Going Gently

The Flower Show

Daffodils on my field wall this morning

On Monday I had a meeting with a couple of members of the dynamic Trelawnyd Community Association.
On the back of huge successes with inititives such as the village youth club, coffee mornings, fund raising and the like, the association has turned it's attention into resurrecting the flower show and so have come to me as a sort of technical advisor.
Last year I resigned from the Flower Show Committee on the back of putting the cottage up for sale and moving away . As everyone knows best laid plans never quite work out they way you think they would and now a year later and for the time being I'm still here, but my resignation prompted the old committee to leave the Show too, and leave it on a high.
Now a new committee want to resurrect the Show albeit in a new form and I'm glad.
I'm glad that the baton is being passed on

I look forward in entering

Friends

Recently I have felt let down by one friend
I understand they have their own shit to deal with
But They really did let me down
And uncharacteristically I told them so

As soon as I said my piece , I knew I had done the right thing
Carrying around the bad feeling does us both a disservice
I told them I was unhappy
And they accepted the fact

And we are still best friends

Hey ho

How many of us have done this??.....

Iqude

We sang another African song tonight. It was an old one most of the Choir knew well.
I just La la-Ed my way through it.
I knocked my fellow veteran bass Peter's water bottle over during the wonderfully moving "Flame" by Susie Prater and I caught one one the tenor ladies ( Tena ladies!) looking at the ever widening puddle at his feet with very big eyes.

I Thought You Were Dead!

Reunions can be weird occasions
Apart from the usual, wonderfully uplifting moments when you catch up with someone you have liked, respected and in-my-case been silly with over two decades ago , you have to deal with catching up with people that you perhaps just tolerated professionally and not really clicked with.
On Saturday I had to deal with several insensitive encounters with people who asked about The Prof. I thought I parried them rather well I thought until one now retired nurse went on and on and on about how she couldn't believe we were no longer together
I countered with the rather unforgiving I thought YOU were dead! Comment
It made me laugh anyway.

During another uncomfortable meeting another friend seeing me buttonholed by a bore slid his hand in mine and gave it a squeeze of support.
For the most part the whole evening was an evening of those sort of hand squeezes.
Hand squeezes, bear hugs and kindness.
I even had the offer of a home if I ever wanted to move back to Yorkshire,
A verbal hand hold
Indeed....when my old friend Kim , the unit's former psychologist, left the reunion with me after a fifteen year gap, we walked all the way down from Weston Park to the city centre hand in hand, like teenagers after a school dance.

Best laid plans

Sheffield Dawn

I'll post photos of last night's bunfight when i'm sent them, suffice to say that last night was odd, nostalgic,surprising,exhausing,fun and overwhelmingly thoughtful.
Ive had to forgo a planned booked breakfast with another friend this morning as I forgot to leave Cameron the cottage key. The dogs have water and were fed well before i left yesterday. But the carpets will be a fright!
So im on the dawn train home, full of feedback from old
Old sister Eaton's epitaph seemed to be " a professional" matron sarah is regerred to as" fair and respected."
I'll settle for the general consensus of my time at spines
" You were bloody fun" seemed to be the words most used

Not the best photo but you get the gist

Ps. Got home 11.30 am....dogs asleep....few wee stains on kitchen mat...no poos!
All fine

Going " Home"

I adore this photo.
It sums up everything that reminds me just why I love the old steel city of Sheffield so much.
It's big heart.
For those that don't know the old man in the photo is ordinary Sheffielder Tony Foulds.
In 1944 he was playing in Encliffe Park , Sheffield when an American bomber crashed nearby killing 9 crew and he was so affected by the disaster he single handedly tended a memorial for the lost airmen for a lifetime.
Yesterday Sheffielders remembered the lost men by gathering in their thousands to watch a commemorative fly past of the crash site and I found it incredibly moving that Tony Foulds was there leading the tributes with an open arm wave, a few tears and perhaps some final closure on a childhood trauma.

I haven't been to Sheffield for over a year and I've sorely missed my urban family. Today's visit ( and I'm typing this on the train ) is slightly different as I am attending an official reunion of staff from The Princess Royal Spinal Injury Unit, so I'm catching up with many people I have not seen since 2005 as well as catching up with my friends of old.
I think the day will be emotional and healing
And the sight of that uneven, slightly grubby, inner city skyline with the Town Hall tower competing with the square hunk that is The Royal Hallamshire hospital and the city in between encompassed by seven low hills, will bring a tear to my eye.