Well That's A First !

Last night I was moved by an episode of Antiques Roadshow
It's not a phrase I think anyone hears often.
What moved me was the story behind a box of children's treasures, a box from the 1940s when a poorly/ housebound little girl called Catherine amused herself by hiding clues around her home which would lead the future homeowner to a hiding place which contained her box of goodies. The goodies as it transpired were simple things, an ink pen, a spoon, a purse containing pennies - a favourite book but to the present house owner ( who found the clues some seventy years later) the treasure was a delight snap shot into the past
It moved me greatly.

When I was out with Mary on our power walk this morning, I tried to recall situations that had really moved me. Times which stung at the soul and will remain with me always .
Even though this list will ebb and flow depending on memory and insight  this is what I came up with

• Walking silently around a near deserted Theresienstadt concentration camp on a bright sunny day and shadowing a distraught former inmate and his family on their first pilgrimage to the Czech Republic from Israel .
• Watching Five middle aged sisters hold hands and sing their dying father's favourite hymn as I reduced the support of his ventilator settings.
• The " ghost hens " ( six fat broiler hens I rescued from a factory farm) emerging fearfully into sunlight for the first time where they sunbathed with a breeze in their faces and grass under their feet.
• Dancing on the roof of a Sheffield hospital with friends in the dark and feeling more alive than I thought possible
• Visiting my first dog Finlay at the animal hospital he was admitted to for the first time ( and thinking he would survive a condition that eventually killed him soon after ) 
• Seeing The Prof uncharacteristically smiling too much on the day of our wedding.

Yours? I be interested to know

The ghost hens 

23 hours

I'm a cross between this 

And this 

The finale of The Walking Dead  is only a day away!
However my friends in the US are just about to watch it !
For god's sake someone tell me what happens!

Mentors

The Prof has gone to have his second sailing lesson today.
He has an experienced sailing mentor.
I am sat at the kitchen table completing some mentoring paperwork.
I am a mentor to two Samaritans in training.
If you are fortunate you will have a whole succession of mentors during your lifetime.
Parents and grandparents are obvious mentors if you are lucky.
Role models that teach you to "do as I do and not do as I say"
Sadly for many the credo is the other way around in many families.
My father didn't really mentor me in the way of manly things. It wasn't quite done in our family. I always thought that you father was there to teach you about sex, how to shave properly and how to change a tyre on the car.
Mine did non of those things, but he did teach me to drive.
" Always anticipate the other road users to do something wrong" I remember him saying and his words have stuck with me to this day
Funnily enough I'm a crap driver too!

Flashing

for Liz

My husband has worked away all week. he returned last night and has gone to work again this morning.

Such is the life of a senior academic.

I shall be driving over to the University later to join him and the other boffins for dinner.

I have just spent a frustrating 30 minutes trying to get William to have his medication.

The old boy is a clever old sausage when it comes to spitting out tablets, I wanted to weed the flower beds in readiness for house showing......

I caught two middle aged women peeping through the kitchen window on the lane at lunchtime.

They were part of a rambler group.

Other people's houses hold a fascination for some people and they were having a right old "neb" until I suddenly walked around the side of the fridge

For some strange reason I found myself pulling up my third best walking dead T shirt and exposing  my stomach to them, which made them jump back in shock ( or could it be disgust?)

I've never done such a bizarre thing before in my life

thank goodness I had my pants on

Passport Review

I've just applied for a new passport .
It's all on line now ...even your photograph can be downloaded digitally from an appropriate photo booth.! Mine was in Tescos!
I compared my new photo with my old one this morning.
Vanity has prevented me from comparing the two here ....
My hair is now a salt and pepper grey, ten years ago it was a lusty brown
My beard now looks like a badger's head and my eyes look tired.
Where does the time go? So sang the statuesque Julia Fordham 
She's bloody right too.
Where does the time go?

I'm typing this on the train to Chester.
I've got things to do there...
I may go into our favourite cafe, to have a flat white
It's always full of bright young things
Hey ho

Lifestyle Rabbit

The estate agents are photographing the cottage this afternoon. They will arrive in a moments time
The dogs have been put safely away in the car and I've done the lifestyle thing and put fresh Aldi flowers in each room.
The place is clean and tidy.
Surfaces are clear.
And Albert's decapitated lunch of baby rabbit has been removed from its bloody pool outside the back door.

Eve

"Hi John, one of the Sec’s has asked me to pass on the following. Len H (Eve H's husband) has contacted us and asked if a message can be got to you, to inform you that Eve sadly passed away a couple of weeks ago. If you would like to know about funeral arrangements he is happy for you to contact him on  ( telephone no) ta Sxx"

I haven't worked on the spinal injury unit in Sheffield for over twelve years and hadn't cared for Eve for a good 25 years but this sad little message floated to me through the Internet from my old friend and matron this afternoon.

Eve was one of my favourite patients. A party mom with a nice family , she dived into a neighbour's pool after a couple of gin and tonics and on a hot summer's day she broke her neck.
She was paralysed from the shoulders down and I was one of her named nurses during her difficult rehabilitation .

We became friends.

Despite her injury she remained very much the party animal . Gin and tonics continued to be quaffed but adapted cups with palm straps had to used rather than the best crystal .
Carers wrote her letters that accompanied her Christmas cards to me and when she was re admitted to the unit where I was now Charge Nurse, I would pop into her room and wipe away her tears of frustration at having a urology problem or a pressure sore.

I hadn't seen her since we came to Wales but she had always kept in touch albeit infrequently and I was touched that her ex husband had remembered me.

All this kind of caught me unawares this afternoon.
And the woman who came to buy the last of my hen houses said exactly the wrong thing
" I enrolled in the first of your " how to look after chickens" courses " she said " you were very patient with me when you taught me to clip your hens wings..you were very sweet..." 
It was a nice complement , a simple one. But my thoughts were elsewhere and after she had gone I had a walk around the field with Irene in tow.

And had a brief weep

Have You Ever Punched A Viking?

Mostyn Art Gallery

I had planned to drag all of the damaged old hen houses into the centre bonfire of the field today but the weather is so atrocious , I gave that up as a bad job.
It feels like a museum mooch day but as these are few and far between in Wales I have had to settle for a visit to the Mostyn Art Gallery . 
Tonight I'm going to see a Japanese movie thriller The Third Murder 

As I sit here having a flat white I remember a trip to a museum which went titsup after the person I was with punched a Viking in a display from Ye Olde York!
The museum was  in York and my companion was a paranoid schizophrenic out on a day trip.
Luckily for all involved the Viking in question was a waxwork dummy and not a jobbing actor .

I guess I was primarily to blame as I sort of knew that the patient had a thing about red hair, but the penny failed to drop after we entered the reincarnation of ancient York with realistic depictions of Viking home life and were suddenly surrounded by a plethora of ginger Scandinavian types.

The museum didn't have a security guard as I recall, just a matronly usher who was no use in helping me disengage schizophrenic from ginger dummy.
My patient got four punches in and effectively decapitated the exhibit before I dragged him away by his coat collar.

That was the last time I took a psychiatric patient out in public
December 1988