Chimney

I’m waiting to handover at night shift

I like a punchy handover 

I’ve got to get home early as the chimney sweep is turning up at 8.30 am

I’m picking Nigel up in Chester this afternoon.

The Silent Nun

 I usually get back home soon after nine am after the first long dog walk of the day

And I spied Mrs C standing by the kitchen wall seeing if I was about. 

She wanted my “ professional “ thoughts on something so I left the dogs in the car and invited her in for tea.

Mrs C ‘s father is poorly in hospital. He has covid and is not expected to recover and Mrs C, who is in her early sixties wanted to know just what a syringe driver did and why fluids had been stopped on her father.

The nurse looking after him overnight had been attentive but silent and Mrs C felt as though her questions , of which there were many, could not be asked.

This sort of night nurse I always refer to as The Silent Nun . As death is approaching they glide around as if invisible , say little but always looking solemn and quietly supportive. 

It’s as though death is something purely something to be an awe of.

Instead of something normal, albeit it often earth shattering .

I am often surprised just how few people have seen a death up close. 

In these days of expert resus both at home and in hospitals many people are treatable over and above their normal life expectancies. The times where granny is gently fading away in a single bed in the corner of the  living room seems more of a rarity as it was , and with our busy lives and fragmented families many moments of death are missed or sanitized  or both .

The Silent Nun can compound this distancing by giving death a overwhelmingly devout miss en scene .

There has to be a balance of course.

But in my experience death and the process of dying has to be talked about and explained as a normal yet hugely significant undertaking.

I make it a point to ask if the relative has been in this position before. If they haven’t I tend to ask if they want me to be outline what to expect, and the answer invariably is yes.

Patterns of breathing, noisy secretions, agitation, all manner of scary things can be explained in layman’s terms and plans can be discussed for treatments to alleviate some of the symptoms seen. 

The relative is brought into the treatment plans for their loved one, they can understand why something is being done ( or not) and by being part of that plan can feel less helpless within the situation. 

I answered some of Mrs C ‘s main questions and encouraged her to clarify some others with the ward staff when she returned to the hospital this morning and as she drank her tea I remembered the words of a support worker who I worked with eons ago now. She must be long time dead herself . But she always brought into a family vigil  a pot of tea, with a small jug of milk and a sugar bowl with spoons. Cups , coffee, saucers , biscuits on a plate 

The works …

“ it always gives the family something to do” she explained “ sorting out the crockery and pouring the tea” 

Autumn

Autumn is here.

There is a definite chill in the air.

I’ve been washing the spare bedroom bedding this morning and have hung it on the field gate to dry.

Leaves are whipping down the lane as if in a grey river and have started to heap in the gateways and livery  stable fields and the ponies have started to wear their winter coats.

Roger has been galloping around the front garden, excited by the wind. 

He remains a joy

A regular little gentleman.

Who has only just started to learn to cock his leg up against the shrubs and flowers like an adult.

Chic Eleanor has just messaged. We are meeting in the pub at 5.30 

“ how naughty !” She texted

Nigel Returns

 

Nige’s last visit

Nigel “ I ‘ll be arriving on Friday afternoon , can you pick me up from Chester? “ 

Me “ Of Course , just let me know when…I’m looking forward to you coming it’s been over six years since your last visit !”

Nigel “ I know “

Me “ I’ll make sure everything is clean and tidy for your Visit”

Nigel ( scoffs)  “Have you got a dozen cleaning ladies coming in ? “ 

He knows me so well

My friend Nige is coming to stay on Friday and I’m so glad I have a new kitchen and bathroom

He likes to be in control and has, to be fair, suffered  a few horror visits in the long lost past when my cottage was more “ rustic” for his aseptic needs so to speak 

“ I promise you can make dinner “ I told him last night on the phone 

It sounds silly but I so want to impress him on his return 

The Chicken Field

 I found the painting behind the shelving until in my bedroom. 

It was covered in dust, and had slipped down out of sight over a year ago now

It’s a painting of fifteen multicoloured chickens 

I painted it 17 months ago now at the height of lockdown.

I think it’s important to remember the isolation of lockdown and not to forget it 

My lifelong friend Nia in New South Wales messaged me with the suggestion we cooked together on zoom on day. 

It was silly and frivolous and fun and sweet, and the conversation flowed easily in between the cracking of eggs and the mixing of sauces . Conversations you would have if you didn’t live alone 

Conversations you could still participate in lockdown .

From cooking we evolved to painting 

And the chicken field was born at the same time Nia swirled around blue abstract shapes on her canvass ten thousand six hundred miles away

This simple activity kept my head about water  during lockdown , it really did 

And yesterday I wrapped the duck painting in brown paper in preparation of sending it to Nia for Christmas.

She was there for me that day, with a smile and an inconsequential chatter and gossip about  ordinary things and I will always be grateful to her for that.

Lovely Linda and The Meaty Farts

 

I’m not banging on about being busy

But I’m busy.

I’m on a two day training course and it’s college night tomorrow 

I’ve just finished nights as well,

And they were busy too.

I got home all in a rush, and after dog walking, cat feeding and the like took a few minutes respite and let Dorothy give my feet a jolly good licking

It was Delightful! 

Now when she’s on a good one, Dorothy can slobber over my bunions for a good half hour, during which she has a particularly odious habit of farting rather heavily. 

I think it’s a kind of gastrocolic reflex, like a baby sucking a bottle will wind

And It’s only a small price to pay, to be sure

But today I wasn’t banking on the velvet voiced Linda knocking on the door wanting to organise a community council meeting just as Dorothy was in mid lickn’fart

I let Linda in before I realised that not only my feet were covered in slobber, but that the cottage smelled of the meatiest of farts….and boy are we talking meaty.!

I was mortified .

Blaming Dorothy seemed like the most obvious of ruses 

So I said nothing and hoped she wouldn’t notice

Linda was as gracious and as smiley as always, she’s rather like Chic Eleanor in this respect 

But I did notice that she didn’t stay very long at all

A Bee Vase

 My nephew Pete has just gotten divorced. 

He’s cheerful yet conflicted as many divorcees are but at fifty is moving into his own house, the first he can call just his own. 

I took him round a card and a house warming gift and he laughed when he opened it today

It was a flower vase with bees on it. 

I know it was a stereotype, but I bought him a gift I know many straight single men would never ever buy themselves and I think he was touched by it as he hugged me in the street as we said goodbye.

Memories

 December 29th 2005 was a Thursday . 

A suicide bomber killed himself, two Palestinian civilians and an Israeli soldier on the West Bank 

Tony Blair was Prime Minister and Mariah Carey was doing well with “ Don’t forget about us” 

There was little else of note to report that day, however it was the day I started to write Going Gently.

My first post was perfunctory 

disaster thoughts

well my first blog........sounds rather like something Kenneth Williams would say.
I will be brief, and "set the scene" as it were.

I am 43, a nurse professionally, newly moved into the Welsh country side from Sheffield. I Am probably going through a mid life crisis.

Ideal for a place like this......................look forward to talk soon.

I didn’t give much away did I? but the “ Midlife crisis “ quote was a bit of giveaway. 

For I felt a bit…..aimless. 

Lizzy asked about my move from Sheffield to a tiny village the size of Hillsborough Park and I’m trying to recall the lead up to it. 

My husband certainly had itchy feet and had wanted to move to the country for  a long time and we had been together five years in a city that had served us both very well. He was looking for promotion , 

I was looking to nest.

If children were on the cards then, I would have been an ideal time to adopt,

But we left my large three bedroom terrace on the steep Wynyard Road in Hillsborough with two old cats, Welsh terrier Finlay and grumpy Scottie Maddie and moved to Trelawnyd which was a village three miles ( and thirty  years )different from my childhood home of Prestatyn.

The first year in the cottage seems a blur now. 

There was a lot for me to organise as the inside had been reduced to a bland, 1980s shell by the previous owner and so I contracted a big shy bear of a carpenter to design a new staircase and handrail, Victorian looking glass fronted cabinets for either side of the inglenook fireplace and a bookcase and wardrobe for the bedroom. 

New windows were replaced in the back of the cottage and a new garden dug from beneath the tarmac car park , an  eyesore which was bordered with a new but traditional welsh limestone wall complete with an iron wrought gate made by my brother in law.

I oversaw everything and made a home. 

And never had much to do with the “ locals” until one moment when I was painting the living room ceiling one day I caught two old ladies peeping through the living room windows. 

Both had matching cardigans on. 

It was my first meeting with lifelong friends Gwyneth Jones and Olwena Hughes. Gwyneth had a penchant for tweed skirts and lived in the farm down the lane.

Olwena had no ankles and lived in one of the pensioner bungalows on Bron Haul.

Both ladies made a run for it when I saw me waving at them with my paint brush.

I caught them in the lane by the kitchen wall and invited them in for tea.

They admitted they wanted to see what we had “ done to the place” 

I recorded this video of the two matrons a few years later. I wanted to record some spoken welsh 

The conversation is about a fellow villager who had hurt his face in a fall.

Both have long since passed away

Funny what you remember