Balance

  

The cottage is cold. Night shifts mean a day in bed and lighting the fire is a luxury rather than a necessity.

It’s five pm, and the winter dark has descended 

It’s cold. 

It’s my last night tonight which I’m grateful for. 

Then a weeks holiday, which I’m also grateful for

I’ve scheduled in operation dogsnot removal and the week so far looks dry.

Using my Christmas vouchers I’ve booked tickets to see The Kite Runner and renewed my membership to the Storyhouse and in ten days I’m London bound to take Nu to see Backstairs Billy for her Christmas Pressie. I suspect the comedy will be gentle and nothing more, but I’m looking forward in seeing national treasure Penelope Wilton and Luke Evans in the flesh so to speak.

Nu’s between houses, so I’ve booked a hotel near Covent Garden for a snip, which I’m glad about.

On the home front, I’ve informed some of the TCA of my intention to resign at the next trustee meeting. It’s not a decision I’m doing lightly, but comes on the back of some complaints we’ve had about the sponsorship of the Hall windows, which state they’ve been waiting too long for results to appear. 

Bureaucracy and listed buildings is a nightmare journey to navigate, and work and college can’t get in the way of that. College come first, and work second.

So something has to give.

I will tell the committee that I will continue as a general volunteer and will continue to run the Flower Show.

I feel better that the decision has been made.

And so dear reader, I share my merge news with you over a cold kitchen table.

The room is scented with thyme as hand tied bunches, lie in small heaps with the veg

I need to have a hot shower before work and a strong coffee

Night times in hospices can be conspiratorial places

With honesties shared in the confessional dark.

Order

 

2 nights then holiday. 

I’m not doing anything on my holiday but getting things in order

All those jobs that need doing

Discipline is the word du jour in 2024

From last will and testament, college, health, the works  

Everything gets ticked off 

Sex Over Sixty

Hummm a knotty subject for sure.

Either bloggers don’t do it , or they don’t want to talk about it.

Me thinks it’s the latter

With provisions lol.

I’m not Julie Andrews.

I never said I was, so the subject of sex, remains on the table , here on Going Gently. It’s the opportunity which is somewhat lacking.

I have a friend called Dan. I met him when I sizing up aubergines in Sainsbury’s a few years ago. ( I know it’s stereotypical but aubergines do make incredibly realistic penguins for a novelty vegetable class in a flower show), well I’d met him a while before when I was a nurse on ITU and he was a student.

We’d fancied each other for years but only got together occasionally after I was single. 

A lot older now, but still a spring chicken,  he’s moved away, but when back in the area he looks me up for a “reunion” of sorts. 

I call him Helen Keller in my head, and when talking of him to friends.

For he’s not a strong conversationalist .

There is nothing more flattering than someone who finds you physically attractive who is a dish themselves .And he’s a dish …..

Hey ho

Today I’m paying the price 

Sex over sixty ! Pah! You can keep it

I have a pulled at least one muscle in my back and can’t cough without pain 

I feel as though I’ve. just been hit by a bus

Bloody hell

Rain

 Sometimes you just have to push through the miserable weather and claim the day as your own.

I’d arranged to meet a friend in Chester but I cancelled because I was skint, but found myself meeting another more local friend for a short walk and take out coffee

Soaked, but invigorated, getting wet during a winter shower has done me good

Fancy A Chat?

 Sometimes I wish we had a dishier king. 

Even when he was a young man, Kind Charles was never a looker, so to speak. 

I think even his mother would contest to that.

Now the new King Frederick in Denmark is a real corker!, beaten only to the top spot of hottest Royal totty by King Filipe of Spain, who I would drop my drawers for, before you could say Patatas bravas.

I’ve always liked Queen Margrethe Of Denmark too

She looks a feisty, pragmatic and entertaining old lady who probably doesn’t suffer fools gladly

Her abdication was, rather moving 

Anyhow , last night I had a lovely meal at my sister’s house, and was home at 11.30 before the “ bongs” 

Despite a late invite from Affable Despot Jason to the big hoolie at the Hall. I thought it best to go home and chill. Something I am doing today.

I have a friend who is a bit low at the moment 

So I have loosely invited them to dinner this afternoon 

I am making a chicken roast dinner with all of the trimmings 

The leftovers I can play around with over the next few days if needed.

I’m starting the Year as I mean to go on

Optimistically 

Underpants : a metaphor for 2023

2023 has passed rather quietly 

In the list of special or even notable years , it has pretty much limped by, largely unnoticed by most of us.

Unseen, rather like the pair of underpants that straddle one of the beams above the kitchen patio

The ones with the holes I flung out of the bathroom window in the autumn.

Damp and somewhat unnoticed

The underpants and the year.

Now don’t get me wrong , there have been the highlights

The Sagrade Familia, the only building to have ever made me cry in public.

The Grande Canal in Venice,the biggest film set in the world.

Don Quixote at the Royal Opera House 

Falling in love with Sheffield all over again with “ Standing at the Sky’s Edge” 

The joyful ABBA Voyage, Les Misterables, Miss Saigon and La Traviata 

The reopening of the National Portrait Gallery,

Pedro Peascal, The Last of Us 

The proud return of the Trelawnyd Flower Show

Perhaps there was more to 2023 that met the eye!

The Stirling work by the TCA in saving the village hall for another couple of years, 

Auntie Glad’s death

Albert’s too

And being the oldest on my University course which now dominates every Tuesday with its hard work and challenging ways.

And here is 2024, just ahead

And I won’t lie, it daunts me a little.

I will still book things ahead of time

Things to look forward to…it’s my way

Indeed in two weeks it’s Backstairs Billy at The Duke Of York’s with Nu

What fun! 

But the loneliness remains a little hard to take especially on winter days like these

Where the wind gives you a shiver only a hug can remove 

Affable Despot Jason , has just knocked on the lane window

It’s almost dark , but you can still see his wide grin in the gloom

He invited me up to the Hall Party later tonight

Happy New Year xx

 

Lyndy

I didn't know her very well.

Hardly at all in fact.

I knew her name and that she was a tenor in our choir

and I knew she laughed long and often at things I too found funny.

I didn't know anything else about her

was she married? did she have children? I wasn't sure

she had a dog called Charlie that much I did know.

a hairy long legged thing that moved slowly

and in lockdown I saw only her on camera during our zoom sings.

Her living room looked cosy

but I knew nothing of her job, her friends and her life.

Choir is like that

you turn up and generally you JUST sing.

Lyndy died a few days ago "after a short illness"

Her son posted the news on her facebook page.

and I will miss her, even though I did not know her.

During Lockdown when Charlie lugubriously appeared on screen. 

I would call out like some demonic Victoria Wood fan "I can see your Charlie "

and she would crack a crooked smile of recognition at the double entendre 

a silly joke at a very bad time

and I will always be grateful for her ability to play along with it

Shiny Things

 

I’m on night shift tonight, so on a whim, I indulged myself in one of those jobs, that’s not very important but which takes up a bit of spare time. I searched the cottage for Christmas Tree decorations.

Since my husband left, I have never bought a Christmas Tree. 

Some of me felt as though it was an indulgence, 

Most of me didn’t want to revisit a happy time

But I remember when I was packing all of his possessions, ready for collection,

I took care to place in sturdy box, his collection of tree decorations, we had bought from places such as Sydney, London and from the Queen of Christmas decoration sellers , New York City.

I never thought I’d have another collection, which have gathered a little dust over the past five years, but I have.

Gifts from bloggers, friends, but mostly from my sister, who has carefully added a bauble here and a fluffy dog there to the name tag of a parcel.

Thirty Eight all told. Some hidden inside tea caddies, put away in obscure corners of the little writing desk in the lounge and in drawers, in boxes throughout the cottage.

Forgotten about until now.

So the useless job of the day was to dust them off and place them all together, like the sweet ending of Pixar’s Toy Story where Andy’s toys are all reunited.

Next year, I have decided, I will have a tree