Well That's A First !

Last night I was moved by an episode of Antiques Roadshow
It's not a phrase I think anyone hears often.
What moved me was the story behind a box of children's treasures, a box from the 1940s when a poorly/ housebound little girl called Catherine amused herself by hiding clues around her home which would lead the future homeowner to a hiding place which contained her box of goodies. The goodies as it transpired were simple things, an ink pen, a spoon, a purse containing pennies - a favourite book but to the present house owner ( who found the clues some seventy years later) the treasure was a delight snap shot into the past
It moved me greatly.

When I was out with Mary on our power walk this morning, I tried to recall situations that had really moved me. Times which stung at the soul and will remain with me always .
Even though this list will ebb and flow depending on memory and insight  this is what I came up with

• Walking silently around a near deserted Theresienstadt concentration camp on a bright sunny day and shadowing a distraught former inmate and his family on their first pilgrimage to the Czech Republic from Israel .
• Watching Five middle aged sisters hold hands and sing their dying father's favourite hymn as I reduced the support of his ventilator settings.
• The " ghost hens " ( six fat broiler hens I rescued from a factory farm) emerging fearfully into sunlight for the first time where they sunbathed with a breeze in their faces and grass under their feet.
• Dancing on the roof of a Sheffield hospital with friends in the dark and feeling more alive than I thought possible
• Visiting my first dog Finlay at the animal hospital he was admitted to for the first time ( and thinking he would survive a condition that eventually killed him soon after ) 
• Seeing The Prof uncharacteristically smiling too much on the day of our wedding.

Yours? I be interested to know

The ghost hens 

23 hours

I'm a cross between this 

And this 

The finale of The Walking Dead  is only a day away!
However my friends in the US are just about to watch it !
For god's sake someone tell me what happens!

Mentors

The Prof has gone to have his second sailing lesson today.
He has an experienced sailing mentor.
I am sat at the kitchen table completing some mentoring paperwork.
I am a mentor to two Samaritans in training.
If you are fortunate you will have a whole succession of mentors during your lifetime.
Parents and grandparents are obvious mentors if you are lucky.
Role models that teach you to "do as I do and not do as I say"
Sadly for many the credo is the other way around in many families.
My father didn't really mentor me in the way of manly things. It wasn't quite done in our family. I always thought that you father was there to teach you about sex, how to shave properly and how to change a tyre on the car.
Mine did non of those things, but he did teach me to drive.
" Always anticipate the other road users to do something wrong" I remember him saying and his words have stuck with me to this day
Funnily enough I'm a crap driver too!

Flashing

for Liz

My husband has worked away all week. he returned last night and has gone to work again this morning.

Such is the life of a senior academic.

I shall be driving over to the University later to join him and the other boffins for dinner.

I have just spent a frustrating 30 minutes trying to get William to have his medication.

The old boy is a clever old sausage when it comes to spitting out tablets, I wanted to weed the flower beds in readiness for house showing......

I caught two middle aged women peeping through the kitchen window on the lane at lunchtime.

They were part of a rambler group.

Other people's houses hold a fascination for some people and they were having a right old "neb" until I suddenly walked around the side of the fridge

For some strange reason I found myself pulling up my third best walking dead T shirt and exposing  my stomach to them, which made them jump back in shock ( or could it be disgust?)

I've never done such a bizarre thing before in my life

thank goodness I had my pants on

Passport Review

I've just applied for a new passport .
It's all on line now ...even your photograph can be downloaded digitally from an appropriate photo booth.! Mine was in Tescos!
I compared my new photo with my old one this morning.
Vanity has prevented me from comparing the two here ....
My hair is now a salt and pepper grey, ten years ago it was a lusty brown
My beard now looks like a badger's head and my eyes look tired.
Where does the time go? So sang the statuesque Julia Fordham 
She's bloody right too.
Where does the time go?

I'm typing this on the train to Chester.
I've got things to do there...
I may go into our favourite cafe, to have a flat white
It's always full of bright young things
Hey ho

Lifestyle Rabbit

The estate agents are photographing the cottage this afternoon. They will arrive in a moments time
The dogs have been put safely away in the car and I've done the lifestyle thing and put fresh Aldi flowers in each room.
The place is clean and tidy.
Surfaces are clear.
And Albert's decapitated lunch of baby rabbit has been removed from its bloody pool outside the back door.

Eve

"Hi John, one of the Sec’s has asked me to pass on the following. Len H (Eve H's husband) has contacted us and asked if a message can be got to you, to inform you that Eve sadly passed away a couple of weeks ago. If you would like to know about funeral arrangements he is happy for you to contact him on  ( telephone no) ta Sxx"

I haven't worked on the spinal injury unit in Sheffield for over twelve years and hadn't cared for Eve for a good 25 years but this sad little message floated to me through the Internet from my old friend and matron this afternoon.

Eve was one of my favourite patients. A party mom with a nice family , she dived into a neighbour's pool after a couple of gin and tonics and on a hot summer's day she broke her neck.
She was paralysed from the shoulders down and I was one of her named nurses during her difficult rehabilitation .

We became friends.

Despite her injury she remained very much the party animal . Gin and tonics continued to be quaffed but adapted cups with palm straps had to used rather than the best crystal .
Carers wrote her letters that accompanied her Christmas cards to me and when she was re admitted to the unit where I was now Charge Nurse, I would pop into her room and wipe away her tears of frustration at having a urology problem or a pressure sore.

I hadn't seen her since we came to Wales but she had always kept in touch albeit infrequently and I was touched that her ex husband had remembered me.

All this kind of caught me unawares this afternoon.
And the woman who came to buy the last of my hen houses said exactly the wrong thing
" I enrolled in the first of your " how to look after chickens" courses " she said " you were very patient with me when you taught me to clip your hens wings..you were very sweet..." 
It was a nice complement , a simple one. But my thoughts were elsewhere and after she had gone I had a walk around the field with Irene in tow.

And had a brief weep

Have You Ever Punched A Viking?

Mostyn Art Gallery

I had planned to drag all of the damaged old hen houses into the centre bonfire of the field today but the weather is so atrocious , I gave that up as a bad job.
It feels like a museum mooch day but as these are few and far between in Wales I have had to settle for a visit to the Mostyn Art Gallery . 
Tonight I'm going to see a Japanese movie thriller The Third Murder 

As I sit here having a flat white I remember a trip to a museum which went titsup after the person I was with punched a Viking in a display from Ye Olde York!
The museum was  in York and my companion was a paranoid schizophrenic out on a day trip.
Luckily for all involved the Viking in question was a waxwork dummy and not a jobbing actor .

I guess I was primarily to blame as I sort of knew that the patient had a thing about red hair, but the penny failed to drop after we entered the reincarnation of ancient York with realistic depictions of Viking home life and were suddenly surrounded by a plethora of ginger Scandinavian types.

The museum didn't have a security guard as I recall, just a matronly usher who was no use in helping me disengage schizophrenic from ginger dummy.
My patient got four punches in and effectively decapitated the exhibit before I dragged him away by his coat collar.

That was the last time I took a psychiatric patient out in public
December 1988

The Running Of The Horses

Even tv adverts can make a person cry
This one is a doozie !
It has every cliche thrown at it and it still works.
The group of people running to meet a herd of horses on a faraway beach include a lesbian couple expecting a baby, a wide eyed young girl and a man with downs.
It should, by rights be terribly mawkish
Instead it brought a tear to my eye

Telepathic

The Prof left for a week's work away before dawn this morning
Seconds later a certain bulldog fought her way under the duvet with a satisfied sigh
She woke me at 7.30 demanding a snog
No lie in ....proper blog later

Bum Marks On The Fridge

Facebook and blogging like most aspects of " social media" provide people with a Vehicle to show off. 

See what I've done, 

See what I've got, see how lucky I am...

See what an interesting , valid person I am

See me

See me

Like me

I've been asked by two people now to post some photos of the new( ish) kitchen. I think that many will think it a shame that we are moving so close to all the hard work it took to organise it....perhaps they are right but kitchens sell houses ( I am told) so it was fortuitous I got it done. It remains my favourite  room in the cottage. 

Today I've given it the weekend once over, and minutes after the last duster was packed away and the last bit of dirtymop water chucked down the sink, I am showing it to you

Of course it's not really like this....

The photos are there to underline how lovely I am.

How lucky andhow houseproud and interesting I am...

The photos lie

The arm chair never looks like the chair in the photo. The arm seat and back usually have strategically placed teatowels on them ---a protection from muddy paw prints. 

And along the window ledge , just out of shot in the first photo is Albert's smelly cat food bowl half filled with bits of horse that has had the gravy licked off it.

Just right of the New York arty cushion ( see more me, me me !) are paw scuff arks on the paint where Albert knocks his bad leg at every visit to his dinner plate.

They are there every day

And I wipe them off every day.

Hidden under the table George is keeping his usual low profile on his sheepskin bed. 

Despite regular washes the bed remains grey and "doggy" 

Not quite homes and gardens material me thinks.

Part of the kickboard by the sink is not quite square , there is a dust trail the length of Hadrian's wall on the new radiator and I can make out a clear bum mark left by William on the side of the fridge cupboard which I somehow missed in my frenzy of cleaning

See not quite perfect everyone

Not quite perfect .......

  

" We Are Sailing.......stormy waters...."

We have spent the day sailing !
Eat your heart out Rod Stuart..it was a flat calm .....not good for sailboats !
Whoa! Ok ok .... well the Prof and friend Nick went sailing
I spent the day with Nick's wife playing with dogs on the beach and eating tuna sarnies

A Quiet Place

Noah Jupp, Millicent Simmonds and John Kraninski

 As the tension builds in the monster horror movie A Quiet Place the audience squirms uncomfortably when Emily Blunt's character Evelyn goes into labour just as the killer aliens enter her house. The message unsaid but collectively realised by the audience is that babies always cry and the blind aliens only attack when they hear noise.
To survive, you have to be quiet!
It's a simple but incredibly effective premise.
And so in a practically empty post apocalyptic world we follow a survivalist family's quest on their farm festooned in light bulbs but without an animal that may give their presence away.
The family has a head start above other survivors. Father Leo  ( John Kraninski) is a tough protector sort whilst chubby daughter Megan ( Millicent Simmonds) is deaf allowing her and the family to communicate effectively by sign language, but a childhood game with a noisy rocket ship brings tragedy when the youngest son is killed brutally on a forage out for medication .
Despite the family strengths , the odds are clearly stacked against total silence and safety here. A crying baby, a deaf child who cannot hear the noise she is making, a nail on a staircase just waiting to be stepped upon at the wrong moment have all been set up to give the game away, and at times the story gets unbearably tense as the monsters move in....
A Quiet Place is what it is , a great old fashioned monster movie......
With a twist
8/10

" shut the fuck up" Emily Blunt

Plans

A Sunny Morning over the village

I've started to let people know of our intention to move. 

One neighbour kindly said that they were "stunned and saddened" 

Mrs Trellis was more pragmatic " How lovely, pastures new!" She trilled as her bobble hat wagged in the wind. 

I've also had quite a few " we will miss you statements" which is nice but I am in no doubt  there will be an Occasional pleased expression to our news..especially the by the villager who I had a run in with on Monday night after her unleashed staffie had belligerently faced off William who was helpless on his lead. Her dog got a swift kick for her trouble and I got sent a " You walk round the village as if you own it"  social media comment......

It's interesting how people see you.

I've just resigned from the newly formed community Association and my next step is to get the flower Show Committee together to discuss the future of the show. 

I suspect that the show will end if a new secretary cannot be found!

I have someone coming to view the good quality hen houses on Sunday and joy of joys now have a potential new owner for the skittish and lonely Irene. Dear friend and former blogger Sue ( and her lovely hubby) have kindly offered to adopt her.....so at some stage in the future all we have to do is catch her! 

A dear friend told me this morning that he always liked my optimistic nature.

Onwards and upwards dearhearts! 

On A Lonely Road

Have you ever broken down on a pitch Black Country road in the middle of the night?
I have.
Last night!
Around nine pm I was driving to my Sams shift when I took a call on my mobile. I stopped at a layby , just south of the village to take it and got talking to an old friend for good while
Foolishly I had left my side lights on and when I eventually set off, the car battery was dead as a dodo
It was chucking it down too!
I was in a pickle, so I did who so many Trelawnyd-ites do when things go tits up...I rang village elder Islwyn to see if he could help.. As it turned out he hadn't got any jumpleads and so I rang my breakdown company and prepared myself for a long wait.

Now the dark does not spook me much, but sitting in the dark,surrounded by trees away from the main road is a somewhat stressful experience especially as my mobile's battery was low and I am an old queen with a vivid imagination ! ( I almost wet my panties watching The Blair Witch Project)
Around ten twenty pm I spied a car's headlights though the rain . It was Islwyn , who had decided to come out to see if things were alright. Kindly he offered to keep me company for an hour.
Now Islwyn is a raconteur of some note so I was kept amused and diverted from thoughts of serial killers and monsters in the dark until he too finally had to go and I was left for a further half hour wait for the breakdown lorry to arrive.
I made sure the central locking was on
And finally got home just before midnight

The Lady With Fabulous Shoes

Do you remember the lady with fabulous shoes?
She arrived the other day at the same time as the Superfast Internet workman who was sexually molested by a certain bulldog that we all know.
She also had a dark expensive looking suit on that Trendy Carol would have fallen in love with , and so sensibility kept out of bulldog hair range by sitting at the kitchen table with me.
That lady with fabulous shoes was an estate agent.
We are planning to leave Trelawnyd.
It's time for adventures new.
The Welsh countryside has been a delightful backdrop to village life and village characters, especially for me, before this a complete countryside virgin. The community has taught me how to be a part of something and has given me a sense of self within that bubble so to speak.
The village has been very good to us.
And we in turn have been very good to it.
But all good things have to come to an end.

My Retirement has freed us from weekends that revolved around invasive night shifts looking after the critically ill and we are now feeling drawn again back to a life where just popping out to a wine bar, a museum,a cinema, some culture ! doesn't have to be planned and where someone has to drive for bleeding miles to achieve.
And so at some time Going Gently as we know it, will be finishing. It is a blog that started because of our move to " The Town full of wheat" which is Trelawnyd and it is fitting that here it will be ending.
It was always meant to be a diary of a man not sure that he had made the right move and it became a story of just how adaptive people can be.
I embraced the change we went through and I shall always be grateful for what that gave me.

I will however start a new blog on the day we eventually leave,  ( 3 terriers, a sexually provocative bulldog, one cat with a damaged leg and a Professor all in the same car, heading for pastures new ....now that should make for some interesting reading don't you think........?
I do hope that when the time comes , some of you will follow me.......

Some days....

.It's best to go with the flow

Death Goes On

The Walking Dead ( Ep 14) 
had a lot going on........
Tara has forgiven Dwight. Morgan is still mad as a badger ( mad storylines get on my tits on The Walking Dead) Nabilla walked into shot holding a pitchfork and Rick " the Prick" became a mr nasty liar again cos he hasn't read Carl's letter and killed that attractive saviour with the beard!
Add to the mix A normal looking Jadis and a regretful Negan, that bloody helicopter again,Carol dealing with another potential child's death ( boy can she act) and that turd baddie Jared finally getting his just dues and it's easy to see that the strands of story are all whirling around each other for the finale in only two episodes time.
Central to the finale is ( I am hoping ) hope ! Hope and humanity....in Carl's letter me thinks
Oh and a bit more humour please.

Tired

I'm tired
Even though my mother in law is the easiest visitor ..
It's hard work keeping everyone at home happy , healthy , fed and sorted
Last night we went out to Bryan Williams @  Porth Erias for dinner
It was lovely... but I was driving ....I could have done with two more white wines

Who would play you in the movie of your life?

Who would you like to play you in the movie? ( I know it's a lazy post but I have to look after my MIL
Me?
Jack Black as a young man...Russell Crowe now
YOU?