Incoming

“ You have to be kidding”

I managed to leave out the fucking in “you have to be FUCKING kidding” 

But it really DID deserve to be inserted there as I stood for a mini second with urine in my face, urine seeping under my mask into my mouth and eyes and all across my head.

The patient and the nurse-who had forgotten that she had left the urine standing inside a covered bedpan looked at me open mouthed 

I lost my usual bouncy sense of humour and bolted to the sluice where I ripped off my sodden mask and washed my face and hair

Urine in open eyes and mouth is the equivalent to a needle stick injury and has to be taken seriously 

After a shower, a failed blood taking effort by the hospice doctor, a long talk to occupational health and cup of hot tea, my sense of humour slowly started to reappear.....just !

 

Once I nursed a psychiatric patient who would intermittently delve down his pants , grab a large and rather wet turd and fling it at the nearest nurse. 

The staff would get used to the melodramatic warning cries of “incoming !!” as turd left hand and a blob of brown hurtled through the air of the ward like a smelly hand grenade .

* photo of Dorothy tonight , sleeping in front of Trendy Carol’s log burner

 

A Dialogue

 

My husband left back in the summer of 2018....three years this summer and I’ve been thinking for a good while now that I was still a bit stuck with the anger of how he left rather than the why he left. 

I’ve already written about my recent approach to his mother where hurts were put to bed so it only seemed   Common sense that he and I finally had a dialogue of sorts sans blame and anger.

The impetus for me to initiate the contact came from a recent video call I set up with a dear friend who has a cancer. He had lost considerable weight since our last meeting and I blurted out the fact as soon as I saw him......like a broken hearted loon . Our conversation ,as conversations always do with friends that are deeply loved, then descended into gossip and chat and laughter but the call left me with the aching reminder of the fragility of the every day and underlined the pointless nature of prolonged anger and hurt when a relationship goes south. 

The dialogue I had today with my ex husband The “ Prof” wasn’t prolonged, but it was to the point. It was honest and most importantly .....and by celebrating the good times ......it was mutually kind.

Time to swim on.........in that big river......

From Now On

Some lovely welsh voices for a Sunday

6 am and off to work

Just bumped into Mrs Trellis who was out with Blue

It is very cold and she had her usual tall babble hat on and a matching super long scarf

She told me that she missed Church so very much

The cockerel is still alive and crowing lustily from the graveyard

I told her

 

Blossom of snow, may you bloom and grow

Long day

Home at 9 pm

Listened to Christopher Plummer in the dark, as I ate homemade soup

.......Now Off to bed 

 

Lazy Blog today

 

I found this video

Mary is now the only survivor 

Bittersweet to watch again 

I’m working three long day shifts together so up at 5.30 making soup in the slow cooker for my supper. My “ big gay team” got fourth last night which was bloody great, not bad cos we are up to 90 participants from all over the world......mave was in my group, suffice to say the conversation was rather .....ribald 

Fancy A Chat?

 

Hello, 

Let’s have a chat.

I’ve been out for a long walk hoping for a chat but strange as it may seem, I didn’t bump into anyone I knew. 

The walk was so long that half way through Dorothy had a mini gay-man’s flounce and sat miserably  at the back door of a parked car in the blind hope that it was Bluebell.

She’s only just forgiven me now, and that was after the fact I let her lick the eggy bits from my Brunch plate.

Yes people as part of my diet I only have Brunch and Dinner now and alongside a reduction of alcohol and eating crap after 6 pm at night. It seems to be working

Well....I had to do something , my underwear drawer needed a mercy killing initiative.

Stretched to buggery and with too many holes.

Thank god for Amazon. 

As Mrs Doubtfire  would say

So in these final moments of lockdown I am polishing those tarnished bits of me, I missed when pulling up my bra straps over the last year. Something, I think we all do, when there is a whiff of spring in the air and the weak sun, warms your bones when out with the dogs.

Takes a long sip of coffee from my trusty bucket

I’m feeling happy today. Happy with my new resolve. I’ve started to read the 20 books collected and stacked on my new ( ultra trendy John Lewis) side table and I’ve started the first of my on line courses which remind me I still have a brain and the capacity to debate. 

............phone rings ...I answer

I’ve returned after a long phonecall from Nu which was as invigorating as an icy plunge in the sea. We haven’t physically met for a year and we are now making tentative plans what we will do when we can...more adventures afoot more laughter ahead.

Blogland has settled down too, with less troll activity spoiling the chatter and it’s nice to feel more kindness and less game playing around........oh and as I’m talking about blogs .....

Go visit Libby at 

https://libbysaidok.blogspot.com/ her new blog needs a few virtual hugs of welcome

I’ve just video called my friend John in Sheffield. We discuss Hitchcock at length, it’s one of those conversations we used to have over too much red wine in All Bar One. 

I miss him

Time for a coffee refill

Bloody hell it’s 2pm ....I’m working the next three days so I have jobs to do. 

Operation dog snot removal, more sooty cobwebs  to scoop up, ones I missed last week.

I’m glad We’ve had this chat.

I will leave you with a photo of the primroses I planted by the front door.

They are optimistic and cheerful and mirror my mood

Enjoy them 

Hitchcock

 

Had my first lecture from the The City Literary Institute tonight on The Master of Suspense:Alfred  Hitchcock’s Spy Thrillers. It’s an eight week course which, from my first experience , seemed very interesting and stimulating 

It’s nice learning stuff just for my interest only and not something confined to work it’s a bit like pampering yourself with a long bubble bath and a facial 

It’s the BIG GAY QUIZ tomorrow night 

At this rate I’m going to be all zoomed out! 

Sunset Phonecall

Was it five years ago? 

I think it was. 

Sunset on a summers’ night and a phone call from a stranger.

He was sat in a car, near a beach and it was clear he had been crying.

I could tell he was young, perhaps thirty.

He had a clear English accent almost devoid of local lilt or twang.

He told me he was a teacher but refused to give me his name.

I worked so hard on that phone call. 

I kept him engaged and I listened. 

And he talked so sadly about how he felt and how much he wanted to die.

His class had scored poor marks in their A levels and he felt a failure.

He had felt a failure all of his life.

For an hour he talked and he even laughed when I asked him to share with me what music he had listened to in the car. 

He didn’t know that I was sensing I was losing him and that I was playing every trick in the book to keep him talking.

I heard him open the blister pack of tablets and he admitted he was piling them on the passenger seat

My colleague mouthed are you ok from her booth and I shook my head. She came over to listen on the spare headset and jotted down ideas to help.

They helped, the man talked a little more.

We talked about the nice things in his life, his friends, his family but he grew sad when the sunset finished and he told me it was almost dark.

I asked if we could call him at another time , to support him, to listen, but he refused politely

I listened as he took a few of the pills.

And he cried a bit more 

Before gently ending the call with a click.

My colleague blocked all further calls and brought me a coffee and a hankie and 

I ate some chocolate digestives and I cried a little

Cried in frustration and for the futility and waste of it all.

I will always remember that call