The Goats Of Llandudno

The wild goats that live on the Orme behind my hospice have been seen in Llandudno
centre again.
This time a group of Billy goats all queued up outside a barbers shop
You couldn't make it up

Attention to detail Nurse Gray ..attention to detail!!!!

" Pay particular attention to the details of your work. 

Paying attention to detail makes for the personal touch...it is thoughtful and  it is kind"

This was a particular manra of my tutor Mr Brint , back in my psychiatric days

I remember it well as in one lession we had, the class was taught how to put ladies hair rollers in! 

The ladies were a group of "patient volunteers" from the long stay ward and Mr Brint and a tired looking Occupational therapist were showing us all how to shampoo and set!

" Hair and make up are vital for good self esteem" Mr Brint trilled " Everyone can be made to feel beautiful " 

He looked over at me as I manfully tried to roll my patient's grey locks around a roller which resembled a hairy caterpillar 

" And how is your lady looking Nurse Gray?" he purred 

I looked at my lady's head thick with haphazard looking rollers 

" She looks like a German mine!" I told him honestly 

His heart was always in the right place 

Mr Brint was right. It is attention to detail that makes a difference 

I was reminded of that yesterday when I collected my mail from my work pidgeon box

In it was a thank you card. 

Hand written from a friend of a patient who had died  a couple of months ago now.

The friend thanked me , not for  any sparking nursing care  but for a small moment of attention to detail where I had " sneaked " into the patient's room , two large rum and cokes from the kitchen booze stores which I had presented to them both on a tray with a paper doily on it.

They had Mr Brint to thank for that one

" Attention to detail Nurse Gray, Attention to detail!" 

I was reminded again of all this by a gift pushed through the letterbox

It was a gift from fellow Chorister Hattie and the accompanying letter was written to me and another  choir member Heulwen 

We of the " Trelawnyd Sandwich" . 

Before lockdown we had all agreed to go to the cinema to see Military Wives.

You know the choir based  feel good movie

But real life and covid had gotten in the way, so on the first week of the DVD being released Hattie had bought us a copy to watch, one that we all three could talk about when we eventually meet up in Heulwen's garden.

Thoughtful and kind.....

Mr Brint would have approved of this attention to detail....


Ps thank you all for Winnie concern
She is brighter this morning x

Tick

6.00 am
Dogs walked ...tick
Uniform...........tick
Bucket of coffee.....tick
Low cal stew for lunch........tick
Winnie check.........tick

Back to work ....sigh

They tear my heart

It's ten pm and I'm off to bed soon. I'm working tomorrow,
the dog walker and Trendy Carol are on hand tomorrow !!
The steroids and other meds kicked in and Winnie rallied again this afternoon
She's had more comebacks than Lazarus
I have a feeling it will be her last.
At 8 pm she finished a second small bowl of chicken and rice and peed like a horse on my lovely new garden lawn.
She then climbed heavily onto the couch and promptly fell asleep with a  sharp fart
But not before she shlepped over to me in my armchair
Where she stood , and raised her head for a kiss goodnight

These dogs tear my heart 

Poorly

Winnie was sicker that I had probably realised yesterday.
Old dogs are often like children when poorly.
They compensate for so long then crash.
And enteritis is nasty
The vet was very pragmatic and between ourselves meds and steroids were given and a plan of action agreed upon .
She came home
But  was listless and sleepy later in the afternoon than I would have liked .
We both slept on the sofa cushions on the kitchen floor last night
And by around four am , I woke up with her walking around the kitchen searching for her food bowl.
She drank a gallon of water and sucked up a cocktail sausage before we went back to sleep and now she's eaten some chicken and rice and had a massive wee outside
Work have been fab as I've taken another day off
But , true to form ,
The old girl has started to bounce back

Bucket of coffee time 

A Dinner Gong At A Bulimics' Convention

I haven't gone to work today.
Winnie needed the vets.
Work was understanding and I owe them a day
She' s ok, weak with enteritis and old age
She's very still today and very lethargic
These animals will be the death of me !

That phrase haunts me daily

I was drinking my bucket of coffee at the kitchen table when there came an unholy and very angry howling from the garden
The Ginger Bastard was back!
Now for months a large ginger Tomcat has been tormenting Albert
Most of their interactions have been confined to bitch staring each other out along the perimeter of each other's territories, but occasionally the ginger Bastard , forgets the rules and ventures across the building site behind the cottage with a noticeable swagger , and enters my garden with a narrowing of his eyes.
He is younger and bigger than Albert
And unlike him, has four fully functioning legs.
Today Albert caught him in the garden and a cat fight began
It started suddenly and loudly with both cats yowling at the top of their voices
And to one Welsh terrier and one inexperienced bulldog bitch
The noise was as galvanising as a dinner gong at a bulimics' convention
The  girls thundered out of the cottage like rats up a drainpipe.

The gate into the garden proper stopped Mary short but being a little bundle of pure bulldog muscle Dorothy sailed over it with a single bound. Within a second she had barrelled into the  Tom like an American footballer and the Ginger Bastard bounced over the kitchen wall as if he was made of rubber.
Albert ran for the safety of the kitchen, wide eyed and ruffled .

I had to go after Dorothy and eventually found her grinning wildly and proud in old Trevor's miniature orchard
All for one and one for all is the motto of all dogs,
they love a good chase and an underdog to watch out for

Mary checking on Albert after the incident 

Iris in the window

I'm reading a book but am doing it slowly as I don't want the story to end
It's approaching  dusk
and it's my last day of holiday
I've facetimed friends whilst cooking and texted others
My nephew sent me the address of his new YouTube channel
I watched that for a while
I'm looking at the blue iris in the window
A gift from a recent date
Blue iris are my favourite flowers
All the Street Wardens called " all is well" to the Velvet Voiced Linda on what's app today and
my sister has almost finished reorganising the back garden and worked there quietly this afternoon as I pottered
Winnie isn't very well
I'm holding onto my holiday like I did my novel ...I don't want to go back to work tomorrow

Misbehaviour

Miss Grenada Gugu Mbatha Raw

A few months ago I listened to the BBC radio 4 programme The Reunion 
It brought together several characters involved in the 1970 Miss World competition , the televised event that featured  MC Bob Hope ,accusations of cheating  the pageant's first black winner and a show stopping demonstration by a women's rights group, and the subsequent revisiting of the story proved to be riveting radio.
The film Misbehaviour is a comic drama which explores multiple themes relation to this now defunked and archaic spectacle.
We follow disillusioned history student Sally ( Keira Knightly) as she joins in with a radical London feminist group in its efforts to disrupt the show at the same time as we follow three of the contestants of the pageant itself.
Miss Sweden ( Clare Roseger) is bored and rebellious of the constraints and treatment put on the girls and wants to study where as the newer black contestants Miss Grenada ( Gugu Mbatha Raw) and the token black South African ( Lorrie Harrison ) are just grateful for a new experience to travel and take part.
Add to the mix a womanising Bob Hope ( Greg Kinnear) and his somewhat strained relationship with his long suffering wife Delores ( Lesley Manville).A tragic and sexist Eric Morley ( Rhys Ifans) whose power lies in his soft spoken wife Julia ( Keely Hawes), a woman who realises that lip service has to be played to the black consentants on show and top heavy black biased judging panel.

As you can see, the film has a great deal to say , not only on feminism , but on racism and relationships in general and provides a facinating snapshot of a place in time, a place that feels sometimes( but not always) a million miles away from today

The disruption of the show, somewhat over shadowed the fact the two black contestants won first and second place, black women of spirit whose lives were inhanced by their success.
Indeed Miss Grenada ( Jennifer Hosten) in her gracious review of the competition in the radio some forty years later had only good things to say about the event and interestingly she went on to become  the Grenadan High Comissioner to Canada .

The cast , as you can see , are a dream bunch , and the performances are top notch .Ifans and Manville  almost steal the show with their tiny but very telling parts, Knightly is as good as she always is, but it's a very still and subtle performance by Gugu Mbatha Raw that impresses the most

It was lovely to be back in the cinema again
Social distancing kept chatting to a minimum and the Storyhouse in Chester had organised everything quite wonderfully