Whatever Floats Your Boat and Tickles Your Fancy Mister!!

The first gay card I received back in 1989 from Nu

So what's it like being 58, gay and single?

The question was posed by an interested heterosexual male in his 40s
and it was a question of depth by someone with a brain

Like general life, being gay, single and in my sixth decade has its challenges for sure, but typical of us gays sex is the least of our problems as thanks to the internet and apps galore it is more than easy to find a suitable bed fellow if you so need one.

Men in general and gay men in particular seem to have varying rules when it comes down to sex.
Many ( and more than I expected to be honest) aspire to The Cake And Eat It Brigade
These are generally successful men who have a partner on their arm, some trendy furniture and a get out clause which says ( and sometimes often unsaid) that you can shag around if the mood takes you.  Often there is a caveat here....which literally says don't shit on your own doorstep, but the rules are there ....do it but Don't talk about it !!!!
I am not sure I respect the Cake and eat it Brigade as much as I do the let's all get on shag fest going Brigade. At least if you share a third person or fourth  or whatever your need is , it all open and above board with everyone knowing what the job in hand is.
I don't think my esteem could cope with The Shag Fest Brigade
I was always chosen last for games at school and in most theeesomes , one person is always on the periphery so to speak.

Then you have the App Queens, Now these vary considerably and have too many categories to list here with any detail but suffice to say every guy from 99% straight to 100% gay will be there. Some showing their face, some just teasing with a body shot at the gym that hides their identity from boyfriends, girlfriends, work, or whoever!
The anonymous ones who say they are 45 when they are well over 50 lie far too easily
In many cases a lot of these guys lie too easily.
The app encourages it.
Save for the desperate
But they are another story not for today

I'm not a prude, nor am I judging too much as the rule is that it's each to their own in the ways of the heart.
I even considered an open marriage for a while before common sense took over and I realised just wanting it is the death knell of that lovely warm feeling monogamy always gave me.

And so , I am concentrating on friends at the moment and my gay friend quota is up a few 100% s this last year alone which is not bad given lockdown.
Having said this one friend Colin has become  a real tonic through the lockdown isolation as he lives in England and our conversations over video and messenger during the long nights that singletons often experience have eased the isolation a great deal.r
Psychotherapist Jon who I met in Sitges last year remains a dear friend as does mave the rave and recently a blind "date" arranged by a work colleague with Fernando the Ecuadorean hotel manager proved to be a hilarious lesson  in social distancing and cultural differences.
I feel as though I've met an  amigo!!!


So, to sum up, what is it like to be single, gay and 58? I'll say
It's complicated, for sure. At times it's  lonely that's another given. Other times it is what it is!..you just have to get on with it.
Single and over 50 gets you judged, probably more than just being gay does nowadays.
''Tis the way of the world
But over all I think I have a clear sense of self amid the bullshit that goes along with the gay world, a world that is rather less forgiving of its seniors than most I may add

5 Questions

A blog romp
Five Questions

1. What's your Name?
2. Where do you live?
3. Why do you follow Going Gently ?
4. Say three things you like about yourself 
5. What is your favourite movie?

Gardening

A burst water main in the village caused much consternation on the village what's app group last night as everyone's water pressure disappeared before toilets could be flushed and showers taken .
The lane became a river with the water forcing itself skywards and coursing past the cottage towards the felin
The water board turned up eventually and It would seem that everyone on this side of the village were woken by pneumatic drills and heavy machinery at 4 am
I was too
And finally returned to bed at eleven am for a snooze.

This afternoon with help from my sister , the front garden has been fully replanted with plants .
Blue and white agapanthus , blue salvia, gold rubekkia, foxgloves, hostas and pink geranium
It's a work in progress but will look quite lovely once the burnt grass returns and the new plants grow to fill their new positions.
I feel that something positive has been done today even though I did rip the arse out of my sweatpants  watering the planters
The front garden will look very different than it once did
Another important step towards turning the cottage into my own
Now I'm watching a sad antiques show, as it's raining hard
Dorothy is licking my tired feet

cinema

Renata Vanni centre

I do miss my cinema
Today is a nothing kind of day after night shift
So it would be common that  I would treat myself to an afternoon's film watching
The Storyhouse in Chester
Something thought provoking with a proper coffee accompaniment
I haven't been to the cinema in an age!!!

I've had to make due with Westward The Women on TCM which is Wagon train western crossed with Tenko.. 
The best performance was by Renata Vanni , who never spoke a word of English during the movie.
My tea is bit of chicken breast wrapped in salmon with sprigs of basil

I've cleaned the cottage ,washed sheets and hung them on the field gate to dry as Trendy Carol watched the dogs.
Tomorrow is my only day off with no work this week and I've earmarked the day for finishing the garden planting

The Great British Sewing Bee tonight I hope Claire and Mark stay in

Sparrow

There is a crack above the front door
Hidden away in the honeysuckle
An electricity cable runs into the cottage
And a sparrow shuffles away on her eggs far inside.
It's driven Albert and Mary bananas today.
As the faint scrape of wings on stone echo around the living room like whispers.
The animals'  anticipation is electric and has woken me a few times during the day.with its screaming stress

I've just got up,
Eaten a punnet of tiny tomatos
Then I've returned to bed with a pillow over my head

Resignation

I caught up with Chic Eleanor this morning for a 2 metre coffee
She apologised again for being in her scruffs 
But swirled a beautiful silk scarf around her neck as she frothed up the hot milk
Darling John ! What is your news? She purred
I told her that I had just resigned from Samaritans
That is where we had met several years ago now
Eleanor understood immediately my reasons now for resigning.
She herself is a part time counsellor

I have no reserves left for Samaritans to utilise
I say that without drama but with a little regret
Working for the charity had provided me an outlet for a set of skills I was under utilising in life.
I was a husband, a hobby smallerholder, a very part time ITU nurse and needed the challenge working on the call lines can give.
And I was a Good Samaritan
If you can forgive the phrase....

But I recognise I have no reserves to give to the charity anymore.
My priority is my work
And my major priority is myself

I suggested to Eleanor that we meet with another couple of mutual Sam friends very soon. A socially distant picnic of West Shore with wine and laughter  and she twirled her imaginary pashmina in delight
Darling John, that would be absolute perfection! 

She always has the ability to make the mundane sound delightfully grand 

Anger

I was accompanied , on my last three nights by a fresh faced young nurse called Niamh

In her early twenties she is feeling her way as a professional , but shows great promise I think.

I told her so, during our long hours together 

And by doing so found that she bounced ideas and problems against me, as she valadated her own clinical decisions

I listened with interest to her interaction with a patient who was somewhat disgruntled 

He wasn't having the best of days at the hospice and was spiky and curt even though at every turn Niamh examined the problems patiently and professionally 

We explored how the patient made her feel afterwards in the quiet of the staff room and I suggested that it was just ok to accept that he was angry without trying to solve every problem .

Patient Anger Is not something nurses cope well with.

I was then reminded of a moment long ago now when I used to care for my brother every Thursday daytime. He was confined mostly to bed then, with a bubbling tracheostomy and the cruelty that is motor Neurone disease.
My presence was more a confidence boost for my sister in law , so she felt content to leave the house for a days' shopping and apart from the occasional mess round and tracheal suction  my day would be peaceful as the dogs would run amok in the garden as my brother slept or watched crap tv.
I remember one afternoon he had a coughing fit and needed his tracheostomy inner tube changed and his airways cleared .
To me this procedure is second nature but that day my brother had become irritated and difficult.
He was angry, and had no voice and as I fiddled with the tubes and catheters his eyes flashed red with anger
Moments later he slapped my hand hard as I reached forward with a suction catheter and shocked and suddenly upset I paused for just one second and said a slightly exasperated " I'm sorry" 
I remember my brother closing his eyes and flopping back on his pillow as I finished the procedure and without saying anything more I cleaned up the equipment  and busied myself with task orientation.
I was ten years younger than my brother and we couldn't be more different in personality if we tried.
I knew I would often irritate him but I never quite knew just why that was.
Initially the gay thing was an issue , but I knew it wasn't really that that irritated him.
It was more me, and I get that, me coupled with hidden sibling riverly so often experienced between brothers.
I felt that slap long long after it had happened though
And I remembered my training too on spinal injuries as I watched bulldog Mabel bounce around the edge of the pond. The pond she would fall into a week later
Training which said Internal anger was so much harder to deal with than external anger.

This memory is almost nine years old. I had to look it up on Going Gently finding the post where Mabel finally swan dived into the pond like Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure
See
https://disasterfilm.blogspot.com/2011/11/sock-down-trouser-leg.html

But I suddenly remembered it as though it was yesterday.
I also remember how the afternoon ended as an hour or two later when I went to check on my brother he gestured to a crappy quiz programme on the tv.
It was our habit to watch it together with me inanely shouting out the answers
And he gestured for me to sit to do the same
There was no need to revisit the burst of anger
It was there and it was out,
And it was finished with.

  

Chatter

Burnt by the May sun and now stripped..the blank canvas

Apart from work, the predominant thing in my life this week is the fact my sister Janet has refashioned  my front garden into a semi blank canvas, ready for replanting
For some strange reason I have not had the motivation to re stamp myself onto the plot which has more or less retained its original grass and border set up since the cottage was purchased.
Now with her expert eye on the case, old plants have been ruthlessly dispatched, the dead wood removed and soil now can be seen between the growing clumps of evergreens, buddleia and my one standard rose who enjoys the full sun in the garden which faces south towards the hills.
I want sunburst clumps of agapanthus, Veronica, rubeckia, salvia and echinacea, with geranium in pots and lavender near the door
I'm looking forward to this small venture
It's another way of stamping a new personality on the cottage

The commute to work last night was lovely
On an average day it's a 40 minute drive door to door and last night I was entertained by Radio 4 's The News Quiz and Front Row, where the resident concert pianist Víkingr Ólafsson played Bach so beautifully, I took the long way to work and parked briefly along the Promenade to watch the sunset and in order to listen.

I am aware that I have nothing really of note to say.
Life is plodding on.
A friend is trying to set me up with a blind date with an Ecuadorian hotel manager called Fernando 
an enterprise which is ripe with comic asides enough to fill  at least three blogs .
He has a kind face
But then so have I, or so I've been told.

I'm off two short days then back on nights for five.
If we didn't have any restrictions , I clearly have my own.
Night shifts shackle independent endeavours

But after this I am on holiday from work.
Two whole weeks.
Some of which I had earmarked for some time in Sitges
Now I need to review my plans
I hear the old Santa Maria Hotel has changed hands in the lockdown,
Time for new hotels in new places me thinks

I've been thinking a lot recently, I think we all have

Going Gently has always ostensibly been a diary
Thoughts and news, and opinions and reflections of a mundane life

I have stopped trying to make it interesting

It is what it is..........