Pilgrim’s Way

Dorothy taking Mary for a walk this morning

Yesterday’s Church meeting proved to be useful

I now have a list of around eight villagers who will join in form an action group to support the Pilgrim status of the Church if the Bishop  eventually grants it. 

In the meantime we have asked interested villagers to start a letter writing campaign to the Bishop 

Tomorrow around fifteen pilgrims will stop at Trelawnyd . They are taking part in an annual pilgrimage from Basingwerk Abbey to Bardsey Island on the North Wales Pilgrim’s way and last year the way had attracted 17,000 walkers along the route, which is encouraging given our wish for St Michael’s to become a Pilgrim Church. 

I’ve got cakes and tea all ready for tomorrow’s pilgrim’s to have when they arrive.

Tonight I’m working nights to cover sickness then it’s holiday! I’ve made a rye bread loaf this morning for a patient who is desperate for that home made bread taste .

Next week I’ve got two theatre trips organised one here and one in London and have a ticket to the unofficial Banksy exhibition near Covent Garden as an aside.

I will try and book something else interesting on Friday morning before I return 

I’m also going to Choir on Tuesday and there is also the philharmonic afternoon concert in Liverpool a week on Sunday

Hey ho

The village newsletter has just been delivered

  

Follies

 

Di Botcher

The National Theatre production of Follies is a musical which I needed to see.

My friend John, has banged on about it for years, so recently I watched the live production itself to judge for myself.

Generally I loved it. 

It was overlong for sure, and I could have happily done without the last 20 minutes of it, but the sheer scale and chutzpah of the production blew me away, but not quite as you may expect .

Of course the leads Philip Quast, Janie Dee and the powerhouse Imelda Staunton were fantastic but for me it was performances from three supporting follies that moved me the most 

The fabulous Tracie Bennett

Di Botcher as the bespectacled, big haired Hattie (reminding me so much of my mother) belted out the cracking Broadway Baby with fantastic gusto. Tracie Bennett as the spunky and slightly shop worn Carlotta lived I’m Still Here and the elderly Opera singer Dame Josephine Barstow broke everyone’s hearts as the eldest of the follies during her One More Kiss duet.

These three set pieces made the production for me   

Josephine Barstow 

Y Shed

 

The new build behind the cottage has been rather noisier than usual. They are digging out the garden with a mechanical digger at the same time as hammering the roof on a kennel block.

I took the dogs to meet Chic Eleanor 

We walked down to y shed ( The Shed) and drank good Italian coffee on the terrace .

It was nice to see her. 

She hugged my arm as we walked and called me her darling John

Gin & Hats

I got home after my 12.5 hour day shift late.

I collected the dogs , fed them and Albert and just had time to sit down at 9 pm before our zoom meeting was booked.

It was Ben’s last night in the UK so Ruth had sorted out an online meet, all together 

We both poured ourselves a large gin and we wore our matching Beanie hats in solidarity 

And Ben gave his apologies as he was super stressed and tired and …..so ….didn’t turn up

We were gutted

But the meeting continued …..with the both of us laughing hysterically over the fact we were spinsters of the parish, we had just been stood up and we were wearing matching hats.

I haven’t laughed like that for months 

Dance as if no one is watching

For me Michael Gove lost what little political credibility he possessed when supporting Dominic Cummings’ ludicrous test driving story.

Now he’s been filmed dancing away in a Scottish nightclub 

And we can see the human side  of him just a little. 

Ed Balls was interviewed on radio 4 on Saturday and talked about  how people perceived him when he was a politician compared with their reactions of him as a reality tv “ personality 

They like me now, he quipped 

I blame the bland “ politician speak” 

The likes of Dennis Skinner never suffered from it

The Walking Dead -The Final Season

 

I finally caught up with the first two episodes of The Walking Dead this afternoon.

I watched it on my iPad in my office with the curtains shut…the action was set underground for the most part, so was hard to follow

The genre is gone full circle …for its back at its horror roots again with the large cast of characters ( with too many red shirts in tow) battling the undead and the nasty living in the sewers and subway of Washington DC 

It’s reinvented itself yet again

Maggie ( Lauren Cohen) is back and her character is now rather unexpectedly harder and more anti Negan  than it was in previous seasons which has made her a new fan hate figure which is interesting. Cohen has some powerfully acted scenes in the first episodes which were a revelation and a sure lesson to the writers who so often have underwritten the main characters  to the detriment to the drama.

The Walking Dead is how heavily reliant on its female characters, which is fun

Yumiko ( Eleanor Marsuura) and Princess ( Juanita Sanchez above) are two relatively new faces that are starting to take centre stage alongside Carol (Melissa McBride) which is a nice change to the old male guard of its early days 

It’s nice I’m still following after a loyal ten years 

One of my first reviews

https://disasterfilm.blogspot.com/2010/12/walking-dead-frank-darabonts-tv-remake.html

Looking After Oneself

 I met a couple new to the village last night. 

They were walking their dog up the lane and I was watering the sweet peas which had climbed nicely over the garden arch.

The wife said something that pleased me greatly

“ I always love your flowers” she said “The ones in your side window”

Ive said this before but Ive always had at least one bunch of flowers in the cottage at any one time. Ever since I bought my first home back in the 1980s flowers have always been my constant. Even when I was low on money, I would always have enough for a bunch of something bright to fill a vase or a gap on the window sill. 

Flowers make a home, homely. 

In that sense they are very much like a cat, for cats warm a house by nature of perching happily in the background. 

I’ve just heard that the ponies are returning to the field for a little while

This pleased me too, as their presence, for a few weeks, will bring a lot of happiness with it.

There is a great deal of satisfaction seeing them munching through the weeds, the Ivy and the overgrown grass.

The cottage is filled with the smell of garlic and onion

I’m making a colourful butternut squash Katsu curry

I’m coasting at work a little this week as I have a few more day shifts before my next holiday. 

I find I need a break from the hospice every two months or so….

The holiday, like a cat in the background, the ponies in the field and the flowers in the kitchen window will please and heal me 

Where My Trust Is Without Borders

This song is running around my head rent free and has been for days.

I don’t have a faith at all, but the words, I find rather moving

I left work early today after taking my time owed and spent a slightly frustrating hour on the phone with Mrs Trellis discussing her ideas for the Church meeting on Thursday as soon as I got home. 

I watched episode 2 of The Walking Dead on my IPad , then had cold homemade leftover  felafels for tea. 

Soon it’s Only Connect on tv with my diet allocation  of gin and slimline tonic

Mary has her collar of shame on as she’s got a sore bum which has been made worse by Dorothy’s licking.

Albert’s got worms , probably caught by eating rabbits.

My friend Alex who lives in Poland has messaged asking me to meet him in London next week

I think we are going to the theatre

Ps I’ve just bought this lovely tea cup

Quite beautiful

Autumn

 

I feel a bit spaced this morning.

I only finished night shift yesterday morning.

Now I’m drinking a bucket of coffee before a long day at work……with my head fried 

All my fault.

It was darkish when we all got up this morning. 

And when in the lane I noticed a yellowing of the hedgerow and felt a slight autumnal chill in the air

Where has the year gone? 

I was nearly late for work.gridlock welsh style

Hathersage and Hope

 

The Sheffield City Hall Ballroom

The dining ballroom in Poseidon

When I was repainting my bedroom that smart navy I cleared out lots of clutter and flotsam.

Amid the detritus of 59 years on this planet, I found a box of photographs.

We don’t seem to have or keep boxes of photographs anymore do we?

Amongst them, , when I got to sort through the memories as I was sitting in the bedroom window seat, was a postcard of the moors above Hathersage in the Hope Valley.

I remembered who had sent it before I re read the inscription on the back

Sorry, call me please….Adam x …it said simply 

I had met Adam at the unlikely sounding Poptastic back in 1995. I was on a break from a boyfriend and a relationship that was fraught with difficulties and too much drama, so wasn’t looking for anything in particular. 

Poptastic was a camp-as- Christmas gay night at the city Hall Ballroom  in Sheffield.

I loved the night, not particularly because it was gay themed….it was more that the surroundings reminded me of the Art Deco dining room in The Poseidon Adventure . 

A middle aged gay movie buff’s fantasy .

Adam was a farmer, well to be absolutely pedantic , he was a  powerfully built livestock feed salesman who used to be a farmer and he looked every inch of one, what with a rosy expression, a tweedy jacket with brogues,  and several young female friends from Hathersage and Grindleford and Hope all determined to have a great time on the works night out. 

He was perhaps 32 and had genuinely never kissed a man before 

I was a tiny bit older and had kissed a few so I was surprised that only after some mild flirting on my part

he came home with me. 

He was closeted, gauche, sweet and very serious and he fell in love with me after that first fumbling evening, even though he was terrified of his family’s and friends’ reactions to the fact he’d gone to bed with a scruffy nurse from Walkley. 

I fell for him too.

For he was a gentle, kind and old fashioned soul

Who couldn’t of? He was a big puppy of a guy. But I was in the throes of a destructive relationship where my boyfriend was already closeted and secretive and at the time ashamed to be gay and I was realising what I could cope with and what I wanted and so a man who was so new to the the gay world wasn’t quite what I needed .

But I saw him again, and again, when he would turn up sweetly with bunches of flowers and an uncorrected assumption  by his parents that he was visiting a girl in Sheffield . 

Then my ex started to call too…..we’ve all been there…..

When I finally broke up with Adam , he cried like a baby. and broke a pane of glass in my kitchen door as he stormed home …..soon after that I disastrously revisited my former relationship which lasted and limped on, like a sick rat until the millennium.  

In retrospect I’d probably been better staying with Adam 

It was a timing issue  I guess. 

It often is…….

The postcard arrived six months later . 

I kept it but never replied to it

I’ve always liked Hathersage 

Such a pretty place.

Saturday

 I’m working tonight as a favour to a colleague.

I’m back on day shift Monday .

It means she can spend sometime with her son . 

She left me a goody bag of gin and men’s toiletries as a thank you and when she had her break 

I sat at the nurses station with a manly face pack on 

I haven’t slept much today. 

Lots of noise from nearby village gardens.

I got up , made falafels which I baked in the oven 

That’s about it

Chilli Scotch Eggs to die for

 

My obsession  love affair with scotch eggs is now the thing of legend. 

Just recently a I ❤️ scotch Eggs T shift was delivered to Bwthyn Y Llan and before that a gift of two,were left on the kitchen wall, wrapped in silver foil and an Aldi Carrier bag.

Tonight I was left a trio of bespoke chilli Scotch Eggs, a gift from the a hospice head housekeeper whose husband works as a Butcher in nearby Conwy.

Suffice to say my diet went out of the window

The butchers they came from is Edward’s Of Conwy 

https://shop.edwardsofconwy.co.uk/

And it must be said their chilli scotch egg is a thing of sublime beauty 

I ate my first without taking my clinical mask off, which is not an easy procedure in anyone’s books…and the second I savoured more slowly….like a Frenchman may do over six oysters and a glass of champagne

Two minutes later, I was finished

The third I shared with some colleagues. 

As I didn’t want to appear as greedy.

I am set up for the night now, and as I was placing my patient on his ventilation system he gave me a questioning look ….which obviously meant you,reek of chilli and sausage meat!

 

Goodbye Ben

 

Ben and his family

Ben and I were interviewed for the same job at the hospice on the same day. 

I was convinced he would get the job over me as he had worked there already, was responsible for research between the University and the hospice and had taught student nurses as a lecturer in my ex husband’s School of Nursing.

I was desperate for the job and was retired and felt old.

Getting the job meant that I could finally afford the mortgage on the cottage

As it turned out we both got the job

And Ben turned out to be a dear and loyal friend .

In the last two years, he, fellow nurse Ruth and I have been part of the same messenger group as well as work colleagues. We are planning a reunion in his new home next year.

We “talk” out of work more than we do in, and the banter was a lifeline during lockdown 

That group will continue to flourish, I am sure,  as it’s a site for banter, childish innuendo and gossip.

Ben, as the only straight man, is inordinately gossipy.

The only downside to the messenger group will be the time difference.

For Ben and his family are off to South Korea.

I had the challenge of buying Ben’s leaving gift, which wasn’t too hard as he is travelling light and will just have the money. But I wanted something a little more special for him, given the fact he’s a bit of a hippy.

Finally I thought of something and I’ve bought three trees in his, his wife Sokyo and daughter Luna’s Names from the National Trust.

So they will have something of theirs rooted in the soil of Britain 

Pockets of Greenery

 

I was never that fussed with house plants.

I have had an aspidistra and a Christmas rose for over 20 years and neither can be killed off by lack of watering and care despite my best efforts.

During lockdown, I got into the habit of treating myself to a small houseplant every time I braved the supermarket.

And now Pockets of green fill every corner of the cottage, with leaves fighting for light in front of little windows and shady corners.

The Chinese Money plants are my favourites, with their delicate parasol leaves, jaunty and flag like 

I’ve even got a tiny money plant in my bathroom. 

But that’s plastic 

Don’t tell anyone 

Not

I love this poem 

It was shared to me by Hattie 

It’s a poem that suits her

All of us who write blogs, have something in common 

We leave a little of ourselves here, for always.

I leave a journal of a small life.

One looked on benignly.

One based on reality but one which is gently sanitised, idealised and seen through an optimistic hue

(With occasional warts for balance of course)

I’m melancholy tonight 

The dogs know it and have crowded around 

Albert , pragmatic as ever, is by himself in front of the fire.

My nephew has just texted with a grown up I will treat you to lunch when we meet in November 

He has Aspergers  and is 18 so his  comment was sweetly atypical 

I’ve cut the lawn, washed windows, gardened, visited the vets , got stuck in traffic, shopped and spring cleaned the bathroom 

Oh and I had a meeting about the pond with the avuncular Nick from the apt sounding Well Street

I disregarded by diet and treated myself to cheese and crackers for tea 

But I’m still melancholy 

I’m feeling lonely today 

Just today

 

The Lion King -

The raw emotion and power of this first rehearsal of The Lion King since lockdown is palpable 

A beautiful bit of good news

I’m tired of the bad

We, all of us, have stressors in our lives 

I love this illustration of other people’s stressors

An Art Deco Sunburst on a pale Blue Sky

 I spent most of my day off getting my nursing paperwork signed off at work

It sort of felt like a waste of a day, an hour and a half commute in bad traffic

The sun came out and I picked some flowers from the garden to cheer up my office.

And for a good half hour , I lay down on the lawn and cloud watched ,Mary under one arm and Dorothy under the other.

The sky is filled with the vapour trails of aircraft 

An Art Deco sunburst on a pale blue sky

And we all fell asleep

Vidui

I finished my revalidation paperwork around 6pm 

Just enough time after that to walk the dogs, eat something healthy ( spiced garlic roasted cauliflower with prawns) and chat with a friend, a wisecracking Frenchman called Oli.

By definition, my day’s intense reflections have thrown up a great deal of nursing memories.

One special one came to mind.

A dying patient once asked me to join her in prayer.

She was Jewish so I didn’t quite understand how she thought an agnostic Welshman living in Yorkshire   would fare with such a request.

I compromised by saying that I would sit with her as she prayed.

She needed to be heard

Quietly she recited the vidui prayer of the dying  in Hebrew with her head against the pillow, a hand over her eyes .

And I listened , head bowed

Terribly moved by words I didn’t understand 

Rudbeckia

 

Today is my deadline for completing my Nurse revalidation paperwork.

I will be at it for all of the day, which is a bind, but I have no one except myself to blame for the lateness of the job. 

Having said this I’m still wasting time answering messages and emails and giving the dogs an extra long walk in the rain. Oh and I’ve just photographed the sunny rudbeckia in the back garden, which are providing the only sunny view  from my office window on such a miserable day.

Big breaths 

I need to knuckle down