I’ve been accepted into the far side Facebook group
Some of the old cartoons are new to me
Love it
Killing Eve had a lot to say about the the power of relationships
I loved the finale tonight and cried
Eve was always the survivor
SRA
Hand grenades of beautiful flavour.
Last night I brought in watermelon and mango and left them in the car.
I’m not pretending it was busy.
It wasn’t
I read a lot about the use of visualisation in pain relief, in between patient care
And I’ve booked tickets to The Play That Goes Wrong, a guided tour around the famous Liverpool Liver Building , tickets for a welsh play Celebrated Virgins ( About the famous Ladies of Llangollen)
Oh and I’ve finally found a suitable shabby chic hotel for Gorgeous Dave and I to stay in when we are in Rome.( 2 bedrooms rooms, en suite near the Vatican City)….all very La Dolce Vita
I've helped training up a student nurse recently and have asked him to listen to other experienced palliative care nurses in the weeks he’s been with us . " Pick and choose those interactions you hear nurses give their patients !" I advised " Be sure to steal them for your own interactions !"We all steal words and phrases we hear others use.
Sometimes those words have such resonance they burn themselves in your own vocabulary for life.
All of us sponges...for the different, the funny.....the pertinent.
In the late 90s I nursed a somewhat taciturn man for many months.
He was a formidable character, every inch a stereotypical policeman from say a 1970s tv drama...butch, unsmiling and ever slightly distant....think Valquez from Aliens and you'll get where I'm coming from.
He was difficult to engage and only seemed to perk up when he was visited by his police colleagues both male and women.
One policeman that visited seemed to be more smiley and less frivolous than the other visitors and I suspected with my gaydar at full beep that they may have been closeted lovers.
One day, when the visitor was leaving, I noticed my patient murmur " S R A" almost under his breath and this three letter goodbye was noticeably used too as a greeting after several visitations .
A week or who later , when I was teaching the patient how to manage his own bladder I asked him if I could ask a personal question and given the intimacy of the situation he surprisingly agreed , albeit gruffly.
"When your mate comes to visit ....what does SRA mean?"
I busied myself with preparing the nursing equipment as he looked at me squarely and after a long pause he said carefully
" It means a Sudden Rush of Affection!"
A hidden code between lovers
SQUID GAME …Grandmother’s Footsteps
On nights, When I am sleeping during the day, I am overseen and carefully monitored by Dorothy.
She will lie with her back against mine facing the door and there is method in her slightly obsessive madness as from that position she can maintain her top dog status with Mary and the ever more slightly cropped Albert.
For as I am happily snoring my best ( Poor Alex….less said about that the better) the animals embark on a strange game of Grandmother’s Footsteps.
The game is started as soon as Mary or Albert realise that I have gone to bed. One or both will then gallop up the stairs and will jump into the foot of the bed.
Then Dorothy will let out a low rumbling growl
She is staking her claim.
To stop any escalation of hostilities Mary and Albert have learned to freeze exactly where they land, and by doing so Dorothy will stop her growling.
This tableau remains unchanged until Dorothy closes her eyes thus allowing Welsh Terrier and cat to move another millimetre until the growling starts up again.
I’ve pieced the “ game” together now after several aborted efforts to sleep over the past two years
And know that the growling and mini movements will continue until all animals are within a knat’s Crotchet of my body and peace reigns.
Simple
It’s been a long night all told
Even with a few hours sleep before I left the house last night.
My times of burning the candle at both ends feels to be somewhat over and
I’m looking forward to bed this morning.
Bed with bulldog licks on the soles of my feet.
There was a gift waiting at work for me last night
Pressed into my cubbyhole alongside papers on palliative care and mail was a gift wrapped neatly in brown paper.
It was from my friend , one of the hospice doctors
Two artworks of Dorothy and Mary
It kinda made my day.
I will leave you with this simple thought for the day
There is a lot of psycho babble on the internet
But this wise old woman keeps it simple, to the point and uses language we all understand
So……….
Simple……
The Corn Is Green
The actor and playwright Emlyn Williams was born and bred just over a hill or so from Trelawnyd in the village of Pen Y Ffordd which literally means top or end of the road
It is said that he spent some of his childhood in or around Trelawnyd but I can’t find reference to this today. Having said this , I’m a bit blurry eyed this morning, sat, like I am in Russel Square gardens with an Americano and a slight hangover.
The Corn Is Green is Williams’ autobiographical account of how an education furnished by an astute schoolteacher gave a poor illiterate child miner a helping hand in life.
Most of us will remember the story from the Bette Davis 1945 film.
Powerhouse spinster Lily Moffat ( Nicola Walker) inherits a Manor House in a small rural village in North Wales. Helped by an English singleton Miss Ronberry (Alice Orr Ewing) and a staunch baptist Mr Jones ( Richard Lynch) she turns the hall into a school of boys and in a difficult mission to educate the village children who would have been subscripted into mine work by the age of 10.
The play, which hasn’t really dated in since the 1930s makes use of a fantastic male chorus of singing miners, a stereotype if ever there was one, but it is one that works quite beautifully as the strains of Calon Lân and Gwahoddiad waft gently around the actors and action.
Walker is remarkable as Miss Moffat. Workmanlike and efficient in one breath and a fiery lioness on the mission in the other.she is ably supported by a cast that match her skill and although some of verbalised stage directions was a mistake , this is a production of great worth and one whose message resonates today.
I’m on the way home now.
Like I said slightly hungover and somewhat bleary eyed .
I will have time for a shower and long dog walk and a sleep
I’m on night shift later….
London
It’s a lovely day for a train journey
My connecting train from Crewe has been cancelled much to the angst of many passengers who are vociferously complaining that their booked seats won’t be honoured on the following train.
I’m not meeting Alex until 5pm and so I’ve nothing planned to miss early doors.
I will take my usual amble through Bloomsbury and may take in an exhibit at the British museum or an early movie at the Curzon.
If the weather remains good, I may just stroll down to the river
Goodbye
I met my friend Ruth for breakfast this morning before she takes a leave of absence from work.
She is going to Northern Scotland for a few months to work in a community collective . Work on allotments and gardens for room and board .
She is grieving and needs to heal
I shall miss her but her choice to go is a wise one.
We all need time to recuperate when we are emotionally damaged
So many of us ignore the danger signals and soldier on regardless .
And that often helps no one.
I hope she returns.
I hate goodbyes
Always have
I once took Nu to the airport, many moons ago now, when she was leaving to work in Saudi Arabia and I had to stop on the Snake Pass from Manchester to Sheffield in order to sob over the steering wheel. So upset I was, a farming type woman in a land rover stopped to ask if I was alright.
After work when I was driving up to the village last night at dusk, I spied a rainbow arcing gracefully
Over from the south , the tip of which seemed to lightly Land on the top of the Gop.
Several people stopped their cars in order to take the obligatory photo.
The rainbow I’d like to think is a sign from Auntie Gladys
The old lass is 103 today and as usual the village make voice choir who originally adopted her years ago has played tribute to her
I miss her
But a hello
Easter Sunday
I'm on my break in our study and I'm being watched
Work is quiet today, after a fraught few days,and the staff have made the most of the change of pace by sitting together discussing a glossary of Trans words.
It was an interesting and informative hour all told.
We are sadly not up to speed with the more recent ways of describing the gender/sexuality world.
I hated Easter Sunday as a child btw
It was a boring day filled with too much chocolate and piss long biblical films on the BBC
I've never liked religious movies since
And have never been overly keen on chocolate either
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