Back Up

In 1991 I supported a Spinal Cord Injury charity called Back Up

https://www.backuptrust.org.uk/

I didn’t raise money, or indeed collected any but I gave my time to an organisation who stretched newly spinally injured men and women to experience sports outside their comfort zones.

That year I was one of the  nurse team who helped take paraplegic and quadraplegic patients skiing in Switzerland. Our job was to help the most paralysed patients in activities of daily living and help get them ready for the slopes, which usually meant a hard mornings’ work until 10.30 or so. 

The patients were then handed over to the ski instructors with their adapted ski, poles and seats and buggies until teatime when help was needed again to sort out bladders and bowels and to check skin  etc before dinner and the usual evening  where a great deal of serious drinking apres ski style, was achieved before bed.

Most of our charges were under the age of thirty.

And all had something to prove to themselves after months and months of inpatient care.

The ski resort, as most ski resorts are, was a rather posh place and our hotel was rather plush as I recall with a large open plan bar and restaurant decorated tastefully in 1960s style furniture and one evening after a particularly heavy bout of drinking by our back up team, I was approached by a rather well to do German lady who spoke impeccable English.

She was not happy at all

“ Please,” she asked “ Are You in Charge of zee English men in their wheelchairs? “

I told her I was not, that I was a nurse helper and could I be of any help

“ Zay are singing songs ya?” She complained earnestly “ Which are not in very gud taste”

I apologised thinking the German observers were getting a selection of British Rugby songs forced down their throats and went to investigate.

I found a dozen men and women in their wheelchairs all linking arms together, with a selection of able bodied drunk friends joining in with lusty voices and blurred expressions.

They were singing the football anthem “ You’ll never walk alone” with great emotion but had substituted their own words for the final bravura ending of the song

“ walk on, walk on with hope in your heart but we’ll never nev-er walk again!!!

WE’LL NEV-ER .....WALK AGAIN! “

As I passed the German lady on my return I merely shrugged 

“They sing very well ! “ I called out to her with a smile

“Gwnewch y pethau bychain”

 

 

The one thing I’ve always liked about the Patron Saint Of Wales is that he instructed his followers to “ do the little things” ( Gwnewch Y Pethau Bychain” that you have seen me do! 

To him it was the small kindnesses that we show each other that were important 

Please remember that when you are wearing your daffodil to work..

Yesterday ....not only did I partake in a three hour zoom lecture, I also made my own pasta from scratch. 

Inspired by the recent Celebrity Masterchef I drummed up a small plate of Spinach & Ricotta Ravioli with a herb butter and Parmesan in only 2 hours!!

Two hours!

The kitchen looked like an explosion in Sophia Loren’s villa by the time I had finished

And this was what I had to show for the entire fucking afternoon 

Back To University

 

My film studies lecture starts in a few minutes

Three hours of “ The Wind in film” 

I’ve impressed myself by setting up my wireless keyboard and with the obligatory bucket of coffee I am about to christen my first very home office all of my own.

I did have a lovely Victorian desk but that went with the ex husband in order for me to keep the grandfather clock. 

They cost similar amounts but I loved the clock more.

I like to be surrounded by things that please me and the desk does this. 

A delicate vase with miniature yellow fish on it is filled with pencils and pens, an old framed photo of Finlay, my Filofax bible covered in birds, an indoor primula and a pot of tiny yellow narcissi, a trendy toast rack doubling as a letter holder. A puffin....a gift from an unknown blog reader....

I am all set! 

Let’s hope I don’t cough and fart at the same time this morning like I did last week.

The green light went on around my box , indicating to all who was responsible. 

Thank goodness the tutor merely whispered an ironic  “ How apt” given the title of the lecture

Mad Makeover: To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995)

Click on the link watch on YouTube to see this great scene

John Leguizumo kneeling is inspired

To Woog Foo

Dorothy asleep on my feet

How tired I am with people who think they know you better than you  know yourself .

How tired I am with people who miss irony, humour and poetic licence 

How tired I am of people who know everything about everything even though they are not furnished with the full facts

How tired I am of people who think the ill in every situation and not the humour.

These are the sad facts , the things  bloggers have to put up with.

In the previous blog, a mildly amusing story of Dorothy peeing on the carpet in anger was forensically picked to pieces.

What a bad dog owner I was to allow of dog’s over full bladder to be emptied on the carpet! 

Yadda yadda yadda...

Who cares? Who knows the truth.....Dorothy may of peed in anger and frustration?  she’s certainly done things similar in tantrum ....she may of picked up some new and delicious odour in the carpet and pissed in relation to that......what she didn’t do was pee because she was desperate for a pee....she had access to the garden......but the depressingly pedantic, the know all’s and those without humour know better and their bleating voices wanted an audience to listen to their wise, humourless words...forgetting that I’m telling a story on Going Gently a story that has its own rules, characters and way of looking at the world.

I’m not really tired of such pedants , just mildly exasperated by them.....

Just fucking take it as it’s given and chill the fuck out! 

Hey ho

Anyhow ...

I’m more physically shattered after moving 100£ ‘s worth of kiln dried logs from the drive into the outhouse.

I can hardly move my covid vaccinated arm now.....

And so , I treated myself to a pot noodle, a bottle of wine , a roaring fire 

And a night in with this

Eleanor, Twt Hill and A New Desk

I just “so happened” to bump into Chic Eleanor in Rhuddlan today .

She had her winter black pashmina on and had take out sandwiches and coffee from The Old Crown at the castle tucked under her arm.

“ Darling John” she called from her car......and my heart lightened 

We walked up to Twt Hill ( the site of a Norman Castle Keep) and talked and ate on opposite sides of a long bench. I needed to see her today.

She brightened me

Like a heat lamp

This afternoon, I set up my new desk in my office in the East Wing and I’m really pleased with the set up.

I’m just waiting for a proper office chair and mini filing cabinet to arrive.

Dorothy was unhappy that I was late with her afternoon walk so pissed on the carpet in way of a tantrum 

Tonight in the Big Gay Quiz , my fellow competitors, Colin, Zack, Colin , Phil and Mavis came 3rd out of 14 groups .....great fun ...

Village Humour

 Message left on village Facebook page this morning, it amused me

“ Folks

There will be a drone flying over the school and possibly the hall on Saturday Morning. We are checking the condition of the roof. If you are sunbathing in the garden before 9:00 am please wear a rainbow towel to show support for the NHS

Dave Smith”

Zoom and Eggy Bread

 

I’m waiting for my desk to be delivered. 

I have a four hour window, so the dogs have been walked early and with the cottage windows open to the sunny frost, I am sitting on vigil with homemade sourdough eggy bread and my bucket of coffee.

It’s Friday isn’t it? 

Oh yes......I’ve got an uncharacteristically busy day.

Desk delivery this morning , then a car park coffee with Chic Eleanor at lunchtime “ Darling John I may even treat myself to a very naughty donut!” Eleanor texted excitedly.

This afternoon, it’s a team meeting at work c/o zoom which probably will be a bit of a bunfight . 

My role at the hospice will change slightly soon as I will be covering our community Hospice @ Home initiative as well as some time in the in patients department.

The staff meeting was my idea.

Tonight is the The Big Gay Quiz .....if I can set up my desk, that’s where I will quiz from 

Hey ho.