The Fox and The Dog

 

In 41 years nursing, I have done my fair share of nights. 

During that time, I have had one enduring memory of a favourite shift. 

This was at the Princess Royal Spinal Injuries Unit in Sheffield where I was the senior nurse in Charge of the four Osborn wards.

It was summer and around five dawn was bringing warmth and light to FirthPark, FirVale and Longly, the poorer parts of the Steel  city. The Northern General Hospital with its 1000 beds was located centrally, effectively separated  from the real world by a wall, railings and small copses of trees. Such a copse featured as the backdrop to the spinal unit and this morning I remember watching a Jack Russell Terrier play with an adult urban fox in the urban meadow formed by my buildings.

It was a glorious and intensely personal experience, seen only, I presume by me and I was captivated by the pair who chased and rolled and yapped and jumped around the small field together like puppies

Sometimes, an experience like that lifts the heart in its warm reality, and to this day I remember it as if it was only yesterday. 

The fox, magnificent in russet red, and the little white terrier, open mouthed smiling and breathless, frolicking as most of Sheffield slept on

Aladdin - Grupo Talía

Voice

 I always listen to my inner voice.

It’s rarely let me down even when it’s being fickle or playful or god forbid sexual in any way.

Yesterday my inner voice saw a guy in the supermarket. Broad and bearded like me, we held a look a millisecond longer than “ normal” and my inner voice told me repeat the process, which we did at the checkout where the hint of a smile was shared. 

In counselling that inner voice can can be useful, it can cut through, bullshit, or a lack of client awareness to the truth of a situation or feeling and like a benign basset hound, can lead you to psychologically sniff again at a certain spot, in order to clarify or to probe. 

At the hospice the inner voice will pick on the imminently dying, recognising that the light in a person being extinguished

We all need to listen to this voice when it is trying to protect us too.

The moment it makes us hesitate, to pause, to breathe.

It’s primeval 

Innate

And is there for a reason

Blood Red Geraniums

 

Trelawnyd is quieter today.

Well it is, down beyond the lane.

You can still hear the rumble of traffic on London Road, but it feels muted, allowing for bird song to filter through as well as the cried and shrieks of the children over in the school. 

I’ve walked the dogs down the lane to Graham’s fields and house martins ( only 6 of them mind you) are swimming the grass tops for insects. 

Through his fringe Roger is watching them and he sits. 

I pick lumps of moss from inside the dry stone wall of the field which I shall mulch around the stems of the geraniums.

Red geraniums are Spain to me

Of well looked after window boxes and of cheerful happy days of bright sunshine .

They lift the cottage out of its Welshness

And hint at a woman’s touch.

The old fragrant roses I planted a few years ago are doing well. The glorious yellow of the 1940s Ice Cream that my friend Colin gave me for my 60th hints at its vintage scent as does the Raspberry Ripple on the back garden arch

The wren that Janet bought me for this year’s birthday has weathered in nicely already, blink and you’d miss it as it stands guard over the back door. 

I’m making proper Chinese chicken and sweet corn soup for supper and have cut more yellow hawkbit from the lane to mix with Albert’s old catnip flowers as I let the stock stand . 

It’s good to have sun on my face

Polling Day

I’m sick of the lies

I have been for a long time 

I walked up towards the Memorial Hall to vote still unsure of where I stand and what I was going to do

And I walked home again

Without voting

That is my statement today 

That a no vote says exactly what I think  

 

Flower Show

 

I am in the process of collecting last years cups from their winning owners. There is only three of us on the committee with a cohort of helpers standing behind  and some of me misses those bun fight meetings at auntie Gladys where there was a great deal of talking and not very much doing.

I love this photo of me and auntie Glad. it was the year she opened the show, when she was around 97 (animal helper Pat, Ann Maltoff and Trendy Carol are in the background). You can tell I had a soft spot for the old Gal

If you read this and have got cups please can you return them to me as soon as possible

also if you have any entries for the International Novelty vegetable please can you forward them to me by email asap my mail is jgsheffield@hotmail.com

Shoulda, coulda woulda

 I should be in Hampton Court Flower Show today and should have been in the West End Of London last night. Unfortunately Ewan my dog sitter had a sudden change of plan and I’ve had to cancel which is a shame, especially as it was Nu , I was meeting up with. 

I’ve compensated by buying a bunch of flowers for myself and by making a fragrant curry with salmon and Phad Thai noodles, which I will box up and eat tonight. I’m doing and extra shift, the proceeds from which will pay for my hotel in August when Janet and I visit London .

It’s sunny ( ish) today and the insects seems to have suddenly emerged from their hiding places, to buzz around the cooking pots and kitchen, snapped at by Roger with his teeth as loud as any Spanish castanets. 

I’ve watered the pots, and hid for a short time as Islwyn , took Janet’s gardening clippings in their industrial sized bag over to the field ‘s bonfire

I never ask him to complete these jobs, he just takes it on himself to sort them out and I’m not ungracious by hiding, I just needed to time my cooking

Father

This medical humour bit at Glastonbury amused me greatly. The nurses and medics here will testify to this, I’m sure. It’s so typically English humour.

I have a friend who has four children by four different women. I thought about him today , as I know he keeps in touch with all of them , going on holidays and visiting and such like .

I’m envious in a way. As I would have loved to have been a father, just the once,…….four seems a bit untidy to me.  

I’m sure is a regret of may gay men ( and straights for that matter) 

In the two decades we were together my ex husband and I never discussed children. We both had work and busy lives but I think I would have made a good dad. I would have learned by the mistakes my parents made, and from the successes my grandparents and sister and brother in law made where kids were involved

The spare room looks like the wreck of the Hesperus, a teenagers bedroom ! and I sigh theatrically , hands on hips in feigned exasperation. Roger thinks it’s him and bows his head in shame, Mary just looks around the door to see where Leo is

The weather is cool and the morning has been filled with admin and phone calls 

I’m going to have lunch at Sainsburys cafe

And feel a tad lonely