I’m making a huge chilli for the above night do. It’s our chance to publish the TCA’s work to the villagers that don’t know what’s happening.
It’s Auntie Glad’s funeral on Tuesday . I heard the male voice choir will be singing at the Church which will be an emotional moment for all , I’m sure. It’s sad that her own Church is closed but fitting the service will take place in the bigger Church of Llanasa, the village she lived in before she was married
Bucket of coffee time is curtailed today , I’m doing overtime at work later
Last night the tutor of the level 4 Counselling course FaceTimed our group to discuss if we wanted to move forward in our training come September.
She was pragmatic, cheerful and helpful
And She has given me quite a lot to think about today.
A day that I’m feeling rough after my fourth covid jab.
I’m 61 this year.
And I’m finding the rigours of nursing just a bit too much after forty years in the role.
I have a mortgage to pay for until I am 70 and bills and expenditure is on the rise.
And so I needed a plan.
And that plan, originally, was to retrain to be a qualified counsellor.
There is an outlay for this endeavour, which I may or not get help with,
There is the academic challenge too , as well, as I know I have to work hard to get on top of all things Uni.
But then you add to this all of the doubts of self belief
Can I cut the mustard as a counsellor?
Can I do it?
The “ new” tutor clearly outlined the “ checks” in the course that ensure you are fit for the role.
In all of the 100 hours skills practice I have to do with real clients I have to pay for intensive clinical supervision every month. More if I require it.
This supervision is not cheap and is an incredibly stringent safety check of my potential competence
Added to this in year one and two I will have to pay for my own counselling experience.
A journey which is necessary if you are to practice
But a journey which has its own worries and it’s own challenges.
There are two of us, in my present group that are older students.
Both of us on journeys we didn’t expect in our sixties.
We looked at each other at the end of last night’s tutorial and smiled gently together
Oh I did enjoy my night out with Georgous Dave last night.
We went to see Owen O Neil and Dave John’s adaptation of the film The Shawshank Redemption at Theatre Clwyd and from the get-go it was clear we were watching a quality piece of theatre.
I think most people know the film, so I won’t worry too much about spoilers , suffice to say we follow the prison life of Andy Dufresne (Jo Absolom) who is incarcerated in the notorious Shawshank Prison during the 1940s. Bright and optimistic and shouting his innocence in the double murder of his wife and her lover , Dufresne strives to change his lot and the lot of his fellow prisoners by making their existence a little more humane even though the Governor, officers and two predatory prisoners all connive to destroy him and his innate goodness.
Dufresne makes a lifetime friendship with Red Redding ( Ben Onwukwe) who like Morgan Freeman did in the film, narrates the piece with similar chocolate tones but with more of an impish take on the much loved character.
From the get go the play is brutal and compelling to watch. The sets full-fill the brief wonderfully as do the small but very able cast and I loved the ending where the two friends finally meet again against a stunning and unexpected tropical sky, an ending much better than the more talky film ending
Not a dry eye in the house.
So it’s Tuesday,
College day,
Covid jab no 4
I’m cleaning Bluebell later and am making spiced sweet potato soup
I’ve just got home and heard the sadness of the death of Betty Boothroyd
She was a bloody one off
For those that don’t know she was the speaker of the House of Commons, MP , a Yorkshire woman and former tiller girl. That one sentence sums her up nicely .
Kindness has a power all of its own when it is witnessed In an Istanbul football match yesterday the crowds donated thousands of teddy bears to lift the spirits of the babies and young children caught up in the recent earthquake .
It’s a funny sound and a rare one in this house as I can only liken it to a very small person shaking a very tiny set of maracas.
Cats usually chatter at birds that they can’t reach or ambush and Albert is no different
But the chatter was in the middle of the night
And the only birds around at that time are a pair of barn owls that swoop silently across the valley from Marion Mawr.
Albert was sat in the window seat looking down into the lane with wide yellow eyes.
I got up and wrapped the quilt cover around my shoulders and joined him.
He moved over without averting his gaze.
He was watching a pair of badgers in the lane who were trotting after each other somewhat playfully.
February is the mating season for badgers.
Living in the country has its upsides and downsides. But how many people can say that they have watched badgers courting outside their windows at night?
Not very many.
The boar wagged his fat bottom as he trotted into the garden and stopped to listen as Roger sleepily barked once from the kitchen.
They pottered and played for a while like hairy pigs.
Badgers are noisy animals and grunt and snort when they explore and as I grew cold I left them too it and returned to bed where Dorothy spooned me without waking up.
I heard Albert chatter some more before everything returned to a sort of silence again
I asked my google cube what time it was
It’s now chatting as a butch man and told me in a manly way that it was 4.22 am
I asked it to play a tropical rain shower which it did and I fell asleep almost immediately with no dreams of badgers or of Pedro Pascal or of anything of note for that matter
Day off today.
A walk,
Some shopping,
And theatre later with Gorgeous Dave
We are seeing the stage version of The Shawshank Redemption
I’ve just put out the reclycling and saw a few untidy holes in the borders of the front garden
The badgers have removed many of my spring bulbs from beside the stone wall.
And tufts of grey hair can be seen stuck in the lower branches of the hydrangea that faces the West
A Netflix binge with exotic beers and parsnip crisps
Sex in front of the fire
Korean noodles
Hot sugary tea
An Indian head massage
What do I do ?
A lie down with no socks
And a well trained bulldog licking every inch of my feet
Bloody lovely
Ps this blissful scene was turned on it’s head minutes before bed as when I moved all the dogs to get off the couch the resulting growls of upset caused a fight between Mary and Dorothy
