Self Care

Monday I spent a productive day in the library. Yesterday we covered Research, Ethics and personal development. And for the first time in a few weeks I felt prepared and part of things.

Today I caught up with jobs and took the Welsh for their haircuts, something they both generally like. At the groomers they can bark their heads off with impunity , like toddlers letting rip in the village toddler group. They always return home after the groomers, smelling sweet, wired and will crash and sleep for hours on their arrival back home.

I took advantage of that fact and drove to Chester . Yeap  Phad Thai noodles and a classic Spanish film The Devil’s Backbone 

Nothing fancy , but just what I needed

News

 Last night I binged watched Anne With An E , the latest and best version of the classic novel Anne Of Green Gables 

I loved the fact that much of the adult drama was an exploration of the relationship between ageing farmer bachelor Mathew ( R H Thompson) and his prickly elder sister Marilla ( Geraldine James) and how their dynamic changed by the arrival of pre teen Anne

This scene is magical, totally credible  and beautifully acted and oh so refreshing from insipid romance scenes in the likes of Downton Abbey.

One of the guys from my Chester LGBTQ+  book club has been texting me a few times when I was ill which surprised me, I’m catching up with him next week to see a movie

Tonight I’m meeting up with my friend Sue, ( she owns the ponies)I have known her for years and years and years but have never been out with her on a one to one. 

It’s about time 

So we are off to The Crown later

I still sound like a consumptive on steroids

Catch Up

Nineish and I’m in Colwyn Bay, coffee in hand.

I’m writing the blog and sipping coffee, in Bluebell 

Still full of enough mucus to fill an average walrus but physically miles better.

A few minutes away is where the Uni library is located

I intend to catch up with last weeks sick day there as well as practice my IT

The beach is a man made one and is quiet this morning

There is a autumn chill to the air…..

In Uni now, still coughing and spluttering so asked nice library lady if she could find me a private room for the day , which she did 

 

After Babet

I hardly slept last night, but finally after 5 am I eventually heard that sinus click in my head which told me my virus had turned and the badness was now streaming and the mucus loose.

My headache is gone and the weeks morbid fascination with feeling unwell is passing. 

I opened my bedroom windows wide and washed the bedclothes 

Babet has left behind a sunny morning which has aired the cottage from last weeks miasma 

I made strong coffee in the Mokka, hung the duvet on the field gate and watched the view of the hills Cefn Du and Moel Maenefa to the south East after I had washed the floorboards and poured the coffee sweetened by honey into my usual bucket cup,

It sounds dramatic, but it feels that illness has left the cottage

sick hen

 Yesterday and today I felt a little like that sad Muddy Coloured Hen 

Physically, I hadn’t turned the corner with this bloody virus and whereas I wanted to curl up in warm straw in a sweet smelling henhouse  ( a clean hen house has the nicest of smells and because hens exude heat are surprisingly warm at night) 

I made the mistake of going to work last night

I wasn’t firing on one cylinder let alone all and I had a family that needed me to take charge where

I needed someone to pick me up and rest me in the crook of their arm.

I’ve done that myself today and have not gone into work tonight.

The fire is lit, vicks rubbed again on the soles of my feet 

And I’ve made simple chicken and lentil soup with cheese grated on the top

Which I’ve not eaten

Off to bed soon with Miriam Margolyes new book smutty froth, that’s the content, not the title 

I’ve left this video of the muddy coloured hen just for Raymondo 

Just to show that she did improve 

The Muddy Coloured Hen

 

It’s been a bloody difficult shift all told and I feel rough 

This is a repeat of an old post from a decade ago

It will please the animal lovers here

And those who pine for the Ukrainian Village

2013

This spate of wet, blustery and cold weather will see off the old and the sick within the hen population. Several of the nondescript " refugees" that arrived in the autumn have already faded away, their bodies keeping the small badger population in the next field topped up with protein during the sparse winter months.
Such is the way of the world.

Last week one of the refugees ( an old muddy coloured hen) started to look somewhat frail and unwell. She was light and off her food, so I popped her in with Phyllis Diller , gave her a short course of antibiotics then placed her back in her own hen house to let nature swing her one way or the other.
The hen neither improved or deteriorated , she remained stubbornly " unwell"...so it was inevitable that the other hens, who often mistrust a fellow that is " different " in any way, would start to pick on her.
On Christmas Day the muddy coloured hen disappeared. I suspect the other hens had driven her out into the field to die, so I thought nothing more about it.....I had more pressing things to think about......
That was until I locked the animals up for the night yesterday.
It was almost dark and terribly squally when I  tottered from one hen house to another in my hat and scarf.  The Ukrainian village was deserted, for even the sheep had hidden themselves away in the bad weather, so it was a case of lock the doors and leg it back to the cottage.

I was just dragging my wellies through the mud, when a movement from the hawthorn hedge caught my eye. I thought it was a rabbit at first, but out of the darkness, about thirty feet away crept the muddy coloured hen.
Purposefully, she made her way over to where I stood, and stopped an inch from my foot. There she stood hunched and sad obviously waiting for me to " do something" before the darkness really hit home.
When the shit hits the fan, animals will often overcome any natural shyness with humans, in order to maintain their own safety....it's a strange phenomenon , and a rather a moving one to witness.
It is also not as rare as one may think.

I picked the bland little hen up and tucked her safely away in my coat where she shivered quietly against the crook of my arm before I found her a space in a spare coop with food and water....and I thought to myself that I had just witnessed something rather wonderful.....a small little moment of contact between a nondescript pea brained, sick old hen.....and a 51 year old fart who was rushing home to keep warm

Flooding

 

I’ve been asleep all day but after taking the dogs to Dyserth this morning I posted on the village website that the bends down the hill have been flooding fast .I’ve just checked the website and see flooding is more widespread. 43 of the closed schools in north Wales are in Flintshire ( my county) and closer to home Helen Papworth has posted that her and Ian may be cut off soon in their house down the lane from me.

I took this photo at 10 am to show how despressing and dark it was

The youth club has been cancelled too. 

I’m going to work, I cannot afford any more sick time and the worst of my cold is over. I tested negative for covid and will wear a mask tonight, but I’m sure that won’t stop my troll having a Stoke at the thought of it all.

It’s been a horrid week since Sunday, and I’ve not had a proper conversation for most of that time, horrible echos of lockdown haunt me today

I’m going to have another couple of hours in bed

Big Cold Hands

 

I needed some self care today

Well to be honest I needed that on Tuesday where Russell Crowe with a damp flannel in hand wouldn’t have come at all amiss

I would have paid a fortune for him to to dap my hot nether regions and to spoon me some matzo balls and chicken soup into the corner of my mouth but 

Alas

That was not to be.

I’ve got to look after myself😥

Thanks to Trendy Carol ( wearing something flowing and suitably autumnal) and her hubby, the dogs went over to their garden to play after their walk and I could go back to bed.

I listened to the start of the recording of In The Psychiatrist’s Chair with Jimmy Saville but fell asleep until 2pm after which  I had a long shower, shave and scrub,which made me feel a bit better

I moved several loads of wood out of the rain and cleaned the kitchen an effort which wiped me out totally 

I’ve lit the fire and picked the dogs up before falling asleep on the couch

I dreamt of Russell Crowe rubbing my feet with his big cold hands