Anger....let’s explore it

 Anonymous5:03 pm

“Asyou've said yourself in the comments NO you aren't allowed to walk the dogs you are ISOLATING

I had thought better of you but it seems like you're just like all the other rule breaking Covid idiots who think the rules don't apply to them.

Obviously the community knows you're isolating as they're bringing you stuff but I wonder what they think of you acting like an arsehole and disregarding the rules.  

You deserve to be reported and fined.”


So said one of my commentators a little earlier today....you can feel the bile and vitriol from ten yards can you not? and that bile is ugly and without much real thought or insight.

It does, however. smack of fear

So let me explain, without going down the jogger’s incident route

I am isolating at home yes, and have I put another human being at risk of catching Covid ? 

No I haven’t. 

Once a day, first thing in the morning , I take one sleepy Welsh terrier and one overactive almost hysterical bulldog for a walk. We walk down a lane away from any houses and across Graham the Shepherd’s fields. 

We see no one 

My sexy bearded dog walker and kind souls like Hattie and Trendy Carol pick up the slack during the afternoons 

Dorothy will not pee without Mary by her side so to pander to her psychological needs the pair are taken out last thing together....again no one sees us...the lane is empty....hopefully as empty as Dorothy’s capacious bladder.


So please dear reader, report me ....report me for daring to risk assess my home and life with a modicum of common sense and intelligence, but rest assured I would never put another person at risk of this dreadful disease


The anger in the above comment saddened me. It reminded me of the anger in my father’s face when he lost his temper when I was a child ..or the look my husband gave to me just before he left when I always cut the corner turning into Cwm Road

Anger like this always has another source 


A long time ago and far far away



 

Madge and Biskit lift the mood



  •  Good news of the day - The Crown ( our village pub) will be reopening under new management  soon.....well as soon as things become more normal around here!  Hurrah
  • Soup of the day- Sweet potato and chilli
  • Film of the day-Woody Allen’s latest A Rainy Day in New York
  • Jigsaw of the Day- A Christmas Coffee Shop continues
  • Book of the day- I think I’ll start Julie Walters autobiography That’s Another Story
  • Tiktok video of the day Madge and Biskit
  • Job of the day- cleaning patio 
  • Upset of the day- Mark L left Bake Off he was a real sweetie
  • Treat of the day- I’m still in bed and Flowers from Claire
Thank you claire x




You Raise Me Up


 I didn’t turn up for choir yesterday
It was a conscious decision !
I felt a little too brittle 
We meet weekly on zoom ( and have done for months)and sing in the confines of our own houses unheard by our fellow choristers but We are always buoyed up by lots of boxed smiles, Jamie ( our RAF faced choirmaster’s bouncy nature) and visits of Lyndi’s dog Charlie 
“ We can see your Charlie Lyndi!” 
Is often the joint call as her hairy mutt comes into view
And the whole rather artificial ( but supportive) meet is dovetailed by a robust and always emotional joint rendition of You Raise Me Up 
You Raise me up 
Is a true emotional romp 
It is a song that can make you cry when things are mundane 
When things are sticky, the whole piece can reduce you to mush...mush more mushy than wallpaper paste
And on many Tuesdays several of the on line choir can be seen getting rather emotional at the lyrics 

Yesterday
I would have been rather glum
So I stayed away....

Hey ho 



Lockdown upon Lockdown



The supermarkets here in Wales are only selling “essential“ items at the moment.
Essential goods are not flowers and so Ive had to raid the last of the garden flowers in order to satisfy my need. 
I know its not a big gripe but I will find it hard without flowers
I had a phone call yesterday from TRACK & TRACE
A very nice and efficient lady informed me I had been tracked as a possible Covid at risk person and needed to isolate for the next ten days
I informed work immediately 
luckily I have no symptoms, and to be honest I feel that I have already had the virus but the rules are rules and I am locked down at home until the 6th of November.
An hour after I informed the village whats app group that I was isolating 
a bag of crisps, two scotch eggs, a packet of coconut macaroons and a large bunch of grapes had been left at the kitchen wall drop off point.
This morning another villager  left some dog food for me with no mention of being paid



But ten days locked down at home!
Lord!
I’ve dug out one of the jigsaws my sister gave me, and will start that today.
The pile of paperbacks at the foot of the new trendy couch await my reading too.


so what HAVE I done ?

cooked myself eggs on avocado on toast,
read the news-online,
gave Mary her anti fungal bath and cream,
cleaned dog splattered bathroom,
started my jigsaw ( titled quite tweely as The Christmas tea rooms)  
cleaned kitchen, bedroom and made a fire
fed dogs
walked Mary and Dorothy across fields away from the village population
made leak and potato soup.
wrote blog and a Haiku ( for a bet)
did two loads of washing
replied to 20 or so texts

looked at the clock
shit
its only 
12.55pm

*  *.  *.  *  *  *
At 5pm Monika from London Road brought me some homemade rogaliki 
beautifully delicate Polish pastries! 


Good, Bad .......Ugly


 People are just as good and just as bad as they always been
That’s what I think, for what it’s worth
Do they complain more? 
No, I don’t think they do, they just complain differently.
The subject matters of the complaints change with priority changes 
Social media amplifies our perceptions of the complaints 
We see more
We think there is more 
We therefore feel we need to comment more.
It’s a cycle and one that is not always constructive.

This need to comment is a double edged sword.
I love comments on Going Gently but I don’t need criticism 
When I say I don’t need it...I mean it literally....I just don’t need it.
I know myself warts and all. 
Thank you very much, ta muchly....
I don’t need someone to tell me an alternative view of my psychological make up
I know the alternative view
But some  do love to be experts on absolutely everything
Even on me!

Today, no matter who you are, you have a bigger voice than people once had. 
You can say your piece to an audience of potential millions
How fantastic is that?

A bit jumbled but it’s 6.18 am, so I’m allowed…
My last night Shift is almost over . Back on day shifts on Wednesday 

My thoughts are with Weaver of Grass
I hope someone can tell us how she is doing today
Hey ho


BST

 To the person who invented the concept of British summer time 


You have never worked night shift

Snapshots

 


Life has a habit of side swiping you when you are least expecting it.
I thought this when two large envelopes were delivered to the cottage by post yesterday.
They contained a hundred or so photographs 
Photographs from my twenties.
The photographs had been found a while ago by the owner of my old home in Sheffield, which was a large  warm natured Victorian terrace on Wynyard Road in Hillsborough.
They had been tucked under a built in seat, probably in the mid 90s, and then presumed lost in the subsequent move.
Recently I had wondered if my ex husband had taken them by accident when we separated but zi had been wrong. The photographs were handed over to my former neighbour who is luckily still one of my best friends.
Yesterday he had posted them back to me.

Images of nursing friends and bank clerk mates, of family parties and CB “ eyeballs” 
Proof of the parachute jump I did in my brother’s rally suit at the age of 22. Old girlfriends toasting happy days with Pernod , years before I even thought I was gay.

Amid the snapshots there were around 20 professional looking black and white prints 10 x 6 inches in size and all showboating family and fiends . These were all taken before 1989 by Ian Parry
Ian was a dear friend and a talented newspaper photographer who was killed smuggling his wartime photos out of Ceausescu’s Romania on a Russian Cargo plane

I sorted through the photographs and picked several out which I decided I will frame and give out as Christmas gifts. A lovely portrait of my brother in law and his mother in Evening wear. A family drinks party with my brother laughing. 
Photographs that need to be seen and not hidden away under a seat in an old Victorian house



Ps
My thoughts are with Pat, The Weaver Of Grass who is in hospital at the moment. 
Wishing her a speedy recovery 

I’m back on night shifts ....


Bad Person

I was in Tesco’s in Llandudno junction the other night
I was buying cakes for the day staff.
I recognised the man as soon as our eyes met but couldn’t quite place him until after he had unexpectedly hugged me.
He was the husband of a patient I nursed several months ago now, well before lockdown.
The last time I had seen him, we had hugged
We exchanged platitudes, in greetings, in how he was, about Covid.
Then he said, after I had repeated How are you coping?
“ Grief has turned me into a bad person.”
I inclined my head why and he explained, The words tumbling out of his mouth in a waterfall
I hate it when I now see intimate little moments between couples” he said “ when they share a private joke, or they hold hands or they Play argue by the checkout “ he waved his hand behind him at the tills........“is that normal ?...
.............I resent people so much”
It’s  normal “ I told him suddenly recognising his “pang” of painful feelings from my own perspective of divorce grief .and I gave him my best brave smile and squeezed his forearm with my hand 
He nodded sadly and we stood for a moment, connected

I noticed he had a block of parmigiano reggiano in his basket