Ping Pong

Dorothy pretending to be invisible in the garden

Bulldogs are like toddlers
They run against walls without braking
And have no off button!

I love them dearly , but they can drive a girl to total distraction!!!!

Yesterday afternoon the devil caught Winifred in youthfull mode .....
She and Dorothy became quite  giddy with themselves after being given a handful of cocktail
sausages each as a treat and both decided to give Albert a run for  his money as he ambled rather suavely through the cottage for a sleep  after a morning slaughtering baby rabbits on the field .

The resulting chase had bulldogs bouncing off every wall and it was only after a deafening crash when things went incredibly quiet and I ran in with eyes like ping pong balls !!!

The bulldogs had smashed the tv and they both knew they were in trouble
I had ear marked my overtime of this week to play for Winnie's vet bills
And instantly I realised I now had to use it to pay for a new 15 inch tv.
So when I walked in both Dorothy and Winnie ran for the kitchen reading chair where they were banished to for the rest of the evening!!!
And there they stayed, grunting and groaning their apologies
I may forgive them fairly soon
But it won't hurt leaving absolution for a few more hours

Keep the bitches on their toes

6 Pairs Of Underpants

Hey Siri what day is it today?
Siri never answered, she's too depressed.
I've cleaned out drawers and cupboards this morning and I've thrown away
A bin bag of out if date cooking stuff, old magazines, tons of old clothes, and six pairs of underpants with holes in the gussets!
Victoria Wood would have cut them down for pan scrubs
Every gusset a memory!!!

Animal Helper Pat , has been busy in her greenhouse and a 20£ Donation to Christian Aid has bought me a load of bedding plants for the garden.
They arrived today and filled the top of the  kitchen wall ready for watering.

The bulldogs mooched in the garden as I worked
Apart from a few phone calls and later Zoom meets with friends.
It's a slow day.
I've agreed to overtime on Friday, it will pay for Winnie's recent vet bills

Ise Oluwa

Choir tonight..........I needed some healing time, something I knew yesterday when
I messaged Jamie ( and his 1940s RAF moustache) to request we sing Ise Oluwa tonight

Ise Oluwa is an African prayer for water, and it was one of the first songs I learnt in Choir.
Sung  slightly quicker than the above example, I remember our choir wrestling somewhat with the harmony on a winter's night in the village hall.
Jamie, in a fit of insight, told us to sing one last time and as we did so, he turned off the lights so we sang in complete darkness.
Without the restraints of looking at each other, and in the stillness and the dark,
I remember the choir rose to the occasion
And with a great deal of tears in a great number of eyes

We performed the song quite beautifully 

Damm Covid

Damm Covid
Damm you for having us to make rules to keep everyone safe
Damm you for stopping a potentially covid infected family from seeing their loved one
Damm you for forcing what may be a final " goodbye" on a mobile phone
My mobile phone
One I was honoured to hold .

The Ringing Of The Bell

A quick post today. I need to go back to bed very soon.
My last night is tonight, and I was awoken by Winnie having a tantrum around 2pm
She was booting cushions around the living room with the force of Beckham's right foot.
She knows, when I am on nights she gets to play at Trendy Carol's for much of the afternoon.

On my way back to the cottage, I suddenly noticed that scaffolding had been erected around the tiny bell tower of the Church.
Work on the Church Bell has begun and I felt a prickle of emotion looking at it.

I know it doesn't sound that vital
But the prospect of having the bell ringing again has suddenly become rather important to me
Does that sound a daft thing to say?

Rising Bosoms

I'm on my coffee break, my patients are sleeping and the wind is blowing hard around the hospice eves.
It's Sunday night and for the first time I'm missing The Archers...enough of those old episode repeats!
The Velvet Voiced Linda has messaged all of the wardens in the village and we have all answered promptly with an " all is well" message
I commented that it all sounded like the end of The Waltons 
Linda replied with a pithy " Goodnight John Boy!"

I saw Trendy Carol earlier ( in a very figure hugging leopard print ensemble ) she had hijacked Mary for an afternoon cuddle...a lot of village people seem to be doing that recently.
Apart from her I have seen no one until I got to work.
My colleagues all seemed somewhat confused with Boris' new Stay Alert Message
The Welsh health minister made things clearer and more unambiguous....our message is generally Stay At Home.
The ponies have left my field now, which is a shame but the weeds and nettles have gone leaving the allotment areas free to be dug over again
" Bosoms " are on the rise again
Which is nice.

I bought the above poster for my bedroom

The View From Work

I nearly broadsided one of the wild goats of Llandudno when I got into work this evening
He was a magnificent fellow who gave me the Dead Eye as I drove into the hospice car park.
We are situated a stones through from West Shore and its magnificent views at sunset

The Church Laburnam

I couldn't engage with anything yesterday.
The VE celebrations left me cold and unmoved and instead of chasing up friends  which seems to be a daily occurance in these lockdown times,
I busied myself with mundane action move clips organised from Asian websites and the odd tiktok video of attractive but indulgent young men dancing to camera.
Things that underline the new lockdown norm.

I feel as though there is a change in the air !
Does anyone else feel this way?
My friend Nigel perhaps has underlined the restlessness I feel by explaining my last two years  in his usual understated way
" You got through it rather all rather unscathed in my opinion......I'm proud of you"

Time to plan ahead and anew ...that was the subtext of his comment ......and he is right
All of last year I coped with a series of new stressors, a new job, new responsibilities, financial ups and downs and finally a fucking emotional backward step regression revisited by a degree Absolute I thought Would never come 

Now I feel that lockdown has given me a chance to take stock and get straight.
Financially now I almost have my head if not above water at least into the shallow end of the pool and over the past few weeks I'm making a whole series of plans for myself , albeit lockdown confined plans, to move forward in this strange new world.

The travel book I bought a few months ago on the city of Venice lies open and read on the top of my book shelf as a constant reminder of future things new and hopeful.

I have my constants now
I have my dogs and my family and my friends and my job and my village position
The Cemetary laburnam has started to flower just this morning , like it does every year,
And this morning I photographed it yet again with a renewed sense of time and place that doesn't need to be stuck in the routine and the tried and tested.

The lockdown means that change isn't immediate
But like all change , it's the mindset that is the most important and when things are lifted and normality creeps back into our lives.
Instead of waiting for things to happen

I will be ready for them