Trolls

My sister's homemade birthday card me in PPE !

Yesterday I foolishly took on a particularly nasty troll and a blogger who enabled the troll to vent her bile .
This was on another blog, so it wasn't my fight
But sometimes you have to say what you know is right.
Especially if you consider the blogger, an old friend

The troll turned her venom on me and foolishly I reacted
The first rule of psychiatric nurse training!
Never engage with a mean drunk!

The troll delighted in reminding me that I was now living alone
Mental illness sharpening the presence of a half hidden wound
And amid other insults I finally left her to vomit her bile alone

I've not had a lonely birthday
Lots of cards and gifts from the get go.
Villager Heulwen left a cake with a ribbon on it. Hattie ,a mug with Mary's photo on it and the Velvet Voiced Linda called down with a bottle wine from her and her hubby
The Randa girls brought a hand delivered card and school gossip
A lily and goodies from Wendy and Alun
And Mrs Trellis left a mars bar wrapped in a napkin!
( it melted before I could open the wrapper)

I spoke to friends Nigel in Manchester and Nu in London and missed a call from AM in Phily
And my oldest friend Nia called filled with warmth from Australia .
Last night was filled with giggles with Sheffield Jane and Colin in Liverpool
But Nia's  made me tear up when goodbyes came around again.

I caught up with family at tea time.
Gifts of cheerful geranium in terracotta pots, homemade cushions, bespoke gin and a pair of tracksuit bottoms to replace the ones Dorothy ripped the arse out of , but ones I still wear.

Facebook friends said hello, more emails, blog best wishes and messages too this afternoon. I even reminded my nephew it was my birthday by text and he promised me a review of the Korean disaster movies I sent him

A lonely birthday?

Naw!

The troll got it wrong

Birfday

I slept in today,
And am now still sat at the trusty kitchen table with my bucket of coffee waiting for the postman who always drops my post last in the village
Thank you all for your thoughts, cards, calls, gifts and notes.
I'm very humbled by everyone's best wishes
Everyone who understands my irritation of nice over kindness
Well today, I've experienced everything kind!!!!!
( apart from one troll on another blog tee hee)
Special thanks to CAZ who sent me the above lino print of Dorothy) 
It perfectly captures her brittleness! 


I will be going to my twin sister's house later today with gifts and my own tea in a thermos

The Scent Of Honeysuckle

Yesterday one  of the sisters on our local intensive care unit sent me a photo of the staff accepting Mrs Trellis' sponsored walk monies.
She asked me to forward it on which I will do
I will probably frame it for her also.
A nice momento for the kitchen wall.

Siri? What day is it today?
Sunday! Crikey ...it's the last day of May today !!!
It's June 1st tomorrow ....

I'm making a tomato, papaya, salmon and mozzarella salad for lunch
The ones I used to love in Sitges
But I've forgotton the fucking basil !
Bollocks

I wasn't going to blog today but my sister in law just video messaged me worried that I had not blogged for a few days .( she had not refreshed her Going Gently page )
At least if I ever succumb to a serious illness , I will always be found by a worried relative or friend before the dogs start eating my face off!

That's the down side of blogging sometimes.
Everyone seems to know  your news but you don't always know theirs
A one way mirror of sorts.

Lockdown changes here tomorrow and I will go and see my sister  to give her my birthday gifts.
I think it's going to be as hot as it is here today so we shall sit in her garden and I shall drink tea out of my own cup and saucer, and made by me in my sturdy thermos!

How different we do things?

I can't tell you how glorious it is here
Right in this one small moment of time
I have the front door of the cottage open and the sun is heating the honeysuckle flowers that adorns the front of Bwthyn y llan so that the whole house is filled with the scent of a June birthday!

The intensity of the fragrance cannot be described, it's so strong and heady
The carpet needs a hoover, Winnie has kicked around three of the fifteen scatter cushions in temper as she waits for her lunch and Albert needs a feeding .
I haven't made my bed yet
And there are dishes to wash up
Oh and all of the plants on the patio need watering after which underpants need fetching from their sunning places on the garden shrubs

But the cottage is full of honeysuckle , and I'm not moving for a few more moments yet!!

Awakenings equinox

Last night , just before bed the five of us walked slowly over to the field to sit in the last 

Rays of the sun

I found this piece of music recently and listened to it on my headphones as the dogs 

Slipped into comfortable lumps at my side and lap.

Albert tiptoed amid the bodies to sit

And typical of his breed, he narrowed his eyes towards the sunset

Thoughts at the Kitchen Table.

This photo brought back some lovely memories today
Thank you Facebook for randomly choosing this photo to remind me of times past
The ones you usually fucking pick for me, invariably piss me off big style.

This one shows me teaching my nephew how to give a sick ghost hen it's medication
It was perhaps eight years ago now, at the height of the Ukrainian Village boom

He had undiagnosed Aspergers then so was seen to be slightly awkward and somewhat heavy handed., but I do remember his abject concentration at the task in hand once I had showed him how to master the vagaries of a one ml insulin syringe full of antibiotic.

I will be posting some of my lockdown dvds to him today. Some Korean disaster movies as I am trying to widen his interests away from Star Wars and Marvel 

The lockdown has sort of cemented some of my relationships and have helped to blossom other newer ones.
I'm presently at the kitchen table and have sat through two recorded short stories written by a friend of a friend who has become my friend over the last few weeks. Later I will give the author some feedback
Oh I'm never short of an opinion 

Daily my two Hospice besties Ben and Ruth will sign in on our shared messager channel for a natter. Nothing sparkling, some gossip at work, a shared dough story, a kind word and from Monday we may even be able to sit in each other's gardens with a glass of Ben's homemade beer
Hey ho

Days off at home amble to their own pace now
I've hit that wall that so often happens on the second week of a much anticipated holiday
I've relaxed.

Just looking at the masses of potted geraniums and antirrhinum lined up next to my agapanthus and violas in the sun of the patio is enough for me this morning. I have no blistering need to plant them out not just yet
It's too hot anyway.

The shapes on the greenery are my underpants drying in the sun

Mary is out walking with Hattie.
Winnie is sucking the life blood out of a charred pizza which I left far too long in the oven last night
 and Dorothy is probably contemplating having a piss of my newly laundered bed spread
The one my twin sister was getting rid of
I called her down a few minutes ago and she sat in my arms for a few mintes as I listened to the taped stories, rocking back and forth like a worried baby, her eyes never leaving mine
She's a damaged little soul
And will, I suspect, remain one all of her life

I've bought salad and king prawns for tea and have planned a chicken salad for work tomorrow.
I had a text from one of the hospice support workers thanking me for explaining PPE properly to her whilst she was stressed and fraught and fearful
It's nice to get feedback
But looking at the photo taken of me instructing my nephew in animal husbandry

I think I've always been a good teacher

Clacker Problem

Hattie' s recent oil painting of the Church

It's the illustration which represents the village Warden Group

At the 8pm clap Hattie and I made a truly miserable social isolating attempt at pulling the Church Bell for the briefest of times .
We had left a donation for Church Funds and hope the vicar has enough to buy a new clacker as I am sure it was the clacker and not us to blame for the poor bell ringing.

Like naughty school girls we both emerged from the vestry , red faced from our poor attempt, and were greeted by the Randas who were less than impressed with the performance ! Affable Despot Jason later wrote on the village what's app forum thus....
" I went down to listen .....like most artists, I feel Johnstruggled to match his first album !" 

At least old Trevor from Cwm Road was happy . He was born in the village 95 years ago and was holding his phone up to his equally aged sister in nearby Prestatyn so she could here the bell ring!!!

Village leader Ian texted " you'll have to do some practice on your rhythm John...." 
Which was answered by The Velvet Voiced Linda who cuttingly said " Anyway what about the bell?

Everyone's a critic !!!!

Pride

Mrs Trellis and her famous bobble hat at the Christmas Fayre

There is something quite moving and incredibly charming about someone's unexpected pride in something they have achieved.
Tonight was a case in point.
The jungle telegraph from The Velvet Voiced Linda and her Trelawnyd Street Wardens was that Mrs Trellis had raised 500£ from her sponsored walk, money which would be earmarked for the staff of my own former Intensive Care Unit
I caught Mrs Trellis out near Byron Street and I told her just how proud we all were of her
Looking beyond the laughter, and the chatter and the matter-of-factness of our conversation
I suddenly recognised a slight waiver of the chin and a watery glint in her eyes and as I repeated the words " Well Done" 
The old lady  raised her head proudly and firmly nodded her acknowledgement to something rather special

And her sudden tearful pride made my heart soar like the swallows over Well Street

lonely

I couldn't sleep that well last night and was up around 5 am bathing before thinking about going to work.
A flapping at the window signalled the arrival of the now single bantam cockerel on his way to the gardens towards Trendy Carol's for the morning.
He sat on the window sill looking at me for a moment
Then sat some more
Quietly and without panic as I splashed quietly away
In the first time in his life that has spanned over two years now,  he is alone
And I am sure he sat watching me , because he recognised me as someone who occasionally feeds him.
He's in his own lockdown now.
Alone and suddenly lonely
And sat a few feet away from someone he was familiar with
A moment that may have made him feel just a tiny bit better.