Yellow

Flowers c/o Chic Eleanor, worried face c/o Dorothy

One of my favourite social media sites to follow is the Facebook postings of a lumpy, optimistic Pittsburgh singleton called Joe Bielecki. Now I sort of know Joe, for I stayed with him for a few weeks when I visited Pittsburgh in the early 1990s but I  follow his posts because they are mundane and ordinary , and to me , utterly interesting.
He always posts a photo of what he had for breakfast......
I love Rachel's posts too when she talks about cutting the lawn and having sardines for tea
I like to know what people get up to
I enjoy reading about pottering.
It was 1 pm before I realised that I hadn't eaten or drank anything all day.
I'd walked Dorothy and Mary along the old railway line and we met up with a chap with his labradoodle who I have bumped into several times.
He's my age and friendly and I wonder if he's gay.
He has a nice trendy bobble hat which I am coveting
Anyhow, I made a mound of eggs, avocado and sour dough bread which will last me the day.
I'll make soup this afternoon
Butternut and chilli soup
And I shall watch How Green Is My Valley later when I can sip it.
I've always had a thing for Walter Pidgeon

The tail end of Storm Dennis has arrived with more gales and rain and I watched from the lane window at the few members of the congregation as they scurried back along the Church path towards home.
I was watching them as Dorothy was watching me.
The little bulldog's anxiety of being separated from me has never wavered since she arrived.
I doubt it will improve now.
Like some humans she just naturally anxious.

I booked a babminton court for me and Gorgeous Dave to play tomorrow, made a couple of phonecalls, shampooed the living room carpet free of mouse entrails, and lit the fire
I'm listening to Coldplay now as I type
My Next job is bed changing

Yellow is my favourite colour

Come From Away

Yesterday was a pure treat. and a total surprise .
I have always wanted to go to the Royal Albert Hall and so after a rather swish lunch in a Kensington Brasserie Nuala took me there to see the latest performance spectacular by Cirque du Soleil, which was described as A Waking Dream Around Mexico.

It was a wonderful experience to watch top notch acrobats perform in a score of surreal and enchanting tableaux themed by the music and culture of Mexico
It was beautiful and entertaining and so different from anything I have ever seen before.
I was blown away by the sheer skill of it all.
A wonderful afternoon.

We ate supper in a lovely modern Indian restaurant in Ealing and we talked all night.
Nu told me she could see a change in me on this visit and told me how proud she was of me for surviving a divorce which has ripped my guts out of me 18 months ago.
Her pride meant more to me than anything else has done recently.

Today amid fears of Storm Dennis I left Nu at Marble Arch and took a tube to Charring Cross Road to see the musical Come From Away.
I loved this musical .
Set in the Newfoundland town of Gander, it chronicles several stories around the phenomenon of 9/11 when 38 international planes had to make an emergency landing at the isolated community numbering just 9 thousand souls .
Over 7 thousand people had to be fed ,watered and housed amid the plucky, Celtic community and the musical explores several themes, mostly of kindness and utopia between passengers and the locals  against the background of the largest terror attack on earth.

It's a beautifully simple and effective piece of theatre and I loved it

Yesterday

Have A Good One .... I'm Off To London

Through Others' Eyes We See Ourselves

The title of today's post is a bastardising of Lev Vygotsky's famous
Through others we become Ourselves quote.
I was thinking about him on Tuesday on the way home from Sheffield.
He was a hot looking Russian psychologist who was photographed with a wonky shirt collar
I like to think he was my kind of guy.

Last night I bathed Mary.
I didn't really have time to do it.
Night shifts mean that there is a quick turn around of eat, shit, sleep and brush teeth before you do the same again, but her skin has been playing up of late and she needed some pamper time without the more ebullient Dorothy bouncing around in the foreground like a loon.

Mary watched me with somber brown eyes as I washed her
Welsh terriers watch you.
They sit and watch everything and all of mine have loved a hot bath where all they have to do is to stand and be pampered.

They watch you slightly worried that the stroking and the warmth and suds and happiness is going to stop and their eyes never leave yours.

It's the nearest moment I will ever to have to having a baby of my own

I met my friend John on Tuesday morning. He has been ill and now really doesn't " do" the more old fashioned Wine glasses into the wee small hours thing that we used to do.
But he looks well, and fit and as always, was dressed to impress
We have evolved as friends and now often meet for a long breakfast , with sausages and eggs and toast and tea ( coffee in my case) 
He hasn't the look of a Welsh terrier but like Joan Crawford's wisecracking best friend Ida in Mildred Pierce,
he misses nothing

I saw myself through his eyes on Tuesday.
It wasn't a rebuke, it was a reminder.
I was reminded just how nice my life is now.
My friends and family, my "new " career and new friends and colleagues . My home, my village, my theatre going, my choir......my life.........and... my health

Vygotsky's main work was in child development but his Through others we become ourselves quote rings true on so many levels
When John and I got up to go from the wine bar which now does fancy breakfasts for business folk, and as the snow fell on a grey but welcoming Sheffield City centre,
John turned to me with some exasperated affection and said
" You have tomato sauce down your front!" 

Hallelujah

This is the first recording of our choir last week when we tried this version of the Leonard Cohen song and It's not a bad first stab at it despite a few wobbly key changes.
I missed choir last tonight as I was rostered to work night shift

Best Of Days

Monday night....sheffield...
Brilliant musical ( I cried buckets)
Drinks with a couple of old friends ( Mike and Jane)
Then.....a few more drinks and dancing in a salsa club until just after midnight
How good was that!!
I danced IN PUBLIC!!!!

Up at 9 am and just managed to fit in a two hour breakfast with the ever arch John H ( Eve Arden in nice shoes!!)

Then caught the 11.11 for home xx

Hey ho

I had sex the other day
No big deal, but I thought I'd share the fact with you.
It involved someone I have known a while and been friends with for a time now
We made each over laugh and although neither of us are looking for a relationship with the other
It was fun to giggle and laugh and feel nice that someone actually finds you attractive and likes you for who you are
( and visa versa of course)
We are friends so we will meet up again

I'm now on the train to Sheffield .
It s a quick night out in between shifts when I will meet up with an old friend, have supper , see a musical ( Theres something about Jamie) and relax.
And no it's not the same friend before you ask.

Hey ho xx