The Choir

Our choir master is called Jaimie.
He has a 28 inch waist, looks about 14 and has all the energy of a small nuclear power station.
He was also delightfully friendly.
I was sat with the three other bass singers in the male section as various ladies in the sopranos gave me thumbs up and encouraging smiles.
There were around thirty of us. The youngest a nurse in her twenties who lives in one of the tiny cottages in  Trelawnyd , stood next to me. She remembered that I had been kind to her the day she moved to the village. " Hello John the dogs " she whispered as the song sheets were handed out
She seems one of those incredibly warm characters with a big heart.

I quickly had to learn the bass lines to Labi Siffre's Something Inside So Strong which the ever bouncy Jamie demonstrated to each of the vocal groups .
It was all rather challenging but a wonderfully enjoyable experience.

We went on with a terribly hard Czech folk tune Okolo Hradisca with several of the choir waving at me to say they were sorry for the "baptism  of fire" ( they had all sang it before) but it certainly didn't put me off as the harmonies suddenly came together in front of a somewhat manic Jamie.

As I packed up to leave, he came over briefly to ask if I was coming back
" You have a good singing voice!" He told me,
And I suddenly felt a tiny bit tearful
But I had already made my decision within two minutes of entering the choir room
" See you next Tuesday!" I told him with a big smile

Back In The Saddle

Only a brief morning post today as I am saving my creative juices for tell you all about the choir later.
I've been chasing paperwork and officialdom from 9 am as I have hopefully got myself a part time , 2 nights a week job. A job that will pay some of the bills, support the animals and stop me thinking of what was and what could have been.
I won't tell you all more than that given that all of the i s have to dotted , suffice to say that after my non too reticent criticism of senior management decisions and abilities at my previous employ , I won't be going back to ITU.
Thank God!

More about the choir later......

Animal Problems

Mary behaved impeccably at the vets this afternoon.
We had an appointment with the senior vet ( not George Clooney) who reviewed her history of recurrent ear infections and drew diagrams for me to understand the physiology of the problem .
It looks as though she will need surgery
I sighed....another day..another animal problem.

Earlier today I found myself trying to round up the field horses.
It had come to my attention that they had loosened the wooden fencing between them and the new graveyard by rubbing their itchy arses on the upright stakes so it was imperative that I move them to the lower part of the field where they could do no more damage.
Having little experience in tacking up ponies I resorted to waving a piece of cheap white bread in front of them hoping to do a bit of a "pied piper"  thing , but things went tits up when The ponies got all frisky with the whole situation and charged somewhat energetically after me.
From out of nowhere Irene noisily joined in with the stampede, and I found myself galloping clumsily ahead in my flip flops like a fat, bread waving lunatic .
It was a genuinely frightening experience.

The young Bantam cockerels have caused their own minor problems and have deserted their hen house in the Ukrainian village to move into the garden of our new neighbours. I have no idea where they are roosting but I do know that two sets of neighbours are feeding them so well that the roosters have now learnt to tap on their conservatory windows in a ploy to beg for food.

William is recovering from his car accident well and George despite his age continues to look robust even though I'm convinced he has the start of diabetes insipidus with his water drinking antics.

Only the oldest and potentially most unfit of all of the animals at Bwthyn y llan is doing all rather well. Winnie, who has past her sell by date a good while ago now , remains steadfast and magnificent
She's like a Old Spanish galleon in full sail

The best two bitches in my life

I want

Sometimes I want...

I want a house with a hallway upstairs with sash windows on either side so that the sun shines through at all times of day.

I want brexit to be overruled

I want a porch like the one whoopie Goldberg had in The Colour Purple

I want a American roll topped bath and wash basin

I want world peace

I want a sassy housekeeper like Thelma Ritter

I want an asthmatic pug dog called Roger

I want to be able to dance 

I want my Sheffield friends on tap

I want to go to New York on the Queen Mary

I want a pristine green front lawn 

I want an official Walking Dead Trendy sports top

I want a tortoise 

I want a 34 inch waist

I want a continual collection of pencils 

What do you want?

Sunday

I've put moisturiser on and everything

Boring Oneself

Broadstairs 

I'm boring myself now, which is probably a good thing.
But for 18 weeks now I have cried every single day.
It's not a melodramatic cry. I'm no Scarlett O'Hara
But it is more like a daily " welling up"  a rush of emotions that occurs when a particular piece of music is played , a certain scene pops up in a movie or a certain advert dives under your emotional radar.
I am fed up of trying to shake away blurred vision, a blotchy face and that here we go again exasperation bereavement plonks on you out of the blue.
It's a bastard .....bereavement .
I know  all this, Indeed I pride myself on my emotional intelligence, but 18 weeks isn't a long time in the great scheme of things to realise that your husband has chosen a life which is now different to the one you previously knew and that he has gone alongside with shared way of life , family and home.

Intellectually the blocks are in all of the right holes .
Emotionally my head is at times like spaghetti.
Yet I know what to do
Keep busy, get a job, sort out the practical things,
Enjoy friends, keep busy, try to roll with punches,
Keep busy, let things go, remember the good, keep busy,
Be pragmatic, let go of anger, keep busy....

It's just the doing  which is sometime hard.
So this is my cathartic post, a bit like yesterday's but with a little more honesty.
Real life is more less exhausting than this necessary emotional romp of grief, and that is what I have to get back to.
My husband is no monster here, I would never of married him if he was a monster.

Mary has to be picked up from the groomers at 11 am and I've got some shopping to do before I ve got to help a colleague at Sams complete some interviews for new volunteers.
The village community Association is holding a treasure hunt this afternoon which I may go to if I can conscript a co pilot and I have got to see Flower Show Ann regarding our zip wire day, which we will be doing for charity ( coughs into hand which I expect every reader to donate on line to! )

Ann has warmed me that the " heavier" participants on the zip wire have a small parachute attached to them in order to slight slow their decent down.......I know I am going to resemble one of those refugee food drops in Africa where the tons of supplies are crash landed into the jungle ! 

I may go to the cinema later today, William is doing mighty fine , so doesn't need watching too much.
Onwards and upwards, so they say....
I'm not promising myself or you, that this will be my last emotional romp in blogland
After all  Birony was right when she quoted

"“When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions”




But it will the last for now....

Out

I needed to get out of the village this afternoon.
After giving William a painkiller and three cocktail sausages, I settled him down for a sleep on my bed then washed my face, shaved donned a clean shirt ( not one of my Walking Dead T shirts) and took myself out to a busier place.
I did some banking, saw a financial advisor , gossiped with Nu briefly and bought a quality newspaper which I read cover to cover as I treated myself to lunch at a sweet little coffee shop staffed by an even sweeter bearded barista
No big shakes.
No company
No angst conversations
Just a little moment where I felt a tad more f*cking human

Update

We have just returned from the vets after a check up.
Blind eye ok, one tooth lost, very sore all over.
Treatment rest, painkillers, 8 mini cocktail sausages
Hey ho
I'm off to bed for a sleep