What's Happening?.

 Manet's painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergere was the highlight of my trip to The Courtauld Gallery. There is something rather sad and remote about the hostess'  expression that catches the eye and it draws the viewer into the painting and the girl's possible backstory.
I listened to two elderly thespian types who described the subject as a prostitute which perhaps makes sense of her withdrawn, slightly uninterested look. I enjoyed hearing and experiencing their passion for the paintings as they tottered around.
The Courtauld was quiet, a thing I love when I visit a gallery or museum The silence and space, free of bodies allows you to think about the paintings properly

Today couldn't be more different. The weather is colder and damp, and the dogs are uncharacteristically quiet as they always are after the excitement of being away. I must also thank blog reader Amy today who sent me a blanket to forward on to Auntie Glad.which I will do next week, a very kind thought, thank you!

The Welsh poppies, lively in their yellow, spring colour are flowering in the garden. They have lightened the day

Casanova

 From it's first few minutes, I just knew we were watching something very special. The Northern Ballet's production of Casanova ( playing for just a few days at Saddler's Wells ) started with a real bang! A Gothic cathedral, with nuns, hooded monks and inquisition cardinals dressed in vibrant red gliding back and forth alongside an overtly sexual young Casanova, the ballet was a totally theatrical experience and a feast for the eyes from the get-go
It was amazing! At times incredibly moving, sexy, adventurous and wonderfully exciting.
I couldn't praise it more highly even though some of the narrative in the second half was somewhat confusing.
If you get the chance to see it, please do so. Even the Prof wants to see it again!

 

I had a lovely 24 hours in the capital. Breakfast in the skygarden
A visit to The Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House , a bit of shopping, lunch at Dishoom and a snooze in Green Park.....lovely xxx

Quote of the day

I arrived at the kennels early and caught the owner  harassed, lumbering and running late
" Can you hang on a minute!? " she called from the locked courtyard as she busied herself with collecting a collection of barking dogs.
" I've not stopped " she yelled "I haven't had time to even put my bra on!" 
I burst out laughing and despite myself I looked to check.

Now I am on the London train, having suffered the irritation of the many already drunk racegoers going to the Chester races. I have on my best disapproving Miss Jean Brodie face on as you can see
Hey ho

" A Herd Of Baby Elephants"

What is your best bit of the day?
I'll tell you mine in a moment, not that it shall be of any great surprise to most Going Gently readers, but then it will make a gentle anecdote to gently start of the day!
I was in Tesco's this morning buying a giant sized bottle of Prosecco- like you do!
Ok I must have looked like a slightly upmarket dipso preparing for a mornings tipple in front of Jeremy Kyle, especially as it was one minute past 7 (am ) but I did have a good reason. Winnie goes to her Babysitters for a day or so as I am off to London with to meet the Prof and another trip to the ballet ( my Christmas gift to him) and so the keep the babysitter onside Prosecco gifts will be offered.......anyhow as usual, I am digressing! ( I also forgot to add that I lost a further 7.5lbs at fat club last night!)

My Best Bit Of The Day ( now I do sound like a contestant on Just A Minute) is the few seconds " happy realisation " that I have returned to bed after 5.30 am morning walks.
With the Prof happily sitting over his boiled egg and iPad news at the kitchen table, the dogs, Albert and I amble  back in after a dozen wee stops all bleary eyed and still sleepy. Everything is serene to the point of coma until we all get to the stairs and the mad scramble for the best bed position starts.
" For Fuck's sake, it's a herd of baby elephants!" Is the Prof's usual comment as we thunder up the stairs and in a mixture of brute strength, the lifting of the oldies and juvenile jumping everyone ( four dogs, one cat and I) have managed to get onto the double bed within seconds.
It reminds me of one of those 1970 Guinness Book of Records pranks where 30 students cram themselves into a phone box! anyhow I digress again!

By 5.45am we are all asleep

This is my best bit of the day!
What's yours?

Black ( or was that brown?) Humour

I worked all yesterday on day shift, which was a change.
A nurse, who I hadn't worked with for an absolute age asked me what I would miss about work once I retire in nine or so shifts time....and without thinking too much, I told her honestly
" Nurse humour"

Nurses' humour is notoriously dark.
It is dark but never bleak, and can be rude to the point of making a docker wince.
It also can seem terribly irreverent to people " not on the same wavelength" , but it is not designed to be listened to by non nurses....nurse humour is for nurses only!

I've told this story before, but I remember my mother recalling an overheard whispered conversation between three nurses at the end of their terribly hard night duty shift.
One nurse hurried to the nurses' station and hissed at her colleagues" I've just found another one dead!" To which all three burst into nervous laughter!

I've seen alot of this kind of behaviour over the years.

Years ago a rather nasty neurologist who had come to the ward on which I worked to re assess a patient that was in a vegetative state, rounded on a sister who he thought didn't quite show him the respect he expected. After making a fool of her he then asked her if the patient had changed neurologically since he last visited
" He spoke briefly after you saw him" she said seriously
"And exactly what did he say?" the consultant snarled
" Don't let that rude twat visit me again" she replied.

It is well know that a "code Brown " means that help is required with a full bed of poo and rose cottage is the nickname for the mortuary, but these are the polite areas of nurse humour.
The hidden reality is much, much darker.......
.......and so much funnier!

Prof's Birthday Night Out

We went to a retro 1970s Italian last night for a meal to celebrate the Prof's Birthday
He enjoyed himself
Honest

Bringing The Outside In.

Yesterday's blistering blue skies have turned a cold grey and Wales has returned to it's native drabness.
The Prof has numerous deadlines to reach by Monday , so apart from a brief tussle with his twenty year old personal trainer this morning and a meal out with me this evening ( I'm taking him to a popular Italian place in Conwy), he will be hidden away in his office.
Like most academics his office is a functional place in which to work, and before he went out this morning he asked me if there was anything I could do to cheer the place up a bit before he started his writing.
Thinking of those lovely photos of yesterday, and after a surreptitious flit round with a duster, I decided to bring a bit of the field onto his desk to lift the gloom of the day.

When I was collecting the flowers I noticed that the baby rabbits , in their enclave, are all now showing signs of disease

A Photo blog

Sometimes I write too much. This afternoon I have been strimming the field. The dogs and Albert accompanied me. A lovely, lovely afternoon..here are the photos

The cottage with the Gop in the background covered in flowering gorse

Winnie spied Monika and her baby in the churchyard and went off to investigate

( they had sandwiches)

The Church

Albert

,

George and Winnie 

A rare shot of everyone together 

Irene and Sylvia standoff the dogs 

william chasing the batchelors 

Polish monika's little girl with Winnie And Wiliam 

The montanta growing over the gate 

Are You Sitting Comfortably?

" That's Winnie, she's a rescue bulldog!" 
So proclaimed a small boy dressed who was dressed in a blue pullover after he had crossed the road outside the school.
The boy and his younger brother stopped briefly to rub Winnie's nippleline  before being whisked away by a busy mom. The mother said something to him and I heard him say " He told us a story in school"
I remember giving him and others an outline of Winnie's history after being surrounded by kids when picking up the despot's girls one afternoon. They were fascinated and somewhat horrified by the fact she was not allowed to suckle her own puppies, their imaginations sparked by what seemed such a cruel and odd act.
Children love a good story..
Much of Going Gently is storytelling I am aware of that. I have inherited the habit of sharing stories from my mother and Grandmother who were naturally dramatic raconteurs of a good tale. Give them an audience, and off they could go, recounting oral histories of wartime dramas and near miss encounters with the luftwaffa better than anything Ian McKellen could do ever do on stage.
Family Oral histories are handed down through generations, that is until they are petered away by processes of dilution.
We have no children of our own to impart these tales to and the children of my siblings are now removed from the family memories somewhat which are themselves dulling with time.
Sadly so many of our oral histories will go the way of the wind.

If you could choose just one story-one to share and one to keep forever- which one story would you pick?

Myxomatosis

Myxomatosis has hit the village rabbits with a vengeance .
It's a terrible terrible disease.
The affected rabbits suffer rapid weight loss, lesions and tumours over their faces and genitals and die a painful death after respiratory complications set in only fourteen days after being infected by host fleas. Only perhaps 35% of the population will survive.
Albert usually drags in baby rabbits during the spring months and even he has stopped feeding on the field. It's as though he knows the animals are tainted and like the sad zombies on The Walking Dead the dying crouch feebily on the sides of the lane and road waiting to die.
At the bottom of my field, isolated by thick brambles, a small enclave of young rabbits remain seemingly healthy and playful.
I watched them this morning, playing together in the dawn sun.
I hope they survive this outbreak, but things do look rather bleak

Thinking

I facetimed my husband just before he went to bed in his London hotel room this evening
He 's had a crap birthday.
He asked me if all the dogs were on the bed and I said "of course not!"
Of course they were!
Hey ho
Before I went to bed Winnie sat in the arm chair next to me and carefully watched me for over an hour as I watched tv
I have no idea why, but she did it..... There must have been a reason....she looked so serious!
Bulldogs think..I know they do........but of what? .......I have no idea

Wiff?

Can anyone recognise these flowers?
I've filled the cottage with them today.
Delicate spiky petals in a starburst shape.
Wild garlic, grown on the borders of the field.
I adore the smell of garlic, I can't get enough of it......the cottage now smells like an Italian restaurant and I couldn't be happier.
You can't smell dog!

When I wear aftershave, I wear Clinique HAPPY 
I like the smell of fairy soap and find that carbolic smell of old hospitals strangely nostalgic.
And I love the aroma of pea and ham soup when it is simmering.

Roast chicken, fried onions and newly laid tarmac are favourites too as are honeysuckle and jasmine and I must not forget to add butterscotch angel delight, fresh coriander and nappy cream to the list.
But tonight, I'm happy with garlic

What's on your list?

Happy Birthday Prof!

Today is the Prof's birthday.
He's working away in London overnight.
I got up at 5.30 , made  him tea and presented him with his cards in bed before I was even awake.
He seemed to like my gift of tickets to Swan Lake at The Royal Opera House .
I dropped him off at the train station before 7 am and packed him off with a small bag of goodies from Marks. 
I went to Marks and Spencers yesterday and conscripted the jaunty Angela into my quest to set up the Prof with some birthday goodies. Initially I only asked the saleswoman if she had any miniature cakes ( the Prof like me is healthy eating) but after learning I was collecting a birthday goodie bag she warmed to our quest and helped me dig out a few choice bits and bobs which included miniature chocolate bars, little bottle of wine, a bag of nuts(!) birthday candles and the like. For a minute she disappeared excitedly into the card section and returned with a small multicoloured mass of birthday streamers and a classy party bag to complete the ensemble and then ooohhed enthusiastically when I showed her some posh moisturiser I had bought to beef up the gift! 
Middle aged ladies do love a gay shopping drama!

A Spoonfull Of Sugar

Saving Mr Banks was on tv last night and it proved to be an unexpected gem of a movie thanks primarily to the standard of the acting. Tom Hanks as Walt Disney and Emma Thompson as P.L Travers ( the writer of the Mary Poppins books) were absolutely top notch and at the top of their game!
The film was ostensibly the story of how Disney courted the prickly Travers in order to get her to sign over the film rights of her beloved heroine but it had much more to say about how the ghosts of the past visit the lives of the living, and not always in a positive , healthy way.
I blubbed through the final third of it like a good un.

We all live with our own ghosts from the past. Bereavement, childhood disappointments, parent divorce, sadness, illness and abuse of all kinds , being a child is often fraught with damaging moments that disappear under the banality of life only to resurface at inopportune moments of adulthood.

I once washed a patient's hair when they were on skull traction. It was a tricky proceedure as the patient, a man in his fifties , had broken and dislocated his neck only a week or so before, but as his hair was matted with blood after the callipers had been literally screwed into his skull, the job needed to be done.
Slowly I rinsed the man's scalp with warm soapy water, making sure that spinal alignment was maintained, and as the bloody water flowed away into the bucket on the floor I saw he was  crying away large silent tears and those tears just didn't stop.

This emotional  'reaction' to paralysis and trauma was a common event in spinal injuries , especially when a nurse performed intimate cares with patient behind the safety of closed curtains, but my assumption in this case was oh so wrong as I found out after I had wiped away the tears the patient was in no position to wipe away himself.

" My Mother died when I was ten years old " The patient eventually told me in way of an apology " You washing my hair suddenly reminded me of her " .
He cried for an age afterwards, the grief about his disability  finally being unleashed by a dreadfully painful and precious childhood memory of a mother lost.

Village Voting

The view from our bedroom...spring has sprung

This week the people vote for our county councillor representative and two Trelawnyd-ites are up for election.
I know them both.
Helen Papworth, a quietly spoken woman who lives down our lane, is a writer and illustrator. David Ellis has been a stalwart of the village infrastructure for many years. I am sure both would hold the village and its population as their priority if they were elected, so in the similar way that the BBC is publicly impartial in such matters I shall keep my thoughts on who would be the better choice to myself.
I used to be on the community council myself, but that was in the days that The Red Faced Welsh Farmer was alive and very much kicking. Then the community council meetings were an entertaining bunfights  with TRFWF throwing conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory at the harassed Chair with much shouting and a twinkle in his eye. It was worth sitting through the dross just to watch him perform!
Alas things are much more professional now.
I was talking about the local elections to a nameless villager only yesterday.
He said he wasn't voting at all, claiming all councillors to be " a shower of shits" 
We all have an opinion.
I bumped into Affable Despot Jason yesterday too. It's springtime and  he's out of his usual hibernation, so much so that he's started a new cycling fitness regime. "I'm up to 50 miles " he told me proudly, tossing his floppy hair and flexing his muscles like Gaston from Beauty And The Beast.
" It's a mid life crisis" despot wife Claire chuckled as she got into her car

New blog character " Tinkering Pete" waved as I passed and asked me a question on The Walking Dead. He was hoovering and cleaning the inside of his ice blue vintage Jaguar, ( something he does every day of the week- hence the nickname)
His beloved car will be entered into the local car show at the end of the month,the very successful car show which is organised by my brother in law Tim! See
http://prestatyncarshow.blogspot.co.uk
Mrs Trellis was practising her piano when I turned the dogs for home, I think she was performing ragtime which seemed a little incongruous to me, I wondered idly who she would be voting for in the elections?

Their Finest

Claflin and Arterton

Sometimes all you need is a good solid movie to entertain you.
It doesn't have to be sparkling, worthy or great.
It just needs to be satisfying.
Their Finest is such a movie.
Set at the height of the war in bomb torn London, it tells the story of Catrin Pugh ( Gemma Arterton) a fledgling writer who is employed by the Government's propaganda department to co-write an "uplifting" movie script.
Of course the path of such an endeavour is not an easy one as Catrin has to negotiate sexism, a temperamental diva in the shape of aging actor  Ambrose Hilliard ( Bill Nighy) and antagonism from a flawed but terribly attractive boss Sam Claflin. But with some plucky charm, the help of a
wisecracking lesbian manager ( a statuesque Rachel Sterling) and a fortunate meeting with two movie struck Kent twins who failed to reach the stranded Dunkirk troops in their father's fishing boat) all comes good in tbe end.
Their Finest looks all rather lovely. The stars are fabulous in their forties outfits, the backdrop of the bombing lends a certain drama to the proceedings ( though, in my opinion not nearly enough) and Nighy brings his usual and very welcome laconic charm and humour to his comic relief.
Arterton is rather good too as the sweet and not-so-innocent Catrin but the film is really dominated by Claflin who underplays his role as the bad tempered senior writer , eventually softening to Catrin's charms with a shy smile!
Their Finest is worth a visit. It's it's not a fantastic movie but it an IS entertaining one.
7/10

George

George now looks like a proper Scottie

He's twelve

And he ate 12 cocktail sausages all to himself as a treat in Sainsburys car park! 

A sweet, sweet moment! 

Pay Something Forward

Early today George and I left home in a miserable rainstorm.
It's his turn for a professional haircut
On the garden wall, by the kitchen door I spied a small bouquet of spring flowers, tied carefully in the middle with a miniature length of ivy.
The sweet work of Mrs Trellis, I thought.

It put me in a good mood, that simple act of kindness, and so it was easy to pay it forward when I eventually got to the pet store where the groomers worked away in their cramped windowless workstations and the salespeople tidied shelves and served the ungrateful public.
I left three boxes of chocolate eclairs for the staff to have with their coffee as George was lifted onto his grooming table. It only cost me the loose change left in my pockets
But boy, did it make me feel good.
The staff didn't need to thank me...... it was Mrs Trellis that should have been thanked

What's the last time you received a small act of kindness?
I'd be interested to know.

My Television Debut

Tim

There is something that you may not know about me but I have once appeared on tv!

Years ago I nursed an RAF pilot called Tim, who crashed  his Harrier Jumpjet. Typical of most servicemen that suffer a catastrophic spinal cord injury, Tim dealt with his injuries with a stoicism and bravery that was not only impressive but genuinely inspiring.
I remember one beer filled night when a dozen nurses accompanied a dozen patients to the pub which was located up a hill beyond the rehabilitation unit where we worked. After last orders as the nurses pushed their charges back to the wards, Tim organised the 'convoy' into an " aircraft V" formation with him leading the charge in the centre of the road and at full gallop the wheelchairs careered back down the hill .
It was a moment of pure , wonderful madness, with patients and nurses yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs as their wheelchairs bounced off each other and into the road, the grass verges and muddy ditches.
To me this is the essence of rehabilitation.
Risk taking, humour and a bit of stupid lunacy.

Anyhow I digress.......back to my one and only tv appearance!

Years after Tim's discharge from our unit the BBC featured his accident in one of their Emergency 999 programmes. As part of his story, a camera crew appeared on our unit to film some of the hospital based scenes of his rehab with an actor playing Tim in a wheelchair.

I was asked to feature in the fictional moment that Tim was mobilised in his wheelchair for the first time, so I donned my best, slightly tight, charge nurse uniform, made sure my hair was combed and squirted myself with aftershave and in front of an irritating ten year old director , I physically manhandled the 'paralyzed' actor from his bed and into his wheelchair by using a sliding board as the cameras rolled!
It was all very Hollywood, with me acting away with all the right phrases and caring expressions.
Meryl Streep couldn't have done any better.

Months later, the tv show aired and I sat for what seemed hours on my sofa for my big tv debut moment!
My scene lasted perhaps just ten seconds or so, and seemed to be totally filmed from behind.
And only one of my best friend's saw it.
He rang and told me honestly what he thought of my performance
" I saw your big fat arse on tv last night" he said dryly.

For Tim's story see
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/136189.stm

Gypsies,Tramps and Thieves?

Two " rough looking" types were sat in a open top van at the end of the lane this morning.
I noticed them when I saw to the bachelor cockerels, so put Winnie on a lead and looking like a local just out for a dog walk. I wandered over  to check them out.
As I thought the men were Irish travellers  and the van was full of scrap metal.
" can I help you? " I asked
Both men chatted in that machine gun speed brogue which is almost impossible to understand but I more or less worked out that they were asking who owned a nearby field which was dotted with old farm equipment.
I remained vague, unhelpful and mistrusting,
And so the younger man started dolling out some charm by then asking me about my "beautiful British Bulldog" 
" What's his name" the man asked, not noticing a row of saggy tits inches from the ground
Winnie raised her head and blew him a few bulldog kisses.
"Roxy" I told him, still keeping up the hard pretence
" Is he friendly?" the man asked again
" No, he can be a bit aggressive" 
The men stayed in their van
Winnie yawned and let out a mini fart.

Eventually the men drive off, and I let them see that I was watching them go. I shall let the owner of the field know that his field was being "sussed".
An old farmer, I once knew very well, told me several stories  of the damage the rougher Travellers did to his farmland when they decided to relocate to one of his best pasture fields just a few years back.
Before they were finally evicted ( by semi force and the use of local farmer friends driving mechanical diggers) water ditches were damaged and filled with waste, hedges destroyed, and animals owned by another neighbour killed and stolen.

It is these guys that give honest travellers a bad name.