Dead Air

Italians are not the only people who like to sing
Yesterday afternoon, as we updated our care plans and filled out the necessary intentional rounding sheets, a couple of nurses I work with started to sing in Welsh.
I didn't know the words to some of their songs but managed to gently join in with the Welsh hymn Calon Lân as a patient and her visitors came to the hospice corridor in order to listen.
A small human  moment but a tiny powerful one in this mad big world.

This morning I have given my spare bedroom a spring clean.
It now no longer smells of academia and lofty thinking
Of musty papers, dust and dead air.
The windows were opened wide to the cold spring air fresh from Gop Hill and although I aim to repaint and recarpet  the room soon, I washed the paintwork down and shampooed the rub into sweet freshness.
A cheerful new duvet and bedding on special offer at Sainsbury's rebooted the old Victorian bed and I could tell that the ever present Winnie was joyfully thinking " oh goody we are having visitors!" after she watched me plump up the pillows with hopeful brown eyes.
She's ever the optimist

I've made a shepherd's pie and lit the fire
Destry Rides Again is on TCM this afternoon
Sunday chillin

It's here

It's official...the  corona virus is here in North Wales and probably has been for a while now.
The next step is to cope with it.
The Trelawnyd Community Association has organised a meeting to highlight problem areas and to revisit the already organised resilience plan for the village and already the sturdier of local characters have been offering help on the village websites and by email.
It's nice to think people are going to have each other's backs

I've not long got home and as usual Trendy Carol and her hubby have clearly done their neighbourly thing and have walked the girls for me.

I'm lucky to live here.
What's going to happen to the isolated town and city dwellers, hidden away from neighbours and community by a lifestyle that reenforces loneliness

I hope like those wonderful singing Italians
We all sing and pull together x

Hope

If you want to see something incredibly moving
Have a look at this video
I've not been able to find it in a format I can post
( click on link below)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KeXsIMouv0

Total lockdown in Italy
And locals show their solidarity by singing together from their own individual houses

It was a sad/ hard day for me yesterday
But this little video underlined just how sweet it is to be human

" The Windy Side Of Care"

" The Trelawnyd Sandwich " ( Hattie, Heulwen and I) were supposed to meet yesterday afternoon to see Military Wives . We cancelled as Heulwen couldn't make it, as she was caring for an poorly elderly neighbour and friend.
She has a good heart.

Instead of the cinema I baked homemade pizza and locked Mary and Dottie into the kitchen as Winnie and I shared it.
Winifred absolutely adores pizza crusts and munches them with her fat brown eyes closed in pure rapture
She's fading fast now and I am treating the old girl as much as I able as I feel a decision will have to be made sometime fairly soon about her future
But for the time being, as long as her strong heart keeps going without help, we share pizza crusts in front of the fire.

Last night , I'm sort of glad we didn't go to the cinema
After the pizza crust thing, I caught up with paperwork and bills and read blogs and a lovely email from big hearted  Edgar in San Francisco who follows Going Gently with surprising loyalty.
I also made cauliflower soup, put a face mask on in the bath and laughed at a Judi Dench interview on radio 4 and arranged with work mates a night out with beers

I then watched Jennifer Jones and William Holden in Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing as I gently cleaned out Mary's infected ear with some wet wipes. Dorothy watched proceedings with narrowed eyes from her vantage point on the couch and in a fit of transference pique  chased Albert up the stairs with a high pitched woof

I'm working long days until Sunday, my next day off .
Then my sister Janet and I are off to some afternoon Theatre in Chester

I'm busy and my heart is busy and we both don't really realise that we are  occasionally lonely in this very busy world
Hey ho

Breakfast

Breakfast out this morning was a treat
Too much coffee
Long chats and a walk on the beach
I am beginning to love Breakfast meet ups,
You are simply more awake and have significantly more  time to chat!

We Brits seem to have inherited this wonderful phenomenon from the Yanks
Even a decade ago I remember Samantha, Carrie and Miranda meeting up in their local diner for fruit and cwafffeeee at some ungodly hour.
At least today it was after 9 am for me and a bit of plain black pudding was involved!

I'm tired at the corona virus panic
I've seen the yearly struggle of intensive care with influx of flu cases for a decade now and every year thousands nationally will die from the complications of the virus
Common sense needs to prevail

The restaurant I went to this morning was unusually quiet

At least we got a nice table

United

There were five other women at pottery class tonight, not including my sisters.
They were chattering wildly with the camp-as-Christmas stand in teacher as Janet, Ann and I just got into  things.
I didn't realise just how therapeutic clay play actually is.
Tonight I decided to make my own tribute to Antony Gormley field of figures instillation 
It's called " united" 
  

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