Cake Tin

This flamingo was a recent gift from Florida.
It reminds me of our lurid pink flamingo Christmas lights carefully packed away in a box in the bookshelf.
I wonder if those will stay with me or go with The Prof when their time comes.
Another thing yet to sort.
It's the small things that pain.
The objects that transport you to another time, another place and another country when you look, feel and experience them.
Conduits of memory.
A few weeks ago I collected all of the special Christmas decorations the Prof has amassed over the years, from London and Sydney and New York and SanFrancisco and placed them in a cake tin labelling it unsurprisingly Xmas decs. 
Ready to go.

Hattie

I felt I was in one of those nice , middle class wartime films this morning. I was sat at a table of the Trelawnyd Community Assiciation's Book swap Coffee morning with Heulwen and Hattie..
Now Hattie is the new girl in the village.
She's in her twenties, is painfully pretty and has a bubbly charm of Lily James' Character in The Guernsey Literary and potato pie Society .
She also wants to meet her fellow villagers, with a eagerness which is as sweet as it is genuine .
After a slow start the Saturday coffee mornings seem to have taken off well.
There is no pressure on people to attend at a fixed time , so people pop in when they want have a mooch through the large array of books, grab a coffee and a cake, read the paper or chat to their neighbours .
All the tables were in use when William and I went in.
I pointed out the characters to Hattie as they came in .Hubert the old village baker, Boffin Cameron's mum and dad, velvet voiced Linda, sailor John, Daphne and Meirion from the flower Show committee ..Mrs Trellis
Hattie darted off to introduce herself to Margaret Walker and Heulwen and I smiled at each other like extras from that wartime film
" she's a nice girl" we said together

Clearing The Decks, The Escape

The Dogs, Albert, The Ponies and Irene spent the afternoon watching me build the field bonfire out of destroyed hen houses

Albert was behind me

Tonight I went to see a piss boring movie The Escape with Gemma Arterton.....I walked out after an hour.
Tomorrow .....what exciting things are afoot ?
Morning coffee morning and book and veg swap at the village Hall......then lunch with a friend and a joint walk with Mary then a takeaway at my sister's and Strictly !

I'm a mad f*#+ing bitch!!!

Playing To An Audience

I shared some nursing stories from over 36 years with a friend yesterday..the funny ones made them laugh...it was nice to giggle along

• I've been assaulted several times over the years ranging from slaps and bites, one black eyed punch, one wet turd flung at the back of my head, being hit with a bag of urine which burst on impact and I've had at least 6 pairs of specs broken.
• I've crashed a drunken paraplegic into a ditch in his wheelchair during a panicked push back to the rehab unit from the pub during a snow storm
• Ive employed a buxom nurses breasts as a diversion to a male patient who had a particular painful dressing
• As part of a course I was on I managed to organise a work experience placement at a series of Pittsburgh hospitals 
• I've seen 5 babies born including one that was christened Harley Davison
• I was taught to dance the veleta in 1983 in order to partner long term psychiatric patients at their Christmas do
• I have witnessed open heart cardiac massage twice, held 4 severed fingers in a vomit bowl and witnessed someone bleed to death in a few seconds from ruptured oesophageal varices.
• I was reported by a patient in the community for saying I was working for the gas board 
• I have dated one patient after I had nursed him
• I've dated 5 nurses ( 4 women 1 man)
• I 've shagged one doctor 
• I've played myself on a tv medical documentary ( you only saw my arse)
• I have helped at least 6 couples conceive babies
• I have sat with dying patients too numerous to mention , laying them out with well practiced dignity afterwards
• I have attended perhaps a dozen funerals in and without uniform
• I have put a visitor with learning difficulties to bed ! After undressing him and putting him into pyjamas
• I have helped scores of Spinally injured men achieve an erection
• I ( and my ward) have won two quality prizes for our work
• I have sat a course for looking after the newborn baby and got told off for cleaning a baby's arse under a mixer tap
• I have dropped a psychiatric patient down a fire escape
• I have cried a hundred times in a sluice, in a clinical side room or at home over a bad day
• I once kissed a policeman when I was on night duty ( 1988)
• I once shared a bed briefly with a quadraplegic when I was hungover
• I have danced on the roof of a main hospital in sheffield
• I have mentored scores of junior nurses and still keep in touch with many of them
• I created a whole balcony garden , complete with trees in massive planters for my bedrest patients 
• I once got my arse stuck in the window of the changing room at lodge moor hospital 
• I have never fainted at work but I did vomit once after a patient threw up in my mouth during CPR ( in the old days) 
• I have loved many many many special people and been loved by a few back
• A previous wirkmate has just added" Miss you John Gray you did forget to mention your amazing neck massages and ability to hug me and/ or scape me off the ceiling xxxoh and fit arse!" ..thank you Shelly

With one of my awards

Obviously not for the best well dressed nurse 

Nice

Autumn is here and Bake off is back with another twelve eclectic characters who have, I suspect been auditioned within an inch of their lives in order to reach the short list.
The line up could be the cast of a 1970's disaster movie.
The sassy Gran, the diffident scientist, the bubbly mom......cardboard characters at first that are suddenly fleshed out with lifestyle clips that could have been pulled directly from Facebook, Bake Off  offers us a glimpse into peoples' lives that seem normal and cozy and nice.
The gay dad who never has enough time to bake because of demand of his kids, the quirky mental health worker who looks every inch a mental Heath worker and a dippy Anglo Asian, Amy Winehouse with a smart mouth, there is much to choose from where favourites are concerned, and the audience, Who understands that they are being manipulated, just goes along for the nice ride

Bironey cried a lot and laughed at herself, then cried again. Mannon cried too and was immediately comforted by the geek looking PhD Rahul who couldn't look more uncomfortable on a 1:1 than any 14 year old schoolboy sporting his first erection.

Bake off is off to a great start...
Watching nice people, doing nice things being nice........is addictive

Divas HATE being told off!

Finally..... a bit of levity.
I guess it was my fault, but I left the meagre detritus of my egg breakfast on the kitchen table just after 9pm.
At eleven I walked back in to see what only can be described as a bulldog disaster
Winnie sat guiltily on top of the table , all 30 kg of her balanced precariously on one delicate corner.
The chair which she had hauled herself up on was lying on the floor and everything, table chair and floor was covered in water, from an upturned flower vase....
William's and George's paw prints peppered my newly scrubbed kitchen floor.
To add insult to injury all of my paperwork , bills and correspondence had been knocked onto the soaked Lino, like sad confetti .
I hauled Winnie off the table with an over-the-top- cry of " you fat bastard!!!" And smartly smacked her bottom, something you just don't do with bulldogs, for moments later she had flounced into the living room with all of the umbrage of Bette Davis in All About Eve where she jammed her grim face into the darkness between an arm chair and the wall.
And there she stayed sulking for well over an hour and a half

You gotta laugh

The Waiting Room

Do you remember Tom Hank's character in The Green Mile? 
He was the one plagued by recurrent urine infections that were eventually cured by the saintly John Coffey 
My John Coffee is a box of trimethoprim antibiotics.
And after a second dose my abdominal pain and nausea has started to subside.
I can't tell you just how ill these infections leave a a person.

Yesterday I could only walk Mary for twenty minutes or so before a toilet visit was in a order, so bumping into Jenny the old post mistress proved to be a bit of trial of cross leggedness so to speak.
She was anxiously waiting outside the house of her daughter in law waiting to hear if her grandchild had been born.
" The birthing pool has been delivered " she said excitedly
I haven't been quite well enough today to check on what happened ....a baby born in the village....how wonderful is that ?

I missed choir practise last night which was a real shame,, but I knew I needed antibiotics so a visit to the GP out of hours had to be organised.
Now in our neck of the woods you talk to a nurse on the phone who completes her algorithm of information you provide. If she thinks it necessary, then you are given an appointment with a doctor based at the local hospital's ER department . You sit with all of the other people waiting their long turn in casualty but you are seen at the time of your appointment .
It's a good system.

I almost passed out sat in the waiting room. I was hot and it was hot and I'd just peed ground glass in the the loo. I must have looked rough because the receptionist mouthed " are you ok?" From inside her booth....
I mouthed back " I'm ok" and crossed my legs.

I only had to wait a further few minutes before I was called . In that time I watched a couple in front of me as they waited for the triage nurse. He was the attentive one, going to the desk, collecting a cup of water, helping his wife to stand up on her swollen fat feet,
And I found myself envying that attention as I sat there by myself .
Being alone and unwell
Isn't nice.

Ursula

Bwthyn-y-llan, 

Wales.

Dear Ursula,

We need to have a little chat you and I
It will be the very last chat we will indeed have.
This chat does not need or indeed elicit a response . It is for you to read and no doubt rant about on your own blog which lies in a somewhat quieter part of the internet.
It for everyone to read too....for I've found just writing something pithy in my comment box invariable fails to get through to you.
Perhaps in the future others can explain my comments,
That's if they can be arsed.

You have been what my dear rancid old mother would call " a mixer"
From the get go, you have felt almost a divine right to argue the point almost on every blog you visit
You enjoy throwing written grenades into the blog mix. You enjoy being the devil' advocate and you enjoy the thrill of the arguement.
Now I understand some of where you are coming from. Indeed, there is no one better than me who understands the joy of prodding someone in the ribs, especially if they are pious, or pompous.
But, hell Ursula you take it to the limit.
Every point has to be examined, discussed or disagreed about, and a better solution suggested as if we are all really bothered.
You've thrown your baby out with the bath water !
By over egging the pudding.
You just cannot rein yourself in like any normal person can do...you have no off button
You just don't know what's best for everyone

You have insulted me and my friends on the web, then you have waited a while for the dust to settle before reappearing like a long lost old buddy.
But you are not my buddy, I really do think that you are no one's buddy

I have enough buds of my own
And so...publicly and for the last time you have been told the truth as I see it.
If you return to bleat, to defend, to argue or to troll, I shall photoshop you, then delete you and finally I shall report you.
You have been warned
There, I have put an end to your silly ways here....with one letter... no threats of shoving  a scotch egg where the sun don't shine, no quips about " cheap shoes" ....just a final two words

Grow up.

Yours,

John Gray