Loyalty

There is one thing you have to know about me and that is the fact that  I am always very loyal .

Totally so.......

Loyal to romances 

Loyal to friends, to my family 

And loyal to my obsessions 

The Walking Dead returns this month for a final flourish ! 

I’m so excited 

I’m wearing my fifth  best Walking Dead  T shirt tonight in anticipation 

It has soup dripped down the front

In true form 

Carol and Daryl have almost made it to the end ....

Who would have thought?

Heaven Knows

I had my first ordinary flu jab yesterday evening and had a surprising reaction to it ( I had never had one previously) 

Last night I felt rather poorly, lots of aches and pains and a banging headache.

I had a lie in, took paracetamol and am feeling more human today.

John Huston’s  Heaven Knows Mr Allison is playing on TCM with Mr Mitchum at his sexy masculine best

One Is Fun

 Back in the 1980s my mother, thinking she was kind, bought me a copy of Delia Smith’s One is Fun cookbook.

I was mortified .

She might as well have accused me of being the last spinster in the parish 

How sad I felt.

Tonight I decided to support the village pub with their takeaway initiative and ordered myself a minted lamb burger with a side of macaroni cheese. 

“ Is that the order in full?” I was asked professionally 

“ Yes it’s just me “ I replied suddenly feeling like a right sad sack 

Another singleton of the parish.

Do you remember that episode of Sex And The City when single Miranda felt judged by the Chinese takeaway lady? 

I was reminded of that today

The meal was expensive for a treat for one, but it was a treat and I’ve got enough macaroni for supper tomorrow .

The food was bloody delicious 

But I did feel a bit like a sad sack 

Cobwebs and kindness

 

I’ve only just finished sucking up the sooty Miss Haversham cobwebs from the beams in the living room.

Smoke leaves everything foul smelling and grimy. 

My chimney sweep turned up today to help sort my mini crisis out. 

It was his day off but he troubleshot the problem and kindly worked out that there is a kink in the lining of my chimney which has been constricted by tar.

He cleaned the chimney yet again and I’ve set up special cleaning logs to loosen the residue.

As he beavered away and I cleaned everything in sight my sister turned up and tidied up the front garden. She’s wavered her fee asking me to put it towards my speeding ticket charge which arrived today 

200£ 

Bollocks for the ticket but big thanks to her and again big thanks to the chimney sweep who helped on his day off

I met Chic Eleanor for a walk , she started to teach me mindfulness 

 

 

Smoke

My chimney blocked again tonight

Yeah right..........just after I got home after a long day and I lit the log burner!!!

As the cottage filled with smoke 

I opened the door and windows to let out the fumes and went into the kitchen to hide as the temperature dropped to just above zero 

I sat in the reading chair, with the dogs and Albert jammed all together on my knee and I covered us all with a wool throw as we listened to radio 4

My family

A feisty Welsh terrier, a sad bulldog with issues and a wide eyed black cat with a deformed leg

And we sat together in the warmth of my reading chair 

Four souls 

Together

Near Miss

 I got off shift early yesterday and took some time owing 

I rang the vets before I left work and organised they leave me some medicated shampoo for Mary .

The weather has been extraordinary wet of late and I drove up through unfamiliar roads to the country practice and hit a flooded piece of road along a deserted stretch .

Bluebell aquaplaned on the slick road and veered across the road with her backside into oncoming traffic and we slid for what seeming like an age before sliding the other way and eventually stopping on the drivers’ side verge with a loud bump.

I checked for damage and could only find a few strands of grass sandwiched into the bumper 

I was still shaking by the time I got home twenty five minutes later and I’d only just walked into the cottage when there was a knock at the door

It was my neighbour Mandy with cake wrapped in silver foil .

“Thought you could use some” 

She said 

And I said I really could 

I ate the cake with a coffee , in a silent cottage

We are all a fraction away from that accident which could change our lives forever I thought 

to myself  as I ate the cake whilst still in my coat.

Sat Night

This kind of warmed and broke my heart all together 

 

Hotel Mumbai

 

It’s bucket of coffee time before a 12 hour shift and I didn’t sleep well.

It’s a while since a film has given me nightmares ( United 93 was the last) so I should not have been so surprised to find out that Hotel Mumbai had done the same.

For those that don’t know Hotel Mumbai is a fictional depiction of the Islamic terrorist attack on the prestigious Raj Hotel in Mumbai in 2009. The hotel was effectively put into a siege by six heavily armed terrorists and for days those terrorists systematically killed as many guests and staff members as they could before being defeated by special forces flown in from the capital.

This film isn’t an exhilarating Romp Die Hard style.

It is a visceral, very real cat and mouse drama where the protagonists spend most of their time hiding under tables and in cupboards until their captors corner them. 

In once scene an elderly house maid is shot sat on the lavatory in the bathroom where she is hiding whilst in another the hotel receptionists are forced to ring the guests in their rooms telling them to come out to be saved by police who are not there.

The film depicts the courage of many of the Hotel staff who stayed behind to protect their guests, but it’s a real and downbeat film which underlines the savagery of the indoctrinated.    

It game me nightmares ..... hey ho...off to work