Quirks

The living Room Cards years ago

 We all have personal little quirks 

I know I do.

And mine , at this time of year, do centre about posted Christmas Cards 

Since 1989 I have the slightly irrational wish to have enough Christmas cards to hang around my living room. In Providence Road in Walkley, Wynyard Road in Hillsborough and in Bwthyn y llan in Trelawnyd , I have always surrounded the living room with Christmas Cards. And I’ve always been pleased that it has happened…every year…….every year for 36 years….

Is it all about ego? ….perhaps?……is it about validation ? Could be …..Neediness?  …….you never know 

Habit? …too right ….

Last night I posted my Trelawnyd Productions! Christmas Cards…thirty cards all told  …..26£ 

A reduced number than I usually send ….

A statement which is sad ….that posted Christmas cards seem to be a bit of a dinosaur nowadays 

I have to accept that because of financial constraints people just don’t send Christmas cards anymore

Hey ho😩

Gifts

 I’ve been on a study day for half the day and shopped the rest. I bought bits and pieces for the Show’s raffle prize - a Christmas hamper and then purchased a light up Father Christmas for a second prize. The cardboard cottages which house my family gifts  needed a clean and a dry after Weaver had weed on the table which featured them. Each one of my family will get a selection of small tiny gifts then a certificate of donation to a charity which I hope is close to their heart. 

It’s stormy today ,,wild and stormy.

Pub Quiz

Tonight was fun. 

Affable Despot Jason , wife Claire and wisecracking daughter Liv and I formed two teams in the newly resurrected pub quiz at The Crown. 

What fun

The place was busy and Liv & Claire were third placed and me and Jason were second 

( Beaten by villager leader’s Ian and Helen et al) 

Nice to see that it’s going to be a regular night out….

Liv was a joy to catch up with too, after much discussion she’s agreed to complete my Lego Statue of Liberty set in one day 

We bet 5£ on the outcome 

Liv and Mary in 2017

Respect

 This video made me pause today. A simple testament to faith in a Spanish Cathedral where parishioners pay their respects to a blood stained Madonna .

I found it incredibly moving and rather profound. 

Just about to take Trendy Carol’s husband to the hospital for a check up, then it’s supervision then the pub quiz at The Crown 

Heyho

Food Out

 The food at The Crown ( Our village Pub) is bloody lovely. I finished nights, getting home around 9 am, slept three hours then met my friend Ruth for a traditional Sunday roast dinner . 

Nice to see the new landlords so busy. 

The pub is manning the bar at the show night which is kind of them .

Tonight I went to my sister Ann’s for supper

Another real treat…..

Goosed In The Knackers

The Bastards

This post was written exactly eleven years ago…how things change but a nice one remembered

Meet " The Bastards"These two young and badly behaved lodgers have arrived just before Christmas and will be guests on the field until sometime in February. They are the property of the owner of a local bed & breakfast, who is off to Malaysia for a month. I didn't know him from Adam when he turned up with the sob story of not having a goose sitter, but true to form, I accepted the challenge, even though the new bees are two of the most narky, bad tempered birds that I have ever had the misfortune to meet.
Ever since they arrived the resident flock of geese, the sheep and a few of the older, slower hens have been pecked,intimidated and bullied , so much so That I have had to employ a daily regime of behavior modification in order to assert my dominance over the pair, who think nothing of slipping an orange beak down the crack of your underpants in order to grab a pound of flesh when you are bending over a feed bucket!

So, every morning I will drag each bird out of their house. Take a firm hold of their neck and wings, then will take a walk around the field with the bird tightly tucked underneath my armpit.
It's an old trick that can tame an aggressive cockerel, for after a while, you can actually feel the bird " relax" a sign that it has accepted you are the boss.
It's labour intensive...but effective.
And so, every morning I look like a strange Scot playing a set of white bagpipes around the field, as " The Bastards" are hopefully transformed from evil devil birds to a pair of twittering canaries .
Having said this, I was goosed in the knackers rather violently only this morning, when I dropped my guard opening up the goose house......

The resident goose flock

Russell, Camilla Parker Bowles, Winnie, and Jo

Ps. The Bastards stayed for over a year, before a lesbian Policewoman from Llanfair TH called Bunty finally took them over. 

A week to go

 

The Manley's came up trumps tonight and erected their old folk backcloth to the huge area of white behind the village hall's stage.

It looks fab. 

They are a powerful force   the Manleys ...a bit like The Tracey's out of THUNDERBIRDS.

Director Kira sorted out the sound checks for Chelsea ( our solo female singer) and she sounded fantastic as did the folk trio brought by Alun ( who won many a bread catagory in the Flower Show)

Affable Despot Jason slapped me on the shoulder and quipped " Bloody hell John I think we may have a fab show!" 

And I think he maybe right..

One choir has suddenly backed out but ive thrown myself at the feet of my choir and i think they will fill the gap nicely.

The show,isnt just a silly village show in my opinion

( which in some daft way of course it is)

Its a suture which binds people and community together. 

Something to be vaguely proud of 

Something to be shared

And celebrated  

And enjoyed

" I'll need a massive drink on Friday night" Kira shared before we left the hall

And we all agreed rather 

vociferously , like teenagers at their first party

 

Christmas 1998

 

I wrote this post in my head a few days ago.
Reminded by an old photo of a group of smiling nurses grouped around a man in a wheelchair.

When I was a charge nurse, through necessity and like many singletons ,I often worked the late shift on Christmas Day. There was often an unwritten rule that nurses on that shift came in slightly early in order for the morning staff to get home to their families but the interview room was filled with goodies to eat and visitors catered for the patients for much of the day so the shift was as pleasant as it could be,and on Christmas Day 1998 the five nurses working with me were a grand bunch indeed.

Our patients were the spinally injured who were newly paralysed usually through some trauma and most were nursed on flat bedrest in order for fractures of neck or  back to be strong enough to start to allow the patients to mobilise in wheelchairs.
One young patient had proved to be a nursing challenge for several weeks prior to that Christmas Day.
I shall call him Darren.
Now Darren, a man in his early twenties, was paralysed from the waist down after crashing his stolen car during a long police pursuit. A skinny terrier of a man, Darren lived his short life ducking and diving in the extremes of poverty, institutional care and crime and after his injury had become sullen and combative with the Spinal Injury staff overseeing his care.
We all knew that Christmas that year was bringing Darren to some sort of emotional crisis;  the experienced staff had seen this sort of thing time and time again, and so when visitors arrived from all over North Eastern Britain to support the three other patients in Darren's Ward leaving him feeling angry and resentful and foul mouthed, we were almost prepared for how things unfurled .

Nursing care is intensive on an acute spinal Ward, with each patient being specially turned every two hours by a group of three carers and all it took was a gesture of kindness for the floodgates to be opened on Darren's pain. Pain and grief at being disabled and alone at twenty five years old.
I remember Darren being tight lipped with his arms crossed as he was turned and I remember the nurse nearest to him pausing before we left for the next patient.
The nurse was  Edith Marimbirie and I remember her clearly. A heavy set, gentle faced Senior midwife in her native Zimbabwe Edith had come to our Ward late in her career and like most African nurses I have had the pleasure to work with she carried out her work in a graceful unhurried pace all of its own.
With a motherly hand and a gentle word she gently cupped Darren's teeth clenched cheek for a long moment and that's all it took.
The tears flowed.
Without fanfare another nurse pulled the curtains around the bed and all but Edith left the bed space quietly as Darren sobbed and sobbed and sobbed his pain away, and for the next few hours Edith never left his side.
A mother soothing a child of a man.

I remember that Christmas Day well as we were busy.
But with Edith effectively out of duties the remaining nurses on the Ward never complained that they had more to do, not once and finally, hours later , when Edith joined her colleagues in the interview room with its desks heavy with brought in party food , she was hugged and kissed in thanks for what she had done that afternoon.

Darren turned a rehab corner that Christmas Day. And he went on to be successfully discharged , self caring in his wheelchair.
And Edith used her motherly warmth a score more of times in a way the nursing curriculum never teaches you or even really acknowledges .