Looking At Yourself

 

It’s not a pretty sight. 

I’m writing my last assignment for Uni and I am in the process of analysing my own counselling skills on film. 

I’m finding it all rather harrowing .

Seeing yourself on the screen , warts and all isn’t nice.

No wonder I’m single.

I look a mess

So I have been trying to concentrate more on my non verbals, my ability to paraphrase, recap and challenge. My use of Egan’s three stage model, my use of  advanced empathy, my voice,  my phrasing and my abilities to make the interaction flow. 

Now that feels a bit better. 

I see past looking at a fat old man and now , at least,  I see a friendly fat old man

With crinkling eyes and a gentle voice

Hey ho

Mary

B

She rolled in the body of a dead badger on our last walk of the day 

After nights I am in despair 

It’s ok I have gin in 

 

Tea and Cake

I was in bed for most of the day yesterday. We’d had an incredibly hard and busy shift Saturday night and so I slept heavily and long, despite being woken by the dogs baying at someone at the door in the afternoon. My visitor was Nick from the TCA who dropped off some of the Coronation cake made by bouncy Bridget . I missed his knock but soon spied a parcel of cake wrapped in silver paper plonked on top of my wall basket.

It was bloody lovely too with a hot cup of tea.

But I was soon snoring away the rest of the afternoon so missed any post-mortem from the Coronation afternoon tea which looked impressive on line and which probably  tasted even better in the flesh

The Eurovision night next Saturday will be a much bawdier affair me thinks.

Me hopes so.

So, Trelawnyd life plods along at its own pace. King Charles has his crown and I suspect he shouts and  laughs with Camilla loudly and long.

Eurovision is the next altar to pray at. Then it’s summer 

 

Goats At Work

These two were sat by our back door when I got to work yesterday evening. 

It’s strange to think that a small seaside town in Wales has a thriving and popular population of Kashmir Goats but here they still are, the descendants  of a few individuals who were a coronation gift from the Shah of Persia to the young Queen Victoria in 1837

During lockdown they received much worldwide publicity after running amok around town like hoards of StTrinian schoolgirls  and here on West Shore at the base of The Great Orme , they often visit the hospice daily with their benign faces and exotic hornes….

 

The C Word

 

I won’t bang on about it

I’m not a huge fan of Charles

But I was rather moved by his expression when he walked into the Abby

Finally centre stage 

A hint of a smile on his face.

Bryn Terfels Kyrie Eleison sung in Welsh was incredibly beautiful 

Loved this bit too, see Kate beaming at them at the end 

The king sighed with a smile as his army, navy and airforce personnel cheered him from the gardens of Buckingham palace.

I’ve been incredibly moved by today’s coverage.

Seeing the king kneeling in the Abby in just a simple shirt reenforced his sense of duty, and the professionalism of the armed forces pitched things just right

Well done

Well done

Worth

 Tonight Gorgeous Dave and I went to see the darkly comic play Worth at the Storyhouse in Chester .

It turned out to be a rather brutal and harsh essay on a Uk/ Chinese family dynamic at a matriarch’s funeral and although not faultless it sparked a robust conversation about grief and families  on our way home 

Neighbours

I have a set of neighbours who are not particularly neighbourly

They are noisy and in my mind inconsiderate of others , so we don’t speak anymore….well ever since I complained to them by note that their five dogs had yapped continuously for a couple of hours in the garden one afternoon without supervision or let up

Today is blissful. 

There is no noise from next door. No constant sawing of wood. No barking. No yelling at the darling CHARLIE!!!  for barking so much. 

It’s silent and my back door is open wide , sucking in the peace and quiet into the cottage.

And it’s bliss

Am I turning into one of those strange neighbours that yell at people in the street? 

You know the ones you used to poke fun of when you were a kid. 

The old fart who lives alone and who spoils your fun on sunny afternoons when kicking a ball in the street feels like the ideal pastime?

Perhaps I am.I know my aforementioned neighbours think I’m unreasonable but I have been a neighbour to many over the years and even if I do say so myself , I’ve been a good one. 

Ok I once frightened my old lady neighbour half to death in Walkley Sheffield after I caught a black cat in my kitchen and threw it into her pond after it had terrorised my two kittens for weeks.

It wasn’t the fact that I three the cat into her pond that was the problem I think, it was more that I was just wearing a pair a rather shabby boxer shorts at the time that upset her.

I made it up to her years later when I found her in the garden unconscious after a fall and I went to hospital with her in the ambulance.

I sold that tiny terraced house to a very small postman person who wasn’t a patch on me….I was told after he had moved in.

My neighbour John in Hillsborough Sheffield, is still one of my best friends now and I still miss sitting in my neat tidy garden sharing a bottle of wine with him on a summers’ evening. 

Funny that the builder who has just bought that house for his son, has recently left me a comment on Going Gently .saying it is now in safe hands. 

Funny how small the world feels sometimes.

Back to today, it’s the blackbird calls that fill the air as they challenge each other over a mate. Then it’s the sound of rain on leaves, the faraway roar of a plane heading for Liverpool airport and the sound of Dorothy snoring 

And Im happy at that

Bluebells & John Kahu

 

It’s a Bluebell day today.This morning I took the famous Vauxhall in for her tyre changes and waited for her to be ready in the fabulous Jacob’s Ladder cafe in St Asaph where I had a bacon sandwich and too much lovely coffee.

There is something therapeutic when you have to wait for something like a car service, just to be forced to wait allows your mind to wander and to think properly and without other activity or interruption. 

This afternoon I went to Bodnant to see the great swathes of real bluebells and it was lovely to revisit them even though the gardens always remind me of being married as it was a regular haunt of ours.

I wish I had taken one or all of the dogs with me as you never feel alone with a dog beside you. 

I won’t make that mistake again.

For the first time in a long while,  I felt quite  lonely today.

It’s that time of year I guess

I bought sushi for tea and treated myself to new chopsticks from the kitchen shop in Llandudno and when I got finally got home there were some on line flowers waiting for me in the letter box

They were sent from a blog follower Jon D who referred to himself as a “proud Hawaiian” 

He referred to me as John Kahu 

Apparently  Kahu is Hawaiian for an animal guardian or nurse

Timely flowers Jon

Thank you

Tonight’s old film on show