A Thank You and an art Winner

Thank you to everyone who sent in their favourite piece of art
The photos made for some sweet visuals in a particularly wet and grey start to the winter.
I couldn't really pick a " winner"
The entries were far too eclectic
But I will give this photo ( taken at midnight last night) an award to Mother Nature
It was stormy last night and the rain lashed the honeysuckle and climbing rose that surrounds the front door.
One long arm of rose swung in front of the button small window and the mood and light from the lane cast a delicate shadow on the wall,
As pretty and as unexpectedly sweet than any Georgian sampler.

I had a lunch date cancelled today ( par for the course) so I made a lasagne and will settle down with that and a movie in due course.
Choir and badminton later !!
The miserable postman has just delivered some very welcomed gifts
A hospice book ( thank you Cheryl) a Daryl Dixon cup ( mwah Liz) were dropped off today and a week or two ago a lovely hand thrown pot from who knows!

Someone You Loved

My friend couldn't make tonight and told me at the very last minute,

I was annoyed but remained polite and

I ended up going alone

I've been let down a few times recently by people..and it hurts

Maupin was delightful and talked about love

Gay love and relationships 

And I sat there feeling rather sad and all a bit lonely rather than virtuously single

Sometimes everything feels it goes tits up

Lie In

After Dawn walks I had a lie in this morning.
Yesterday was a subtlety stressful day after I admitted a young patient to the hospice.
The staff banter and the camaraderie was still there, of course, but there is a toll  to be paid for such days and so I slept very deeply and well only getting up just before eleven with the worried look of an anxious Dorothy only a millimetre from my own puffy tired face.
I've just prepared brunch....still in my pjs
Avacado on sour bread toast with eggs!
Coupled with a bucket of coffee!
Bloody lovely......even though it looks like shite

I'm meeting a friend in Chester later for supper followed by a talk at the Storyhouse by the writer Armistead Maupin. My friend is witty and sharp and Maupin is warm and bright so the evening will be a nice balance to yesterday's thoughts and experience.

But right now,
It's breakfast, a bucket of coffee and a long half hour of some thinking.

Hey ho

Shepherd's Pie

There is a race night at the village Hall and a rememberence service in the village tomorrow
I have and will miss both as I'm working all weekend.
Apparantly the race night was a sell out!
It's 9.15 pm and I've just found a carrier bag tied to the front door knob when I brought the dogs back from Trendy Carol's
It's pissed down all day
In the bag was a small casserole  dish covered with foil and in that is a watery half waterlogged portion of shepherds pie
I'm eating it cold next to a hastily lit log burner as the dogs watch grumpily
On a postit note selotaped to the top of the pie was written just two words and a scribbled kiss
Mrs Trellis 
It said
X

The Good Liar

[spoilers]

With having the top two Queens of British acting Royalty together on Screen, The Good Liar is a sure fired hit at the winter cinema season.
It's an entertaining movie, for sure.
But it's not a great one.
Ian McKellen plays old con man Roy Courtney, a maverick old charmer with a backbone of steel and malevolence. He meets sweet natured widow Betty McKlish ( Helen Mirren) on an on line dating app and sets about scamming her out of her life savings, but his feelings for her, her doubting and devoted grandson and Betty herself all get in the way of the hustle.
This sounds like a wonderful two hander with both actors going head to head in typical Sleuth style, and don't get me wrong both actors are a joy to watch, especially McKellen , whose personality wavers between larconic charm and icy hardness.
He's truly stunning to watch.
But the trouble with the film is that it is just so unbelievable
Mirren is just too lovely and chic to be believable as an ordinary grandmother, and so when she finally turns the tables on Courtney in the last quarter of the movie , no one is truly surprised.
The why and how the table is finally turned on Roy is galloped through at such a pace that it renders the nice build up of tension in the movie rather redundant and the finale physical fight between McKellen and Mirren remains rather devoid of suspense .
Having said all this , the movie was worth the price of the ticket paid just to see a masterclass in acting from the two old thesps
Oh and Russell Tovey looked mighty fine as the sweet gay grandson !

I adore Tovey's hamster ears .

Nice People

• The bank support worker, a stranger, who when she finished her shift , hugged me,and told me she was going to light a candle for me when she next went to mass
• The small gift of tinned cat food left by my back door
• A text in the early morning from a friend checking if I was ok
• The choir spontainiously clapping a particularly impressive piece of singing
• A neighbour walking my dogs in the rain when they didn't have to

This morning I listened to Desert Island Discs .

Lauren Laverne ( who is growing on me) was interviewing Russell T Davies and the pair seemed to be having great fun together even when Davies discussed the death of his husband after a long illness. 

An upbeat Davies described his husband as " a nice man" and supported the importance of the usual bland description of "Nice" with this reply...a phrase that literally jumped out of the radio to slap me gently on my face

" The World Turns under the March of the feet of all of those nice people !" 

So true
So powerfully said 

Floods

I was feeling somewhat hard done to today when I researched that I do indeed owe the tax department £1200 £ !
It's been pissing down all day too today!
Then a few friends started texting from my old home town in Sheffield that many places in the city was flooding.
One, who is a bit of a wag text me this photo of the deluge

I miss the city and it's Northern humour today 

The Visit

The pretty seaside town of Llandudno lies on a flat area of land , tucked neatly behind a huge limestone peninsular called The Great Orme .
The Orme is a name dervived from old Norse which means Sea Serpent 
The Welsh name of the headland is the more unsexy Y Gogarth
I can see the Orme quite clearly from the village, it dominates the skyline to the West some 30 miles away.
The hospice where I work backs onto the West aspect of the Orme and from several of the patient rooms, the view of what is literally a gorse and grass covered mountain is impressive.
Now the Orme is populated by a substantial herd of Kashmir Goats.
They are the descendants of a breeding pair given to Queen Victoria in 1837 by the Shah of Persia and they roam free on the headland occasionally coming down into the town in very bad weather.
My patient and I spied a small group of the Kashmir Goats yesterday afternoon.
They were tiptoeing along a wall above the staff car park and were led by a magnificent Billy with huge swept back horns and a long formal beard
The Billy stopped and viewed the cars carefully and it looked as though he was nodding his head in the direction of the room where we sat as he chewed something pulled from the fence line
I turned my patient's bed so that she could view  the animal more clearly and she was thrilled to see such a magnificent animal so close
" He has come to see me" my patient said clapping her hands " He came yesterday too"
We watched the little group for a while, their white coats stark against the brown green of the hillside
And as they slowly moved away my patient waved  her goodbyes and blew them a kiss as they went.

A little bit of magic on a drab day