A Cat In The Laundry Basket

I had just settled down with Eurovision when there was a knock on the back door.
It was a girl from London road with a laundry basket.
" Have you got a black cat with a bit of white on him?" She asked seriously
A small still figure in the basket was covered with a towel
"He was just hit by a car!" 
The dogs started to crowd around
I took a deep breath
It wasn't Albert, it was an older cat with more white on him than Albert's tiny white chest star, he looked peaceful
I told the girl I would post her find on the village website forum and she left still sad.
Link
https://nextdoor.co.uk/neighborhood_feed/
I was watching the Netherlands' melancholic entry when finally Albert  walked into the living room after a day who knows where.......he sideswiped Mary purely out of devilment and she fell from the couch with a bang
He head rubbed each of the dogs in turn then grazed my cheek with his forehead in an awkward hello
And for a moment I found myself shedding the briefest of tears.
These animals will be the death of me

Fat Bastard Breakfast

The problem with low fat bread is that it burns so very easily
Smoke filled the cottage this morning so much so that the dogs and Albert evacuated themselves to the back garden where I eventually flung the cremated crusts amid some tearful coughing and sputtering.
I should have known better as Winnie in a panic of greediness tried to eat one burnt slice whole necessitating me to perform a rather robust Heimleck manoeuvre amid the aquilegia and poppies.
Dr Barnsley from the Rectory passed as the drama unfolded but had the good sense to keep his head down

We are waiting for the chimney sweep to arrive.
Usually I sweep my own flues!!!! Oh err missus but as the cottage fire is still filling the place with smoke when lit, I've had to get the big guns in.
Thank goodness work is paying me for working my allotted holiday week last week.
Chimney Sweeps don't come cheap.

Winnie will be in heaven when he arrives, all thought of her near death experience forgotten at the sight of a pair of overalls.

The closest she could get to the sweep was to lie on his dust sheets

The nice weather we are experiencing is allowing me to stick to my diet pretty well this week.
Now, I'm a big fan of the Facebook group Rate My Plate, in fact it is the only group I follow on line so for those of you that have not heard of it, all I need to tell you that it is basically just photographs of what members are going to have for their tea that day!
( and believe me there are some doozies to be seen!)

Anyhow I shall leave you with a photograph ( and recipe ) for my own version of  fat bastard breakfast
You can eat as much as you like  and not put on an ounce!

Fat Bastard Breakfast 

Ingredients 

1 tin of cherry tomatoes 
2 extra large eggs
Chilli paste 
Garlic
Low fat spray oil 
Sliced Mushrooms ( a whole box)
Seasoning

Light fry mushrooms in low fat spray, chilli and garlic
Add tomatoes and simmer until everything is gloriously mushy
Add eggs and poach
Pile high on dry toast 

Hope

I worked for almost two decades with people paralysed by trauma and accident and during that time I never once heard the question
" Will I ever walk again?"
In my experience, most patients already know the answer to  that question but the reality, and its a truly massive reality, of the whole trauma thing has to be put so deeply behind every coping mechanism going that the conscious mind reminds me of that time  I found my feet standing on the shoreline of an icy lake. The painful total emersion is buffered by fearful tiny steps away from that frozen water.

I once had the privilege of watching the spinal injury consultant, Mr Ganapatiraju Ravichandran ( know to all as Just " Ravi") at his very best. During a ward round, where a gaggle of professionals , medics, physiotherapists , occupational therapists and nurses surrounded a patient in a bed, he caught my eye that the patient and his mother needed a one to one moment.
As the others moved off, I pulled the curtains around the bed, and Ravi, who was a tiny whippet of a man, stood quietly at the bedhead in silence. The patient was a man in his twenties who had broken his neck in a diving accident on holiday a month before  He had no movement or sensations below his nipple line and was single with his dark eyed mother who had sat at his bedside for the duration
They were exhausted and both looked at Ravi very carefully.
" Nothing has improved has it?" the man asked eventually, as his mother covered her mouth with a fist and Ravi paused giving the question the dignity of some thought.
"No it hasn't !" he said his eyes filling with tears.
It was the first time I had ever seen him emotional in the clinical situation.
I sort of held my breath
" Can we still hope?" the mother eventually asked, her face crumpled and grey and Ravi lifted his hand to where there was a thin chink in the curtain surrounding the bed which let the thinnest sliver of sunshine to catch on his brown hand.
He and they looked at the light for a moment
" Let's hope together" he said gently, and he sat down to talk

( click on link below)
https://www.nature.com/articles/sc200913

Camp?

Australia's entry for Eurovision in rehearsal 

It couldn't be more camp if 15 drag queens, Cher, and Ryland had been trapped naked in a lift! 

A mixed Bag

It's 72 degrees and Winnie is melting gently by the kitchen wall.
She couldn't be arsed moving even when Trendy Carol tottered past sporting what looked like a New York baseball top on. Trendy Carol showed me a delicate piece of jade jewellery  she bought from her recent trip to China and said that she was fully detoxed after drinking gallons of warm water that was provided at every meal.
Her skin did look mighty fine I must say

This afternoon I'm continuing getting the garden into shape but after several people stopped to chatter I've given the job up until tomorrow as nothing was getting done.
One happy hole complained that the  cockerels were noisy in the mornings but I was quick to say that I was no longer responsible for them as they now lived in the Church grounds where they had sought sanctuary like Quasimodo did at Norte Dame. 
"Who feeds them " the villager asked in a slightly accusatory tone
" The Lord will provide" I said with a straight face .

I've managed to change my cystoscopy date this afternoon too, which was another good job done. My bladder has been playing up today ( the little devil) and I hope I'm won't be running to the loo a lot tonight at Choir as Jamie ( now sporting a 1940s beard as well as a moustache) wants us to tackle finlandia ! 
Oh lord....can it be done? 

Teeth and Wounds

I'm in a nearby town looking at properties I may be able to afford.  Im at that " amble down street" stage - getting the flavour
The lay of the land.
Having said this Im all hot and bothered as it's a hot day and my bladder is playing up and is in need of hydrating
Ive found a bookshop cafe to recharge in.
There is a psychology-esque going around my head today which goes
 Their teeth fit your wounds 
I think it refers to the phenomenon of repeating relationships with people who have similar traits to those who have psychologically hurt you in the past, (often significent others and parents)
Recently I have reconnected with a dear friend with whom I share the same "wounds" from childhood. Im not being dramatic here, its just a statement of fact that we had experienced unhappy times. The only difference between us was that mine was a cushioned childhood buffered by siblings and grandparents whilst theirs was more isolated and therefore oh so more difficult to deal with.
Im meandering I know as this train of thought weaves around my head , but it echoes a moment in last night's Game of Thrones where Therion the dwarf thanks his much more handsome and normal statured brother for being kind to him during a unhappy childhood
Teeth and wounds, wounds and wounds...we all have them

Coconuts

The thirty something woman reached over the conveyer belt from her position behind me and pointed to the box of wipes in the centre of my shopping
" ohhh they look nice I didn't see them when I went round .." she read the box " oooooooh with coconut oil ! Just great for removing make up" 
I smiled and had the good grace to blush
" They are for your botty not your face " I whispered
And she hid her face with her hands.
I love little moments like these
My bum now smells Gently  of coconuts !
Like a Thai Curry

Frank

It's not midday yet

But

I've made a will!
Endured fat club

Had my haircut 

And had a row with a miserable guy called Frank for leaving his

Labrador in a over heated car for too long.

Frank's wife kept banging on with

" Frank walk away , he's a nutter"

I told her that she was an arse hole too

Goslings

One day I will rear a few more

This was nine years ago

More memories to say goodbye to x

Chess

There is one thing I bet you don't know about me and that is I play chess fairly well.
Today, I played chess for the first time in ages.
It's a sunny day so Mary and I went to the Promenade to drink coffee (me) and eat a hotdog sausage ( her)
On a whim I took my giant chess set with us and set it up on the concrete steps near the water sports centre in the hope of a game .
(I have always envied those characters that play chess under the trees in those New York based film comedies)

I got a game too. A thirty something guy who, I suspect had autism, came over and asked me how much it was for a game . His mum and dad sat down nearby with a nod as I told him it was free as long as he played with me.
He nodded seriously and asked if I could remove my coffee cup from the board, which I did.
We payed two games and he won both and at one point we attracted quite a crowd of spectators.
He formally shook my hand before joining his parents when we had finished

Waiting for lunch on the beach afterwards

Bladder Bastard

Yesterday my bladder played up again,

This was due to getting dehydrated in London 

So like Tom Hanks' character in The Green Mile I had a rip roaring bladder infection to contend with.

My usual treatment (Bar antibiotics) is several litres of liptons Ice Tea and so last night-all night, I was peeing out the bugs every two hours without fail

Thank you nhs, but I am due a cystoscopy on the afternoon of my birthday...

Perhaps they will find something responsible !

I'm better today 

My sister- in-law and I went for a meal then out to see Tolkien, which was shite. 

We walked out of the cinema after an hour , which suited me as I needed a pee!
Off to bed soon with another litre of liptons!
Hey ho

Dusk

My back garden

At dusk tonight, all three dogs came out for a walk around the village with me. It was a  sunny night that was cooling rapidly and the delicate buttercup yellow Welsh poppies had only just bloomed in the garden this afternoon giving a flavour of the prettiness to come from the summer flowers.

There was a threat of a frost later.

I think the youth club is on tonight given the amount of shrieking going on behind the Memorial Hall's drawn curtains and the four of us sat on the green for a while squinting in the weak sun as the yelling reverberated up and around High Street as though the school bell had just rung for playtime.

With George more rested we walked on albeit very slowly

Past the affable despots' little chocolate box house and the bungalows on Bryon Street with their neat little green gardens. 

It was cooling very fast and  I could see woodsmoke rising over the bigger houses in the old part of the village.

Mrs Trellis had already drawn her curtains for the night

We turned back along London Road as George was getting a little breathless and had slowed his pace to a crawl 

Albert was waiting for us by the Church and was sat under the lytchgate like a sphinx' shadow.  He got up gleefully when he saw us and head rubbed each of the dogs in turn to say hello even though he had watched us leave only 30 minutes earlier ! 

Only Winnie gently head butted him back in friendly acknowledgement 

and the five of us ambled down the lane back home...... together

Friendships

I spent some time walking on the South Bank looking at the city, a sight which could have been a backdrop from a Mary Poppins movie.
I think it is my favourite place in London.
I wandered around the vast spaces of the Tate, enjoying the building much more than any of the art on show, then back towards the British Film Institute with it's labyrinth of  highly painted corridors and it's bookshop filled with exciting pieces just about the art of filmaking.

I caught up with Alex, a writer, who has been a blog friend for over ten years but one I had never met  and later with Kim who had been a close friend over a decade but with whom I had lost touch with for thirteen years.
It was an igniting and rekindling of friendships.

I think in my 50s I now do the friendship thing fairly well.
Having said that, I think I have always been fairly good in the role.
Ok I still play, as we all do, that game of wearing different hats with different friends and I am just as fickle sometimes when I chose to be with a certain friend because I need to , but I am way too old to be in that group that has friends they don't particularly care about.
Friendship is about a bond not about filling a hole in loneliness .

At one point Alex said something like "You are exactly how you portray yourself to be" or something to that effect when we are chatting about something silly I had observed , and it was a comment which surprised and pleased me...….. three hours later whilst chatting over a drink in the St Pancras Hotel Bar Kim flicked a hand over my trendy hoodie top front  with a laugh
"Grease stain" she commented in an unsurprised tone

Par For the Course I thought......

Alex and Kim

Three hours in soho pubs! 

Now leaving old friend Alex to meet kim....I may never get home !
Hey ho

Eve

I'm sat in a suitably London ish, beautifully appointed kitchen sipping coffee and watching the sky through the picture wall.
We always pick up where we have left off Nu and I and even though she has left for work the house shrieks of her opinions and her laughter.
This past year She has chased away my feelings of shame.
Or so I think as I sip strong coffee in a Scandinavian chic kitchen.

All About Eve was a clever version of my favourite movie. I wondered just how the nuances of those famous close up film shots could be captured in the theatre , you know the ones where Bette rolled her eyes and flicked her hair and when a shiverof hardness crossed Anne Baxter's face for the briefest of moments. So I was intrigued to see that the director Ivo Van Hove has brought into play camera work, great walls of close up shots of the action and cinematic trickery to bring those purely filmic moments of All About Eve to life.
I suspect you will either love of hate the play given where you sit with who is the best Margot Channing.
GIllian Anderson plays Margot rather more tragically than Bette did. There are flashes of homage to the Queen, where Anderson occasionally delivers a line with a diva's panache and spit but for the most part her Margo isn't quite so strident than I was expecting. Lily james' Eve is every bit as good as Baxter's performance was and Monica Dolan as Karen brought a toughness to her role  that Celeste Holm couldnt quite reach. Having said this, the famous scene from the movie where Margot opens up to Karen in a snowbound car is wonderfully observed in the play with Dolan stealing the scene with a sudden Show of emotion.

A Stirling version of a wonderful film and even though I walked away happy, I still missed Bette as the cornered Lioness Margot oh and I really missed Thelma Ritter's wisecracking corner-of-the-mouth hacking Birdy
No one could and will out bird Birdy

Best Laid Plans

Thank fuck for the internet!
In an hour or so's time I shall be sipping a grossly expensive cocktail with my Nu in The Atlantic Bar J Sheekey in Covent Garden, it's just around the corner from All About Eve at The Noel Coward Theatre
Tomorrow I had planned to catch up with some friends. One for lunch the other for dinner
The dinner one  has just cancelled as she is not well which now leaves me dangling somewhat and at a loose end for tomorrow night.
Should I come home early was the question that came to mind.
I thought fuck it!
A ten minute troll through last minute . Com and I found myself a very cheap ticket to see
Everyone's Talking About Jamie 
So after lunch tomorrow, I'm all alone in the big city

London Bound

Contrary to what my header would make you believe this is my favourite line from 
delivered with some panache by Thelma Ritter's Birdie, the only one not taken in by the angelic Eve

"What a story!!!!!. Everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end..."

Choir Mudita

I know I have posted a version of this lullaby before but this video honestly sounds like my choir did tonight albeit quieter as we had 30 singing
It was a night where most ( but not all) went so right and as we sang I caught the eye of one of the lady tenors who like me had started to tear up at the power of it all, and we smiled oh so  gently at each other
More Mudita
A Choir's Mudita!

Ps I'm not being so saccharine  here...as my nerves were somewhat shattered during practice by one of my fellow bases who never fucking stops chattering. At one moment I turned to my friend Peter who is a retired gentleman farmer and said " I'm going to smack him one if he doesn't stop,yacking" 
Peter smiled and nodded " You are a leader not a follower " he whispered 

Mudita

Beach Promenade this morning

I bought some conditioner for my hair the other week and got into conversation soon after with a gay friend who chuckled loudly at the fact!
"You and conditioner?" he laughed "Yeah right!"
I stood my corner
"I like the way my hair feels after I use it" I countered and I meant
I may wear unfashionable walking dead T shirts but I do have lovely soft hair!

I enjoy watching others take pleasure out of things.
The senile patient who will smile gently like a child when you tuck the duvet under their chin like a mother will do with their child.
A dinner guest who will soak up all of the gravy from their plate with a chunk of bread
A hall full of geeks reacting to Arya killing the Night King from GOT [Click here] (this has to be seen to be believed)

I once taught a nurse how to wash a  spinal injury patient's hair. The patient had skull traction in situ and could only be moved by experienced nursing staff and in such a precise way so that the neck fractures were not misaligned. It was a potentially stressful procedure for everyone involved.
I was good at this job,for I was a careful and knowledgeable spinal nurse .
I also loved the fact that some warm soapy water and gentle hands on care could have such a positive therapeutic effect on someone who was paralysed from the neck down.
The nurse who was watching the procedure was a Buddhist.
That fact only came out after the procedure had taken place as he told me about the meditation of Mudita
"You practice this in your work" he told me and went on to explain that Mudita is the Buddhist notion of obtaining joy from the well being of others

I think we all should take some time for Mudita meditation
I don't mean the bells and whistles and that chanting thing
I think we all should just watch and observe and take in the pleasure of others as well as we all seem to do with our  own.

Today was  a case in point . I met a friend for brunch
We had a lovely time and when it was over I stopped the car on the Promenade on the way home so the dogs could stretch legs and necks and bums.

A scruffy man stopped next to Winnie as she scrutinised him for a possible kind word and he asked if it was ok to pet her.
"Help Yourself!" I told him "Rub her bum she loves that!"
The man did and Winnie closed her eyes and went weak at the knees
The man laughed and dug his nails in a bit more which made Winnie spasm in her hind legs and lick her lips like a tart
The man was delighted and showed a wide toothless but oh so genuine smile
Bloody Mudita !
A cheap gift eh?....a bloody cheap gift!

A Pervert At The Beach

The last "normal" conversation I had with anyone "normal" was back on Saturday morning.

This morning I did ask my Hey Google pebble what time it was and she offered the correct time in suitably clipped tones. Apart from to the pebble I haven't said anything of note to anyone.

Just before I left  work this morning one old soul piped up with

"Are you going to kill me ?" from under her duvet

"Of course not I'm a nurse here! I'm not a killer" I told her

"They said that about Crippen!" she twittered

I've just had four such nights this week..vet's bills arnt cheap

When I got home I started to watch Line Of Duty but kept awake until just after Kate Fleming's glorious put down of an investigating officer interruption of her  meeting

I fell asleep soon after.

An hour or so later I found myself at the supermarket where I spent 50£ on nothing

It is sunny but cool here and the bright sunshine made me drive down to the beach to eat my lunch of tasteless falafel wrap and  chick pea puffs which tasted like cheese dusted mini tampons.
Nights make you needy for movement and light

normally I hate sitting at the beach without the dogs. I always feel that I may look like a pervert sat there by my own.
I must have looked even worse as minutes later I was asleep in the driver's seat my head and mouth against the side window.....I was  dribbling like a bulldog