Pride

Twice a day, when I'm on the way back and to from work, I see the beautifully stoic and grand Conwy Castle. Built in 1283 it has stood facing the sea, guarding the beautiful little town of Conwy from the might of the English.

Yesterday it was lit up in rainbow colours as a thank you to the key workers of our country and the single welsh word "Diolch" which means " Thank you" flashed across the estuary towards Llandudno where I work .

I was moved to tears, as I seem to have been done so many times this lockdown 

This week Auntie Glad was 101! 

So very frail and now living in a care home 16 miles away, Gladys celebrated her birthday with her carers separated from family and friends and the village Male voice choir who adopted her as their mascot many years ago now. 

Her daughter sent me this photo today to remind everyone that she was still with us and one look of that valiant, snowed haired old face took me flying back to the Flower Show Committee meetings held around her kitchen table , laden heavily with buttered scones and China cups with weak tea .

She would be so proud of her village if she knew just how well it's inhabitants had coped with this  lockdown . 

Today Hattie collected Mary from Trendy Carol's for her fix of doggie sweetness. and although the dog walker is back once during my 12 hour shift I still have to rely on Carol and her Hubby's good nature at taking the dogs in to her house for the afternoons for the girls to be looked after properly .

I could not have coped with things without them. 

Especially now as a single dad to three robust girls

Thank you guys so very much! 

I also have to thank the kind blog reader who sent me some homemade  uniform bags! 

I have used mine today and a dear colleague Quickly snapped up the other with a squeak of excitement .

Beautifully wrapped but without a name , 

I want to thank you personally for the kind gift ....so useful now that we have to keep our uniforms separate 

Affable despot Jason has bombarded the village social app site with funny , morale boosting videos and photos for weeks now. 

He is a one man sick humour feast! 

This is his latest Donald Trump advice photo to share 

And finally 

I have to thank all my blog readers who have bought my hospice's tee shirts ! 

We have done so well in selling them given the sudden lurve people have for our towns  goat population ! 

Apparantly.  Orders from abroad will be accepted 

Please google St Davids Hospice Llandudno for website 

https://stdavidshospice.org.uk/

Notting Hill

Before my I met my husband, I had a relationship with a man that ultimately and simply didn't work
It didn't work intermittently, so lasted in total for several years
Yesterday, I was reminded of the exact moment I knew that relationship was almost over for me
It was a moment that involved Julia Roberts.

My boyfriend, Philip, was a closeted gay man and when I first knew him had been so for many years.
I was a gauche and relatively inexperienced gay  who had just come out to his family and friends so we made for an extremely odd fit from the get go.
I had a big need for acceptance and heteronormality in our relationship
He wanted a romantic relationship but had two lives as well as two properties, one in the city and the other in the Lake District
He shared his left between Sheffield and countryside, and straight and gay lifestyles were interwoven between houses
It was a relationship doomed from the start.

But I was mostly desperately hopeful it would work.

I remember meeting him on one Friday afternoon to go to the cinema
I had wanted to see Notting Hill for a while and had  a weekend off
He finished work early so we could go and see it near MeadowHall a famous shopping centre and cinema complex
I was looking forward to a weekend together but before we even sat down in the cinema he informed me that he wanted to drive to his second home after the film for some " time out"

A love story was perhaps a wrong choice for a film that day.
But when I look back, it proved to be somewhat cathartic, for me , more than Philip
The film, as we all know,  is a light comedy in which Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts are sympathetically charming as gauche bookshop owner and needy Hollywoid star and the wonderfully
Schmaltzy ending had me weeping buckets even then,

Romantic films have a power all of their own, and this is especially true when the audience identifies with the story and invests in it , and by the last scene of the pregnant Anna Scott sharing a bench with her husband in a blissful study of coupledom, I was almost overwhelmed by the insatiable need to have my own  Notting Hill moment.

I remember walking out of the movie with our hands touching.
We were quiet and emotional and filled with the romance of the moment
" I feel as though I shouldn't go back to the Lake District !" Philip said quietly as we approached  his car
" Well don't ...stay here!" I remember saying , trying very hard to play down that moment so close I was to tears.
He dove back to the Lake District moments later
And I stood at a tram stop for home
And I knew then that the relationship would never work,
and at a moment in the near future ,would be over

Whitty, Christine and Bryn , Morning cockerels and the Church bell

I like The chief medical advisor Chris Whitty 
He is quiet, to the point and clear in his advice and his ideas
He has credibility and gives bad news without apology .
He's done well

What day is it today? I wasn't sure at first
Mind you one of the  cockerels had perched himself inside the open bathroom window at 5.02 am this morning and filling his lungs cock a fucking doodle doo-ed at full blast .
I thought I had just been electrocuted
Lucky for the little bastard , he managed to dodge several thrown bottles of bath gel and shampoo before he escaped into next door's garden but I did manage to give him a sharp smack on the arse with an almost empty bottle of listerine mouth wash

I never got back to sleep.
So I've been watching my phone from under my duvet
The Trelawnyd Street Warden's Social app has been rather frenetic today after Tim ( "Tim, Tim smart and not dim") , found out that our Church Bell mechanism has frozen and there has been much talk about how to get it freed up so that the bell could be rung at the  8 pm Thursday thank you to front line workers.
Even former Church Warden Christine Davis rang me up with some ideas to help which was kind.
Christine and hubby Bryn have just moved out of the village and will I am sure be missed by many of the villagers as both have been pivotal to village life and its activities for many years.
At the moment the group is trying to source a cherry picker!
How exciting

I'm back to work tomorrow and have booked the dog walker for the girls
after very early walks this morning we all went back to bed and watched the first episode of The Great British Sewing Bee recorded from last night.
It's what we all need at the moment
Nice people, doing nice things , with nice fabric
Nice........

Mark , one of the contestants !!! Cute as his buttons 

Zoom

Thank goodness for Zoom
The app is doing mighty fine in this time of isolation
Even in this tiny part of Wales
Tonight my family got together for a simple quiz
Nothing showy
Nothing flash
A child reading the questions out
A funny wisecracking nephew
A surprise of a decorated toilet roll as first prize!!
It was lovely
I love my family

 

Yesterday the Choir met and sang a much loved African song about a hypochondriac !
We clapped and sang and as always it was a bunfight of noise and chatter and giggles about silly things, brief personal news and of course of   Lindi's Charlie
( Charlie is in fact a dog!) 
I love my choir 

Speaking of dogs Hattie called around for some more  "Mary Time" today
I feel this could be the start of a new business venture

A Dog For All Seasons

I got up in a right grump this morning
I had florid dreams about a whole new cast of The Walking Dead and how they were fighting in a brave new world.
Covid related no doubt.
Last night I wasted too many hours of TikTok videos .
It's a new phenomenom to me.
Entertaining but vapid
I feel somewhat unsatisfied today

And so I've kept busy. The little yellow chair in my little yellow living room was marked and needed a shampoo. I had covered it but Mary's in season spotting had found its target and it was bloodstained
In a divorce you don't get maintainance for the pets!
And any spare money has had to be put towards solicitors' fees rather than spent on a bitch's hysterectomy which is something not covered by insurances, so it has taken me months to put aside a few hundred pounds towards the operation costs, an operation booked for the beginning of this month.

After washing the upholstery I spent a satisfying hour cutting Mary's hair on the garden wall.
Great lumps of Black and Tan fur wafted up the lane like miniature tumbleweeds only to be snapped up by the wood pidgeons and hedge sparrows who are busy nesting in the Churchyard .


Dogs hate having their hair cut.

I always think that they look guilty or shamed

Apparantly the Church bell's mechanism is stuck fast , so there will be no ringing of it tomorrow evening unless it can be freed up. A couple of the villagers are looking into the borrowing of a long ladder.

I've cleaned the car, made bread and after my sister dropped off some sweat pea seedlings, and bedding plants did some gardening with the cottage windows wide open in order to hear the dulcet tones of Paul Schofield in A Man For All Seasons running on Sony classics

Flowers in the kitchen window 

And facing the sun I. The living room 

Family Quiz on Zoom tonight

Lazy Arsed Video

I've been asked to show just how I get to talk to so many passing characters in Trelawnyn, so here is a lazy arsed video showing anyone interested just " where stuff is!!!" 

I only know it's Tuesday today because Hattie reminded me it was choir meeting at 6.30pm Tonight.

Questions in a postcard ...

A dog heals a tired soul

I had fallen asleep in the armchair of my yellow living room when a call came over the kitchen wall
It was well past 6 pm in the afternoon!!, I had been asleep hours
I answered it wearing just one croc and with dribble down my t shirt.
Luckily Hattie is made of Sterner  stuff than most .
She wanted  and more importantly needed Mary's company
The little terrier the ideal panacea to awful corona ward shifts at the hospital.

We we chatted I told her of the village street Warden app obsession with the Elon Musk's satellite watch from last night that had wardens around the village ( and indeed the night staff from my hospice) all watching the skies to see the 44 strong satellite train scooting across the Welsh sky at 10pm last night
She said she would have a look at the skies again tonight

But all she really wanted was a friendly supportive chat and a daft dog to spoil and to cuddle and to walk quietly with
And Mary is the ideal foil for stress.
It was lovely to see them both walking down the lane together

   

Night shift 1.31 am

Well it stops me from eating on night shift

Twittering

Blogging is much more labour intensive than instagram and twitter

I've just realised .......#dumbbastard
This I what I would have twittered today

• I must be getting used to lockdown because I now realise that The Archers are now not on a Friday night.# duh
• The aquilegia are flowering in the front garden and I've only just noticed....it's not like I have been away on holiday or anything.#pissboringcomment
• I've just bought myself an expensive new wallet on line.....what possessed me ? I think I have been watching too many reruns of Sex and The City ....#who do I think I am ?# Fucking Carrie Bradshaw...# Sarah Jessica Parker #silly money
• Someone I kind of know told me they found me attractive yesterday...I don't really believe them#postdivorceblues
• What am I missing most at this moment of the lockdown ? An empty cinema and a good afternoon film #irony#I lovethestoryhouse
• Our Hospice has just had a gift from a local school PPE visors # thankyou Ysgol Y Creuddyn #really???#REALLY????
• Trump allows some Florida beaches to open #arsehole
• I made myself a fruit salad for my supper tonight as the more than welcomed food parcels from  the village have played havoc with my underware waistlines #fatbastard
• Was going to record PhamtomofTheOpera on tv last night but realised I had already seen it on Broadway # gayboyshowoff
• Big up to Vikrim who sorted my life insurance out whilst he was working from home today# aviva good service #bad compnnection# hetoldmetostaysafe
• Caught Winnie showing walkers down the lane her " poorly" leg but was in fact showing them the wrong one! #fatbastarddramaqueen

What would your twitter comment and # follow up be today!!!!!!??????

Friday Thoughts

Trelawnyd  has a what's app support group that is coordinating the work of the street wardens who are caring for the elderly and the needy of the village during lockdown.
The group is run by Velvet Voiced Linda who clearly knows, quite naturally, just how to organise and manage an eclectic collection of people and from what I can see, apart from some expected challenges the group,is functioning well.
A separate warden social group has been started , which is more of a chit chat group between villagers and the Affable despot Jason, can often be found here posting humourous  and often ribald videos that entertain the troops.
Last night I watched a discussion develop between several of the village women .
Each one recounted how they came to live here, whether through birth or by accident or design and their thoughts made for rather moving reading...so to Wendy the Gop, Tracy Soup, Bunty, Well Street Bridget thank you for a good read....texting words and feelings is such a powerful thing as we all remain on our own miniature Cottage islands.
The clap for the key workers came loud and strong last night with air horns, saucepan bashing and Cameron the boffin's drumming adding to the din and it looks as though we will have a further three " claps" yet before lockdown is reviewed
Next week I'm going to ask if I can ring the Church bell
Our sister village of Gwaenysgor rang their Church bell last night and we can't be outdone

I am lucky.
I am back at work tonight and am working day shifts next week.
My uniform is ironed already

Mrs Thomas Has A Funeral

Mrs Thomas was an old farmer's wife
For the past couple of years she has been resident in a local residential home ( where I nursed her last year) but before that she lived in Bryn Rodyn Farm on the outskirts of the village.
She had a sing song Welsh voice, a bad tempered red terrier called Barney and made loaf after loaf of bara brith for one of my allotment open days , the big one that raised a thousand quid in two hours!
She was well known and well respected by the older members of the village community.

Well it was her funeral today.

I say Funeral , fairly loosely as all you are " allowed" nowadays is  12 mourners and an outside service of sorts, and so as a mark of respect I stood in my field with the ponies as the Minister led he family into the graveyard, the little knots of people separate from each other by the required six feet.
It looked like no Funeral I was used to.
The minister had a fine, strong voice and I could almost hear every word of the bilingual service from  a hundred yards away and as I stood the ponies congregated around blowing down their noses at me.
I turned and for a few moments exhaled loudly as they inhaled our noses touching.
It's always a magical moment when ponies do that.
A breathing hello between two species.

Everyday now in lockdown the Churchyard cockerels fly over the wall to have a brief meal of old cat food. They come because the dogs are all over at Trendy Carol's and there is no hysteria over their visit.

It's been a warm , blue sky day today

A Change Of Scene

Look very closely the second photo enlargement will tell all 

East of Trelawnyd you will find a low wide valley filled with a patchwork of fields, farms and occasional houses. I took Mary Eastwards on London Road then turned north behind Basil the farmer's fields towards the back of Gop Hill . Trelawnyd lies sheltered at the Southern aspect of the hill
In one of the fields I spied a tinyfigure and as I squinted to see who it was I thought I saw a faint billow of a pashmina in the breeze.
I waved and the figure waved back hurrying down the green meadow like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music 
and I was sure I heard " Darling John is that you?" above the chirping of the hedge sparrows .
Chic Eleanor and I  chatted for a while our faces meeting between a two metre gap in the hawthorn but then had to wave our goodbyes after Jo, Ian and "Eleven"walked towards us in a fit of frantic barks.
"Eleven" is my collective name for the couple's whippets, as I never remember their names. Eleven refers to the number of legs the three dogs own between them

chic Eleanor having a Jane Austin moment

This afternoon I have weeded the front garden, read a bit with my head on both bulldogs as they sunbathed , oh and arranged my latest cushion , a handmade yellow crotchet cushion from my sister. She made it to fit in with my new yellow living room.

Janet's cushion on the right

I'm going back to work on three nights on Friday

Body In A Bed

I wake early.
It's the warm light of April coupled with the fact that the cottage faces South with her head in the sun that does it.
I never think about closing the curtains.
I only do that when I am on night shifts

I started to wake around 6 am and rolled over against a large immovable warm body.
My queen sized bed , effectively cut down into half a single
For a split second I flashed to a memory of a couple of years ago when it was normal to have a warm body in my bed and for that split second I believed it to be so again.

Muscle and sensory memories flashed forward then back like a large wave on a beach.

Then Winnie , lying full length like a massive tan sausage roll smacked her gums like a canine Popeye and reality took back over as it quietly always does at times like this

Like the cat walking through the bead curtain scene in Amelie
It broke my heart for a split second

Can You See Lyndi's Charlie?

Lyndi sans charlie

It was Zoom choir tonight and Heulwen and Hattie and I shared some schoolboy humour when we all introduced ourselves tonight
One delightful chorister called Lyndi has a certain resemblance to the actress Margaret Rutherford in more ways than just looks and as we all have a want to do, she introduced us all to her very hairy dog lying at her feet.
His name is Charlie
As always the start of choir, is a bit of a bunfight and as we all waved I called out to Hattie if
She had seen Lyndi's Charlie yet?
The look on a few faces was well worth the Victoria Wood moment 

On Guard

I got the negative result of the local health board email this morning.
My bestie down in London laughed
" You will have to give all that donated food back now " she quipped
With the generally mild symptoms I have experienced I am somewhat disappointed I didn't have the mild version of the virus , so Im back to square one
Mary and I went out for a long walk in the cold sun
She's in season and is suddenly very feisty indeed
She has been guarding the cottage like a lioness

My Best Friend's Wedding

Late last night I received an email from two old friends
The email was titled
" We Will Meet Again " 
It was short and to the point

"So we keep being told........I bloody hope so.

Thinking of you .... keep safe xxxxxx

Ruth & Dale 

Sometimes you don't always say what you want to in a reply. especially with people you are not normally demonstrative with...
But last night I was suddenly  reminded of that scene in My Best Friends wedding when old friends  Julia Roberts and Dermot Mulroney talk about love

Michael O'Neill:
Kimmy says if you love someone you say it, you say it right then, out loud. Otherwise the moment just...

Julianne Potter:
Passes you by...

I wrote back something I wouldn't normally say after my first serious line of  " You two keep Safe", I added
" I love you guys !"

And moments later came the one word answer

" Ditto x" 

It's a time to be honest

Froth

Me and chic Eleanor out for a small jaunt at The Crown 

As played by Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman

I think we are all in need of a bit of froth
Time for a parlour game

Today's game people is simple
" In The movie of your life , who will play you ? 
As a young version of yourself 
As the older version of yourself" 

Be as inventive as possible !

  but I am feeling better this morning. I'm still tired and have a nagging headache but I do feel brighter.

Home

I have slept on and off for most of the day and feel ok except for a persistent headache.
The many kindnesses of today have been a tonic better than any doctor could prescribe and although
I don't want to labour the point into something that sounds something saccharine, I can't quite get over the thoughtfulness of others
Today Emma from The Old Crown dropped off her own hens eggs and homemade soup, and more eggs were dropped off by the gate by Heulwen and Derek only a short time before Greta bearing gin popped by.
Jason marched Mary around the Gop and Trendy Carol took the bulldogs all afternoon and Dr Polly and her daughters sent me a video from home wishing me well.
The phone has rung and clicked with scores of messages as I've slept and Sailor John and velvet voiced Linda, ( the head of the street warden initiative) have physically called around to see if I was still breathing.
And at 6pm, as it started to rain, Bridget from Well street left her family to walk across the village with a hot roast dinner just for me.
A home cooked meal a panacea against all known ills

I could have lost my cottage during my divorce
And I am so glad I fought to keep it and was able to remain

These last three weeks of shutdown have underlined that I am indeed home

The Queen's Message

Well I'm an old Queen Too so I too thought I'd say hello and thank you.
Thank you for the good wishes and the kind thoughts
I'm ok and being very well looked after even though my symptoms are not as serious as some have experienced
I was tested this morning for covid and will get the results in a few days.
I obviously have a virus and have the symptoms exactly like one nurse at work has after he caught something from his daughter.
We will wait to see if it is covid.
I have slept, off and on for most of today, and I have wanted for nothing.
A dearheart from the Trelawnyd Street Warden Group dropped off some home made soup and added to the garden wall gift by leaving a whole bag of food and toiletries which was totally overwhelming and my request for dogwalkers illicited seven offers in an hour as well as three new leads after Dorothy had chewed through hers in a fit of anxiety.

The food parcel 

Lots of messages thank you
Flis..thank you, Trendy Carol and jason  ..thank you
Lots of blog comments...thank you
I'm off to bed soon
But have just talked to my friend Nu who is helping out on the London Intensive care units without intensive care experience
I am so...so proud of her
Stay safe.xx

Oh Bugger

As soon as I got home,
I started to have some symptoms of covid and am now on full lockdown
No cough but spiked a temp, joint pain and now loose stools and have a mild hangover feeling
Worried about the dogs a bit
Have been referred for rapid testing which is fabulous
Off to have a sleep, if this is the sum of my experience of covid
I hope I have it
Hey ho