Hen Do

I won't have the opportunity to have a " hen or stag" night with my best friend Nuala for she is travelling for the next 7 weeks or so. She is off to New Zealand, Fiji, Vietnam and Japan with her hubby but will be back to " give me away" on the 6th of March, so today's trip to London is the nearest I will get to a send off , so to speak.
We've had a lovely day.....a quick jaunt around The Institute of Sexology Exhibition at the Welcome Institute, a nice lunch in a sushi restaurant Nizuni on Charlotte Street followed by champagne in the Charlotte Street Hotel ( v posh) and theatre at the Wyndham to see the much praised  KING CHARLES III.
I loved it all.....we barely had time to say goodbye before I caught the tube to Euston ......not a bad day's itinerary seeing that I have only been in London just over seven hours....
I just had time to grab a sandwich from marks' before waiting for my platform to be announced when a woman of around 40 poked me on the arm and bellowed " it's strange seeing you without Winnie"
I had absolutely no idea who she was but apparently she reads "  Going Gently " every day
" you look neater than I expected" she said
Ahhhhhh
Fame at last!
And as promised hello to Karen from Wrexham.( she's on the same train!)

Village News- A Round Robin

Grey and Cold....Trelawnyd Hibernates

There is just one thing that prevents the  spreading of news in a small Welsh village and that is wet, cold weather. Next door neighbour Mandy described Trelawnyd as being in hibernation this morning, and she was right, for on the surface there was not a soul to be seen in the dank streets and slick lanes as I took the dogs on a walk around the Churchyard in a futile adventure to find the secret nesting place of two of my best laying hens

Before Christmas I bumped into old Islwyn Thomas who told me that Gay Gordon had been taken poorly right in the middle of a " Turkey and tinsel " weekend up in a Morecambe sea front guest house. I wanted to see how he was doing so I went to see Gay Gordon's lady friend , Mary to catch up with any news.
Now Mary is a cheerful old soul who looks like a massive scatter cushion with a quarter of the stuffing removed and the last time I visited her bungalow, the dogs and I got stranded in her exterior garden elevator for a very stressful twenty minutes ( I won't go into details here) so carefully I side stepped the elevator and knocked on her door.
There was no answer so I trolled the street to see if I could glimpse a flick of net curtains anywhere.
There wasn't any sign of life until I got to Llys Mostyn where the man who lived in the corner house was venturing out with his miserable little Shih Tzu.
He told me that Gay Gordon was still in hospital but was improving  which was good news.

Auntie Glad suddenly appeared on High Street when we turned the corner and she told me that she had been visiting an elderly neighbour ( who interestingly was 20 years younger than she) then asked me all about my trip to Kent on Boxing Day
She wanted to know every detail......... everything we did.... and I had to smile as
She listened to everything I said with sparkling eyes
Gladys has the knack of taking pleasure out of every bit of news....a fact most of us overlook as the
boring shit of life .......Taking pleasure out of a a five minute conversation is a wonderfully altruistic skill

I am off to London tomorrow for the day, so I then went round to ask if John F would lock up the geese for me in return for half a dozen eggs , he agreed cheerfully as did animal helper Pat , who agreed a barter swap of 6 eggs for some baking margarine when I popped in on the way home
This afternoon I will be making a chicken a mushroom pie for Chris' tea tomorrow and I couldn't be bothered braving the miserable weather to walk up to the garage shop......

Hey ho...it's all go

My latest man crush

Charlie Cox

I used to have floppy hair

A generation ago

Hey hooooooo

Reading A Face

2015 will be the year that we do a little more travelling. We hope to gets some downtime in Sitges, Spain, catch up with old friends in Australia and fit in a city / conference break in Ottawa, so with this initiative must come some reality.
Looking after a menagerie of waifs and strays is not always conducive to an out-of-village social life, so it was with a pragmatic heart that I have decided to streamline my responsibilities on the field.
The geese and the hens will stay, but I  am  now firm that I will not be taking on anymore needy creatures into the Ukrainian village and I decided that the ducks, who only provide a few eggs to the general kitty , needed to be moved on.
After much searching , I found a committed smallholder who I thought would fit the bill, and today she drove over from the Island of Angelsey to view the ducks.
Now when dealing with re homing animals it is vital to " read" any potential owner carefully, and I was pleased that the woman that arrived had a wide,  open face and an easy smile..
Before I even took her over to the field, I watched her reaction to the dogs, and I was relieved to see her react to them with with an easy relaxed manner.

She even coped with Winnie's masturbatory overtures against her wellies with an unflustered alacrity stating simply that " That bulldog needs a touch of bromide in her tea!"

She was an animal woman for sure .
And so , in a selection of boxes and cat baskets the ducks headed off to a new life in an open field and a new pond.

A post coital Winnie this afternoon

The Theory Of Everything

The Theory Of Everything is a worthy film . The story of the relationship between Steven Hawking and his wife Jane from their meeting in 1960s Cambridge until their break up in the 1980s is one that I have seen reenacted many many times during my days working with spinal Cord Injury patients. The pressures of caring for a severely disabled loved one so often creates an insurmountable wedge in even the most robust of relationships and this difficult journey was sensitively and at times beautifully observed in the James March fïlm, as Jane Hawking ( Felicity Jones) and Husband Steven ( Eddie Redmayne) finally split after years of battling his motor neurone disease together.

Regular readers of Going Gently may remember that my brother Andrew died from motor neurone disease three years ago now, and I must admit that some scenes in the film, I found rather difficult to watch. One sequence in particular had a certain resonance with me.
It  was the scene where the  already disabled Hawking hosted a meal with his university chums after obtaining his PhD. As the table banter of eating and drinking grew louder, Hawking's alienation from the situation increased, so much so he felt obliged to leave the table to sit alone on the stairs.
I witnessed a similar scene when at a family meal , my brother who was unable to eat a normal diet, got up from the table during a coughing fit to sit alone in the living room out of the way.
I remember the family carrying on with the dinner the best we could, while my brother in law quietly joined my brother in an act of support and solidarity.
I also remember that he kissed my brother on the head, a little gesture of sweetness in the face of a very, very cruel illness.
Funny what you remember eh?

When Was The Last Time Someone Flirted With You?

Yesterday we were returning " an item" to Marks & Spencer when the salesman kept presenting me with paperclips that had been attached to the sales receipts.
I was a bit perplexed by these theatrics and as we walked away with a credit note I  asked Chris
" what was all that about?"
Chris raised his Roger Moore right eyebrow in amusement
" He was flirting with you" he said somewhat drily.

Well I was made up!
Even though I hadn't got a clue what had occurred it is always nice to think someone may have made the effort to flirt with me, even though it was through the medium of a bent paperclip!

Who was the last person that flirted with you?
Answers on a postcard please.....

Badger Paw

The shop assistant was called Emma and she was very sweet

She looked at Chris' wedding finger and guessed correctly that he was a " S "  fit

He has the long slim hands of a piano player

Having said that he did get the wedding band stuck on his finger for a while

until Emma said quietly and without fuss

" the secret is not to panic and wiggle the ring to get it off" 

Of course she was right.

Chris waggled it and it slipped right off

Then she looked at my stubby fat fingers and said diplomatically 

" I think we'll try a " V" to start with

I can't help having fat hands

They look like badger's paws!

Early Doors

Tonight we went to the pub for early doors......it's something we never generally do.......
How exciting!
We thrashed out the seating plan for the wedding dinner.....and agreed that our friend John ( Bel Ami)  may well like to read something out at the ceremony. ( he's appeared on radio 4 's " Women's Hour" so IS a consummate professional when it comes to " do's")........I've already asked My best friend Nuala to say something and Chris' Brother will speak for his family......so I think we have all bases covered......
It's been rather fun planning everything .....and I am so glad the whole event is small and manageable .....so many weddings feed on themselves and get completely out of control........
Our wedding.......less is more........
Ps. I'm not used to drinking lager
Three pints and I had to have a crafty pee behind the Berlingo on the way home