Serendipity

 

The other week I told you all that I had a rebate from my electricity bill , money from which I put towards my next year’s counselling college bills. Rebates from my water bill and money hidden away in a jar brought the total saved up to 1000£ Allowing a further pension rebate to pay for my trip to see the lisping Spanish Choir ( my troll went apoplectic at my failure to add to my savings!!!)

Today I did overtime at work ( to pay for my own counselling sessions)  and in a down moment read an email from management telling the staff that we were to receive a one off payment in Lieu of a wage increase. 

This was an unexpected bonus for the staff and even though I’m part time I will receive approximately 500 + £ extra next month!!!

500£ will more than pay for the outstanding college fees of 1400£  I will owe and will also help with my supervision bills too

How lucky am I? 

I sang I have A Dream when I got home with Roger bouncing alongside me like a loon 

Please as punch as I was

I really do realise just how lucky I have been 

Carmen

 

I went to see the live performance of Carmen at The Royal Opera House last night. I went with my sisters who both thought they were going to see a ballet, so there was much muted laughter as we took our seats.

We were all disappointed, me for the fact the staging was in a moody, shadowy 1970s Spain and not all frocks, sweaty factory workers and matador buttocks and for them that there was no ballet dancing.

The music, led by sexy as fuck conductor Antoello Manacorda is adorable as always and in the lead the 27 year old Russian Aigul Akhmetshina really shines in a performance of power and confidence and charm.

By the time I got home and relaxed it was nearly eleven, and it amused me, as I sat and wrote this with a drink, that Roger had positioned himself next to the front door fire vent with his nose resting against the slats .

He was listening to see if he could hear the Blackbird moving in her nest as she had been doing all day .

He does amuse me 

The following video has Aigul performing Carmen when only 22 years old 

 Amazing

Quiet

 Another video of the lisping Spanish Choir…enjoy…..

a quieter day today, some reading , catching up with jobs ,

It’s sunny this morning so the cottage windows are wide open, Roger is watching the blackbird’s back and forth to its nest in the honeysuckle and has been for over an hour now

Carmen live from the Royal Opera House later

Therapy

 

Tonight I completed my seventh episode of counselling experience as a client. As trainee counsellors we all are required to experience therapy first hand and pay for it too, and I’ve found the experience awkward, challenging, emotional and enlightening, as my counsellor is based in the “eclectic” theory base of counselling  rather than pure client centred base of therapy that I’m being trained in.

My counsellor ventured something I need to think about too

He suggested I was coming out of a clinical depression .one which started a year after my husband left me and one which had been fed and watered by covid 

I’m still processing this 

But I sort of know he is right. 

I’m a month into a strict diet and only last week I joked with him that weight loss was my last goal back to  getting back to the real me. 

He didn’t challenge me then…..he didn’t have to, as we both read each other’s non verbals,

The elephant in the room.

What I thought was a new start generally, may have been an end to a depression , I never really realised I had

Spring

 It’s spring and the scented wild garlic flowers like white fireworks fill the road between Llanasa and Trelawnyd in a carpet. The village is slowly bursting into spring colour too with tulips and aubritia  filling neat borders and alongside lawns and forsythia is blooming along side cherry trees, in Rhodfa Arthur. 

It’s too early for my laburnum to flower, but I’ve just checked and she’s still standing valiantly in the graveyard a stones throw from the cottage.

Many of the fields feel a dirty green brown, but green is winning and that’s a cheerful statement as is the toing and froing of the female blackbird as she next builds in the honeysuckle over the front door.

People are out walking and gardening again, and Neville Lancelot posted a cracking photograph of goldfinches sparring in his garden on the village Facebook page.

The Dawn chorus seems louder somehow and the badgers are back in force in the lane as the Cubs are now ready to forage. They bicker like children and have woken Roger up regularly over the past week. When he barks, the Cubs jump as one, catching their claws on the concrete of next doors drive with a clatter.

The pond is green too and clear of weeds and up on the south face of the Gop, the gorse is flowering it’s normal golden yellow

All We need now,

Are some blue skies 

To last for a few weeks 

“ Peace, All I want Is Peace!”

 

As the Pro Palestinian demonstration passed the corner of the aptly named Hope Street an elderly woman with long flowing grey hair cried out to a handful of students on the pavement “ Peace, all I want is peace” and they like me, burst into spontaneous applause. 

Alfie Moore’s one man show was more amusing than hilarious, and I thought he makes a better dinner party guest than a stand up comedian . His radio 4 show is punchier and more informative, but I was glad I went. 

The meal at the gastro-pub on Catherine Street, was a real treat, and it’s worth not eating for the rest of the day, just to get get close up and personal with the slabs of rare beef they shlope onto your plate….

Bloody lovely. 

Chester and Liverpool are two cities, each with their own vibe. It was nice to have the city vibe, albeit for a few hours this weekend

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

It’s Sunday morning 

And I’m glad I’ve organised another activity day out for today

I need it, I need the filling….

I’m off to meet my friend Colin for lunch at The Blackburne Arms near to Liverpool Cathedral ( bloody lovely food)  then I’m off to a talk by Alfie Moore ( below) at the Philharmonic  

Moore is a regular on Radio 4 and is a stand up and ex Yorkshire policeman of 20 years.

His stories into police work are as funny as they are insightful 

I walked the Welsh in a local Bluebell wood yesterday

I will do the same this morning 

I used to have a beautiful bluebell watercolour 

‘You’re like a vitamin enriched Brian Blessed’

I caught up with my sleep last night, and did so heavily, 

But managed to catch up with Sheffield Jane on video before I crashed

It was Roger who eventually woke me up wanting a wee at 9 ish. 

Unlike Dorothy who used to gently occlude my airway with her own neck, Roger tapped my face playfully with a heavy paw

Mary, as usual was dead to the world. 

I’ve walked and fed them and when they settle, I will go to Chester to meet my friend Nigel for lunch

This has pleased me as later tonight I’m off to see Troy Hawke a stand up comedian in his one man show. 

As you can see from his improv video, he’s quick witted and as sharpe as Margot Channing.

I’m going with Rhian, one of the doctors at work.