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
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
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
One Life
It’s a story many British people know from the 1980s That’s Life programme, where unknown to Nicolas Winton , the grown up children he helped to save from the war ravaged Czech lands during the war, surrounded him as he sat in the audience, and with quiet nobility made themselves known to him by standing quietly.
It was a moment , in a usually tacky tv programme that lingers long in the minds by whoever saw it, for it was strong, moving and immensely dignified .
Following the film, I went to the new Asian supermarket in Chester Market to buy pancakes for Chrispy duck, gochujang paste and ramen noodles as well as some tikka pies from the deli next door
In the end of One Life , this scene is reenacted as the story is told of Winton and his wartime efforts to secure the release of over 660 Jewish children by beavering behind the lines in London, securing visas, sorting out foster parents and raising money alongside his forthright, powerhouse mother Babette ) Helen Bonhem Carter in fine form)
We see the idealistic and self effacing Winton ( Johnny Flynn) grappling with the numbers of children he had to leave behind and despite the wise pragmatism shown by his mother, this anxiety and grief never left the older Winton (downplayed nicely by Anthony Hopkins) and only in his 80s , after meeting the first of “ his children” on That’s Life does the old man let his guard down and in one tear jerking scene sobs uncontrollably for the children he couldn’t save.
It’s a gentle film and highlights beautifully the work ordinary heroes did during wartime.
The real Winton on That’s Life
Hey ho
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