Shouting Into The Wind

 Trendy Carol and husband Ewan took the dogs this morning so I could spend 5 hours in the library and at work .

I have a college presentation to prepare for and Google slides baffle me to the point of extinction.

I was surrounded by 20 year olds, most with headphones and ear buds in . 

Kids making their way forward in an uncertain world. 

I got stuck inserting photos on my last slide 

It was a slide that was suggesting what moral quality I thought I possessed which could be linked to the BACP ( British Association for Counselling and psychotherapy ) ethical framework. 

For better or worse I chose wisdom and I attempted to illustrate with various photos…of me looking old ( and therefore wise?) a photo of Winnie looking thoughtful, me in PPE looking like a pig in a condom

And a photo of a little Mongolian girl yelling joyously into the wind 

( I was going to use it as a metaphor for not peeing into the wind …hence wise….but ok I know the link was weak) 

Like I said I got stuck using the software so looked around for someone to help me. 

The librarian had already pissed me off for telling me it was bottled beverages ONLY and her halitosis was striking even a yard away, so I asked the young chap in a beanie hat on the next computer if he could help.

Bless him

He was gauche and shy but soon sorted my slides out with his long white fingers , and was kind enough to centre the text up too

He loved the photo of the Mongolian girl and of Winnie too and asked me what I was studying 

“Ahhh counselling ! “ he repeated, “ Ive had that at school… I was very depressed when I was eleven”

He looked like a child now, I thought , so bugger only knows what he looked like when he was eleven .

“ It helped” he said cheerfully before moving back to his desk with a wave

Suddenly I felt happy that it did.

I’m bit Bored

Omaha Cat Lady has brightened up today. She’s a bright spark for sure. 

I enjoy listening to her talk through online recipes 

I forgot to help out with other volunteers to clear the garden of the a memorial Hall 😥

I made chilli con carne, with sticky white rice  as my mother used to do, and in a nostalgic rush organised the rice into a ring to encircle the meat.

I ate it with chopsticks in front of the fire watching the British Social Realism film Woman in a Dressing gown in longjohns and my third best Walking Dead T shirt  but the film depressed me so I turned on a recorded Only Connect instead after listening to The Archers

I’m bored today . 

I feel as though everything feels rather anticlimactic, which is strange. 

As little of note happened in the week.

I showered the Welsh terriers and cleaned their ears properly . I do this as I have a shower with them , which sounds odd but it works .

Dorothy watched the action with her face pressed against the shower door 

She’s recovered from yesterday’s Bonfire night fireworks, where she spent the evening trembling behind the Trendy Blue Sofa covered in a blanket . 

Lots of italics today …..lovely
 

Something Quite Beautiful

 I hung the fairy lights behind her bed and looped them around the tracking hoist.

We turned off the main lights and the support worker helped the patient into a pretty blouse.

I twisted the bottles of Prosecco into an improvised ice bucket made from a sharps bin and

We left the friends to enjoy their Chinese takeaway and drinks.

Sometimes nursing is dire, sometimes unforgiving,  mostly it’s a challenge , but often …it’s a pure joy.

I witnessed someing quite beautiful tonight, just before I left for home.

I knocked on the patient’s door to say goodbye

And saw four old friends sitting on a bed together like sisters do

They were all holding hands .

And very quietly , almost in a whisper they were singing as one

I recognised the chorus 

All I needed was the love you gave,

          all I needed for another day

          And all I ever knew, 

          Only you….. 

 

 

Sex Bomb

 

My sister Janet arrived yesterday and did a cracking job on the front garden . In the afternoon, well  after she’d left Mr Poznan knocked on the lane window specifically to tell me now nice the garden looked. 

He came in for tea.

Janet has bought me a ticket to ABBA voyage for Christmas 

We go in February which means another lovely trip to London. 

The last time we went to a concert together, we went to see Tom Jones at the Sheffield Arena . 

I smuggled in a bottle of gin , divided into two water bottles and not knowing it was neat, Janet decked hers a little too quickly 

I remember when we’re on the tram home to Hillsborough she gave a drunken, spirited and rather variable version of Tom’s hit of Sex Bomb to a rather stunned 100 or so fellow passengers as she slid up and down a nearby handrail like a somewhat shaken poledancer 

I think I need to get her a ticket to the Royal Ballet for her Christmas pressie she  needs to experience the Opera House as she’s never been.
Nu and I are going to see The English National Opera’s version It’s a wonderful Life in December, it’s our pre Christmas treat and my nephew Leo and I are off to see Six in London in a few weeks time. 

I’ve booked us a meal in Dishoom Convent Garden as a treat. 

Add to that the fact that old Sheffield friend Jane and I are meeting in Manchester for Jack Thorne’s theatrical adaptation of John Ajvide Lindgvust’s horror piece Let The Right One In next week, and I’m pretty lucky theatre wise 

I think we will have a boogie in the gay village too…hey ho

Last night was a real Hugge night. 

At 6 pm I had a glass of port ( a miniature given to me last Christmas by Mrs Trellis alongside a mars bar wrapped in a red napkin ! )   With some cheese and crackers. I turned the lights low and stoked up the fire and watched the dvd  I Remember Mama with Irene Dunne with a handkerchief  

It was just after 8pm when I got ready for bed mindful of another busy day and I stopped to watch Roger

He was asleep on the yellow arm chair , his tail whirling like a helicopter  as he dreamt happy doggy dreams 

So sweet.

Girly Lights

“ Have you any spare fairy lights? “  

The question came from the hospice social worker, a straight talking Irish woman with a ribald sense of humour

You look the sort” she added 

I was taken aback, somewhat as my day had not stopped and had revolved around constant visits to the drug room for the double checking of large amounts of morphine, and sedation and controlled drugs of all types.

Fairy lights was a new one on me.

“I may have some at home “ I told her

“ Girly ones?” the social worker asked hopefully 

“Well I think they may be Girly enough!” I said “ will pink flamingos do?” 

“Perfect “ she purred.

The social worker had been talking to one of my patients who wanted her best friends to come in to the hospice for a girly night “ in” 

The girly night is planned for tomorrow when I am on duty and the social worker wanted to set the scene well.

“Fairy lights mean girly night to me” the social worker explained 

“ what about the Prosecco ? “ I asked 

A support worker overheard the conversation and chipped in

“Several bottles already brought in by relatives, they are in the kitchen all labelled” she said 

Hospices do these sort of appeals well.

We are especially good at organising last minute weddings too, thanks mainly to a local registrars office that will pull the stops out for such requests.

This morning I couldn’t find any flamingoes at home.

Indeed there wasn’t a set of fairly lights to be seen anywhere. 

I must have had a Scrooge moment and had thrown them all out a year or two ago

Not even a beak left. 

I bought a set of lights this morning to take in to work tomorrow.

Operation Girly night is go! 

I’ve seen it all

Fucking hard shift today, I’m off to bed 

I want this for Christmas , it’s from https://jonxifon.com/

Early Morning

 A frost, the first of the year this morning.

I’m sat at the kitchen table with the bucket of coffee at 5,45 am

And I’m shivering in my uniform 

It’s on mornings like these ( all too few in these global warming days I must admit) that I adore my new bathroom.

A boiling hot shower sets you up for the day

And chases away bad dreams, old memories and everyday worries

Winter is well and truly here

Early dark nights 

Comfort food ( a tin of chip shop curry with mini roast potatoes last night ) 

I’ve had to change Albert’s feeding place as I caught Roger standing on tip toe on the arm of the reading chair  carefully licking his bowl on the window ledge.

Now I know why he has the shits! 

Hey ho

Apps

 

Grinder is an app that tells you how close another gay man is to you. If you travel somewhere new, it is likely that you get a few “ likes” from men who are attracted to your photo, or what you say on it.

In my experience not many will read your profile.

I was sat in the Storyhouse yesterday when when my phone pinged several times.

Peter was in his 50’s married and “ a practicing bisexual for the last 20 years” 

My question of “ Haven’t you got the hang of things yet? ” fell on stoney ground. 

A faceless 18 year old wanted “ a daddy and sex”  even though my profile clearly said friends only and Phil from Chester Central told me he liked my photo and did I have any M O R E  ( body) pics?

I sent him one of Canterbury Cathedral 

He didn’t reply

A pleasant looking chap of similar age called Cynical Sam wanted to know what I was doing , and we embarked on a normal conversation about the Storyhouse and art house films . 

I’d written a short pithy paragraph about the Korean film The Host when he removed his profile and page, effectively blocking any further conversation 

another success john, I thought.

And there they all were on an app page , the faceless, the confused, the predatory, the lonely and the lost.

Cynical Sam was perhaps overly cynical in his quest for looking for a “ normal SINGLE and SORTED bloke sort…..I thought my précis on The Host was informative and funny…..

You can’t please everyone I guess.

I looked through the app page again, lots of men without shirts looking for sex. Lots of blank profiles looking at men without shirts who are looking for sex. 

A few men looking for Mr Right ,but who will happily end up with a few Mr bj in a lay-by by the Grovensor Garden centre.

Most normal looking ones proclaiming their wonderful Open Relationship status.

I chatted to a polite Polish guy who seemed nice enough. 

He liked fat guys with nice smiles

I told him he needed to practice his English.

I ordered another coffee and texted a friend who gossiped about this and that and the other.

Nu messaged me too and I told her what film I was going to watch.

She said it had great reviews 😊

The coffee came and I opened my phone again

Another “ like” this time from “Hung in Saltney🌈”

What am I doing ? I said to myself 

And I deleted the app on my phone for good before sipping my coffee