I have been mulling over something quite serious for some time now.
Covid and isolation, have re circled my more neurotic wagons so to speak and conversations with new friends who have gently raised an eyebrow have made me think about my divorce and my feelings of hurt and loss.
And anger.
I’m rather tired of still feeling angry.
It’s heavy and odious burden
So today I did something about it.
I spoke to my ex husband and to my former mother in law on the phone.
They were careful but ultimately kind.
The conversations were emotional in their own way but both ended quietly and with a positivity long such lost.
I was reminded of the quote below as I walked around Trelawnyd this afternoon. I was delivering Christmas Cards in the freezing rain.
The darkness and weather hiding tears of release .
“You have to forgive yourself sometimes. Accept your scars for what they are and forgive the old you and people who have hurt you. Maybe that is how you learn to breathe and walk again. Maybe that is how you heal from the past. Maybe that is how you move on.”
Night shift days scoot by in a succession of short sleeps.
I walk the dogs when I get home.
Then they are fed and all come to bed for a few hours before Dorothy wakes me up around 1pm for another wee, then it’s back to bed until five or so.
The cottage is invariably cold when I prepare “breakfast” and so I switch on the little oil heater in the kitchen and we all cram in like the Waltons in order to eat and keep warm
Today some village Children delivering Christmas cards woke us all up around four and so wrapped in fleeces, I made a breakfast of ravioli infused with walnut oil covered in pecorino cheese.
Bloody lovely
Just enough time for a bucket of coffee before more dog walks
So many people have a strange habit when introducing themselves on the phone
They say
“ It’s only me”
Almost as if they are apologising .
Which they are.....
I do it all of the time.
And I shouldn’t ....
Being awake when nearly everyone I know is asleep allows the mind to wander around such
conundrums.
Tiktok is filling with American Shite and Twitter with two many gay men, shirtless and drunk
My book The Object of my Affection by Stephen McCauley is untouched .
It was the first “ gay” novel I ever read back in 1989 and I can still remember a quote from it that resonated with me
“ Often, what's most attractive about a person is that part they're trying hardest to conceal, that part they think is least likable. You find out about it and it becomes a secret bond between you, something you never talk about but hold close to your heart and are continually touched by”
It still does........
Alison Moyet looks better now than she did thirty eight years ago
How is that possible?
My mask smells of olbas oil, a few drops before shift makes the wearing it bearable for hours at a time
The film, “ Shirley” was a much praised fictional account of a very dark period in the life of 1950 s horror writer Shirley Jackson.
It’s an unsettling film, part gothic horror, part psychological and erotic romp and despite an excellent performance by Elizabeth Moss in the title role, I found myself irritated by it , so I left early .
On reflection I needed a film with a certain lightness of touch , so I came home, looked through the BBC IPlayer and found George Stevens’ classic I Remember Mama
It was an inspired choice.
If you have not seen I Remember Mama ......please do, for its a little gem of a movie
Set in San Francisco in 1910 it is a simple tale of family life , seen through the eyes of a teenage first generation Norwegian immigrant girl ( Barbara Bel Geddes).
The family is ruled by the Mama (Irene Dunne) a gentle but pragmatic matriarch who not only supports her three daughters, son and husband through the difficulties of a frugal life but who remains the moral compass for her three elder and less virtuous sisters, the timid Aunt Trina ( Ellen Corby) , bad tempered Aunt Jenny( Hope Landin) and the bitter Aunt Sigrid ( Edith Evenson) and the thunderous and her overbearing Uncle Chris ( Oscar Homolka)
Oscar Homolka as Uncle Chris
The family is perfectly described during the normal but significant life vignettes everyday life. Of course they are older and more stereotypical than they could be, but they are the product of a teenage girls’ memory and so the larger than life performances of Landin, Corby and especially Homolka ( In probably his most remembered role) are pitched just right.
The story meanders through illness ( when Mama in an effort to keep her promise to see her youngest daughter after surgery famously pretends to be a hospital cleaner), death, and the formative moments of a girls’ growing up and does so with such affection and warmth, that by the final credits when daughter reads out her published stories as Mama looks out of the kitchen window , there is not a dry eye in the house.
Irene Dunne is a revelation and breaks your heart as Mama
Wales in back in a sort of lockdown until Christmas.
Last night I went to The Crown for a pint with Gorgeous Dave and again it was nice to see much of the village there filling the tables for a last time.
The new landlady was sanguine,
Everyone will drive over the border for a drink she said.
I’m not surprised, then the non essential shops were closed in England, the English did the same with us and shopped here.....
Yesterday I caught up with jobs,
Mary had a vet Check up in the surgery car park and I was sure to point Winnie out to the junior vet as she sat smiling in Bluebell’s passenger seat eating the remains of a sausage and egg McMuffin
He smiled genuinely enough.
I posted my traditional Christmas decorations to friends in Australia and Derbyshire and posted my Christmas Cards before dropping off a team gift to a nurse who has just left the hospice through fears of catching covid.
For for over thirty years she has been my touchstone, my constant , my bestie
And apart from a short, and rather painful separation when she worked in Saudi
We have never been apart for any longer than a few months in three long decades!
I’ve not seen her for over a year now and that’s been tough.
She recently sent me the above video when we met at her second home in Kenmare in Ireland just after my husband left and her words that accompanied it shattered me just a little
“ You looked so happy but I know your heart was broken”
I working within the rules as the Welsh are allowed to cross the border, so before Christmas I am meeting up with her
And do you know what? ......I will hug her and hug her and hug her
They will cling to you as a baby would, but unlike babies they never cry and will snuggle all night without pissing themselves.
Over this year Mary has been loaned out many times to friends that need this “ cuddle time”
The other night my friend Ruth collected her for an under- the- duvet night, only a few hours after Hattie collects her for a walk ( and long hugs on a country bench) and a day after Trendy Carol collects all of the dogs but only allowing Mary to come up to her drawing room for some sit on her knee time .
I’ve just found out that the veteran actress Lynn Cohen died this year
Lynn was never a leading actress, but was, what was known as a jobbing actress.
Always busy, always in the background of a drama or a story
I always loved her as Miranda’s mother figure Magna in Sex and The City.
and when she finally kissed Cynthia Nixon on the forehead with the affirmation of “ You Love”
I was in buckets.
Many of us have these supporting actor types in our lives.
They aren’t best friends or next of kin’s.
We don’t have to see them all of the time , but they are often beavering away in the background, becoming characters we all can take for granted.
And ones we only mourn when they finally disappear from view.
I consider Albert as an animal member of this group. He walks around the cottage in the background like a shadow, with wide shocked looking eyes and a faint limp which allows the eye to focus on him. But with a succession of various tap dancing bulldogs taking centre stage, he remains to be content with a full food bowl and a quiet corner in which to sleep.
Weaver of Grass ( http://weaverofgrass.blogspot.com/) is another low key constant but a blog one. Never showy , never boastful she has been a quiet queen of blogs for a decade and a half, chatting quietly of country life in North Yorkshire with a pace that is both comforting and consistent.
Mrs Trellis, Gorgeous Dave, Wendy I’ve been to the ballet once with, Sitges Jon,
Leo and his texts.....Mick and Meggie and a whole bucketful of names from Sheffield.....the list is long and one I realise so beautifully long as I write my Christmas cards with my gliding ink pen
On reflection I can think of two dozen such characters, perhaps more who provide a backdrop to my life.
Like Magna they are vital and so important to ones existence, but like Magna, they always worked away in the background , mostly unsung, but as necessary to us , as air is to breathing
This evening I was asked what is my favourite memory of any Christmas
What a hard question this is to answer.
I’m feeling rather anti social tonight, and the hospice remains quiet , so I busied myself with some mindless checks of sell by dates of the unit’s drugs, and I thought about specific Christmases of note.
Having a Christmas review, I think, is very much like owning a succession of dogs. Each one has its own personality but there is a tendency of every one merging into each other.
Some stand out for the oddest reasons.
The year my father fell under the Christmas tree in his underpants with one of his more glamorous but equally pissed in laws.
The year each one of the family had to share some sort of dramatic or comic performance, each one excelling the other.
Lying on a sofa with a partner covered in dogs one sunny and lazy Christmas morning
Last year listening to a colleague sing silent night with a dying patient at 6 am
Childhood memories are a collage of 1970s tv, warm prawn cocktails and peanuts in glass bowls that before had been used as ash trays .
A visit to a poor psychiatric patient in their home , which had no carpets but still being offered me a mince pie and a cup of tea
The memories feed off each other and bounce around like poleroid photos in the wind.
I am reminded of a late shift one Christmas Day ( always the most hated) when I was charge Nurse on Osborn 1 at The Princess Royal Spinal Unit in Sheffield
It was dark, perhaps late afternoon and the majority of bed fast patients had many visitors surrounding them ,like musk oxen surrounding their young and weak
Three African nurses were on duty with me and they were pushing a very drunk and smiling patient on his bed back to the ward from the smoking room .
He was nursing a rather robust looking bottle of port
And true to form, they were singing all in low easy voices......one pushing the bed, one pulling and the other holding tight to the patient’s hand.
Several of the relatives came and stood in the corridor to listen, as I did at my office door as the procession went passed and I cannot hear this song without thinking of the pure humanity of that little moment
It’s been a quiet night so far. My patients are sleeping pain free and the hospice is silent save for the gentle whirl of the photocopier fan in the office and the cough of a patient .
I’ve started to write my Christmas cards this evening.
It’s been a difficult year for everyone , so I’m taking my time .
The cards have a linen finish and it’s lovely to write on them with an ink pen bought specially for the job.
Another treat realised because of covid
Another small joy out of no where.
It’s been a funny old year all told and one where it may be hard work picking out the good bits.
My 2020 has been a growth year.
My decree absolute severed those final ties to the divorce I never wanted and despite the lockdown new friends have appeared and old ones maintained through zoom and phone and thought.
I am lucky, luckier than most
Luckier than many
So here’s is my Christmas Card to you readers
It’s is a thank you and a greeting and I send it knowing how supported I feel that you pop in so regularly to read the journals of a very ordinary Welshman who is trying to make sense of a world which is sometimes hard work.
Going Gently is not a public forum with my life up for debate, it’s a place for a ramble and a share and I am grateful for a shared good humour from nearly all of you as I so just that
So let’s all of us have a peaceful time this year.
I shall be working Christmas Eve then hope to meet up with my sisters for a walk and a present swap and perhaps a turkey sandwich and soup in the garden or by the beach.
And that will be nice
2020 has taught us all to treasure the small and the once overlooked and taken for granted
I haven’t much to share today, it’s grey and chilly
I wore shorts when out for a walk with the girls this morning even though it was cold. I have patches of psoriasis on my knees which I defiantly show off from time to time.
I’m working nights until after Christmas, I’m cooking a shepherds pie ready for supper at work tonight
My nephew who is 18 and has Aspergers, has just got his first job, I just told him how proud I am of him and I think that’s so important..if you are proud say it loud ....my parents seldom praised me as a kid
I’ve bathed the dogs, Mary with her anti fungal. Winnie and Dorothy with pears baby shampoo and Winnie has had a rare once over with her fanny flannel....the cottage smells fragrant again
I’ve just missed an invitation for coffee by Chic Eleanor and with nights now will only be able catch up with next week, it will be refreshing to see her .
I had my first Christmas cards today one off Sue and the other from a ‘cold and dark Sweden’
I will leave you with this delightful impersonation of Miss Peggy Lee followed by a Christmas message from Fascinating Aida
I met my friend for dinner last night and both of us are suffering from a gin based hangover from hell this morning.
I took the girls up the Gop to blow away the cobwebs and burped pink gin at almost every step.
Lovely.
Looking down on the village, it is easy to see the older houses of Trelawnyd.
As in many Welsh villages the older houses have names rather than house numbers to tell them apart and these names are officially linked to the house postcode so cannot easily be changed.
My cottage is called Bwthyn y Llan which literally means Church Cottage.
The more historic name for it and it’s sister cottage next door was Tan y Fynwent which literally means under the graveyard.
I always liked the name Mrs Miniver gave to her home.
It was simply called Starlings, and with that in mind I have just hung some cheerful blue birds on the front of the cottage
Dorothy and I have gone out for brunch. We have taken Rubber Chicken too as he doesn't get out much.
A large americano at the Horizon cafe in Colwyn Bay is the order of the day.
The barista here makes the most fabulous of coffee..its all in the milk, he explains.
Affable despot Jason's elder daughter is 15 today. I dropped a card in before we left and Hattie picked up mary before that for their 1:1 time. I left her a wrapped christmas decoration in the shape of a terrier.
She a nice girl
Its dry today and not too cold, so the village seems more alive than it did. Animal helper Pat was out walking, as was old Trev who wanted me to change his old fluorescent tube lights for him.
I've been changing them for years
I'm meeting a friend for dinner later
The beach promenade is busy with walkers too....they must be sick of the sound of rubber chicken squeaking
