100

On Thursday Auntie Gladys is 100 years old.
Frail, deaf and registered blind, she now has her good days and her bad days, which is to be expected and despite a couple of recent falls she continues to soldier on like the stalwart she has always has been ( there's a message in that me thinks)
Even though we no longer officially exist the Old FLOWER SHOW COMMITTEE has organised a massive bouquet to be sent to her. One with the loudest array of coloured flowers that could be mustered. I am hoping she may be able to see just a glimmer of  the blooms sent.
Members of the village choir will  be singing her happy Birthday and will be taking a cake and her daughter and family. will be there on the day.
She has already told Phil from the choir that she needs to bake her famous scones for the day

In the village there is still a significant number of  people that hold dear memories of the old gal.
Indeed I have shared many here, from her famous last speech at the last flower show, to her hundred or so scone gifts tied surreptitiously on the cottage door knob,

But when pushed I have one very dear memory of auntie Gladys that outranks all of the others  and that was back in 2008 when I held my very first Open Allotment Day for Charity.
I was fairly new in the village back then and had no idea how many people, if any, would support the event so when the deadline of 6pm came and it helpfully started to rain, I found myself standing in the lane willing for just one person to turn up.
I need not have worried...... for when I walked up the lane and looked around the corner leading up to the Church I spied a long row of villagers, walking towards me in Indian file under a collection of umbrellas and rain macs.
Leading them was a valiant Auntie Glad, dwarfed by a massive golfing brolly and as she passed me she nodded her head and gave me a genteel "Hello" in her best telephone voice as if she was walking into church

Rollercoasters

I can chatter away about surprising kisses, pet dramas, roses-around-the-door village life and the zombie apocalypse and at the same time adding to the mix some "hilarious" historical story of nursing from years ago but reality has a real arsehole habit of biting you when things are on the up and then dragging you down to places you really don't want to go.

My divorce is proceeding...and....needs to be paid for

It looks as though I will have to sell the cottage and find myself something "smaller" for me and the dogs and Albert
It very much looks as though I will have to move away from the village which has been my home for the past thirteen years

The uncertainty of the past year continues to overshadow me and I wonder just how many times I can hike up those bra straps to soldier on
!
hey ho

Hero

Most " rescue" YouTube videos are not quite what they seem

This is not one of them

Hero collie save chihuahua  

A John Gray Fable

In those days we had to put 24 confused and incontinent patients to bed.
This was when night staff were real men and where planing and tenacity were better virtues than all the fluffy things we learned at the school of psychiatric nursing circa 1983
Just me and an old enrolled nurse
Toilet visit, hands and face wash, clothes off pyjamas on, teeth sorted ...in bed
24 times.
I did one side of the day room.
The enrolled nurse did the other.
The dormitory filled slowly from eight pm.
By eleven pm we had just one bed left unfilled
And two patients sat in the day room!!!!
I scratched my head and looked bemused
The enrolled nurse scanned the beds and called me a fuckwit
I had just put a visitor to bed!

It turned out that the visitor had mild learning difficulties and had fallen asleep whilst he was visiting his father ( who incidentally I had put to bed next to him) I had helped the visitor up, undressed him, helped him in someone else's pyjamas and even had praised his false teeth out of his head in order to brush them.
The visitor was nicely fast asleep and had to be woken up redressed and sent on his way home with an apology and a cake from the kitchen.

I used this story many times during my nursing career. It illustrated non personalised care, a lack of planning , an understanding and knowledge of your patients ( or lack of) and the danger of presumption when dealing with vulnerable people.

It was also a funny story, that although perfectly truthful could be embellished for comic effect.
Storytelling is rife in Nursing.
It's just a part of the profession as aseptic technique and enemas
The police and fire service have their own sages and stories that get passed down to the rookies and to the grand children and yesterday I received a message from an ex colleague who reminded me that I had told her this story during a particularly stressful night shift on intensive care.

It had got us all laughing
a funny fable can raise morale!

I am reminded again of the power of storytelling as I now look out of the kitchen window.
The outdoor service at the Church has started and a knot of villagers has gathered around the 13th century prayer cross in the graveyard to hear the Palm Sunday message
More fables, more stories
We all need them

"Slightly Odder"

Yesterday was a mixed day.....started off odd....got slightly odder. Finished with an accident and a bit of a face bash.
I'll tell you about the "got slightly odder"
its more interesting
Yesterday afternoon I met up with a chap I was in Welsh Class with last year.
The welsh class went the way so many night classes do but I sort of kept in touch by the odd text with the guy who laughed easily and who also liked art house cinema.
He is gay, a former actor and drama teacher and is in his (very well preserved) early sixties
Yesterday was our first catch up since December.
We had coffee at a garden centre outside Chester
We talked at length about Stan & Ollie and how Theatre Clwyd needs to up it's game cinema wise in competition with Chester's Storyhouse 
And I bored him silly with an up to date catch up of my mediation and newly singleton ways.
It was sunny but rather cold and I had to put my hands in my hoodie pockets as we chatted in the car park before separating for home.
I was sort of expecting the hug goodbye and hadn't managed to get my hands quite free when it came
but I wasn't expecting the kiss which followed it.
It was very sweet with absolutely  no strings

and I kissed him right back

Lots Of Nuttin

I spied Gaynor the mad organist sitting alone in the village tearooms a few minutes ago
I think she was eating a sticky bun
She gestured wildly and asked if I
Could move the Church Christmas tree into the boiler room.
It sounds as though that the church is lacking some muscle.
My offer of my old cordless vacumm apparently has caused much discussion amongst the church glitterati as it has to be plugged in at all times and the vestry is lacking in sockets

The children from the school were lined up in front if the Church this morning all splendid in their blue uniforms framed by the bright sunshine
They chattered like monkeys and Liv Randa waved gayly when she saw me.

A woman at a nearby table is talking in a very loud voice about her recent colonoscopy luckily Gaynor is far across the room so cant hear..Shes the game sort that would say something

Im meeting a gay friend that I met at a night course last year for coffee later, after I pick up a wardrobe! He dresses well and speaks like John Hurt
Message to self......brush my hair and check top for gravy stains before we catch up
oh and don't forget the Christmas Tree!

Working tonight😲

"I AM" , is to be seen over the Vestry Door and was painted by Leonard Hughes, RA, a local artist who was also somewhat eccentric and a recluse. It was presented to the Church on 1919, as memorial to the Officers and Men of Flintshire who fell in the Great War. It is said that local people, including the then Rector modelled for some of the various figures depicted in the painting.

the Church this afternoon bathed in spring sunshine

Sky Watching

All afternoon I have been number crunching with the delightfully well groomed Leanne at the building society 

I came home with my head spinning and a headache as powerful as the Queen Mary's hooter! 

So. I lay down In the garden to gaze up at the sky.

Cloud Watching is good for the soul.

I heard someone walk past, it was probably Trendy Carol in one of her floaty spring outfits

But I didn't raise my head to check.

The dogs ambled over to sniff my face and one by one they sat next to me bored.....bottoms, legs and backs touching my body in a show of solidarity

In five minutes I was snoring loudly like a slumbering hippo

Bunny Boilers, saying yes and drinking tea

I met blogger Wanda for lunch yesterday.
Meeting "strangers" is not something I do easily, especially given the fact that we all know that there are some unhinged loons out there in Internet land.
On the surface, some people look perfectly ok, but cross them in some banal way and true colours can be shown and bunnies can ultimately be boiled.
Thankfully neither Wanda or myself are bunny boilers.
So we had an entertaining, chatty two hours over avocado on toast!

I have never really known a blog bunny boiler despite being trolled occasionally but I have once experienced a phone threat at Samaritans when we volunteers took calls exclusively from our own local area which totally unnerved me ( we now take national calls on the freephone 116123 number)
The caller in a suitably sinister voice whispered that he was sat outside the centre watching us and although it all turned out as a particularly sad hoax, my imagination galloped down all of those big dark house movies where the heroine is chased screaming down corridors and locked alleyways .

And so, like I said my lunch was suitably entertaining and I am glad I said yes to the invitation . This Evening I'm going to meet a colleague for a drink in an old Art Deco pub in Conwy. It was a pub that The Prof and I used to go to a lot, and it will be my first foray out to it since the split but I'm looking forward to go as the woman I'm meeting will, I think be great company

Anyhow speaking of boiling
Yesterday, after asking for a cup of tea at the cafe ( the cafe where I flirted with that cute guy even though I was covered in avocado ) I was presented with this !

The 26 inch waisted Barista dropped the plank with a flourish and rather theatrically lisped
" Have you ever taken tea here before?"
I almost laughed out loud and had the urge to say " No but I've been drinking tea for over 50 years"
But politely I said " No " with a smile
The barista then proceeded to teach me how to brew the tea
" You plunge the plunger thus !" he crooned plunging his plunger
" Then you turn over the timer thus"
The timer was turned
" Then voila the tea is brewed and is ready to be poured " 
I tried to look suitably excited to keep him happy

Gawd help us