I took it today to send to their granddaughter after lunch was done
It’s been a nice day
Pounds and Ounces
Weigh in at fat club yesterday
Another loss….I’ve now got rid of almost one stone ( 13.2 lbs)
And yes I am feeling the benefit of it already.
My work pants are loose and almost fell down as I was helping a lady onto a commode on nights
So what am I doing today ? I’m going out for lunch with my family ! Go figure diet.
I will be good the rest of the day, I will fast a bit and I’m meeting Gorgeous Dave later for a theatre trip ( ooooohhh how pretentious !)
It’s cold today and blustery.
And Ive made the effort for my family and have trimmed my beard and found a jumper without a hole in it to wear. Lunch out is a new tradition we have started recently. It feels all rather civilised.
Probably it’s just the fact that we don’t like late nights much anymore, even Chic Eleanor after she booked the silent disco for us in St Asaph Cathedral left the caveat “ I ve booked us the early session 😂6.30 to 9.40 oldies…bed by 10pm !”
Nothing else to report.
The flowering current in the garden is in blossom and has lifted the garden’s spirits into spring.
Sit Down Madam
As people know I’m a big Theatre fan. I’m also very clear in my mind how people should act and behave in the theatre. ie there should be a mutual respect for their fellow audience and for the performers on stage.
At the end of lockdown I remember posting about being in the audience of the musical Far From Away where I experienced , what I can only describe as a small touch of mass hysteria .where the house erupted with a spontaneous cheer and standing applause after the very first song.
There was a hunger for that large scale experience
A hunger and a need for it.
Recently we are hearing of episodes of bad behaviour in musical theatre productions where mainly drunken women in the audience have stopped the performances by singing along with the leads.
Now, whilst I deplore behaviour like this ( and believe me I’m not shy at saying so) I do have a degree of sympathy for the women involved who , like us all have returned to live theatre in order to have a good joint experience.
Often the productions are led by popular songs, and at the finale they actively encourage the audience for a joined singalong of best bits so to speak .
Mamma Mia started this trick to leave people happy but the trick has rebounded somewhat, fuelled by alcohol, high ticket prices ( I’ve paid for this ticket and I’m going to have a fucking good time) and a post covid hysteria , the sort I mentioned at the start of the post.
Theatres are to blame a bit too…..to recoup their covid costs many bigger theatres are putting on crowd pleasers which will prey on those wanting a toe tapping , dancing in the aisles evening of fun .
In The Bodyguard a working bar appears on set and is used in the interval to serve the punters in the stalls.
The worst audiences I have experienced in the theatre and cinema have been in, I’m afraid, the United States, but their British counterparts are catching up, which is a sad fact.
I’m happy to being a bit of a snob where join in pantomime productions are concerned. These are morphing into comedy gigs and concerts which are interactive to an extent and for many are becoming the norm……not in my house they’re not!
I’m going to see two productions this week. Too Much World At Once at Theatre Clwyd and the Lawrence Olivier Award winning Pride and Prejudice* sort of at the Storyhouse and I shall sit there sans toffees and mobile phone and I will listen quietly and with respect.
Sams
I last volunteered for Samaritans nearly seven years ago.
Despite excellent supervision and training the calls eventually took their toil and I felt I lost my empathy with some callers which, as anyone in the trade would tell you, is the first sign of burnout.
I resigned and was happy to go
Another sign of burnout.
In my years working for the charity, one call will always stand out with me.
It kind of haunts me, even to this day and can still move me to tears if I think about it carefully enough.
It was from a young teacher, I will call David.
David had had a difficult year. His work had been stressful and many of his class had not achieved the grades that he and they had wanted. He felt a failure, isolated and miserable.
He also, more importantly, felt responsible .
He was sat in his car, near a beach, somewhere in the UK
He had no discernible accent and I could hear seagulls crying nearby.
He was drinking from a quarter bottle of Rum and had, he told me , taken enough tablets to put a horse to sleep.
He had started to slur his words and had cried for much of the call.
I felt as though I was losing him and called a colleague in to listen to the call.
She listened and shook her head and squeezed my hand and told me I was doing alright.
But, I was losing him and I knew it.
He took another pill and I heard him swallow it.
And I asked him about his favourite music, his taste in films, and his best friend.
Anything to engage him in conversation.
Anything to create a hole in his depression.
Every trick in the book.
We had been on the phone together for over an hour and I sensed that he was wrapping up the call.
“ I just wanted to hear a kind voice John” he explained and at the end of my tether I asked him not to go.
But he did go.
With a gentle “Thank You” he ended a call which may of been his last conversation with another human being on earth
And that was the day, I knew I had done enough for the Samaritans .
Roger and Peter Ustinov
Pull up your knickers and tighten the bra straps
Another fairly bland post is on its way.
Roger went missing this morning.
He was politely waiting to jump into Bluebell to go on his morning walk and poof ! he was gone.
He has only mastered jumping into the footwell of the car by the way, and can’t quite compute the slightly bigger jump straight on the driver’s seat. But I had turned my back for a gnat’s crotch of a second and he had vanished.
The lane was empty . He’d gone off like a rocket, so I checked up into the village towards the main road first…nothing then down the lane to Trendy Carol’s ….not a sign.
I was beginning to worry.
The main road is lethal for a dog of Roger’s IQ and so I drove around the main village calling his name.
Not a sausage.
So I drove down the lane again , parked outside the sheep gated field and called him.
Still nothing.
I was beginning to get worried.
Lambing time is no place for a dim dog to be roaming lost in fields.
I called him again.
And suddenly he was there in the lane with a black plastic plant pot in his mouth,
Looking nonchalant and relaxed
Another treasure stolen from a ditch or a garden .
He brought the plant pot home with him, showing it off to the others with a toss of his head.
They weren’t interested.
So that was the mini drama for the morning.
Please no more today. I’m on nights now until Tuesday morning.
I made some coffee in my mokka coffee pot and have sat down to watch Parkinson on YouTube .
Now I loved Michael Parkinson in the 1970s
As a teen I was privy to the crem de la crem of the talk show , where icons such as David Niven, Peter Ustinov , Peter Cook , Kenneth Williams and Billy Connolly were given time and space to shine.
And shine they indeed did.
Strange that the only woman of note I remembered being interviewed by Parkinson was Catherine Bramwell-Booth The Captain of the Salvation Army and she shone by virtue of a natural warmth and power
I treated myself to a low calorie brunch of eggs and potato cakes made from dried potato and herbs.
Bloody lovely….
And am presently watching Kenneth Williams in all of his full camp fury
It’s a good sign
A good one
The neighbours behind me are beginning to get noisy as they do when the sun is shining
I’ve put Waloyo Yamoni by Christopher Tin on full blast to drown out chihuahua Charlie’s yapping
Culture Club - Church Of The Poison Mind
If I was a teen again, I think my “ phase” would be Boy George
I never did the Culture Club thing when I was 16 , but I think I would do now given the chance
His tops were very slimming
Good? Friday
The cottage, looking cute
It’s a beautiful blue morning.
Springlike and quiet.
I’d forgotten it’s Good Friday.
I’ve never liked the holiday if truth be known.
I’ve opened the cottage windows facing the field and the ponies raise their heads as one to the noise.
I will cut the lawn shortly and tidy up the patio.
If I have time the little flower bed by the church gate will get a weed.
That’s all I have planned today.
I feel I’ve not got much to share.
Sometimes I feel witty and interesting .
Today I feel reflective and quiet. Going Gently has always been a journal, not a forum for discussion blog like most others, where politics and news are debated depending on how vociferous and bright the authors think they are.
Im neither, when it comes to politics.
And I’m keeping away from the news the older I get
I check my messenger account.
A hello from a friend in hospital
Two late replies from yesterday’s hello to friends in Liverpool and Sheffield
Spam emails are next
Facebook likes.
Everyone intent on looking busy, vital, interesting and happy.
Albert resting in the sun
The ponies watching my sister in the garden
I cleared out a cupboard in the kitchen and boxed up an Art Deco clock, a tin tea caddy and bowls and other such bric-a-brac ready for the table top sale in the hall .
Then I watered the house plants in the cottage since covid I have collected 30 all told
I make another bucket of coffee,
It’s nearly 11.30. The phone rings it’s a chap from the village wanting to pop down a cheque for the pane of glass sponsorship I’ve had another two requests by email, found by accident in my spam folder.
A group of walkers go past, but these don’t stop at the cottage.
My mind wanders to childhood Easters filled with too many cheap Easter eggs and The Greatest Story Ever Told on the tv.
I hated Easter as a child,
And I’m allowing old patterns of thinking to Reenact them
We all so that so well me thinks.
So I switch on the radio, something bright
Chic Eleanor has just made me smile , she saw there is to be a silent disco at the local cathedral in September and has asked if I want to go. It’s a 1990s based do where you dance with headphones on.
Sounds bizarre but fun.
I said yes immediately.
At 60, I’m saying yes more and more.
My sister has just messaged that she will come and do the garden this afternoon.
I’ve just cut the lawn and chatted with Anthea who lives in one of the neat little cottages on London Road.
She had been cutting horse chestnut on the bridle path and told me about orchids growing on the Gop
She has also planted an oak tree in the community garden just outside the village.
It will be the first oak tree in Trelawnyd
I start brushing the patio. On the Garden wall was a box
In it was small Easter egg in yellow gold foil
There’s no note.
Good Friday?
Yes
Being Productive
The apathy of yesterday’s hangover has got on my tits this morning.
I looked for a diversion and saw there was a play on this afternoon at Theatre Clwyd with the occasional tickets left.
But I was good and gave myself a kick up the arse instead
The kitchen was feeling like a bomb site what with piles of papers, and other such detritus flung everywhere so I rolled up my sleeves and channelled my own inner Joan Crawford in order to take back control.
Cleaning and organising are like dieting, it’s a control thing and I’m thinking that right now in our history, there couldn’t be a better time for us all to be taking control over as much as we can.
Roger has enjoyed the momentum as he has had the opportunity to look into the back of cupboards he’s only dreamed about raiding in the past.
Already I have found his secret stash in the garden where he has hidden, an out of date packet of pasta shells, a burnt wooden spoon, a vegetable bag and a sprouting onion .
A walking group have stopped by the corner of the lane and the leaders are spouting all sorts of information I gave them earlier in the week about the history of the cottage.
“ He has a lovely honeysuckle over the front door “ I heard one woman comment
But another butted in with a more pithy “ Yes but his windows are in need a good clean “,…cheeky cow
That’s another thing on my list today.
Post clean photos
Off for a tiny lie down
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