Queen

This is why I’m a royalist , what inspiration  

 

Chess

 

I played chess last night online

My adversary was called Fred and went by the nickname of Farmpop60.

He won the first game, I the second 

Then he told me he was tired and could we play the decider another time.

We ended up chatting online, with him emphasising his Os

He was a divorcee, two years older than I . He lived on a farm west of Minnesota’s Boundary waters

He had stage four cancer and lived alone and had one daughter in the forces based in Alaska

The farm was overseen by an neighbour farmer and was predominantly orchard focused. 

He drank too much rum, hidden in ice cold milk and survived only because of the goodwill of his neighbours. 

He supported Trump 

And he laughed at himself for assuming I had been divorced from a woman rather than a man.

I don’t know much about Wales he admitted though he liked the film How Green was My Valley

We both admired Walter Pidgeon

“ There’s a moose Bull in the yard” he told me before he said his goodbyes 

Thank The Lord

 The hot spell broke in Llandudno around 4 in the morning

You could feel it kind of snap back to Welsh time from a muggy sort of Spanish summer like the twang of an old lady’s knicker elastic and the three nurses on duty and the patients with their relatives seemed to let out a collective sigh of relief.

I’ve just slept eight hours solid , waking only to the village ice cream van playing The Third Man as it tinkered by. 

It’s my sister Ann’s birthday today and already I’ve missed a deadline to drive down to see her. I’ve just had time to write this , shower and dress. Back to work tonight

I will see her tomorrow 

There were two cats in the house yesterday morning . Now we are back to one. the pattern seems to be Bun only returns home on a Saturday for a visit. I still haven’t found who her second owners are.

Old Friends

 

There was something rather wholesome about last night. Meeting up with friends from the 1980s felt as comfortable now as it did then , even more I guess and after a lovely meal at our hotel , we walked the prom to a charity Motown and Northern Soul evening , where the sounds of our youth was celebrated by a couple of hundred locals all seriously needing to enjoy themselves . There is nothing quite like humans enjoying simple pleasures that makes me smile, so after we got over the shock and we three were just as old as most of the dancers, I watched with vicarious pleasure as Ally and Tracey danced away the evening like the nimble girls they once were in 1988’s York . 

It was an easy night, uncluttered with too much conversation and seriousness , the ideal panacea to the seriousness of health issues and the isolation of the heatwave

Treat night

 My lovely Spanish lisping choir is lovely in this Asian movie anthem ….how much fun…..it’s Friday and I’m meeting Chic Eleanor for breakfast then I’m off to Llandudno for an evening with my old York psychiatric nurse friends Tracey and Ally complete with night out at the Esplanade Hotel ! 

New York Summers

 

It’s 9 pm and there is a breeze from the South West , which is a welcome friend through the cottage windows. I’ve doused the Welsh with cold shower water a couple of times which has helped and am drinking a iced gin and tonic, which was a gift from Mrs Trellis who qualified the reason that  she’d bought it for herself as it was the drink of choice in the tropics by British Tea Plantation owners to combat malaria . She passed it on too that she didn’t like the taste. 

I did remind her that  malaria was rare in Flintshire 

Bun/ Weaver has gone again , leaving Bun/ weaver asleep in the back bedroom 

I’ve spent the day in the kitchen ( the coolest room in the cottage) reading and doom scrolling 

The village garage shop still had ice for sale and I’ve put it in a basin in front of the open window

I understand now just why people sleep on fire escapes in New York summers like they did in Rear Window

101 Uses For a Catheter Bag

 Two posts in one day ! 

Number 98 

Roger using it as a pillow! 

The Dark Long Night

 The best thing to help a hospice patient rest is in fact, the simplest of nursing interventions to carry out.

It is also the most time consuming but ultimately satisfying act a nurse can do on night shift,

And that is to sit beside your patient’s bedside in the dark. 

“ would you like me to sit with you?”

Is a question often replied by a tiny simple nod 

But you can often see the patient relax immediately as they are transported back to their childhoods when mom or dad or gran sat vigil over them during the long dark night.

I have learned to sit quietly, but not silently at these times. I take with me a cup of tea and my iPad, and mini movements of scrolling and the occasional sip, can often be just heard or felt by the patient, reminding them I am still there, and still with them.

Last night my patient kept opening their eyes to check if I was still there 

So I told them that I wasn’t going anywhere.

and minutes later they were sleeping softly.