Ponies’ Noses

 

Mrs Trellis’ bobble hat Seems to be a fashion icon

My last day of isolation and I’ve no internet! 

I’m typing this on my phone with fat fingers

It’s still raining and

I’m stood under the Churchyard Elm which offers a little production.

I am refreshingly wet.

I’ve just visited the ponies in the field and stood for an age breathing in their breath and letting them do the same.

There is something magical in this sort of connection. 

Something peaceful.

I came out to check if my field hedges have been cut and shaped and indeed they have been. This time of year, tractors pulling great arms of cutters fill the lanes and roads and overgrown hawthorn hedges Suddenly become neat, and square and impressive.

The countryside remains a dirty, muddy brown green and

I haven’t seen anyone human today

With the only exception of Mrs Trellis’ bobble hat which bounced past the field borders up the lane at a jaunty angle.

“ For the days that drag our souls into dreary circles “

 

Wales, like Seattle, is well known for its somewhat wet climate.

It has rained heavily every day here for the past ten days or so, and everything is muddy and wet and slimy. My friend’s ponies have been brought down from their treacherously wet and steep field on the Gop to graze on my field in the safety of flat ground.

It’s nice to see them feeding, the steam rising off their bodies in the wet

This muggy feeling in itself is exhausting and I find myself longing for a dry garden path and some weak sun on my face. 

A gift of a book showing a collection of Andrew Wyeth paintings lifted the gloom nicely today 

I lit the fire too, just after breakfast

Old Welsh Cottages get cold quickly if left unchecked.

I FaceTimed my friend Ruth who sent me some scotch eggs then spoke to a lady called Lydia from the office of National Statistics Wales who interviewed me about how I felt about Covid 

One of the questions was about eating enough which was sobering 

She told me that I get a ten pound voucher for helping out, it’s sad that everyone needs to be paid for helping out 

My personal lockdown finishes on Thursday. 

So it was lovely of my niece in law and great niece to FaceTime me this afternoon with a magic show 

Thank god for FaceTime 

I will leave you with a bit of Ella and the sublime My Funny Valentine 

    

Nice Day

 

It’s been a nicer day today.

I Cleared the old knitting bag in the living room and found lots of old wool and knitting needles needing a new home, so I passed them onto Karen at the still house near the village pond who is big in the village WI  . We had a lovely chat , distanced by 20 yards .

Mary rubbed herself into a muddy puddle as we caught up 

This afternoon , I read lots of old journals written in the 1990s ....Tons of things I didn’t remember 

Lord.........

I’ve planned a silly zoom quiz on a Thursday 

Anyone else that wants to join in just let me know your emails 

It’s been fun to organise 

I was supposed to work today so the dog walker came, but not the usual sexy bearded one  we are all used to  . The young girl  that stood in couldn’t cope with Dorothy and brought her back within 5 minutes 

Dorothy lay flat chested on the floor when they returned grinning hopefully

Bless her.

Hey ho

Sheffield Central Library 1992

 

When I lived in Sheffield, in those early days, when I was single.

I would sometimes find myself with nothing to do on a day off from work.

My favourite place to go was to the Art Deco grandeur of the Central Library, where I would select a few reference books and sit at one of the square and worn desks to read and to watch people.

I was once asked out on a date by a student in a scruffy green jumper there

He left a note with his telephone number on a slip of paper on my desk as he walked by.

I rang the number 

He was cute.

I was reminded today of the library, and the desks and of a young woman crying over her studies. 

Even though she had her back to me, I could tell that she was crying. The hunch of her back, the frantic search for a tissue in her satchel. The sudden flop of her head to one side to rest on her palm.

I watched her for a while .

Four desks back and a little to her right.

I wasn’t the only person to notice

To my left another young woman was watching and we briefly glanced at each other, an audience of two to someone else’s misery.

The second woman, I presumed was Muslim as she wore a hijab.

In between glances of our books, we kept an eye on the crying woman and it was only a few moments later when a third person, a youngish man with a pencil behind his ear noticed the distressed woman and from his desk a couple in front of her, he turned and asked her if she was alright. 

The Muslim woman and I couldn’t hear what was said so I wasn’t really surprised when she got up and walked up to the girl and knelt down beside her and three strangers carried on a conversation, I could only guess about.

The Muslim woman put her hand supportively into the curve of the woman’s back and there was much nodding with the man in front smiling gently . his head turned.

Eventually the crying woman stood up with a tissue to her face and with the Muslim woman’s hand still around her they walked up the aisle passed me.

“ Can you watch my things?  “ the Muslim woman said to me as they passed “ We are going for a coffee

I nodded and said “Sure” 

And I did. 

I never got to know what the problem was and why the girl was so distressed.

The muslin woman eventually returned and when I asked if everything was alright, diplomatically said

she’s ok now” 

I didnt ask anything else but did say “ You were very kind” to which the Muslim woman said something thing like” noom” 

And I felt I had just been part of something so small but something potentially rather special.

Sleeping Mary and Quiz

Watching tv tonight

It’s a wild stormy night and the electric has been off twice

It’s not food on my shirt it’s bulldog slobber

I’ve organised a silly quiz for thursday 8pm GMT

Anyone interested give me your email 

Connery

 

Today’s film treat was a largely unknown but rather entertaining Space Western called OUTLAND.

Made in 1980 it was a kind of remake of the classic High Noon with a mining space station on  Jupiter a Moon standing in for the town of Hadleyville.

The film has Sean Connery in the famous Gary Cooper role with Frances Sternhagen playing his surprising ally in the altered Katy Jurado role, and the whole film is a refreshing twist on the “ sheriff with no friends storyline.  

I liked the late Connery in this homage. He underplayed the quiet hero type very well and his scenes with Sternhagen as the foul mouthed over-the-hill station doctor in need of redemption have a rather moving power about them 

Skid Marks on The Duvet

 

Five days to go

And I’ve morphed into a cross between Bridget Jones and a sweaty wombat 

A wombat with a five day old T shirt on.

It’s not a pretty sight.

I FaceTimed a friend yesterday who asked me when I had eaten avocados

That was 2 days previously.

If I put the t shirt in hot water, I’d make soup! 

It’s time to get a grip

I need a bath, a shave and a change of clothes 

I did wash the pots this morning, only because I had run out of spoons

But the only person I’ve seen today is the postman 

He’s the cheerful one that either calls  me “ Bud “ or “ John” depending on his mood

Today he asked me if I was ill

“Track and Trace “ I told him in way of explanation

He looked at my odd socks, grey tracksuit bottoms ( the ones with the paint stains) and nodded Sympathetically 

“I ve seen a few of you the last few weeks” he said

“ Some people never get out of their pyjamas “

I’m didn’t tell him I don’t own pyjamas

I had a pot noodle for breakfast, I found it at the back of the cupboard next to my emergency flour reserves.

The jigsaw still lies half finished on the kitchen table and I’ve only just finished the Julie Walters autobiography 

My friend David told me that I had let myself go yesterday when we talked on zoom.

You look like Joan Crawford in Baby Jane” he confided and when I admitted at not brushing my teeth for two days concluded that I was a very poor example of a homosexual male and that I should be ashamed of myself 

I flipped him the finger and had another coconut macaroon, the last of the ones Hattie Delivered the other day...

I decided to get a “ruddy grip Ruby” and thought to myself what Thora Hird would have done at this moment of personal crisis 

Yes, she would have had a strip wash at the sink, spat and cleaned her glasses and put on a fresh pair of pants, there was no space for slatterns in Thora’s world.

So....I ve ran a bath and filled it with some Imperial leather Polynesian Moonlight bubble bath 

The T shirt has been discarded into a very large pile of To do washing 

And Dorothy’s skid mark has been buffed from the corner of the duvet

Well I hope it was Dorothy’s 

Poo

 

Lockdown has brought the worst out of the anxiety ridden Dorothy 

as the neurotic bulldog hates change and now follows me everywhere I go 

This is her when I went to the loo

At least she Is looking in the opposite direction. 

She’s a brittle girl

Candle Overload

Last night I put a request on the village what’s app group

I didn’t  need food or pet stuff or logs

No

I needed what all good homosexual middle aged men need when they are isolating with flatulent bulldogs

in a very small cottage

Yes,I put a request out for.......

Scented candles!!!!!

The great and the good of Trelawnyd (Nick&Linda, Bunty,Tracey Manchester, Heulwen,Mrs Trellis etc) jumped to the challenge and now I have a whole shopsworth of candles to play with over the next few days

“ The place will look like a friggin Church,” one wag told me when I showed him the collection and was suitable moved when I showed him the other kind donations ...namely homemade soup, sweets, biscuits, a jigsaw, baguettes and butter, flowers all left on the kitchen wall

I will leave you with wonderfully light video....it will bring a smile to any face

She’s having a blast!

 

Anger....let’s explore it

 Anonymous5:03 pm

“Asyou've said yourself in the comments NO you aren't allowed to walk the dogs you are ISOLATING

I had thought better of you but it seems like you're just like all the other rule breaking Covid idiots who think the rules don't apply to them.

Obviously the community knows you're isolating as they're bringing you stuff but I wonder what they think of you acting like an arsehole and disregarding the rules.  

You deserve to be reported and fined.”

So said one of my commentators a little earlier today....you can feel the bile and vitriol from ten yards can you not? and that bile is ugly and without much real thought or insight.

It does, however. smack of fear

So let me explain, without going down the jogger’s incident route

I am isolating at home yes, and have I put another human being at risk of catching Covid ? 

No I haven’t. 

Once a day, first thing in the morning , I take one sleepy Welsh terrier and one overactive almost hysterical bulldog for a walk. We walk down a lane away from any houses and across Graham the Shepherd’s fields. 

We see no one 

My sexy bearded dog walker and kind souls like Hattie and Trendy Carol pick up the slack during the afternoons 

Dorothy will not pee without Mary by her side so to pander to her psychological needs the pair are taken out last thing together....again no one sees us...the lane is empty....hopefully as empty as Dorothy’s capacious bladder.

So please dear reader, report me ....report me for daring to risk assess my home and life with a modicum of common sense and intelligence, but rest assured I would never put another person at risk of this dreadful disease

The anger in the above comment saddened me. It reminded me of the anger in my father’s face when he lost his temper when I was a child ..or the look my husband gave to me just before he left when I always cut the corner turning into Cwm Road

Anger like this always has another source 

A long time ago and far far away

 

Madge and Biskit lift the mood

•  Good news of the day - The Crown ( our village pub) will be reopening under new management  soon.....well as soon as things become more normal around here!  Hurrah
• Soup of the day- Sweet potato and chilli
• Film of the day-Woody Allen’s latest A Rainy Day in New York
• Jigsaw of the Day- A Christmas Coffee Shop continues
• Book of the day- I think I’ll start Julie Walters autobiography That’s Another Story
• Tiktok video of the day Madge and Biskit
• Job of the day- cleaning patio 
• Upset of the day- Mark L left Bake Off he was a real sweetie
• Treat of the day- I’m still in bed and Flowers from Claire

Thank you claire x

You Raise Me Up

 I didn’t turn up for choir yesterday

It was a conscious decision !

I felt a little too brittle 

We meet weekly on zoom ( and have done for months)and sing in the confines of our own houses unheard by our fellow choristers but We are always buoyed up by lots of boxed smiles, Jamie ( our RAF faced choirmaster’s bouncy nature) and visits of Lyndi’s dog Charlie 

“ We can see your Charlie Lyndi!” 

Is often the joint call as her hairy mutt comes into view

And the whole rather artificial ( but supportive) meet is dovetailed by a robust and always emotional joint rendition of You Raise Me Up 

You Raise me up 

Is a true emotional romp 

It is a song that can make you cry when things are mundane 

When things are sticky, the whole piece can reduce you to mush...mush more mushy than wallpaper paste

And on many Tuesdays several of the on line choir can be seen getting rather emotional at the lyrics 

Yesterday

I would have been rather glum

So I stayed away....

Hey ho 

Lockdown upon Lockdown

The supermarkets here in Wales are only selling “essential“ items at the moment.

Essential goods are not flowers and so Ive had to raid the last of the garden flowers in order to satisfy my need. 

I know its not a big gripe but I will find it hard without flowers

I had a phone call yesterday from TRACK & TRACE . 

A very nice and efficient lady informed me I had been tracked as a possible Covid at risk person and needed to isolate for the next ten days

I informed work immediately 

luckily I have no symptoms, and to be honest I feel that I have already had the virus but the rules are rules and I am locked down at home until the 6th of November.

An hour after I informed the village whats app group that I was isolating 

a bag of crisps, two scotch eggs, a packet of coconut macaroons and a large bunch of grapes had been left at the kitchen wall drop off point.

This morning another villager  left some dog food for me with no mention of being paid

But ten days locked down at home!

Lord!

I’ve dug out one of the jigsaws my sister gave me, and will start that today.

The pile of paperbacks at the foot of the new trendy couch await my reading too.

so what HAVE I done ?

cooked myself eggs on avocado on toast,

read the news-online,

gave Mary her anti fungal bath and cream,

cleaned dog splattered bathroom,

started my jigsaw ( titled quite tweely as The Christmas tea rooms)  

cleaned kitchen, bedroom and made a fire

fed dogs

walked Mary and Dorothy across fields away from the village population

made leak and potato soup.

wrote blog and a Haiku ( for a bet)

did two loads of washing

replied to 20 or so texts

looked at the clock

shit

its only 

12.55pm

*  *.  *.  *  *  *

At 5pm Monika from London Road brought me some homemade rogaliki 

beautifully delicate Polish pastries! 

Good, Bad .......Ugly

 People are just as good and just as bad as they always been

That’s what I think, for what it’s worth

Do they complain more? 

No, I don’t think they do, they just complain differently.

The subject matters of the complaints change with priority changes 

Social media amplifies our perceptions of the complaints 

We see more

We think there is more 

We therefore feel we need to comment more.

It’s a cycle and one that is not always constructive.

This need to comment is a double edged sword.

I love comments on Going Gently but I don’t need criticism 

When I say I don’t need it...I mean it literally....I just don’t need it.

I know myself warts and all. 

Thank you very much, ta muchly....

I don’t need someone to tell me an alternative view of my psychological make up

I know the alternative view

But some  do love to be experts on absolutely everything

Even on me!

Today, no matter who you are, you have a bigger voice than people once had. 

You can say your piece to an audience of potential millions

How fantastic is that?

A bit jumbled but it’s 6.18 am, so I’m allowed…

My last night Shift is almost over . Back on day shifts on Wednesday 

My thoughts are with Weaver of Grass

I hope someone can tell us how she is doing today

Hey ho

BST

 To the person who invented the concept of British summer time 

You have never worked night shift

Snapshots

 

Life has a habit of side swiping you when you are least expecting it.

I thought this when two large envelopes were delivered to the cottage by post yesterday.

They contained a hundred or so photographs 

Photographs from my twenties.

The photographs had been found a while ago by the owner of my old home in Sheffield, which was a large  warm natured Victorian terrace on Wynyard Road in Hillsborough.

They had been tucked under a built in seat, probably in the mid 90s, and then presumed lost in the subsequent move.

Recently I had wondered if my ex husband had taken them by accident when we separated but zi had been wrong. The photographs were handed over to my former neighbour who is luckily still one of my best friends.

Yesterday he had posted them back to me.

Images of nursing friends and bank clerk mates, of family parties and CB “ eyeballs” 

Proof of the parachute jump I did in my brother’s rally suit at the age of 22. Old girlfriends toasting happy days with Pernod , years before I even thought I was gay.

Amid the snapshots there were around 20 professional looking black and white prints 10 x 6 inches in size and all showboating family and fiends . These were all taken before 1989 by Ian Parry

Click on https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Parry

Ian was a dear friend and a talented newspaper photographer who was killed smuggling his wartime photos out of Ceausescu’s Romania on a Russian Cargo plane

I sorted through the photographs and picked several out which I decided I will frame and give out as Christmas gifts. A lovely portrait of my brother in law and his mother in Evening wear. A family drinks party with my brother laughing. 

Photographs that need to be seen and not hidden away under a seat in an old Victorian house

Ps

My thoughts are with Pat, The Weaver Of Grass who is in hospital at the moment. 

Wishing her a speedy recovery 

I’m back on night shifts ....

Bad Person

I was in Tesco’s in Llandudno junction the other night

I was buying cakes for the day staff.

I recognised the man as soon as our eyes met but couldn’t quite place him until after he had unexpectedly hugged me.

He was the husband of a patient I nursed several months ago now, well before lockdown.

The last time I had seen him, we had hugged

We exchanged platitudes, in greetings, in how he was, about Covid.

Then he said, after I had repeated How are you coping?

“ Grief has turned me into a bad person.”

I inclined my head why and he explained, The words tumbling out of his mouth in a waterfall

“ I hate it when I now see intimate little moments between couples” he said “ when they share a private joke, or they hold hands or they Play argue by the checkout “ he waved his hand behind him at the tills........“is that normal ?...

.............I resent people so much”

”It’s  normal “ I told him suddenly recognising his “pang” of painful feelings from my own perspective of divorce grief .and I gave him my best brave smile and squeezed his forearm with my hand 

He nodded sadly and we stood for a moment, connected

I noticed he had a block of parmigiano reggiano in his basket

 

Retail & Art Therapy

 

My friend Ruth needed some “ Yes You have to buy it, buy it now “ kind of therapy today,

So we met up at The Mostyn Gallery and I suggested several rather expensive paintings which she instantly fell in love with!

I had fishfinger sandwiches at the oriel cafe while Ruth had falafels,

Our final pre lockdown bit of culture

and we had a mooch around the Athena Papadopoulos instillation , before more shopping where

I bought my fair share of frippery

My gay, bearded plant pot 

A pottery whale

A doggy stand for hot saucepans with doggy spatulas!

Stir Crazy

 I’ve been watching tiktok videos 

Sharing the couch with Dorothy and Albert 

Mary has gone to Trendy Carol’s for a cuddle 

Winnie is on the reading Chair in the kitchen 

An eclectic watch 

Enjoy

She’s from South Yorkshire 

A Buttered Placemat

My favourite cafe is busy with pre lockdown customers. I ordered a sausage butty and a very large americano and planned to read my book but with what's app messages  coming in thick and fast, it feels as though I'm having real conversations. It’s not as good as the real thing but it will do.

Gorgeous Dave wondered if he had upset me,as I'd gone quiet since my night shifts and dr polly giggled at my gifs sent to her as she was in the middle of telephone consultations

What's app has been a life saver these past few months. 

I’ve bought a small slow cooker from Aldi this morning for 9 quid and will make a casserole later it’s pouring with rain and quite miserable

An elderly lady is laughing loudly across the cafe and everyone is smiling

Shes just announced that she tried to butter a small round place mat

Hey ho