Relationships With A Tom Cat

The Prof is away until Sunday. 

I am all alone till then.

Today I shall meet my Sister in Law for lunch as it's her birthday. Then I shall go and see the new Blade Runner movie.( even though I never really liked the original) 

If the weather improves the shrubs in the back garden need pruning and I've promised a neighbour to do a few errands.....errands that need physical effort and brute force

George is not himself and has been restless all night. He only settled when I took him to bed and allowed him to sleep with his head on the Prof's pillow. 

He's an old Scotty Dog now.

Albert is off colour too. He's vomited mice bits all over the Prof's office overnight and is now " resting" gently on our bed watching the bachelors as they fight for the top spot on the hen house roof in the Ukrainian Village

Uncharacteristically , Mary has been somewhat gentle and attentive and has sat meekly by his side as he recooperates. 

She licked the wax out of his ears for an age, a practice that seems to settled his stomach. and refused to leave him when I called her for a walk. 

Her loyalty has surprised me, as Albert main doggy relationship has always been with Winnie.

Winnie being the fat fickle diva that she is, is presently rubbing her fanny on the side of the living room bookcase.

Note to self: go and find the kitchen roll and some squirty cleaner

Quiet Desperation

Sad Lives Dimsdale as the thwarted Doctor Astrov

Who was it that said we all live our lives in quiet desperation ?
It was someone famous I am sure.....someone here will no doubt let me know the answer.
With the Prof away working all week, Me and a friend went to see Theatre Clwyd's production of Uncle Vanya last night.
It's been an absolute age since I've seen any Chekhov and last night's production did not disappoint even though the subject matter was rather melancholy.
Uncle Vanya portrays a dysfunctional family living a desperate life on a decaying country estate. Bitter, resentful and disappointed with lives not lived, the family bicker and spar as their hopes for a better life ebb and flow away.
Last night's production was set in the studio theatre, which means that the audience up front and personal  with the performers, so it was easy to see the quality of the acting on show. Rosie Sheehy as the tragic but valliant Sonya and Oliver Dimsdale as doctor Astrov being standouts in an excellent cast.

Cheats

Years ago now I had the opportunity to live in the pretty seaside town of Southport for half a year. I rented my little house in Sheffield to a Cliff Richard loving support worker and moved into a Victorian nurses home just out of town and enjoyed a salaried time completing a certificates in Spinal Injury Nursing and in teaching and assessing. 

I also got involved with a guy on another course who like me was away from his home city.

The only difference with him was that he went home at weekends and I stayed in Southport or went to see family or friends. 

Now I share this information because blog reader Andrea sent me a photo of this Pittsburgh rehabilitation centre that was one of several I visited whilst I was on this course at Southport. The connections made there led to some valuable nursing experience in and around the city of Pittsburgh, a city of great charm, I thought at the time 

Anyhow I digress -back to my new boyfriend whom I shall call James.

James was funny, handsome and unexpectedly swept me off my fairly inexperienced gay feet without too much trouble. I had only just come out so was flattered by all of the attention, so missed the fact that every weekend he went home! 

It transpired that he went home to his fiancé. 

When I eventually found this out, I finished our relationship immediately even though James was quite happy to keep things going and I remember being flabbergasted by the apparent ease of his cheating nature even on the eve of his own wedding! 

There are always people in this world that cheat. 

I am happy not to be one of them.

Tell me your cheating story!

A Normal Monday

I've just made a batch of  pea soup and a pot of meatballs smothered with a tomato sauce....all from scratch, this mindless act of basic cookery seems to be the highlight of the day
The low point  was getting stung on the stomach by a wasp in the dog food aisle of Tescos.
That hurt like a bastard!
It's weird because I've hardly seen a single wasp for a few years
Mary is in season, a fact which seems to have set Winnie's masturbatory juices going ten to the dozen.

She's been rubbing her fanny on the living room carpet like a professional porn star for the past fifty minutes
A pretty normal Monday

Community Spirit

The Trelawnyd Volunteer Corps

And the junior division 

The affable despot Jason brought his chain saw

In just one hour sixteen of us more or less cleared the village green 

A big thank you to all that helped out, a job well done, the lavender bordered path looks especially good

The Prof, Wendy and the little boy no one knew clearing the flower beds

Goodbye Christopher Robin

The charm of AA Milne's Winnie The Pooh has always been lost on me; as a child I was more a Beatrix Potter kind of gal, and so some of the rather " magic" nature of how Milne bonded with his son over a child's fantasy life of stuffed animals, a red letter moment which led to the publication of a franchise, was beyond me.
However Goodbye Christopher Robin is not just, as what I expect is a rather overblown story of how Pooh was written. It is a rather overblown story of just how poor little Christopher Robin survived a childhood, typical of so many 1920's children who had to cope with emotionally and physically distant parents who had battled through the horrors of WW1
Alan Milne ( Domhnall Gleeson) and his wife Daphne ( Margot Robbie) are not sympathetic characters. He is inconsistent and clearly uses the private moments with his son as fodder for fame,
whilst his wife is a brittle, but vivacious socialite who is quite capable of leaving husband and child
when it suits her but the audience sees them through modern eyes rather than from the perspective of the buttoned up upper classes of pre 1940 England and so it is very hard to identify and even understand them as the norm
Thank goodness for Kelly Mc Donald's emotionally warm Nanny Nou, for it is her arrival that saves the film from it's own dourness and gives it some heart. In the end I found myself more interested in her relationship with Christopher Robin ( Will Tilston) than the all too numerous , soft focus scenes when Milne , Christopher and a gaggle of stuffed toys " played" idyllically in the woods of rural Sussex..indeed.the moment where Nanny breaks down when she thinks the now adult Christopher Robin has died in battle ( a thing his parents were unable to do) literally broke my heart...and.only then did I realise that McDonald's character reminded me of my own grandmother, a person who provided me with all of the warmth and heart that was lacking in my own parenting.
6/10

Nanny Nou

Tiles

Give me a dying patient on a ventilator to look after!
It would be less stressful that discussing the right ceramic tile design for the kitchen with the Prof that's for sure!
In the end, after a somewhat lively time comparing one colour with another  , the Prof wandered off to the showroom exit with a wave of his hand and the words " YOU  pick!!!!!" 
it's been all too queeny! Very much like the judging from Strictly Come Dancing! 

I will leave you with a somewhat happier image
A rescued donkey " smiles" at his rescuers after being saved from a flooded river!
Have a peaceful weekend  readers

First Adventure

This beautiful photo was taken by my great niece Ellisha on a recent jaunt to Morocco. There is something rather ethereal about it I think.
Ellisha is an art student in London, and being slightly dippy certainly ticks the stereotype box of someone more grounded in colour and form and beauty rather than in the practicality of life.
Her and a friend hiked up the rural mountains of North Africa for instance without any cash for food or even sensible shoes.
The risk taking of youth eh?
The young people of today have a much global world in which to explore nowadays.
You even can track your kids on an mobile app , even if they are journeying the Amazon.
How fantastic is that

What was your first big adventure?

Mine was a first trip to London when I was 18. I went alone and somehow found a bed and breakfast before I went ( how did I do that without the internet?) I went to see Evita, ( which I hated) I walked everywhere because I was too scared to try the underground and my elder sister actually phoned the bed and breakfast's manager to see if I was ok on my first night in the big smoke!
Hardly a breathtaking new adventure, hardly rock' roll, but for a gauche Welsh teenager in 1980.
It was a big deal....

Like I said...what was your first big adventure?