Ouiser could never stay mad at me; she worships the quicksand I walk on."

The desk at work looks like the wreck of the Hesperus.

As a favour I’ve come in to cover sickness but in patients remains strangely quiet , so I’m catching up on nurse revalidation paperwork and am online buying a leaving gift for a colleague .

I smell strangely expensive too....which is a first......

I smell expensive because I’ve generously squirted myself with  Jicky ..extract de parfum which was a gift from one of my patients from last year. I didn’t know it can be bought for £255 quid a bottle until tonight

No more squirting Dorothy’s farty backside with it now I know.....hey ho.....I’m such a Luddite 

I’m skint too, but before the troll minions start, I’m not complaining about it, just observing it. 

The cinemas open soon so I’ve prebooked  tickets for the recent crop of Oscar winners

Anthony Hopkins The Father,  Chloe Zhad’s  Namadland  with Francis McDormand, Pedro Almodovar’s The Human Voice, and the Korean/ American Minari 

I’ve also just booked my train to see Nu.....I’m going a few days after my birthday in June.....what fun! 

There will be much shedding of tears when we meet for sure.

Tomorrow , after a sleep I will venture forth to B@Q to buy some white paint to weatherproof the back of the cottage and to give it a clean up after a wet winter

I will leave you with a brief tribute to Olympia Dukakis who died yesterday.

She was not only a fabulous actress  with memorable roles in Moonstruck, Tales of the City  and  Steel Magnolias “ looks like two pigs fightin under a blanket,” but she was also an active advocate for LGBTQ rights. 

A lovely lady with a lovely smile.

She will be missed.

Sunday Morning

 

Finally, the laburnum in the Churchyard has started to bud a hardly detectable green.

I have been worried about it not doing so.

It’s the most magnificent tree in the village.

The sun is shining but it remains cooler than you might expect and when you look at the gorse on the Gop the blooms  that looked so golden only week ago , now look more muted in their radiance.

The bachelor cockerel is crowing incessantly this morning but the breeze alters the volume of his calls from faint to bearable.

There is the noise of a tractor coming from one of the fields in the valley towards Gentleman Ralph’s farm

It’s as irritating as a lawnmower on this Sunday morning, the breeze can’t change that.

The bluebells are out, in my garden and in the corner of the churchyard where I planted them two years ago. 

They are luminous.

As if powered by tiny batteries

The girls have been walking in the woods, they haven’t visited in an age.

They scampered like mice

Saturday

 ....got off to a bad start 

Out walking with the dogs and Dorothy in a fit of bulldog enthusiasm jumped up and ripped a long sliver of my jogging pants waist to ankle, with her claws

I had to continue the walk on a somewhat crowded walkway with my left leg and thigh provocatively poking through the gap aka Faye Dunaway in The Towering Inferno.

And yes I had my very. off white underpants on.

I sort of know how this kid felt

On line

 

Tonight me and Mave  won the Big Gay Quiz with three teammates 

It was great fun

It’s been a big day for what’s app too

Today

Fat club at work has provided support for our next weigh in

My nephew Leo has shared yet another bad joke..out of many relating to bananas

Nu has finalised my trip to London to see her ( oh yes)

I’ve had 10 donations to a leaving gift for a fellow nurse Chris, who is moving on

A touch base from a friend who has a poorly mom, 

A dirty video sent from affable despot jason

And happy messages from gorgeous Dave, chic Eleanor , and Harry from the village who wants to sort out my bathroom

The internet is a godsend.

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

This is a nice story. 

It is also a true one .

It happened nearly three years ago now and it a testament to serendipity.

I shared it with a loved one recently, to illustrate how things will often change for the better when you least expect life will......

Like I said it is true.

It was my first visit to my divorce lawyer. 

I had to borrow a car from Jason The Affable Despot to go.

The solicitor’s office was located in St Asaph, right next door to the cathedral, and like today, it was a sunny day. 

I remember little else about the interview apart from the kindness of my solicitor and the projected estimated bill of “ several thousand pounds”   

I left the office numb and silently panicked 

I hadn’t got a bean to my name..

How could I fight any divorce with no car, no money and no job

I sat in the cathedral for the longest of times.

Long enough for one of the ladies that ran a small coffee stall in the corner of the naive to quietly wander over to rest a serviette on the chair next to me.

Eventually, with bleary eyes   I got up and drove home

Mary was racing around the cottage when I walked in. She had a chewed envelope in her mouth. Her and William had attacked the post again, in transference to pulling off the postman’s fingers.

Flat and upset I opened the letter which was covered in bites and terrier saliva

It was from a Solicitor’s office I had instructed months before to look into any PPI claims (personal Protection insurance) I had with banks and credit cards I had in the 1990s

I had long forgotten about it .

 

Apparently, it said , I had a claim! ........in fact, the woman on the phone said when I hurriedly rang her , I had several claims that were successful and after 30 % fees and VAT and others costs I was in line to receive over eleven thousand pounds ! 

Eleven thousand Pounds ........in fact the final sum was greater than that!

I told the clerk that I could kiss her .....she laughed good humouredly 

That serendipitous windfall saved me . It paid for Bluebell and paid off my credit cards and overdraft and vets bills and it allowed me to put some away for the solicitor , deadening the fear and the worry of officialdom at its worst.

Serendipity........

It’s such a frivolous sounding word 

For something that proved to be so vital .

I’m not over fat just under tall

 

It’s funny...

But I do find the presence of stuffed toys in a totally adult household , just a bit creepy. 

I say this with the sudden realisation that I have three stuffed toys in the house. Colin The Chameleon, with his jaunty leg kicked sideways underneath the art wall; a cute duck billed platypus bought from Sydney Zoo is sat in my bedroom bookcase  and a now almost 40 year old Garfield sat benignly in my living room cupboard with a gentle smile upon his face.

I reassure myself that owing stuffed toys only really becomes creepy when they occupy your bed, you know the sort, sat unseeing , face forward between the pillows .....that’s when toys are creepy

Garfield was given to my by my twin sister when we were in our twenties.

I liked his slightly cynical view on life back then, and that’s a riot in itself. 

When most young people were saving the whale, joining Amnesty International ( which I later did lol)  and stretching their political wings against the poll tax or Thatcher’s policies 

What was I doing? 

I was watching movies and following the mantras of a ginger cartoon character

Go figure.

It’s a lovely day today and I am in my office sorting out what to do on my holiday next week.

Right on time Mrs Trellis totters past with Blue

She doesn’t see me up at my desk

I’ve already sorted a few meet ups with friends, lunch in Liverpool with Colin. More lunch with Cheryl from Ramsbottom ( a great sounding place) Outdoor dinner with Chic Eleanor and our friends in Conwy and a family get together this weekend if the weather holds and a socially distanced picnic with the hospice staff on Llandudno’s beautiful West Shore....

It’s a little too early for a Sheffield trip but that is on the cards alongside a London trip to see Nu....

I have missed her so over the past barren year. 

Mrs trellis 

My Wood Is Missing

 

It’s been an extraordinary busy day

Made easier by some funny vignettes 

The best was when I had to meet a huge extended family of a patient for the first time one of which commented quite loudly to another in an adjoining room “:He doesn’t look like a nurse , he looks like a Samoan rugby player! 

Hey ho

I left work late, and didn’t get home until well  after half nine and all I could think of was a cold beer ( I had one in the fridge) a good foot  licking by Dorothy and a warm roaring fire. 

Well two out of three ain’t bad

When I went out to the back shed..the one bordering on the lane behind bluebell ...the door was wide open and all of my remaining kiln fired wood ( some thirty logs  or so) had been stolen 

Hey ho....

Be Prepared

 My sister warned me that there was a group of nefarious types stealing dogs locally.

Apparently this has been a more common practice given the lockdown phenomenon of soaring dog prices and increased demand for designer dogs.

I saw Maggie from the village this morning and warned her as her sweet cocker made goo goo eyes at Mary 

“I’m prepared” she said pragmatically showing me a specially made waist band to which she had fixed her dog’s lead to with what looked like a climber’s carabina. 

“Keeps my hands free” she said, “ in case of emergencies”

I looked impressed 

She pointed to a small piece of equipment on her wasteband 

“ Here is my rape alarm too !” 

I laughed and was just about to ask her if she was packing a gun , when she fished into a pocket and brought out a small canister 

“ pepper spray !” She explained

God help anyone trying to steal Maggie’s dog I thought