Hunt For The Wilderpeople

 New Zealand is not generally known for it's film industry, so after hearing that the quirky indie movie Hunt For The Wilderpeople had done so well at it's home country box office, I decided to give it a go.
Set generally in the Maori populated rural bush, the story sees troubled, obese teenager Ricky ( Julian Dennison) literally being palmed off on childless farmers Bella (a delightful  Rima the Wiata) and her bad tempered husband Hec (Sam Neill) by burnt out child welfare officer Paula ( Rachel House) .
Ricky is an angry orphan, obsessed with rapping culture and  gangsters, but his defences are gradually worn down by Bella's curious warmth and rather black humour even though Hec remains stand offish and cool.
When Bella unexpectedly dies foster dad and teen reluctantly join forces to embark on a strange " True Grit " journey into the bush, pursued by the police, an obsessed and angry Paula and a set of huntsmen.
It is, what it is, namely a rather sweet fairy tale of two lost souls who find each other and credit must be given to a grizzled Sam Neill who is happy to let his rotund co star hog all of the best one liners.
Having said this, as charismatic as Dennison undoubtedly is, with his spirited haiku renditions and gangster jargon, it is important to note that he is not your typical child actor, and does,  perhaps lacks, the emotional range needed to portray the more pained aspects of the boy's character.

Having said this, the movie is a comedy, and the cast do deliver a whimsically sweet story which pleases even though occasionally it dives into slapstick now and then.

A Moan

This is a moan.
And not one I will apologise for.

In one hour
I will monitor oxygen saturation levels, take blood to assess arterial blood chemistry and make sure the patient's entrotracheal tube is situated appropriately.
I perform tracheal suction and note all settings on the ventilator are written down carefully..
Measurements of heart rate, rhythm, blood pressure, blood sugar, central venous pressure are monitored and infusions of insulin , noradrenaline, potassium and fluids are titrated accordingly.
There are three infusion pumps and six syringe drivers all working together.
Antibiotics have to be retrieved, checked, made up and given.
All fluids entering the patient via vein and nasogastric tube are measured carefully
Everything leaving the patient is monitored too.
Pupils are checked for a reaction with a pen torch and sedation levels assessed.
Visiting family are supported and a plan of care discussed .
The nurse looking after the man in the next bed is helped to turn her patient.
Another nurse asks me to check their drugs before they can be given.
I have not even started to look if paperwork such as the moving & handling assessments or the nutritional audit has been completed and I need to organise help to turn my patient in the next hour.
I also need to brush my patient's teeth but as yet have not had the time to do so.

All this in one hour, of an eleven and a half hour shift.

The day before Yesterday, a chirpy electrician fixed our water heater. The part he needed cost about 25 quid
His invoice for part and labour was £82. It took him an hour to drive to the wholesalers to retrieve the part, fix it and have an animated chat about his bad back.
Don't get me wrong I was grateful he came so quickly.

Winnie was in the vets literally a couple of minutes. She had a painkiller and an assessment
£40.00 quid! Again I was grateful for the input.

The electrician's labour cost ...fifty pounds for an hour's work?
The vets? .................................Thirty pounds perhaps for five minutes.
A band 5 nurse on intensive care? .........£14 an hour.
14 pounds!
Go figure

Winnie's First Trip To The Vets

On the way to the vets this morning

Winnie fell off the bed this morning and banged her mouth on the ancient floorboards of our bedroom   floor.  It sounded as though the roof had come in but she did nothing more than half knocking out one of her stubby canines. Winnie seemed unconcerned with the whole thing even though the tooth hung over at a crazy angle and after a few minutes of trying to free it
I thought it prudent to take her to the vets.
I need not have bothered for as we sat in the crowded  waiting room, she nonchalantly spat out the offending tooth in front of an over friendly jack Russell.

It was Winnie's first trip to the vets, and as usual she took the whole thing in her stride.
It was the Spanish vet who was running the clinic and she took one look at Winnie's over serious face and lisped " Is she aggress-ive ?" 
Winnie opened up her mouth to show the vet her bleeding gum.
" Help yourself " I told the vet, " she won't bother you "

Bulldogs intrigue people. 

With their over serious faces that can effectively mask any emotion , they often wrong foot people that cannot read the more subtle signs that flag up bulldog happiness.

Old Bulldogs don't generally wag their stumpy tails in greeting. 

They don't lower their heads, or pull forward in a playful acquiescence when they want to say hello.

They just stand, and they watch, and they snort like bullocks do when they meet you at a farm gate

I love watching the public reaction to Winnie when we go walking along the local public walk and cycle way, for it's very like watching a tense gunman standoff from a very superior Western. 

Winnie will amble alone and at her very own pace.

When she spies a stranger off in the distance. She stops for a moment with her head held high and she will stare at the figure carefully. 

This can be somewhat disconcerting to those of a more nervous nature.

Then, rather slowly she will line herself up with the stranger, and stop again, her change of position meaning that the stanger's path, if continued, will coincide with exactly with hers.

It's this behaviour that gives her the look of a gunslinger.

Think Yul Brynner from Westword with Buster Keaton's face and you'll get where I'm coming from. 

In the past more intimidated walkers have become all a bit of a dither with the thought of a confrontation so now I am in the habit of calling out " the old bulldog is friendly" when people appear. The word " old" seems to placate nerves more than the word "friendly" and the subsequent crossing of paths when seemingly miserable bulldog strains her head up to a stranger to be petted or preferably kissed, always feels rather sweet

The Walking Dead ( spoilers)

For seasons now humanity has taken a true bashing in The Walking Dead.
Even Rick's group, now devoid of the moral compasses of Hershel, Dale, Deanna and Tyreese and with Maggie and Glen incapacitated by pregnancy, is finding it hard to keep a civilized community going in a world filled by fortified townships ruled over by leaders with their own agendas and way of managing a frightened new world.
The new baddie in season 7 is a real psychopath. He is also clever and uses proven psychological and physically terrorizing ways to control his environment.
Negan is modern day ISIS personified, and in that way, his retribution on " Team Rick" with his barbed wire baseball bat  is even more sickening than it could have been. 
Terror is king, it would seem.....its parallel with the middle east's medieval war all too apparant
And It's all too much.....
Having said this Jeffrey Dean Morgan is quite amazing as chilling and psychologically savvy Negan

The Walking Dead, is essentially an adventure story and adventure stories should be entertaining.
Overkilling two lead characters in such a bleak, violent way is not quite entertainment...but it was bloody powerful television
We shall see where season 7 goes eh?
" suck my nuts" 

Monday, Monday

I'm too busy to blog today.
Workmen have to be organised, revalidation paperwork for of my nursing qualification completed ( we nurses have to justify our practice by evidence and pay 120. £ a year to work after we do!)
Albert has the shits after eating a dodgy mouse and the water heater is on the blink again
Hey ho
The Walking Dead  is on later...perhaps I can have a big smile then......perhaps not"

In the meantime

Snippet

At 4pm Mrs Trellis could be seen tottering through the village holding a heavy saucepan.
She was somewhat red faced and puffing like a steam train when I passed her on the opposite footpath of the main road
" Is the Prof in? " she gasped " I've made you both a rice pudding"

The Affable Despot

I know that some people out there think that the characters I often describe in Going Gently do not, in fact exist! Mrs Trellis, Pat the animal helper, Harmonica, Gay Gordon and fat Mary....I have often had a barbed comment outlining that they are, in fact, a product of my imagination
I guess I can't blame people......there are always disbelievers wherever you go.

Last night, Claire, the wife of affable despot Jason, facebooked that she had been married now 9 years.
She posted this photo which I asked to share, as I know he has quite a following .....

See......people....real people DO exist in Trelawnyd!
Hey ho

Wedgie

The Prof was in a strangely uncharacteristic playful mood today
When I bent down in the bread aisle of Waitrose
He grabbed the band of my underpants
And in front of a dozen astonished shoppers
Gave me a huge and exceedingly painful wedgie ! 

Travelling Alone

Rachel has impressed me.
The thought of travelling alone  around a vast country like Russia, would have filled me with paralysing  dread.  even the thought of it has me sweating like a Hooker in church! So the fact that she is presently crossing the frozen wastes by train in nothing but a fur hat and the faint smell of vodka fills me with awe.
I couldn't do it.

I have only been away by myself once.
Years ago, after one of several messy break ups with a psycho boyfriend, I took myself off into Sheffield city centre in order to buy a vacuum cleaner. ( like you do) I ended up buying a cheap ticket to Seattle and just a few days later, I took myself off to the city of fish, clouds, rain and frazier without really knowing just why I was going.

It did me good for Seattle is a friendly city.
I mooched around the harbour and the antique shops, drank copious amounts of coffee, had a wet and rather eerie trip on the Puget Sound Ferry and visited the cinema time and time and time again.
I talked to people daily, had a chance encounter with a Japanese/American lesbian called Hisoka who gave me a gift of Alan Bennett's book " Talking Heads" and I recharged my somewhat frayed psychi which had been battered somewhat by a relationship that was in essence ....shit.

1001!!!!

Thank you my followers xxx

Sharing Your Bed

This morning's pile on...

There are times during the day when stressed new mums have some " peaceful time" in order to get on with jobs, have a bath, talk with a friend uninterrupted, or just to chillax.

These times are often snatched when the baby is napping.

" My time" is early mornings after the first walk of the morning has been completed, as the household  retires " en masse" to bed.

This morning I left them all to it. I had my nursing reregistration paperwork to complete at the kitchen table

Sharing your bed with dogs for a few hours is one thing, sharing your bed with a six foot academic is quite another, and it has always struck me as interesting just how normal sharing an all-too-small duvet, a square of mattress and a few pillows actually becomes when you have embarked in a relationship.

In our early salad days, the musical farts, the teeth grinding, the pig snoring ( me) would often cause a sleepless night and a  fractious morning at work. Now, those noises, the half arsed, middle-of-the-night- tussle to cover every inch of cold body with warm duvet and the get-up-in-the -night for a wazz are just a reassurance. 

Now don't get me wrong.....I do occasionally enjoy the bed to myself when the Prof is away and indulging myself in a bout of horizontal star bursts remains an incredibly satisfying thing to do, but the stillness of an empty side of a double bed ( the right side----I always sleep on the left) remains rather troubling after two decades of bed sharing.

I shall leave you with a cute photo of Mary ( shamelessly posted to encourage those last few readers who haven't officially followed me to do so) AND a cute photo of the wonderfully cool Selasi (who I have just seen on a re run of Bake Off ) 

I am sorry to see him go.

The cream on the nose is adorable

Aberfan: Cantata Memoria

I have just been watching Welshman Karl Jenkins' incredibly moving Cantata Memoria.
It is a multilingual choral work with a special importance for all Welsh people of a certain age for it commemorates the deaths of 116 children and 28 adults in what became a mining disaster that shocked the world
Tomorrow is the fiftieth anniversary of the Aberfan disaster.
For those that may not be familiar with what happened, back in 1966, after a period of heavy rain a coal spoil tip which had been mismanaged and neglected by the National coal board disintegrated into the small Welsh village of Aberfan. The slurry overwhelmed the village and practically destroyed the village school where the children had just arrived at their desks for registration.
I was just four years old when the disaster occurred but it has always had a certain resonance with me as I remember when , as an older child of eight or so,  I and my fellow classmates were reminded by our own teacher that most of the dead where younger children of similar ages to us.

The Jenkins' work is a stunning piece of  National and indeed international remembrance for Children lost in such disasters. It's been a long long time since I have been so moved by such an event

Fuck off Sweetcheeks !!!!!!

Now I feel, I may need to clarify something here
I'm not always a nice person.
When the mood takes me, I can be a real c*#t , especially when I am tired.
It's almost as though my inner gay drama queen/waspish bitch troll-from-hell takes over from that skipping Mary Berry/ Laura Ingles persona that I like to think I am for most of my waking hours.
Earlier today I felt like a real knock-down, gouge out yer eyeballs slap fest.
I was tired, this morning.  On my break at four am, I had just fell into a doze over a peanut butter-on-toast sandwich, when a visiting colleague entered the coffee lounge and proceeded to tell me all about their new kitchen ( completed with a boiling water  hose for washing the friggin skin from tomatoes!)
I covered my face with a Hello magazine and prayed for death!
Suffice to say my break turned out as restful as the latest Trump/ Clinton  debate.

When I got home I caught a very large beer Lorry stuck at the corner outside our cottage. The driver had ignored signs stating very clearly the unsuitability of the road and had taken a chance to shortcut his journey.
He was scraping the top layer from our wall when I marched forward like Bodicia, with hypertension.
" BRING DOWN ONE PIECE OF THAT WALL AND THERE WILL BE TROUBLE!"
I yelled holding onto a yard brush
The neighbours came out to watch!
" Keep your wig on grandad ! the driver yelled back just before his tattooed co driver cooed out the killer blow of " Calm yourself sweetcheeks"
WIG? G R A N D A D ? 
FUCKING SWEETCHEEKS! ? 
I thought I was going to have a stroke I was that angry.
Luckily , Mike, who lives down the lane intervened and with his guidance and with millimetres to spare the Lorry pushed forward, just as I hurried into the cottage for my iPad camera to record the debacle.

Out with anger
In with love..........
Off to bed....
NO ONE RING ME!!!!!!

For Anne Marie

The day before a night shift often feels like a " nothing day"
I grab a couple of hours sleep in the afternoon if I can,.....the rest of the time , I try to catch up with chores.
I prefer the word chores to jobs.

This morning I was worried that blog Rachel had been rather quiet in the middle of her jaunt across Russia. Now I understand she has been drunk and naked on a three day train journey through Siberia.
It sounds all too 1960s for my liking.
But at least she's alive........I did have visions of her being tied up and bitch slapped by some lesbian guard in a gulag somewhere very cold.

Winnie has the shits over the last 24 hours so has enjoyed a bespoke lunch of rice and chicken.
She sneezed in the middle of the rice and has " pebble dashed by newly painted green walls in the living room. (With the rice and not the shit)
I left George removing every individual grain with meticulous care as I am on my third trip outside to retrieve the washing as yet another heavy shower has soaked the garden

I've made curried parsnip soup.

I've collected all of the paperwork, photos and certificates which have been sorted, and have put all away into the living room cupboard whilst watching an episode of the new series of Taskmaster 
( Taskmaster is a comedy show where 5 comics undergo strange tasks set for them by the very funny Greg Davies)

Taskmaster is the only thing that has made me smile all day.....
I shall leave you with some photos requested by Anne Marie
New stove, new Windows, new fridge.....
God help me!

Family Ties

My elder sister is researching our family tree.
I am interested predominately in the maternal branch of the family which seems to originate between Quaker stock from Bristol and poor Irish folk from the back and beyond but my sister quite rightly is collating all the information from both sides.
Yesterday we went to see Joyce, my father's cousin to see if she could furnish us with more information.. Approaching 90 she is the oldest surviving member of his side of the family.

We chatted about this and that , made notes of a long forgotten aunt and had tea and cake, so my sister and I were not quite prepared when our host, with unexpected candour talked about just how dour and bad tempered our grandfather, her uncle, was.
In those days my great grandfather presided over his children with a somewhat iron and controlling fist and each one lived in a house which he had built, the houses set in a row. My grandparents brought up my father and his brothers right next door to Joyce and she remembered just how cruel my grandfather was to my father.
" we heard the beatings through the wall you see" Joyce told us " He used a belt with a.buckle and he never hit the younger boys just Ronnie..Ronnie was the eldest of course, it was always Ronnie that was beaten"
Joyce then recalled that the punishments became so bad that, that her grandfather was informed and subsequently intervened. And it was thought that the abuse stopped although they were never quite sure it did.
When he was alive , my father never spoke of this time at home.
This snippet of a sad part of my father's childhood upset both me and my sister, perhaps for different reasons.
I looked at him in a slightly different light than I had before , for I know, that it is common that the eldest child will often take abusive behaviour from a parent in a way of protecting other siblings.
Apart from the odd 1960s/70s smack , my father was in no way a cruel man with his children. In many ways, especially in later life, he was indeed a sensitive soul.
That's why this news, perhaps sounded so shocking.


* the photo is of the autumn sun glowing on the trees of the churchyard and was taken by teenage boffin Cameron

The Ghost Of Ty Wynne

Having said, only yesterday, that affable despot Jason is in the process of hibernating for the duration of the winter, I caught him outside his house " Ty Wynne" on Chapel Street in a pair of shorts during a break in the clouds.
I had just bumped into Mrs Trellis ( who thoughtfully invited the Prof and I around next Sunday morning for " good coffee and croissants") when I spied him and we fell into conversation about devil clowns running amok all over the country.
" There is a strangeness about this road at night" he added finally, when all clown talk was over
" sometimes you feel as though you are being watched"
A shiver went down my spine.
Now Jason lives on one of the oldest roads in the village. Although surrounded by houses and cottages, there are only two dwellings on the street, his house and Chapel house, both homes separated by the chapel which used to be the indoor market way back in 1700. Chapel street runs down the side of the village Hall.
When I was researching the history of the market Hall, I heard a strange story from Graham, the local handyman and Shepherd.
I quote from my sister blog Trelawnyd: Voices From The Past of his experience

In the early 1970s Ty Wynne featured in a somewhat creepy tale. Local small holder Graham Jones was just leaving the memorial hall one wintry and rainy night.. He had been playing snooker  and as he got on his bicycle he saw a figure of a man standing in the gateway of Ty Wynne.
The man was wearing an old fashioned long coat and hat, and seemed to acknowledge Graham before he cycled for home.
Literally a minute later Graham approached his home along London road and was astonished and frightened to see the same man standing alone outside his own gate!
Graham wisely stopped and returned for the morale support from his friends back in the hall and by the time he returned mob handed the "man" had vanished" 

Before I told Jason the story, he added to his, that he had often " quickened his step" when walking towards home at night because of the eerie feel of the place, something that was compounded one day when his daughter Eve went to play with a girl, whose house backed onto the road.
Both girls ran back home crying. They had been frightened by a strange man standing behind the memorial hall.
He was wearing a long old fashioned coat!

An Old Dog

In a position of absolute power, George slept between the Prof and I last night.

An old dog,with tired black button eyes.

A loyal old boy who asks for nothing.

Who demands nothing

And who is happy with his lot.

An old dog is near perfection

Btw.....I have a ghost story to share tomorrow! .......

Village News

Sandra on her allotment in the centre of the village,

The left part of the house behind her is auntie Glad's

The Prof is working this morning at campus so as the day resembles the greyness that Rachel loves so much in urban Russia, I am presently catching up with blog reading, the national news and  a good coffee.
Autumn is here and as so happens in Trelawnyd, the village seems to be shutting down for the winter.
Affable despot Jason has already told me that he will see me in the spring.
" I hibernate in the winter" he told me just the other day. His daughters were selling homemade bracelets at their garden gate at the time and Liv gave me one for the Prof.
That will umph his street cred with the younger undergraduates!

Sandra C knocked on our door yesterday. She was all breathless and giggly and reminded me of a cross between Felicity Kendal and and young Joanna Lumley.
Sandra is perhaps the nicest person in Trelawnyd.
She had tied her new pug to the gate where he stood smiling broadly at me.
Trust Sandra to have an equally happy and sweet natured dog.

" I 'm organising a Christmas fayre in the village hall in December and don't know what to do"  she gasped. Apparently the hall is in need of some decoration and funds need to be raised, she had offered and already she had some ideas for the music, a father Christmas,.......could I tell her about the legalities of raffle tickets, who could do the  food? was she allowed cream on the mince pies and could I introduce the singing school children....seeing that I could make a speech at the opening of a fridge door?. ......it all came out in a rush!
As a trained Samaritan, I found it pretty easy to calm things down and sent her away with some helpful  information, and the promise that I would galvanise a few volunteers to " do the refreshments"
" delegate key jobs" I told her " and have a jumble table in one corner......tat always sells"

Anyway for locals that may read going gently the fayre will take place on the 3rd of December....
If you have any further ideas to help out, donations for the raffle, offers of volunteering etc please contact a slightly stressed and goggle eyed Sandra at her house on Llys Mostyn.

My coffee has gone cold, but I like it that way....Albert is play fighting with Mary as the sun comes out, and the cottage bursts into light and life

Right, I'll go now, Saturdays are always low blogger reader days and so a long rambling blog entry is sometimes a waste of time, but I wanted to welcome the new commentators and visitors to Going Gently who numbers seemed to have increased recently. Ive only got 61 followers to go to shamelessly reach my 1000 ( and then I can die happy)
" I can't believe that so many people read your shit" one of my fellow nurses playfully commentated recently. " Old ladies, birds in tin cans, and homos... I just don't see the appeal "

" people enjoy a funny fairytale " I told her
" You're sooo gay" she told me back.

First Time

As promised...the Prof when we first met

Handsome boy!

Paperwork

It's a wet and miserable Friday.
Apart from the usual chores and my weekly Auntie Glad visit, I've been thinking of what else to do today.
I have decieded on " spring cleaning" our paperwork.
Now the kitchen table is awash with files, bills, photographs, old cards, certificates, receipts, memorabilia and officialdom.
The important and the rubbish, all retrieved from drawers, from the old wooden writing slope of the Prof's that I've never opened, from gaps in the book shelves and from the little arts and crafts desk standing in the living room by the stairs.

I note that most of the photographs are older ones, now we reply on icloud and laptops to store our memories.
They feature me with a waist and the Prof with hair.
Wedding cards wrapped in ribbon. Orders of service from ten funerals. Old school reports, University   assignments from a film degree course - marks all over 70%! Dog pedigrees, nursing peformance reviews. A black bordered card from Ethel Kennedy thanking my mother for her card of condolence, my father's wartime identity card.
Birth certificates, death certificates, certificates and more certificates.

The history of two lives. Sorted into piles on the kitchen table.