Going Gently

Bears

After yesterday’s titty talk I thought we’d go all butch today

And why not? , despite protestations from my old friend Nigel, I can do butch

( strange spell check went immediately to bitch rather than butch there)

I received this postcard from Mathew (from Georgia ) this morning

Apparently it’s Ajax by Giovanni Demin

Mathew said to “Enjoy the beard”

I will Mathew, I love a man with a beard....

I guess we all have a type .

My first crush was a straight friend in his late teens.

I was a couple of years older

He was built like an American football player and was able to grow a beard not long after sitting his O levels so I’m not surprised I have been attracted to big mature men with easy smiles ever since

Masculine bearded guys are referred to as bears in the gay world, and in my experience Bears tend to be the most “ sorted” and “ friendly” of all supposed gay subgroups ...if you have to pigeon hole a group...

I remember going to my first gay pub in Sheffield in the early 1990s which was hosting its regular bear night

Ten minutes in, I had been asked to dance by a hirsute, broad smiling, rotund Dentist from Penistone called Dominic who was kitted out in a leather harness, that, thirty five years later Dorothy would sport quite gayly around the lanes of Trelawnyd

Funny old world

Hot Bra

I miss the village post office.

I miss the complete disarray Jenny the postmistress was always in when faced with something more complex than an order of more than two first class stamps

She was surrounded by paper that often threatened to engulf her completely.

I miss those untidy days.

I have to travel to the next village to post my parcels, so today went to the Spar which doubles as post office and supermarket to get my nephew’s birthday gift sent.

I waited patiently as two women argued in front of me about social distancing and hid behind my mask

The wait was rather long, and so I was grateful to eventually leave the claustrophobic queue , pay for my post and leave the hot shop.

When I was outside I pulled down my mask and took several gulps of fresh cool air with a sigh.

“ Now you blokes know what’s it’s like to be a woman! “ so said one of the women who was involved in the argument

I nodded and smiled politely

“ We have the same feeling of relief when we take our bras off after a day at work !“

And for once I was lost for a word of reply

Gwyrch Castle

My power is off

Candles are lit and the fire is already on.

So it’s perfectly human in the cottage

Luckily I put in turkey meatballs with risotto rice and pasata in the slow cooker this morning , so the food is warm and tasty and wholesome.

Winnie has joined us all on the couch from her spot on the reading chair and I’m watching

I’m a celebrity get me out of here on my phone covered in dogs,

Gwyrch Castle looks beautiful I must admit

I’m working Christmas Eve on night shift...I wonder what Christmas Day will be like this year

Hey ho

Mari Boine

This is the most beautiful of Norwegian folk songs

Fairy Lights

One and a half days off before 4 more nights

I bought some battery run Christmas Lights from Lidl today and they cheerfully illuminate the hearth and art wall this evening

I don’t do Christmas decorations now , but some bulldog and scotch egg baubles ( a kind gift from Kim F) add to the”look”

Weaver has emailed and is safe and well and is writing her Christmas Cards

Happy days

Night Nurse Paralysis

There is a well known phenomenon amongst night nurses on long standing night duties and that is the odd sounding Night Nurse paralysis

It is rare, often clouded in secrecy and shame ( as many still think it’s a product of mental illness or a feeble mind) but it is an actual condition that affects many when they are properly sleep deprived and stressed

Dr Mathew Jones Chester described the paralysis thus

“A black shape gathers in the corner of the room, as if from nothing. I can see it, like a huge bat, massive and caped. It fills the room and comes closer and eventually it's around me, cloudy and dark. I feel its pressure and it's holding me and then, under its weight and power, I feel I'm sinking and being dragged down.

'I fight to bring myself back round, but I can't - and this is the awful part - I can't because I'm totally paralysed. The best I can do is make a noise in my throat in the hope I'll bring myself round. It's horrible.”

I have never experienced it myself , though I have seen it’s effects just once when I worked at the West Cheshire Hospital back in the 1980s. I was sat opposite to a Dutch enrolled Nurse in an alcove next to a dormitory of who was described in those years as Psychogeriatric Patients

The nurse was knitting, I was reading a book.

Suddenly I was aware that the nurse had stopped those well worn repetitive movements and I glanced over at her.

She was stiff in her chair

Perfectly still. Her hands were in her lap and her eyes were wide open but unseeing.

Her head was shaking very very gently, as it would during a minor tremor

To say that I was terrified was an understatement and I remember calling out the nurses’ name Fenna? which was totally ignored.

I got up and flew down the ward, through a connecting corridor to an adjacent ward where I found another enrolled nurse emptying a bucket.

Breathlessly I told her that Fenna was unwell. The nurse was sanguine

“oh she goes like that on nights , talk to her quietly and she’ll come around in a few minutes. It happens all of the time”

And that’s exactly what I did.

I walked back to the alcove , put my hand on the nurses’ shoulder and I talked to her until, she blinked and shook her head like a patient coming out of an anaesthetic

She looked frightened

Then embarrassed

Then grateful to be back

Moments later she had returned to her knitting

And I had returned , with just one eye on my book

Until This Evening

Winnie eating breakfast this morning

Night shifts effect everything and provides a backbone to a new and rather odd routine and mental state. I finish handover at work around 7.45 am and get home around 8.30.

I never really remember the drive home

Which is worrying.

I am greeted by all manner of faces and expressions.

Sleepy and hopeful from Winnie.

Anxious and grateful from Dorothy.

Smiling and waggy from Mary

Hungry and bad tempered from Albert.

Dorothy and Mary are placed in Bluebell,

Winnie has a mammoth pee in the garden and Albert is fed

The accidents of the night are mopped up

And I take the girls for their walk before returning to feed them separately

There are squabbles if they are not separated

I’m too tired for squabbles.

Today I’m wrote this at the kitchen table listening to novelist David Mitchell talking to Lauren Laverne

I’m about to put a baking potato in the slow cooker for my tea.

I only drink water before bed.

I check the home answerphone ...no messages as per normal

My phone has 5 what’s app messages, all unanswered as yet

A friend at work has given me some luxury pillows and I stuff them into clean crisp pillow cases whilst listening to Mitchell’s last choice of Domenico Scarlatti’s sonata in F minor

Sublime

It’s 9.53 am

Time for bed.

The girls are waiting for me to climb the stairs.

Winnie is already asleep in the kitchen reading chair and is snoring softly.

Albert is out watching rabbits

I lock the doors and shut out the real world

Until this evening

Blog Friends The Weaver Of Grass

Yesterday’s comments were much appreciated and timely and showed much good humour and bon viveur in blogland.

That’s how it should be.

Not leaving snide comments on others’ blogs

It’s seldom you have to click on the “ load more” box to read them all and I’m grateful for such interest as I am for the score of emails , suggesting ideas and giving advice from people that know better.

My thoughts today are with The Weaver Of Grass who we have not heard from since she had a fall at home a broke her hip a while ago now. The jungle telegraph has worked its work and all we blogging friends know is that Pat was taken to hospital .

The comment box has been disabled and many of us, who consider her as a dear friend of over a decade , are concerned, and are waiting to hear that she is ok.

That’s why blogging can be so sweet.

Friendships are made despite the trolls and the unhinged

And Pat is a dear dear friend to many of us

Let’s wish her well.

A Book? Yeah Right ....!

Isn’t there a saying which goes something like

“ If you want something doing, give your job to a busy man ( Woman)”?

I’m back at work today, which is timely, and last night, after nearly three weeks enforced isolation inactivity, I left choir halfway through our zoom meeting, ignored Bake Off ( which has become incredibly boring without the more interesting characters ) and in a surprisingly short four hour period organised and plotted out my book of Going Gently

Seeing the words written down, is an odd feeling.

Mainly because the sentence looks incredibly pompous

The book won’t be any work of art. ( of course it bloody won’t) but it may be a frothy, light and hopefully occasionally moving version of Going Gently’s better bits.

Cherry Picking fifteen years in the life of a middle aged Gay man, who left a status job in a much loved Northern City to play at the role of county gent, smallholder and smug Village Linda Snell won’t be easy, but after a bit of playing around, some unsurprising dramatic licence ( !) some judicial cutting and pasting, the Skeleton of a plan has been made.

And all in four hours sat at the kitchen table...going through broad chapter titles and flicking through lists in filofax notebooks.

Now all I need is a title.

Going Gently is already the title of a very mighty fine novel by David Nobbs and so I feels prudent not to reuse it even though that may well be the way forward .....has anyone any ideas ?

Answers on a postcard please!

I shall leave you with a brief video taken this morning. It shows Dorothy’s progress with Walking ALL ON HER OWN ...I found my voice towards the end of the film....

High Line

Facebook has an irritating habit of reminding you of something you have experienced years ago

Today it poked me about a rather special walk I did in Manhattan three years ago to the day.

The High Line runs from the trendy meatpacking district around 14th St , through Chelsea to the West Side on 34th street. It runs for going on two miles and follows the elevated train track of The New York Central Railway.

The elevated railway is planted out simply with low maintenance grasses and flowers and trees and has wonderful views of the Hudson River to the West ( when you are walking North) and the city scapes aka Rear Window to the East.

It was a warm November Sunday when I walked the High Line, with high blue skies and silvery deco skyscrapers bordering my view like a theatre set

Tourists ambled alongside New Yorkers in magical nodding good nature

And I remember thinking as the sun reflected in silver fish ripples on the Hudson that life couldn’t be any better than this

Remembering it ? .....emotional highs ......with a tiny bit of broken heart

The Crown Returns

The new landlady of the village pub is in fact a former landlady called Ceri

The young woman with a young family who, with her husband Nathan has braved the covid economic decline is in my mind one of the real heroes of this dreadful year.

The Crown reopened last night.

It was a very different pub to what Affable Despot Jason and I remembered.

Table service only, on line booking , no standing at the bar

But every table , throughout the pub and restaurant was filled by villagers happy to have the pub lit and warm and alive again.

Ian and Jo ( without their three legged whippet) Tim, Tim ( Nice and not dim) Trelawnyd Val, Village Leader Ian,

It was nice to be there to support the opening night

Booking for tables can be done here on line via Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/Crown-Inn-Trelawnyd-110592510858062

I will leave you with this video which is doing the rounds

A former New York Ballerina, suffering from Alzheimers is played Swan Lake

Enjoy x

Fading

The Welsh lockdown is now over and Winnie had her follow appointment at the vets to go to.

I had to lift her into and out of Bluebell and the twelve year old vet had to help her up the one step into the surgery while I was instructed to wait outside.

My request for some general painkillers was granted but the vet was at a loss of what to do next.

Winnie is gently fading like a dry brown rose in a vase.

The vet lowered his voice, and looked uncomfortable. He was about to bring up the subject of euthanasia

Winnie let out a large fart and looked bored

He brought up the subject as I suspected

I put my hand up.

“The time isn’t quite right” I told him “ I’ll know when it is”

The old girl was watching me carefully, with a sort of look that she understood the subject of the conversation and she very slowly walked back to Bluebell with a snort and a limp

We stopped at McDonalds on the way home.

I had a coffee, a flat white.

She had a double cheeseburger without the pickle

I’m a celebrity Get Me Out Of Here

Is set is wales this year , just a few miles West of Trelawnyd

I pass the castle every day on my way to work x

Rewrite The Stars

A lovely piece of cinema

Second In Command

Kamala, how wonderful !

A woman second in command of the most powerful Country on Earth

Sense will prevail

Pub, Ribbons, and A lovely Welsh Walk

The Village Pub finally opens post lockdown.under new management on Monday. The affable despot Jason and I will be going at 7pm for a symbolic and supportive pint together ....we will be hopefully two of many from the village

Use it or lose it !!! that’s what we say !

Our affable vicar David Lewis is been around too, hanging red ribbons on the Church yard Yews. It’s Remembrance Sunday soon and in Lieu of poppies are Lewis the vicar has encouraged people to tie a ribbon in support. Today I tied mine.....

I’ve. also met my bubble friend Ruth at her Promenade home in Llanfairfechan and we had a glorious walk along the beach and through the nature reserve towards Abergwyngeryn

It made my month , glorious and profound