Zoom

 

It was skills practice in college tonight , so I played the counsellor (on line )which was interesting.We are a group of three and this evening had an opportunity to honestly share why we picked each other to “ do” therapy .

I like my fellow students and I guess that is why we were all there …for we like each other. 

Donna is a fast talking , nervous Social worker who loves her cats, is theatrically and constantly irritated by her husband and who laughs without a filter. 

Caroline is deep, a saleswoman who is good at what she does but who needs to change her career 

And there’s me 

Three different people who bonded over Carl Rogers, CBT and Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs 

Tonight we did skills practice and I talked about my weight and it was important and supportive and caring 

We also talked about other things not for Going Gently to share, but I must say that we left tonight’s session each feeling we’ve made two new friends.

Otters

My WW app gave me a round of applause this morning.

It sent me several ❤️❤️ a bit of 👏🏻 But it wasn’t the same as 14 overweight ladies giving you a standing 

ovation next to leader Irene in her pencil skirt

I’ve lost 4 .8 lbs 

An ok start.🥰

I’m reading Tarka The Otter by Henry Williamson today .

The 1927 novel I picked for Gay Book Club 

£2.99 from eBay 

I feel a bit washed out

Goddamm.

 

I met a similar looking guy on Saturday night who I had a lovely long chat with

Unfortunately just found out that he is straight 

Bloody hell lol,

What a bugger……some straight guys flirt with everyone 

Trash

 

For some this will be a boring ‘ bad” blog

No long conversations. No long replies. No in depth recognition of the merits of off the wall films. 

No discussions on everything important.

So be it. 

I have covid again and I’m grounded from a much anticipated cinema trip.

Apart from feeling I’m swallowing ground glass when I sip my coffee I’m fine.

My back garden looks like the stink bombs front garden. I realised that yesterday. Now the “ stink bombs” were a family who lived in a rough looking council house near my primary school. The hedges were unkempt, and opened up wide enough in one side to allow the Ford cortina to park up to the living room windows. Scattered around would be a skip load of mostly broken plastic toys , a deflated paddling pool and beer cans. 

Even as 8 year old children , we were snobby and judgemental. 

Not nice eh? I only turned into Anne Shirley Cuthburt when I was a teen.

My garden has a look of the stink bombs and it’s all Roger’s doing

Empty milk cartons and plastic bottles, lie around next to bits of solar lanterns and  pieces of paper lie sodden after being gleefully held aloft like a fluttering flag and thrown in the air like a shuttlecock. 

An old lasagne container, parts of an old lead, a used coffee bag, the contents of a small houseplant pot.

He’s been skipping around with an empty coke bottle stolen from the recycling bag for the past half hour.

Bless him

Testing testing 1. 2, 1. 2

By eleven I thought my hangover was too bad to be true

I had a sore throat which rang alarm bells 

So I tested myself and yeap covid positive 

Bollocks

 

Pissed

The ukulele band gave a “spirited” performance and won over the local crowd quite magnificently 

I was on the door , selling raffle tickets and window panes and did well at both. Suffice to say I was busy And had to keep sending friends to the bar for a beer….

Over 150 people turned up including lots of old faces  

And would you believe it 

The lovely Chic Eleanor ( centre) 

Turned up 

Affable despots Jason and wife claire with Claire’s dad 

Gwawr and the lovely Tracy Manchester 

Locals from the village  Turpins  et al 

An action shot of Velvet Voiced Linda , Village leader Ian and bouncy Bridget 

Neighbour Sailor John and  Med…

Hattie and Adam 

The object of the night was to publicise the TCA and not to make a profit 

But with food sales ( all my chilli sold) raffle tickets and pledges for the window panes as well as the band donating their gig to us for free we made a rather impressive profit 

I got home to walked the dogs around 11.30:…..I was pissed and walked  into the garden arch without a clue….big laceration on forehead  lol 

A great night ….of a place …we all felt a part of /

Chilli Mouth

 I went to the hall which was almost ready for the Children’s party this morning.

The whole idea of today was to sell the Hall as a social venue. 

The children’s tables were lined up and decorated and the popcorn machine was out and smelling glorious, so we ticked the box there. 

Bales of straw lined the stage with the TCA posters on them, giving the hall a sort of Ceilidh feel and the bar, for later was hid away in the corner for later. The bar tonight will be run by The Crown ( the village pub)

Bridget had set up a wedding table, using the utilitarian chairs and table from the hall and it looked lovely.we are advertising the Hall as a do-it-yourself wedding venue so this corner speaks for itself.

As for the chilli ?

Well I’m sick of the fucking taste of it!

I’m made four batches so far

One more at least to go

One in the oven

A Long Time Dead

I usually listen to LBC Radio when I’m sitting down to my bucket of coffee and now much reduced breakfast , but there seems a lot of shouting everywhere at the moment. Shouting on the tv, on radio, in real life and in blogging, that I’ve turned on classic fm.

To be honest that was all a bit much too and so I’m now sat in silence 

Last night David Sidaris discussed how he was once berated by a woman for talking about vaginas. He made  a simple enough point, for as a fifteen year old aide in a psychiatric hospital he was once witness to a naked 80 year old woman having “ therapy” a scene which would have turned himself gay if he hadn’t been gay already. 

The point of his essay was simple, for when David left the sadness and restrictions of covid lockdown, the complainer’s power was diminished to nothing. 

I get this…covid was poisonous in so many ways 

Last night, a friend phoned. Like me they have just entered their seventh decade and they were feeling it, like I do after two long day shifts. 

They talked about feeling on the last lap of life so to speak, where they needed to do all those things they’d planned to do, before age and illness and covid and the like could stop them.

I recognised this feeling 

That last Hurrah kind of feeling.

“ So what do you want to do ?” I asked.

“I want to see the Sagrada Familia” they said 

Feelings intertwine..they always do. Mortality, and age and real life and post covid lethargy and a sense of a clock ticking…

“So let’s go” I said

And so we are going to see it in July!