Supermarket Tea

I'm feeling a bit of a sad sack today

I'm on nights and I'm sat in supermarket cafe having my tea before I drive down the coast to work

There are four people in the cafe and they all look as sad i do

Night duty can leave the days expanse of time in between shifts like dead time

It's like experiencing that awful Sunday night before school feeling three days in a row.

What you really want is to get up in the dark with a bath already run for you and with tea on the table. 

Your uniform is pressed ready and your supper is boxed ready to microwave at midnight...(a time nurses get peckish after their very first sit down of the night)

When you leave the house a kiss sends you on your way

My uniform IS ironed ( and hidden under a jacket - to protect it from stray gravy) and my coffee was self service. 

I doubt the check out woman will give me a kiss goodbye

I'm glad she won't, she reeks of fags.

I look at the clock, I've got 25 minutes to finish my coffee and to buy dog food and some treats for my colleagues 

It was a challenging shift last night

And I     suspect tonight's will be the same.

Hey ho xx

A Winter Funeral

It was blustery throughout Gwyneth's funeral.
So much so that at one point in the service, several of the congregation lifted their heads to listen to the wind as it whistled menacingly around the Church roof.
There is something more emotional about a funeral in winter I always think.
Every colour is muted like the dull green/browns of the graveyard foliage .
The grey of the skies echoing the mood of the moment.

Village Elder Islwyn and Trendy Carol ( lovely handbag btw) were stoic and movingly brave and it was good to hear that their work and friendships were celebrated so publicly by the vicar before the burial in the Churchard where the valiant semicircle of family and villagers braved the icy wind as it raced like a train over the valley floor from the West

The Day I Killed Bogbrush

A patient asked me to tell her a story today.
She needed diverting and I had just a few minutes to spare
I didn't quite know just what to talk about until I spied an nylon exfoliating face scrub sticking out of her bathroom bag sitting on her locker.
When I saw the white Pom Pom I remembered Bog Brush 

Now Bog Brush was a nasty little cunt
A silkie cockerel no more than nine inches high, he was the epitome of little man syndrome 
Full of bluster, anger and sexual tension bordering on the psychotic , Bog Brush spent his days either pecking at any passing female hen within range or shagging any passing female hen within range.
When he had a spare moment , free of the motivation of depositing sperm , he would spend it attacking anything that he saw as a threat.
The dogs, the pigs, even the hysterical Indian runner ducks would be targeted by the little white crested cockerel, who without fear and with much howling would hurl himself claws first at any poor unfortunate within reach.

Visiting humans would also be subject to sneak attacks and could be often seen limping away from the field with bloody calves and ripped tights.

The population of the field was effectively under seige until the day that Bog Brush picked on a baby bantam cockerel called Gayboy 
Gayboy, was a sweetie. He was tiny runt of a bantam who had a bad leg after it was trampled by his socially inept mother. The injury left him slow and when he walked he flounced somewhat like a more camp version of john Inman's Mr Humphreys 
Gayboy was bully fodder for the likes of BogBrush and that day it was fortunate that I was passing with a tin feeding bowl in my hand for Bogbrush had almost killed the little guy ( as he skipped by presumably whistling show tunes to himself ). I yelled " You little cunt" at the top of my voice  and swung my bowl like a good un
The tin bowl had clacked Bogbrush , just a glancing blow
I only intended to scare the bastard
But the cockerel stopped short, gave me a brief but vicious look , then dropped stone dead to the floor.
" You killed Bogbrush" my patient stated
" I did " I told her "I am ashamed to admit it!" 
" but Gayboy survived!???!!!"
" he did indeed !!" I told her......
Thus Ending the story

40 Thousand Pairs of Eyes

 In Tate Britain I shared with Sitges John my most profound experience with modern art.  The moment came quite by accident as in the 1990s I took myself off to an Antony Gormely exhibition in Sheffield's Weston Park
The exhibition was his award winning terracotta figures 
40 thousand Faces looking forward at you.
The piece had a strength and an emotion which has never been beaten and I remember standing for hour and hour just feeling the power of those tiny faces

 With global warming, the fires in Australia, the uncertain nature of our so very fragile modern world , Gormley's piece has taken on a new significance with me
The figures do plead " what are we doing?" 
" what shall we do?"

There is a simple honesty in those blank little faces .
Power that, I remember kept me standing and watching for a couple of hours on a blustery Yorkshire afternoon

Facebook thoughtfully sent me this final photo this morning. It was taken years ago when I was cloudwatching on the top of Gop Hill. The Scottish terrier isn't George , it was Maddie . 

Maddie was a delightfully opinionated lady who mistrusted and disliked most of the living world around her. She was grumpy and stoic and in her own way quite magnificent and this selfi showed a rare burst of affection from a lady who preferred her own company.

Like the Gormley figures, Maddie was nothing but honest

I miss her straightforwardness

Thank you John and Nigel for yesterday x

Judy

My sister Janet, Judy and Trendy Carol manning my tea tent on one of my open days

My last surviving Aunt on my father's side of the family is poorly.
Her name is Judy
She suffered a severe stroke just before Christmas and is slowly recovering.
We, the extended family have just had the ok to visit her.
And today amid the overwhelming cacophony of a general ward, I did just that.

I arrived just as my cousin and his wife did.
We've known each other since we were children and we've never seen our aunt so quiet, so still and so far away vulnerable.
We looked at each other carefully as she only half acknowledged us
My aunt was sleepy. A side effect of stroke
The physiotherapist  helpers were waiting to wake her enough to transfer her into a chair.
The noise of the ward was deafening and a knew any meaningful dialogue was impossible.

I told her I would return tomorrow and I will do just that
And I then  did , what I've never done to her ever before.
As she closed her eyes to sleep
I leant down and kissed her very tenderly on the forehead

The Bitch Chair

Animals teach you how important touch is

When they want body contact, no matter what reason they have for seeking it , they simply find it. Unlike food and water,  contact is shared and is often a mutual thing.

Humans mix touch with all too many social taboos. I thought this the other day when a man I know from the village congratulated me on finally getting the cottage changed into my name. 

As he wished me well, I sensed that he suddenly didn't quite know what to do with his hands and so I reached out and half held half shook his right hand as we laughed.

His mind wanted that contact but his head couldn't allow the physicality of the gesture to happen and as that physical warmth occurred something needy and kind and human flowed between us 

Like I said, animals can teach us many simple things

The Horse

Yesterday
Lunch in trendy Shorditch, drinks in Lewisham, Tate Britain by the Thames and homemade soup and Bread in Catford! 
The William Blake exhibition reinforced to me that he was a troubled man and I was thrilled to find my favourite painting of his , the tiny ( literally) paint on copper...The Horse.

I had a lovely time.