ToNight I took part in a City Lit zoom Lecture on Neo Noir (modern film noir movies )
We are studying The Long Goodbye 1973, Chinatown 1974 and Bodyheat 1981.
I really enjoyed the lecturer’s take on things even though the other “ students” may have found my “ odd eyeball rolling faces” on the grid a little bizarre as Dorothy spent 2 hours under my desk scraping the hard skin from both of my heels with her baby teeth.
My favourite film Noir movie is the 1944 thriller Double Indemnity which features the glorious Barbara Stanwick as the scheming Phylis Dietrichson .I’m so glad we will be discussing her next week !
She was such a slag .
No other news to report ….this afternoon neighbours Mandy and Sailor John and I met up with Animal Helper Pat in the lane….it was her first walk after getting over covid and she was bright as a button. We slagged off the owners of the new build behind the cottage, who have been ruining Mandy’s washing with their bonfires…Pat looked well, a year ago, pre vaccines her story may have been so different .
We all mentioned that
I’m not going to choir tomorrow tonight…I’ve told Jamie I will only go when we can sing indoors….and he understands …..so tomorrow afternoon all I am doing is buying more agapanthus for the garden…fireworks of neon blue which will burst their colourful flower heads in every corner of the cottage garden .
I will arranged them amid the hostas and hydrangeas
She laughed when I asked for something to be done tonight,
I told her it looked like shredded wheat.
Going through my trusty Filofax yesterday I noticed that I had a film Studies lecture booked for tomorrow night. The subject is film noir and it is a couple of hours after by Opera appreciation course, and so I was really looking forward to it, but I was rostered onto night shifts so had forgotten .
Luckily a colleague is covering for me , which is sweet of her.
I’ve organised my Filofax ( yes I use a Filofax and not my phone!) and crammed it with E tickets for forthcoming excitements in between black sets of nights….! What fun!
An outdoor production of a Pride and Prejudice in Chester
An Sunday afternoon showing of Now Voyager and lunch at the Jaunty Goat
A Vivaldi concert in the Botanical House in Sefton Park
Catching Comets, ( another out door Theatre Clwyd production described as an end of the world rom com)
A spinal injury reunion in York
An Evening with Nigella Lawson ( I may ask Gorgeous Dave or Jason to that one if I can cope with their erections)
And “ Spirit Hole” an evening with Simon Amstell at the Liverpool Philharmonic which was described excitedly as “ Spirit Hole is a blissful, spiritual, sensational exploration of love, sex, shame, mushrooms and more, and promises to be a night of unprecedented joy and laughter.”
Chic Eleanor texted this evening from the Italian Riviera saying she would graciously accept one of my invites.
I’ve also got Ben’s leaving do from work to fit in ( he’s a bestie a nurse who is moving to South Korea)
I’ve already sounded out Bridget from well street to see if she will make a cake with the Korean flag on the top of it.
I just noticed that I have astigmatism in my eye in the above photo
It reminded me of Nancy the cross eyed stewardess in Airport 75
Meirion gave me a lecture the other day about my downpipe.
He’s sweet, but has a habit of giving me a lecture about things.
It’s irritating because he is invariably right in what he says.
Those sort of conversations always are.
“ You’ll get damp in the upstairs bedroom if that leaks anymore” he noted seriously
I nodded, also seriously and promised to get it sorted
He’d already suggested that I stake my graveyard laburnum
I promised to do that, but haven’t got around to it.
Even though I’m a great list maker I still have lots to do
The downpipe does need fixing , but I am not the girl to do it.
I cannot go up ladders to save my life.
I’m terrified of heights even ones just ten feet from the ground.
I am a right wuss.
I suffer from the syndrome The Call Of The Void
That’s where you get the urge to jump from very high spaces
Luckily Facebook came to my aid and a quick plea for a handyman with his own ladder brought forth an offer of help, this time from said handyman’s partner who lives in the village.
I hate it when workmen come around, I try to go all butch and understanding
Winnie just to blow them kisses.
So on nights I am making more lists
The downpipe is number one, and I’ve messaged partner to organise a meeting for me
Second on my list isn’t the laburnum, I’m being bolshy about that one and am ignoring the suggestion.
Third, is the office walls which need repainting, the impetus for that is the new Bauhaus picture which will lovely of a muted yellow wall
I still haven’t finished my revalidation paperwork too……that was a job for tonight
I’ve spent too long doing other things……..typical…in between patient care, I’ve been booking theatre and cinema tickets…..hey ho
I did an overtime shift yesterday and today was a full day . Tomorrow I’m on three night shifts….yes
It’s a bit relentless after my holiday .
Thank goodness for Trendy Carol
I Picked up the girls at dusk from her conservatory, to find that she had bathed both of them and brushed Mary to perfection . Carol ( dressed in so ring floaty ) also reminded me that it was Mrs Trellis’ birthday today, a fact I had forgotten . So I popped around with a card ( I always have a selection in) .and slipped it through the letterbox .
Like many older people Mrs Trellis doesn’t like visitors after dark .
And To be honest I wasn’t quite up to a Trellis conversation .
I could see Mrs Trellis in the window of her living room
She was playing her piano with quiet concentration, her grey hair pulled back in a bun tied up with a pink ribbon
I could hear the music, seeping through the window as it started to rain gently
It was the welsh lullaby Suo Gan
It was a lovely little moment
It wasn’t the only musical moment in the village tonight
On my way home I could see the hall lit up and the first socially distanced concert with Luke Johnson performing on behalf of Folk In The Hall was in progress….
In the 1990s I was fortunate enough to be enrolled on a six month course specialising in the care of the Spinally Injured patient. This was based at the Southport Spinal Injury Unit , which then had unique experience in caring for patients who had total paralysis of their bodies, including their muscles which initiated breathing.
Many of these patients would be ventilator dependent for life.
I got very close to one man who I will call Jim.
He was in his thirties and had broken his neck in a car accident . The injury was so severe that he would need ventilatory support over night but could come off the vent during the day after which he could breath for himself albeit only for a few hours. He could feel his face and talk in a whisper but had no physical control over his limbs, body and head.
My shifts were always weekday mornings with afternoons off for study, and so every morning I would take Jim off the confines of the ventilator, wash, dress and feed him and prepare him for physiotherapy
And every morning he would cry silent tears when woken with suction or the changing of his tracheostomy inner tubes.
One day I asked him about his morning bursts of emotion
And I remember so well the conversation as we were alone in the hospital gardens, Amid the raised planters, which were specially designed to be viewed from a wheelchair.
They were full of lavender and rosemary as I remember
“ Every night I dream Im flying” he whispered “ And every morning I wake to this”
And for the first time I properly realised the impact of injuries like his.
I couldn’t speak.
What could I say?
I just nodded and rested my hand on the side of his face, where he could feel the contact.
I was going to hold his cold unfeeling hand, but the gesture would have been lost,
Jim killed himself a year or so later. One of the physiotherapists wrote to me to inform me.
He had simply stopped eating and had refused escalation of care when finally admitted to a general hospital with pressure sores and renal failure.
There was no Dignitas back then and there was no where to go for a quadriplegic who couldn’t move his own hands to explore the usual methods of ending ones life.
He had to die painfully and without dignity
Which is a place no one should go.
The above clip is from a film I watched last week called The Sea Inside ( Mar Adrendro)
It is about the struggle of a Spanish sailor Ramon Sanpedro, who fought for nearly 30 years to be allowed to die after his spinal injury accident.
It’s a hard watch
This scene brought my conversations with Jim flooding back
