Miriam Is Right

Recently Miriam Margolyes told the world that she was pissed off with her body.
She wasn't bitching about having a short dumpy Jewish moma figure, lord that has been her signature " look" since she was a girl
But she was grieving the fact that in so many ways her body wasn't performing the way that she wanted it to.
It has aged almost beyond recognition
I get that.
I really do
I repaired the cat flap the other day and sat on the hard kitchen floor for around an hour as I did so.
It took a great deal of chutzpah , physical writing and pain and heave myself up again on one of the kitchen chairs without screaming.
Old bones eh
I'm finding that at the end of my night shift. Whilst some of the younger nurses are bouncing off to the gym after 12 hours ,I'm hobbling like and diarrhoea ridden John Wayne towards the safety of bluebell, a couple of paracetamol hardening my muscles leg controls against collapsing on the back seat like a active nymphomanic would do after something vital snapped in flagrant delicto
It come to all of us

Sans eyes
Sans teeth
Sans taste
Sans Everything

Over

The daffodils on the field border which Trendy Carol planted seven years ago have flowered yesterday in the warm spring sun.
I love their resilience and their loyalty.
Daffodils seem to grow out of nothing and they multiply every year.
Like bills......

I've been saving money up since Christmas and this weekend paid off my half of the overdraft of my marriage joint account. It's another hurdle passed and sorted and I'm proud that I've juggled things enough to tick another box towards the goodbye of my marriage
I'm now waiting for the decree absolute to come through and that final tie will be severed.
I've asked my husband to be prudent with the absolute request
It needs to be over

Moody Cow

I wasn't going to blog today as I've started a run of night shifts

However my new postman ( who seems more cheerful and who is wonderfully bearded unlike my previous bad tempered old duffer) delivered a cushion in yesterday's post.

The cushion was handmade by Scarlett who thought it was apt for Winifred who, as you all may remember ,has a healthy dislike for all scatter cushions.

Thank you again Scarlett, I have written to you yesterday.

I was thrilled by it.

I have no other news. Save for the gut wrenching disappointment I have for my new frying pan which seems to encourage everything I try to cook to stick to it.  

I know I need to get out more

Well I am trying xx

Daffodils

I took this picture at the Albion pub in Conwy last week sometime.
I had driven over to Llandudno with Mary to drop papers off at my solicitors then decided to pop over to the Art Deco pub, hidden away in the narrow streets of Conwy town for a drink and a scotch egg.
Every table in the pub was decorated by a simple spray of daffodils

So lost in day dreaming I hadn't noticed a man waving at me through the serving hatch at first, but finally I did and he walked around to my snug table to say hello
I nursed his partner at the hospice

We chatted for a while and during our chat he summed up the whole complicated and multi facetted phenomenon of grief in one single poignant sentence

" Grief is just love that has absolutely nowhere to go" 

Eleanor

Chic Eleanor was standing at the bar brandishing two goldfish bowls of gin when I walked through the doors of The Crown at 6.30pm
" Darling John ! Early doors ! Who would have guessed it!?" 
The pub is always nicely busy on a Friday teatime and it was nice to say hi to a few familiar faces before we found a table not far from the fire
I adore Eleanor, for she is comfortable in any setting she finds herself in
She smiles, she is gracious and she is genuine
I told her that the mysterious P ( one of my blog followers) is interested in meeting her.
" How delightful, is he a dish?!" She cooed
We gossiped for an hour before wanting chips in a bowl
Unfortunately the chef had left early!
The youth club in the village hall finished around 8pm and the supervisors must of galloped over to the pub for a much needed large wine and I hugged Bridget ( the main supervisor) when we got up to go
" We don't see much of you around the village " another drinker said from his barstool perch next to her  and I thought how lovely it was catching up with people at teatime rather than later in the day
I could see that Eleanor agreed
" Darling this early doors thing is quite the fun thing, we must do it again!" She mused swirling her pashmina like batman's cape before we left

Serendipity

I was chatting about serendipity only yesterday over dinner
I've benefitted from this strange and seemingly fickle phenomenon over the past 18 months and one day I shall share some of the stories of its golden touch here on Going Gently but for now I shall share a little moment of more recent serendipity joy.

The day before my wedding my sister's gave me my grandmother's wedding ring. It was wrapped in a blue ribbon and was the something old in that old fashioned  wedding gift tradition way.
I was incredibly touched by the gift and kept the ring safe with my wedding certificate .

Over the divorce , I had to send  my wedding documentation off to my solicitors and without thinking the ring ended up with some office clerk who kindly researched where it may of come from and returned it to me.
The ring was placed in my wallet for safekeeping but like things do when life is fraught it suddenly went missing from its second safe place around a year ago.
I've scoured the cottage for it over the past months, without success.
I was mortified

Anyhow a few days ago I cleared out a load of old books from under my bed. I bagged them up into carrier bags and took them to the local charity shop but not before I noticed a small Christmas cracker lying amongst the flotsam of one bag
The Christmas cracker I recognised . It was a tiny one from a box of ten 1940s Christmas decorations I had bought from an antique fair decades ago, so I pocketed it inside my hoodie with the thought of returning it safely.

I found the cracker today. I'm doing washing and like a good housewife was emptying my pockets of snotty tissues and dog poo bags and there it was like a small toffee wrapper.

I remembered where I had placed the box of crackers and located it in the small arts and crafts writing bureau in the living room.
Inside the box were nine another crackers and almost hidden underneath them was my grandmother's wedding ring which had been carefully attached to a  wooden tag of a Welsh terrierby me and then forgotten
It had finally been sent back to me

Friends

Some bloggers turn out to be exactly what you expect in real life
Tonight I met David from Travel Penguin (https://travelpenguin.blogspot.com/) and his husband Jay
In a whistle stop visit from Washington, via Ireland and London we all met up for a wonderful meal at The Castle in Conwy
A lovely chatty evening.

I'm off today and tomorrow before another run of nights and was only thinking of what to do tomorrow when Chic Eleanor drove past in her sporty red sports number
" Darling John " she crooned out of the window " Gin and tonics Friday teatime , over a bowl of chips ..how about it?" And with a fling of a pashmina corner she was gone!
What fun

" Cutchiface"

Dorothy is becoming a powerful and rather energetic little dog
The more confident she has become the more I have to lead her in public, so rambunctious and bouncy and excited she is when out of the house!
Her main problem is her amazing ability to jump and jumping she loves to do directly at you in a wide mouthed google eyed way.
With no thought of the ramifications of dirty paws and muscular legs.
I am training her slowly
She is always put on the lead and under control if another dog or walker approaches and when she does get too bouncy, an outstretched hand and a sharp turn sidewards often stops her in her tracks
It's a work in progress.
Today she had been left to run on a totally deserted walkway in the weak spring morning sun when out of the blue a middle aged woman suddenly appeared in view climbing through brambles out of a field.
Dorothy was perhaps forty feet from the woman and a good sixty feet in front of me and she stopped dead still looking worried.
Then I heard the woman say to Dorothy " Hello cutchiface!"  in an overly friendly way.

Now I must stop here for a moment to add a bit of colour to the proceedings
" Cutchi face" is a a sort of hybrid Liverpudlian/ Welsh greeting of long ago.
Cutchi is an English version of the word Cwtch which means hug or cuddle in Welsh
Hence Cutchi face  literally means huggable face

Hearing such a friendly greeting coupled with an open arm welcome, Dorothy literally jumped at the chance for some affection and so ran forward and effectively dropped kicked the woman mid chest at ten feet away.
Both disappeared through the brambles with a cry before I could even open my mouth.

The first thing I saw when I ran up was a single half Wellington boot lying poignantly amid the brambles
Dotty had literally knocked the woman out of her shoes!
Luckily there was no injuries apart from a very muddy coat and a very dirty sock and after a bit of struggling I had the woman back on her feet in a matter of minutes
" She moves quite quickly for a bulldog" the woman observed wryly as Dorothy smiled desperately at everyone involved

" I'm so sorry" I gushed , hoping not to be sued " These dogs will be the death of me !" 
" Almost the death of me " the woman corrected