BackStairs Billy

 London was freezing, but looked lovely, as it always does at night.

I got to Dishoom early and sat at our table nursing several consecutive glasses of hot spiced chai

Bloody lovely.

It was lovely to catch up and see the photos of new house, it looks delightfully villagy

But then I’m biased

 We gossiped and talked as we walked across to The Duke Of York’s just in time to see Backstairs Billy 

A frothy tale of upstairs downstairs at Clarence House in 1983.

The story of head footman Billy ( nicely played by Hollywood heartthrob Luke Evans) and his relationship with the Queen Mother ( Penelope Wilton) isn’t rigorous or in anyway in depth, it shows the mutually needy banter between “ one old Queen and another” 

Billy’s, job is to entertain and boost an ever growing isolated and lonely Queen Mother and she validates his camp existence by promoting him into a position of power.

On reflection both exist in a somewhat melancholy way, and it’s is a relationship, which Billy, is finally reminded, to be one sided without parity. 

Wilton plays the Queen Mother with affection, giving her a certain physicality and vitality not captured by the television footage we have all grown up with. But we have plenty to smile at too , as corgis run merrily across the stage and sycophantic guests are privy to her infamous afternoon drinks party.

Falls From Grace

Yes my hair does look somewhat “ surprised” 

I had a fall, getting out of the car at the station and hit the pavement with all of the good Grace of a sack full of tripe.

I lost my reading glasses in the kurfuffle but have only just realised that , now I’m sat on the train, an almost empty train on its way to London.

I’m getting used to the dismal service provided by avanti trains and decided to catch the early train to London after hearing that my midday service had been cancelled at 8 am. It was a good call but only one I’ve learnt after a plethora of bad journeys to the capital in 2023.

The dogs had been walked and fed and were left asleep for Trendy Carol’s hubby to pick them up at his convenience 

I will arrive in London at 12.30 , more than enough time to have a late breakfast, mooch around the National Portrait Gallery, check into my hotel before meeting Nu at Dishoom on Kingly Street, around the corner to Carnaby Street.

Nu and London has been somewhat of a touchstone for me over the past few years and despite some fraught journeys , it remains very much that.

A place always associated with laughter and with theatre

 

Booties

 

I’m officially an old twat

I bought myself “ booties” from the supermarket.

And I look like a fat Eskimo from the waist down 

At least they haven’t got an easy get on zip at the front, or God forbid, Velcro closers.

Shoot me when I’m wearing something with a zip on the front.

It’s a lazy day today. I’m off to London tomorrow taking Nu to see Backstairs Billy 

Church Cottage

 

My cottage was built in the middle of the  seventeenth Century, probably earlier, but was probably  derelict for a while as it disappeared from the local census documents for at least a decade or so.

It has weathered three hundred winters, hunkered down next to the Church Wall alongside her sister cottage , and has always made this part of Newmarket a little village all of its own. It was referred to as Llan Cottage 1 which is loosely translated as Church Cottage 

“Even now the names of many places in Wales begin with Llan. It means “Church” – or, rather, the enclosed land around the church where Christian converts had settled – and, as far as town or church names are concerned, is often combined with the name of an individual”

Newmarket ( The Old English name for the village, it was given its old name Trelawnyd back in 1957) Trelawnyd literally means The Town Of Wheat. But this corner of the Church and the cottages were referred to as Tan Y Fynwent ( a place under the Churchyard) 

The modern name Bwthyn y llan , is a mouthful and difficult to pronounce. It means Church Cottage from the full Welsh

Vit D

 I love little moments that matter. 

They make everything worthwhile.

It’s a study day at home today. Reading around Uni subjects, catching up with paperwork , rewriting notes.

Emailing and list ticking.

I shopped for dog food and picked up my antibiotic prescription which was delayed from Friday.

It’s cold but sunny, 

And I suddenly realised that I needed the Sun on my face.

For an hour, after I returned home,  I sat in front of the cottage, 

Just like Auntie Gladys used to do up High Street in the height of summer.

I sipped coffee and listened to Radio 2

And Mary joined me and immediately fell asleep, snoring gently.

As I watched the Sun shine through the metal agapanthus sculptures 

With narrow eyes, and a warm face

Isn’t he lovely

 

Human Face

 

M

Most people in the UK have known about the Post Office Scandal for several years now. However it has taken the ITV drama , Mr Bates vrs The Post Office to galvanise the government into some drastic appropriate and justified action over the past week.

Interesting yes, surprisingly no, I’m not surprised at all. Once the general public knew that the Government investigation was in progress, it was all old news. 

Vindication would come in time and Horizon IT would be defunct.

But the truth has been very different

And here enters Toby Jones one of my favourite actors .

In the horror The Mist , Toby was famous for playing Supermarket manager Ollie Weeks, a mild mannered bachelor who turned sharpe shooting hero when the chips were down and this mild mannered hero-from-nowhere character surfaced again as the Post Master Alan Bates who took on the Post office henchmen and won.

The drama showed the human face of this disaster. It lifted away from mere news and gave it a heart and that heart fired up empathy and advanced empathy in most people who watched it. 

Empathy changed things 

And obviously the publicity didn’t hurt either.

Advanced empathy often gets lost in the day to day.

We lose track of that human face, those human feelings behind being us being right, getting along, walking our own path. 

Many years ago I nursed a spinal injury patient who was a horror to everyone around him. He was truculent and angry and rude and snappy not only to nursing staff but to his family and friends and colleagues. Visiting times were often filled with him yelling at his grandchildren for being noisy, or berating his wife for bringing the wrong book or even sitting in the wrong chair.

One day, after one of my staff had left his bedside in tears, I challenged his behaviour but instead of taking the this behaviour is unacceptable route, I sat down quietly and told him I was at a loss with him. 

“ I feel helpless and upset by your constant criticism ” I said “it upsets me to hear it and I am only on duty seven hours a day, so how does your wife feel being on the firing line 24/7? “

The patient went quiet and hung his head as the tears flowed. Suddenly he looked like the person he had become, a frightened child  who was angry at the world.

He was no longer the monster patient in bed four.

Smaller examples show up here in blogland, and it’s not hard to figure out just why it happens. Like in the press, bloggers often become unreal, polarised figments of ridicule or people just to disagree with. They are not people, they are adversaries that hide behind rhetoric and opinion, shit many don’t even have a face to put a name to.

 Only yesterday a blog commentator decided to use the fact that I am on long term antibiotics to support her bandwagon of the dangers of such practice in the health system. They did this, without my permission and without any full knowledge of the hoops I’ve been through coming to this decision with my GP, especially as any realistic alternatives cannot adequately protect me from a urosepsis, a condition which has laid me physically and mentally ,very low of a couple of occasions. I fully understand and support the modern day research based medical practice NOT to over prescribe antibiotics, but that wasn’t acknowledged at all just  that I was sanctioning misuse which was reported as fact. 

The empathy was lost in both of these examples, but like the bad tempered spinal patient who had psychologically regressed into childhood, it’s not hard to see his human face once you let your guard down and empathy in.

So before you rattle your sabres on line , 

Spare a thought to the human face of the person you seem so angry at.

And take a deep breath

Do you really need to make a point so badly ? 

Is empathy such a terrible concept ?

And I point this question at myself too

Perhaps I’m guilty of not seeing certain commentators human face too

Funny Old Day

 

I had planned to meet my friend Colin for lunch in Chester today but I felt all out of sorts as soon as I got back from morning walks. 

He’s an understanding soul with as much gay drama in him as an empty theatre, so we rescheduled and after avocados on bagels and ordering Nu some flowers as she has finally moved into her new house , uncharacteristically I went back to bed.

Perhaps it was the fact that I needed that duvet cocoon 

Or simply more sleep. 

I woke at three after dreaming vivid dreams and it was raining and Misty and cold.

The dogs had been patient so I took them to the beach, where the cold rain stung our eyes and woke me up sufficiently enough for me to feel hungry

I bought a large fish pie on the way home, the sort that taste better than they look.

It’s in the oven now.

It’s been a funny old day