Fields Of Gold

This morning I took Mary and Trendy Carol’s dog, Bengi to the groomers. Both are well trained in car travel and sit  on the back seat like statues. 

It was a pleasure to be out without the usual bouncing hysterics from Dorothy 

I wouldn’t be without her, but looking after a dog with their own unique issues can be a challenge at times.

The above video is an example of Dorothy’s odd, and needy behaviour when out walking in a group. She is totally ignoring the other dog that was playfully sitting on the sidelines as well as Chic Eleanor who was watching with some interest nearby.

Her focus lies totally with me and totally me, which can be exhausting at times, for both of us, but I can see areas where her confidence is improving which is encouraging.

I dropped a neat bunch of smart tulips off at Gentleman Ralph’s farm with a card. 

There is a strange paralysis people experience when visiting the very newly bereaved and even with my experiences within the hospice , I am not immune to the do I knock? Do I just leave the flowers on the doorstep dilemma? 

I left them on the doorstep   

The farmhouse was quiet.

I dropped Benji off, picked up a doe-eyed Dorothy and came home and prepared lentil and Chorizo soup in the slow cooker. Then the dogs, Albert and I made ourselves comfortable in my office in the East wing which I already made comfortable and warm.

I have some writing and some film scene watching to do for my film studies course 

But all I have completed so far it this blog, listened to Eva Cassidy , drank coffee from my striped bucket cup and watched the world go by , in the lane , a lane that snakes up to the church in a lazy s

Ralph, The Gentleman Farmer

This evening the Trelawnyd warden’s group let the village know that Gentleman Farmer Ralph had died tragically this morning. 

I had only seen him a day or so ago.

I had been walking the dogs around 6am before work. 

He was driving to the garage to collect his paper.

He stopped briefly to ask how I was and we laughed that despite wearing figure hugging PPE at work I was still the size of a house. 

He told me to start keeping animals on the field again in way of extra exercise.

The quietly spoken Ralph and his wife Lywenna are much loved and respected in Trelawnyd...this blog entry from 2019 perhaps underlines his kindness 

“

Gentleman farmer Ralph

Most of my regular readers will know that I live on a small lane.
The lane snakes out of the village to the south West and turns at a house and then two farms before moving away across the Valley floor.
In the second farm lives Gentleman Farmer Ralph and his gracefully polite wife Mrs L, and this morning they both stopped to pass over a Christmas Card and a couple of gifts.
I love the pragmatism of the farmer's gifts
Handed over the kitchen wall as so many gifts have been  over the years,
Was a very large lamb chop
A Christmas Card
And a high viz jacket !

Since I started work at the hospice I take Mary for a walk around 6 am in the morning and at that time Ralph drives to the village shop for his paper!
" You never wear something light in the lane" he quipped " I am worried that one day I'm going to run over you!" 

I will pop some flowers up to Lywenna tomorrow  and some homemade soup on Saturday. 

Twist In My Sobriety

Last night I watched Kramer vs Kramer after realising that I’ve never seen it.

It was one of those films you think you have seen then ten minutes into it, you realise that it was just a thought.

I enjoyed it so much.

Streep was amazing.

This morning I’ve been walking with Chic Eleanor and now I’m cooking Spiced Turkey and Bean Soup for supper. 

I’ve no news except that another Art Deco inspired print arrived today. I will hang it in my study a bit later. It arrived alongside Michelle Obama’s Becoming and a dvd of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar which my bubble friend Ruth and I will watch on Saturday.

Tonight it is My Hitchcock lecture

I’ve lit the fire

And the cottage is filled with the vague scent of woodsmoke and soup

And the music from the album Ancient Heart by Tinika Tikaram 

The Baking Cupboard

 On Saturday it will be the six year anniversary of the day I got married 

Of all the dates I need to forget , this one is the one I always seem to remember.

The morning of March 6th 2015 was very much like the one we experienced today. It was springlike and warm and sunny. 

Like this morning I was alone in the cottage, drinking coffee at the kitchen table.

Unlike this morning, I had been up and down like a fiddler’s elbow receiving cards and gifts from villagers and friends.

I remember the table being filled with bottles of champagne and boxes with bows and flowers in vases.

Around 11am I spied Auntie Gladys walking carefully down the lane. 

She wore a red woollen coat and looked frail at 95

I met her at the garden wall and she held my hand in greeting

“ I have a wedding gift for you both” she said handing me a hand written card 

I started my usual  you shouldn’t have  type reply which she waved away with a hand

“ Buy yourself something you need but would never usually buy yourself “ she said her watery blue eyes twinkling and I was suddenly moved that this old stalwart of the Church and of traditional values had just embraced her first gay marriage 

“ Thank you for being so kind , Your support means a great deal” I told her and she laughed her usual laugh and pushed her hands into her coat pockets to find a hankie 

“ It’s the law ! “ she said simply and I watched her walk back up the lane, her head to one side as though she was thinking hard.

I felt moved and humbled , as though my grandmother had just visited.

Auntie Glad’s card was traditional  and addressed to us both. Inside was several crisp ten pound notes which I rolled up and placed in the tea caddy on the mantle. 

I forgot the money until weeks later, when it was almost summer.

Back then I was planning for my beloved new kitchen and so fantasised about things I wanted to make it the best of all I had owned. Having my own baking cupboard was on my to do list.

And so, with the help of Auntie Glad’s money, I prepared for one.

I bought loaf tins and flan dishes and an old fashioned black bird with its mouth open to sit inside a steaming pie so that the pastry would not get soggy. 

I bought cake tins and a flour shaker and storage tins full of grease roof paper, food colouring and vintage Christmas cake decorations alongside vintage wooden spoons and a mixing bowl with blue embossed sides like the one my mother used to have.

Any I hid all of the bits and bobs away until the IKEA workmen had put in the kitchen, only bringing them out from their hiding place to fill my baking cupboard . The one nearest to the lane window , where the light is best to roll pastry and to kneed dough.

Today after night shift I was in my baking cupboard yet again, retrieving the ingredients to make sourdough bread  and as I kneeded the dough I remembered the day Auntie Gladys brought me a wedding present .......and continued to be a bit of a hero .

The baking Cupboard Today

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