The Walking Dead and Choir

Jamie our 1940s moustached choirmaster liked my flamingo
The Trelawnyd contingent of the choir ( Heulwen, Hattie and I) will buy him one as a treat
He deserves it we all agreed

Daryl and Judith...a lovely understated scene

I got home after a strenuous choir practice and watched the whisperers' attack on Hilltop in The latest Walking Dead episode
It was a cracking return to form  and although I was slightly miffed that all of the settlement's children  had suddenly been magically transported to the outpost, I loved the series return to its 1970 disaster movie roots.
The episode was a tribute to long term relationships
Even though I have night and day shifts booked for the same week, I've made the effort to book nice things on my days off.
It's pottery tomorrow with my sisters, lunch out on a Thursday and a cinema trip with my choir sandwich mates on Thursday .
I've got Theatre tickets in Chester for Sunday afternoon!
A half hour ago I saw Jim at the lane kitchen window, his dogs were probably pissing against my wall
He waved and put his thumbs up
ALL IS WELL 
We both mouthed
Mr flamingo was lit brightly
And
All is well 

All Is Well

Whilst many frightened people were buying toilet paper from Sainsburys the other day
I bought a fluorescent pink light up flamingo
I use it in the kitchen as a night light for the dogs especially when I am on nights
It runs by batteries and sits to the left of my favourite oil painting of "Trees in a shady wood"

Last night just before I went to work I saw fellow villager " Jim"stop and look through the lane window. His dog was waiting to sniff Mary who had gone all stiff legged and serious at the sight of another terrier so close to home
" I like your flamingo" Jim said after We had approached " It's so cheerful........like your pictures "
I always like the way that Jim is unapologetic at being " caught" looking through my window
After all it is I that invites passing looks by constantly illuminating the scene and by not having shades on the windows
"  all is well when I see the flamingo lit!" He said rather cryptically as if liaising with a fellow spy
" All IS well" I told him as the terriers sniffed and bristled together in the darkness

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