"It's an Unfair Cop Gov"

I was stopped by the police today just after entering Sainsbury's car park in Bluebell.
The policeman was nothing but polite and told me he'd just seen me talking on a mobile phone as I was going around the mini roundabout. He was still in his car so it was just a friendly warning through driver's windows.
As I told him I had left my mobile phone on the kitchen table, Winnie blew him sloppy moo moo kisses from the back seat.
And he looked slightly perplexed at my explaination
Apparantly I had been adjusting my bobble hat whilst practicing to the choir version of Freedom Is Coming on the car cd at full pelt.

Am Dram

I'm irritating myself
Last night I went with the family to an am dram version of Charles Dickens Ghost Stories which despite a couple of fair actors in it , couldn't have been more dire if it tried.
Usually I would have seen the humour in the bad writing, wooden acting and stinking ramshackle theatre but to be perfectly honest, the whole event just depressed me even though I tried to be amused when a near mute Judge came on during a court scene wearing a Lily Savage wig and Father Christmas coat ......my heart wasn't quite in it from the get go
If it was a professional performance, the quality of the piece would have pleased me- I'm not very tolerant of bad anything at the moment.
I've just been short with the vet's clerk on the phone for not sorting Mary's claim forms out and at the Christmas Market the other day, a well intentioned lady who demanded a hug and my presence at her Christmas Day dining table after she just heard that I am now living alone nearly got a sharp leave me the fuck alone sort of comment.
Of course I smiled and thanked her and moved on.
Smile and glide....smile and glide.

I'm up and down like a pair of whore's knickers.

I've decided to have Christmas on my own this Christmas and I suspect suddenly single people may understand this much more than any concerned observer who just want to support could do.  I have Bluebell so will pop down with gifts for my family in the evening, and Bluebell will allow me to take control of what I do and when I do it.
Christmas morning the dogs and I will go to Colwyn Bay Promenade with coffee and cocktail sausages .
I don't want people to "pop in"
Having people feeling sorry for me is almost a painful thing at the moment and I feel a bit shamed by it all.
I also know that I'm not much company at the moment and I'm irritated at my own petulance

Smile and glide John ...and shut the fuck up

Christmas 96

I wrote this post in my head a few days ago.
Reminded by an old photo of a group of smiling nurses grouped around a man in a wheelchair.

When I was a charge nurse, through necessity and like many singletons ,I often worked the late shift on Christmas Day. There was often an unwritten rule that nurses on that shift came in slightly early in order for the morning staff to get home to their families but the interview room was filled with goodies to eat and visitors catered for the patients for much of the day so the shift was as pleasant as it could be,and on Christmas Day 1996 the five nurses working with me were a grand bunch indeed.

Our patients were the spinally injured who were newly paralysed usually through some trauma and most were nursed on flat bedrest in order for fractures of neck or  back to be strong enough to start to allow the patients to mobilise in wheelchairs.
One young patient had proved to be a nursing challenge for several weeks prior to that Christmas Day.
I shall call him Darren.
Now Darren, a man in his early twenties, was paralysed from the waist down after crashing his stolen car during a long police pursuit. A skinny terrier of a man, Darren lived his short life ducking and diving in the extremes of poverty, institutional care and crime and after his injury had become sullen and combative with the Spinal Injury staff overseeing his care.
We all knew that Christmas that year was bringing Darren to some sort of emotional crisis;  the experienced staff had seen this sort of thing time and time again, and so when visitors arrived from all over North Eastern Britain to support the three other patients in Darren's Ward leaving him feeling angry and resentful and foul mouthed, we were almost prepared for how things unfurled .

Nursing care is intensive on an acute spinal Ward, with each patient being specially turned every two hours by a group of three carers and all it took was a gesture of kindness for the floodgates to be opened on Darren's pain. Pain and grief at being disabled and alone at twenty five years old.
I remember Darren being tight lipped with his arms crossed as he was turned and I remember the nurse nearest to him pausing before we left for the next patient.
The nurse was  Edith Marimbirie and I remember her clearly. A heavy set, gentle faced Senior midwife in her native Zimbabwe Edith had come to our Ward late in her career and like most African nurses I have had the pleasure to work with she carried out her work in a graceful unhurried pace all of its own.
With a motherly hand and a gentle word she gently cupped Darren's teeth clenched cheek for a long moment and that's all it took.
The tears flowed.
Without fanfare another nurse pulled the curtains around the bed and all but Edith left the bed space quietly as Darren sobbed and sobbed and sobbed his pain away, and for the next few hours Edith never left his side.
A mother soothing a child of a man.

I remember that Christmas Day well as we were busy.
But with Edith effectively out of duties the remaining nurses on the Ward never complained that they had more to do, not once and finally, hours later , when Edith joined her colleagues in the interview room with its desks heavy with brought in party food , she was hugged and kissed in thanks for what she had done that afternoon.

Darren turned a rehab corner that Christmas Day. And he went on to be successfully discharged , self caring in his wheelchair.
And Edith used her motherly warmth a score more of times in a way the nursing curriculum never teaches you or even really acknowledges .

Therapy

Therapy
A nearly silent two hours designing and painting three glass Christmas panels for the Christmas Tree
Not my usual pastime but a strangely calming one at The Studio Prestatyn ( link)
Thank you to sister Ann for pushing me into it and thank you to sister Janet for leaving a buddleia and Sweet William plant seeds by my back door this morning.
And thank you to everyone who left their best wishes here. So many comments ...not all can be read on just one page ( there is a link to the next page at the bottom of the comment box)  please rest assured I've read all of them.
2018.....has been a shite year!

Just thought I'd share an old photo which illustrated William's gentle nature

As my old cat Joan was poorly just before she died William lay with her for an age

his paw resting gently on her body

Sweet William

William chasing bees

I got home from work at around 8.30 am and walked the dogs during a torrential rain shower which had lasted several hours .
As I made myself eggs and toast George rested in his usual spot under the table and the terriers curled up together on the sofa to sleep.
Winnie watched me very carefully in the kitchen....waiting for scraps
I fed Albert and cleaned muddy paw prints from the table and the window sill and from the back of my new chair
I then mopped the floor and washed the pots .
I pottered listening to the radio .......some shit about brexit
It was well past 11.30 when I finally decided it was time for bed
I locked the kitchen door and walked into the living room

I could tell by his position and the fact that Mary was sat bolt upright looking worried that
William had died in his sleep.
Like with people, when a dog's soul leaves its body it leaves behind a stillness which screams at you

My sweet, sweet natured old boy.
An animal with the gentlest of souls I ever knew had just faded away without fanfare or attention......and All I could think of was him at eleven years old joyfully chasing bees around the back garden like a loon.....
.....And that's exactly where I have buried him.

Thoughts of a singleton

Being newly single is an odd experience .
It feels very different than when I experienced the single life back in Sheffield
It feels somewhat harsher
Back then being single was an adventure backed up by a myriad of friends and socialising ...I was also in my twenties and thirties back then, so I was one of a few singletons
Now it all feels very different now that I'm in my mid fifties .

Being single in this hetero-normal couple world can be hard..
You can be viewed as a failure, a threat.......a saddo....
I don't really identify with a totally gay world because for two decades it was never important or significant to do so.
Being gay was a single fact, but it was never a label that defined me as a person.

With phone apps and the like it is easy for anyone regardless of sexual preference to hook up with another and do with the precision of a sat nav! So many gay men now have casual encounters whilst married in open or not so open relationships .
Apps make selfishness easy
And monogamy redundant.

I'm no prude. When I was single I kissed many frogs and a few princes but when I met a man I loved
the thought of no strings sex with another just wasn't on my agenda .Perhaps that's just a reflection of my hetero-normal attitude regarding marriage.
Many gay men would disagree with me.
Being gay or  queer means different things to different men

So does being single....

Countdown

The glass decoration course thing was cancelled until Tuesday so I had time to go to the Village Christmas Market 
The place was packed.

Gwawr Jones sold me a bloody lovely roast pork sandwich  ( with stuffing and apple sauce ) 

 Father Christmas ( aka Dave from the community council ) turned up on his motorbike and sidecar

I ended up buying all sorts of things I didn't really want! 
But that's a given at these kind of events
2 expensive homemade Christmas Cards, a handmade wreath and a homemade felt star were carried home as a gaggle of school girls on the hall's stage, did the floss dance behind the main class who were massacring a Mariah Carey Christmas ditty

Busy

I've kept busy all week.
One night working
One night at Samaritans
One night watching a recording of the radio programme I'm sorry I haven't a clue with sister Janet
One night at the cinema
One night at choir
Tomorrow I'm doing a glass ornament making course with my sister Ann
Tonight Jason and I went to a comedy one man show in Chester called Of Christmas Past which was a blast.
Thank goodness for Bluebell