Spam

 Blogger has been playing up. 

Thanks to Rachel, who put out the word, it’s been diverting many of your comments into my spam folder without any justification. It seems to be a regular problem with many bloggs

So apologies for that . I will endeavour to check my folders more regularly in future 

Thank You Covid

 

We are almost out of it !

The pandemic I mean.

Ok I can’t book any Airbnb’s in Rome in the middle of the night because the owners have to physically assess you covid wise and The Archers still hasn’t returned to it’s Friday night spot, but things have almost gotten back to normal.

Almost

How quickly have we forgotten the lockdown eh ? Quite quickly is my response , but having said that I’ve noticed that many of us are now wanting happy endings in our films and tv and social media….just look at the burst of popularity of the sweet Heartstopper and the fact ( note spoiler) that Miss Baxter and Mr Mosley finally get it together in Downton.

They say air travel will be more difficult given the numbers flying versus the airport staff in place. For me this is yet to be seen. 

I’ve booked a ferry over to Ireland in Bluebell later in the year and will meet up for a family party at Nu’s cottage in the far west of Ireland . This seemed simple enough to book  and cheaper than I expected. 

I’ve got an apartment of my own in a farmhouse in Kenmare . 

Theresa, the farmer’s wife has already told me that she’ll have some homemade scones ready for me on my arrival.

There was no talk of swabs or covid passports .

Again, it will be seen if things are as straightforward as I hope.

I’ve bought a sat nav too…..one who copes with Irish roads.

Like I said, for some the pandemic will be forgotten quickly. 

For me…less so.

Now, I think,  I’m taking from it a more proactive stance on things because of covid

I am grateful for the lessons it’s taught me.

It was a lonely and sad time to have been living in a single person household and I don’t want to venture back there again. 

And so I’ve stopped saying no to things, when no was the easy go to.

I’m pushing myself  out of my comfort zone with travel and events and with people and new experiences.

It’s a work in progress…like we all are.

But thank you covid 

You’ve taught me a lesson 

Now BBC  Please bring back The Archers on a Friday.

Do I shit In The Woods?

I’m pricing up skips ( dumpsters to you Americans) 

The smallest is 75£ which I think is an Ok price.

I need to ask Trefor if I can park it in his drive for when the Bathroom guy comes on Tuesday but that may not be a wise move . Unattended skips tend to be filled by all and sundry especially when they are located somewhere you can’t keep an eye on them.

I do enough for charity me thinks.

The one question I’ve not asked Bathroom Man yet, is how long am I going to be without a toilet.

Now unlike most dwellings nowadays I have only one functioning toilet. Now if this was the 1970s this would be a perfectly reasonable state of affairs but in the glorious 2020s , there is an expectation on many levels which expects that one will have at least one en suite in your property.

I haven’t ……

So I threw the quandary  out to my fellow night workers

“Shit in a bucket” Steve suggested

“ And how does someone my size even sit on a bucket let alone shit in one ?” I said 

“You could hover ?” Diane offered

I looked sceptical 

“ With my hips?”

“True” she agreed without laughing.

“ Borrow a commode from work? “ she added

“ I couldn’t get the legs in the car” I told her ( I had already measured them)

We bandied around various ideas from knocking on neighbours’ doors to squatting in my old field.

Suffice to say, I am very much a product of my time and the thought of not having a good sit down poo fills me with dread. 

I’ve even priced up a “ robust” camping toilet on Amazon. Which is a doable 28£ ! ( with toilet paper hanger) or the cheaper kamper Khazi which surprisingly doesn’t seem to have a weight limit

And one of the things on my bucket list is to go camping 

I must be mad 

Blognaling

Some people don’t get that Going Gently is a journal as well as being a blog.  

A Jourog or Blognal 

Call it what you wish.

As a journal I often share personal feelings and thoughts predominantly ( but not always) about my own life. Something that often elicits comments of support and sympathy but also of advice and criticism. 

This, is perhaps to be expected I guess, even if questions are seldom put out for the audience to give their thruppenny bits at.

What most people don’t get is that Blognals are cathartic  pieces really. They are there purely to process feelings and thoughts and events and are not really there to illicit comments

This is certainly true when it comes to sympathy

As it may seem to some that blogging is really about.

Attention seeking.

Now I’m going to shoot myself in the foot here , as of course blognaling is all about attention seeking. But it really is about attention seeking in the right way. 

I don’t want to hear that I’m a lovely person, or a saint or fucking Mother Theresa without the tea towel but I do like to hear that I’ve written something interesting , or well , or which has moved someone or made them laugh. 

I want one without the other 

And that isn’t how the internet works.

I get that.

I know of bloggers who are more economical with self disclosure for the very reasons I’ve outlined above.

Others have always been careful with what they post.

I am not. If I feel it, or I need to process it, I write it and obviously do from one perspective

Who knows if there is a right or wrong way of doing things.

The internet allows for people to react to the written word in a way that they would never do to anyone’s spoken ones face to face.

It also allows people to withhold sympathy (when it is perhaps needed) in the perception that you’ve had too much on line…..this is intriguing, as it would never happen in real life 

…..but that, as they say, is another story

Froth On Your Hot Chocolate

Velvet voiced Linda had told me there was a woodpecker present in the trees around the village pond last week but I only got to hear him hammer today. 

I think my early morning dawn chorus sojourn has turned me into everything birds 

I’m on nights until Monday morning. 

And so we all went to bed for an hour at 1pm and wasted the afternoon by sleeping in until 5.30. 

I cooked a prawn stir fry and walked the girls 

And I’m writing this , in my uniform , coffee in hand.

The nice bit of the day has been a trio of communications .

A friend’s carefully written and honest email; a message from a faraway friend suggesting lunch and a kind mega early birthday card with a gift of a crisp ten pound note in it.

Contacts from friends are always nice but when you are single they can be the real froth on your hot chocolate so to speak.

Flintshire county council sent me a 150 £ rebate too, to help with my fuel bills 

That was a nice gesture too

I can hear the woodpecker again, as I get ready to leave.

A Day In Two Halves

 It’s been a day of two halves . 

The dawn chorus 

Then The Play That Went Wrong at Theatr Clwyd.

Both enjoyable for completely different reasons .

I said to my sister Janet, on the way home tonight , that in this my 60th year 

I’m going to do all the things I’ve never done before as well as all of the things I like to do too

If that makes sense .

Still on my bucket list for this year

Go camping in a tent

Go to a European city  mini break with my old girlfriend Jane,

Driving through Ireland to Nu’s cottage,

A holiday break abroad totally alone,

Dance in public

Start my counselling course

Learn a totally new skill 

Walk up Snowdon 

I’ve booked five already…..

Hey ho

Birdsong

 I went on a dawn walk this morning. 

A first for me.

I saw it advertised in Holywell when I popped into Tesco

“ Dawn Walk With A Twitcher - birdsong explained”

The meeting place was in Caerwys before 5 am 

I was the last to arrive.

There was ten of us, all told, led by a quietly spoken man in his sixties called Eifion.

We were led down a bridle path by torch light and from time we’d stop to have a brief lecture 

It was an interesting and somewhat cold early morning

But an invigorating one

The robins and blackbirds and the more rare thrush, were the first on the performance with other birds such as wrens, wood pigeons  and warblers joining in.

The likes of the tits and the finches usually only start to sing when dawn has broken.

Apparently it is usually the male birds that call and at times the sound was amazingly loud

One woman in the group had a good cry at the experience and kept apologising for it.

I liked the feeling of being anonymous in the pre dawn gloom

And felt a little exposed when the day finally  lifted the dark to a translucent blue.

I’m off to meet a friend for lunch shortly.

They are going into hospital soon and are in need of a bit of calm

It’s sunny but still cool and I can see Islwyn pottering around the pony field fixing the gates

He’s like me. 

He likes to be needed.

Gay Wizards

 I disliked the Harry Potter film franchise finding it all somewhat tiresome  but I liked the first Fantastic Beasts movie , which is a prequel of sorts.

I didn’t enjoy or understand the second film in the Beast trilogy but sort of got to grips with the third-  tonight’s movie fantastic Beasts The Secrets Of Dumbledore 

I say sort of ……

The action bits were exciting , I like the Queenie and Jacob characters too but over all it is 

Jude Law who made it for me as he makes for a rather tasty gay bear dad wizard, what with his lovely beard and wide selection of hand knitted tank tops.