colin's wife took her time to process down the aisle and as we sat there, Gaynor switched on a recording of Bring Him Home from Les Miserables.

I suspect that the recording was this  version, and although it is said to be a common song to be played at a funeral, It was the first time I had heard it at such a service. 

As the elderly and strong voices from the village choir filled the church, many in the congregation bowed their heads with the sudden emotion of it all.

Butterscotch Angel Delight

After a somewhat energetic appointment with a dental hygienist , I called into the Mcdonald's drive through for a coffee. It was mid morning.
On impulse, while my coffee cooled I drove up past the Monastery at Pantasaph and pulled up outside Auntie Glad's nursing home.
The new manager met me at the door and shook my hand formally. She wanted to know who I was.
She asked me to wait as she thought Gladys was having a lie in after being somewhat poorly.
I waited in the small dining room, where one deminuative resident eyed me carefully from her wheelchair.
" who are you here to see?" She croaked
" Gladys Jones" I replied
" Her room is next to mine", she told me " She's had a wee infection!"
" oh dear" I said smiling weakly.
The manager appeared and told me that Gladys would recieve me in her room.
I didn't stay too long, for Gladys was slightly vague and tired but she recognized  me and sounded like her old self when I informed her there was a funeral in the village this afternoon.
" Mr Endres' funeral !"
Mr Endres had helped run his wife Yola's family shop for many years
Now the Welsh love a good funeral and Gladys is no different in that respect and immediately she was giving thought to what she would wear for the service, plans I managed to divert with some more chatter about the Flower Show committee and Gay Gordon's recent death.
I even toyed with the idea that I may take her to funeral myself, but thought against it as she was not quite well enough.
Next time, I thought, if permission was granted

As I left , I smiled at the woman in the wheelchair, who was now sat at the lunchtable.
She smiled back showing a wide expanse of gums
" We're having butterscotch angel delight for pudding today" she told me

Favourite Quote

" You have a merry heart!"

" Yea, my lord, I thank it......poor fool
    It keeps on the windy side of care"



What's yours?

A Little Post About Lurve!

Valentines day....PAH!

I popped into Sainsburys yesterday, to get neighbour Trevor a chicken dinner and a paper. You couldn't move for men pawing carefully over buckets of flowers.
It wasn't much of an uplifting spectacle.
I'm not an  overly romantic animal. I find large romantic gestures somewhat cloying!
Does that surprise you?
Answers on a postcard please!

I had only two serious " boyfriends" before the Professor came along. I did however kiss quite a few frogs in the search for Mr Right but that was a long time ago in a country far far away.
There were no Mr Right's before the Professor......Mr Self Obsessed certainly, Mr Straight acting too and surprisingly Mr Getting-married-to-a-woman ....oh and lets not forget Mr Charmless, Mr Bad Breath Mr Strange Sex and Mr Mommy Lover.....like I said ......I kissed a few frogs
Before all that I did date a few women, two of which I am still friends with today.
Dating women may not have been fully satisfying but it was more civilized I always thought

However, despite my lack of a romantic personality, I must say something here
The Prof and I were married two years ago next month and my wedding day was the best day of my life.
It was the best thing I ever did!
Hey ho..there....I have said it!

I'll leave you with this tiny animation I made last Spring....it has nothing to do with Valentine's but it has everything to do with lurve
It shows an old Welsh Terrier chasing bees in our back garden

The Walking Dead Returns!

The lovely Jesus

Mondays are now back to normal.
The Walking Dead has returned for the next two months or so!
Finally "team Rick" is more or less back together.
Carol is still been relegated to the shack in the woods, but her absence  has made space for the new characters of Jesus ( Tom Payne) Ezekiel ( Khary Payton) and others  to get some sort of foothold amid the two dozen characters that now need to be juggled within the Saviour threat
narrative.
It's interesting to note that Jesus is reported to be another gay character.
That makes four gays in " team rick" !!!!
perhaps homos do well in zombie apocalypses?

The strength of The Walking Dead lies in the " The community against the world" storyline. 
Thank goodness we are now getting back to the formula that has always served the series so well over the years. 

Image

I think I need a new image.

At the Baftas I noticed that Dev Patel had gone all floppy haired and informal which apparently sent the women ( and many of the men) in the room wild with desire. 

Eddie Redmayne donned a white tux and looked very 1950s and even Steven Fry, who usually looks like a bag of coal in a suit , scrubbed up well enough to lead the charge against Trump's references to the overrated Meryl Streep.
The Prof has a new twitter profile photo. ( see above)
It shrieks professional & Individual 
If I had one there would be a gravy stain on the shirt and egg in my beard.
Unprofessional & Individual 

It's time to change!
And so......Before I take neighbour Trevor to the doctor's surgery this morning I 've made an effort...it's the turning of a new leaf!
I've washed my face and combed my hair! I've put on clean jeans and a jumper spring fresh from airing on the bathroom radiator. I've brushed my teeth and have put shoes on instead of my crocs with the holes in the sole
And feeling fairly dapper strode out to get myself a coffee from the kitchen

.....and promptly stood in a pile of George's bile sick lurking by the fridge

Hanging Up My Stethoscope!

My work retirement documentation arrived in the post yesterday.
There is a whole booklet of things to complete....it's bureaucracy overload!

I aim to leave intensive Care around my birthday which is in June.
By then I would have been a nurse over 35 years!
35 years!
Bugger Me!

Recently a colleague asked me if there was much difference between the nursing of today and that of thirty years ago, and Without much pause, I said no
Caring is caring whatever the decade.

What has changed is the system itself. Pressure on the system by increased demand. Pressure on the system by more complex care needs and pressure on the system by patients who are living longer and who are expecting more.
The system is now dominated by quality control measures, audits, specialist managers and all of the paperwork that goes along with ticking a box. The nhs monster is so big that great swathes of the supportive services have been contracted out and balancing the books will now never be a possibility no matter what Hospital Trust you work for.

Like I said the caring  part of nursing hasn't changed.
But almost everything else has.

I was a good ward manager and dare I say a very effective rehabilitation nurse that often ran things by the seat of my pants. Now I am a safe intensive care nurse, but I can see that the management side of nursing has become harder and harder. The burn out of senior staff is a sobering fact of modern day nursing life......nursing management is more fire fighting now, fire fighting and juggling!

After I retire, I still intend to nurse occassionally. After all I will be 55 and not ready to fully hang up my stethoscope for eternity! But it will be nice to officially leave a system that asks so much of
you...

Mini Drama

A pretty little tabby is presently sat on our coal bunker making moo moo eyes at Albert .
Like any lazy and pragmatic fellow , Albert is sat on the kitchen windowsill , next to his feed bowl.
He is warm and comfortable and surprisingly is looking at the sad stranger in a rather benign way
The tabby looks cold.
I took her out some food as she is meowing in a needy way.
William is watching proceedings through the cat flap with his one good eye.
The Prof has already gone to bed with George.
Winnie is warming her nipples by the fire
Mary, as usual is with me in the arm chair, she too is asleep.

So the little Mexican standoff remains largely unwitnessed.

I'm watching The Bourne Ultimatum on tv.
Jason Bourne is walking quickly through the city

In the ad break I put more food out for the tabby.....she is very  hungry
Albert is still on the window ledge pretending he's asleep.

Who says nothing happens here on a Saturday night