A Day In Two Halves

 It’s been a day of two halves . 

The dawn chorus 

Then The Play That Went Wrong at Theatr Clwyd.

Both enjoyable for completely different reasons .

I said to my sister Janet, on the way home tonight , that in this my 60th year 

I’m going to do all the things I’ve never done before as well as all of the things I like to do too

If that makes sense .

Still on my bucket list for this year

Go camping in a tent

Go to a European city  mini break with my old girlfriend Jane,

Driving through Ireland to Nu’s cottage,

A holiday break abroad totally alone,

Dance in public

Start my counselling course

Learn a totally new skill 

Walk up Snowdon 

I’ve booked five already…..

Hey ho

Birdsong

 I went on a dawn walk this morning. 

A first for me.

I saw it advertised in Holywell when I popped into Tesco

“ Dawn Walk With A Twitcher - birdsong explained”

The meeting place was in Caerwys before 5 am 

I was the last to arrive.

There was ten of us, all told, led by a quietly spoken man in his sixties called Eifion.

We were led down a bridle path by torch light and from time we’d stop to have a brief lecture 

It was an interesting and somewhat cold early morning

But an invigorating one

The robins and blackbirds and the more rare thrush, were the first on the performance with other birds such as wrens, wood pigeons  and warblers joining in.

The likes of the tits and the finches usually only start to sing when dawn has broken.

Apparently it is usually the male birds that call and at times the sound was amazingly loud

One woman in the group had a good cry at the experience and kept apologising for it.

I liked the feeling of being anonymous in the pre dawn gloom

And felt a little exposed when the day finally  lifted the dark to a translucent blue.

I’m off to meet a friend for lunch shortly.

They are going into hospital soon and are in need of a bit of calm

It’s sunny but still cool and I can see Islwyn pottering around the pony field fixing the gates

He’s like me. 

He likes to be needed.

Gay Wizards

 I disliked the Harry Potter film franchise finding it all somewhat tiresome  but I liked the first Fantastic Beasts movie , which is a prequel of sorts.

I didn’t enjoy or understand the second film in the Beast trilogy but sort of got to grips with the third-  tonight’s movie fantastic Beasts The Secrets Of Dumbledore 

I say sort of ……

The action bits were exciting , I like the Queenie and Jacob characters too but over all it is 

Jude Law who made it for me as he makes for a rather tasty gay bear dad wizard, what with his lovely beard and wide selection of hand knitted tank tops. 

“ John Gray!!!!”

I bought a nice fish dish yesterday. I’ve put my smaller money plants and cactus in it

Albert has recently amused himself by knocking the plants onto the floor

I think it’s a case of transference because Mary is chasing him a little more over mistaken jealousy over the rubber chicken

I photographed the dish 

Preempting my post of today, 

yes it’s been a slow week

 I’ve been sat in a waiting room for 28 minutes.

I’m precise because there is one of those digital clocks on the receptionist’s desk

And this is the third waiting room I’ve been in this morning and it’s only 11.23

The hospital has WiFi thank god , but not enough to stream The Walking Dead

That’s probably a godsend as zombies can be noisy when you’ve forgotten your headphones.

I’ve not seen a doctor yet, just a series of technicians . 

The ultrasound woman was a bit of a pig, so much so, I asked her if she was having a bad day

“ Staffing is dire “ she moaned behind her mask.

The phlebotomist was more sanguine she told me she was off at one and was going to Sainsbury’s to buy her daughter a birthday gift. 

Tu’s range of girls dresses are lovely and very reasonable apparently 

It took her four goes and two arms to get a sample.

I don’t want to be here

Heartstopper

A friend’s daughter told me I should be watching Heartstopper on Netflix. 

“ You’ll love it” she told me

I looked it up. 

Based on a graphic novels by Alice Oseman, it is a coming of age tv series about the lives to two teen age boys Nick and Charlie and it has a wholesome, innocent but very modern look on teenage first love.

I joined Netflix in order to watch it and I must admit it is incredibly sweet , and angst and all consuming the way love always is when you are fifteen.

Oh how I wish we had Heartstopper when I was a boy.

I’ve had a paperwork morning. I’ve sorted out travel insurance, logs, vets appointments, urology appointments , banking, theatre tickets and my counselling course, and now I’m just organising some batch cooing.

My new food bible is Slimming Eats by Siogban Wightman who is a blogger favourite of mine.

I’ve decided to get my eating under control by always cooking something flavoursome and in quantities that can be frozen as well as eaten. Therefore anything I’m tempted to eat in the house will always be homemade, slimming, tasty and easy to get hold of. 

Tonight it’s lamp balti curry with cauliflower special rice.

Old Trefor is ok today btw.

Little Bathroom man has just messaged , he hopes to start work next week.

Lamb balti and cauliflower rice

CODA

CODA (child of deaf parents) is a nice movie 

It’s not a great one, but it’s a sentimentally sweet one, the kind you enjoy of a Sunday afternoon when you have nothing to do. 

The story is a simple one. 

Ruby (Emilia Jones) is the only hearing person in her hard working fishing family. When the family business is threatened she is torn between supporting them or going to college to study singing.

It’s an appealing coming-of-age story with a lovely performance by the doe eyed Jones,and if you want a blub, just enjoy Ruby’s audition into Berklee where she signs and sings a version of Both Sides Now quite beautifully .

I was sobbing like a real man when there was a knock at the kitchen window. It was Mrs Trellis with Blue She had met up with old Trefor down the lane who had taken a bit of a turn . 

“can you come?” She looked worried 

We all piled into Bluebell 

In his late nineties , it had seemed that Trefor had walked a little too far on his daily sabbatical and was a little shaky stood at Graham’s field when we got to him and it didn’t take long to get him back home with a beef dinner on hand .

I checked him again at tea time and will do so again tomorrow morning

When I was pottering later Lywenna stopped briefly. She is the widow of Gentleman Farmer Ralph. She told me she was in the process of picking out her husband’s headstone and our eyes met briefly, in a silent acknowledgment of just how hard a job it was for her.

Lywenna has a quietness and wonderful  dignity about her, 

I’ve always envied that 

It’s been a nice day

Spring Garden

My sister arrived early on and licked the front garden into shape.

I videoed the result and have mooched around it for most of the morning. If my new neighbours are out in their back garden I try not to be around in mine, for all I seem to hear is an elderly Yorkshire terrier’s incessantly yapping followed with their incessant bellows of “ Shut up Charlie” 

It’s all a bit common.

Speaking of common I’ve just braved Tescos in Prestatyn 

Which can be a trial in itself if you aren’t in the mood for badly behaved kids and their sports wearing parents.

I soothed my nerves with a mooch around the home department of TK Max and bought a rug, and some accessories for the new bathroom.

Charlie was at full hysterical yapping stretch when I got home so I closed up the back of the cottage and opened up the front to the sun.

Hopefully he’ll have a Stroke soon 

( I only mean that a little )

The sea pinks

It’s still glorious here.

The honeysuckle which Janet so fervently cut back last year has formed the front door in dark green healthy leaves in which the hedge sparrows from the lane are presently chattering.

The sea pinks in the basket by the door have finally bloomed and are thriving in their mid air beach.

I’m going to make butter and bread and a seafood paella later.

I’ve watered the houseplants using the garden toucan and the front room now feels a little humid in the direct sunshine

FarSide and Killing Eve

 I’ve been accepted into the far side Facebook group 

Some of the old cartoons are new to me 

Love it 

Killing Eve had a lot to say about the the power of relationships 

I loved the finale tonight and cried 

Eve was always the survivor 

SRA

We treat each other on nights. The night before last, Di brought in bespoke chilli scotch eggs from Conwy 

Hand grenades of beautiful flavour.

Last night I brought in watermelon and mango and left them in the car.

I’m not pretending it was busy.

It wasn’t 

I read a lot about the use of visualisation in pain relief, in between patient care

And I’ve booked tickets to The Play That Goes Wrong, a guided tour around the famous Liverpool Liver Building , tickets for a welsh play Celebrated Virgins ( About the famous Ladies of Llangollen) 

Oh and I’ve finally found a suitable shabby chic hotel for Gorgeous Dave and I to stay in when we are in Rome.( 2 bedrooms rooms, en suite near the Vatican City)….all very La Dolce Vita

I've helped training up a student nurse recently and have asked him to listen to other experienced palliative care nurses in the weeks he’s been with us . " Pick and choose those interactions you hear nurses give their patients !" I advised " Be sure to steal them for your own interactions !"We all steal words and phrases we hear others use.
Sometimes those words have such resonance they burn themselves in your own vocabulary for life.
All of us sponges...for the different, the funny.....the pertinent.

In the late 90s I nursed a somewhat taciturn man for many months.
He was a formidable character, every inch a stereotypical policeman from say a 1970s tv drama...butch, unsmiling and ever slightly distant....think Valquez from Aliens and you'll get where I'm coming from.
He was difficult to engage and only seemed to perk up when he was visited by his police colleagues both male and women.
One policeman that visited seemed to be more smiley and less frivolous than the other visitors and I suspected with my gaydar at full beep that they may have been closeted lovers.
One day, when the visitor was leaving, I noticed my patient murmur " S R A" almost under his breath and this three letter goodbye was noticeably used too as a greeting after several visitations .
A week or who later , when I was teaching the patient how to manage his own bladder I asked him if I could ask a personal question and given the intimacy of the situation he surprisingly agreed , albeit gruffly.
"When your mate comes to visit ....what does SRA mean?"
I busied myself with preparing the nursing equipment as he looked at me squarely and after a long pause he said carefully
" It means a Sudden Rush of Affection!"

A hidden code between lovers

SQUID GAME …Grandmother’s Footsteps

On nights, When I am sleeping during the day, I am overseen and carefully monitored by Dorothy.

She will lie with her back against mine facing the door and there is method in her slightly obsessive madness as from that position she can maintain her top dog status with Mary and the ever more slightly cropped Albert.

For as I am happily snoring my best ( Poor Alex….less said about that the better) the animals embark on a strange game of Grandmother’s Footsteps.

The game is started as soon as Mary or Albert realise that I have gone to bed. One or both will then gallop up the stairs and will jump into the foot of the bed.

Then Dorothy will let out a low rumbling growl

She is staking her claim.

To stop any escalation of hostilities Mary and Albert have learned to freeze exactly where they land, and by doing so Dorothy will stop her growling. 

This tableau remains unchanged until Dorothy closes her eyes  thus allowing Welsh Terrier and cat to move another millimetre until the growling starts up again.

I’ve pieced the “ game” together now after several aborted efforts to sleep over the past two years 

And know that the growling and mini movements will continue until all animals are within a knat’s Crotchet of my body and peace reigns.

Simple

 

It’s been a long night all told

Even with a few hours sleep before I left the house last night.

My times of burning the candle at both ends feels to be somewhat over and

I’m looking forward to bed this morning.

Bed with bulldog licks on the soles of my feet.

There was a gift waiting at work for me last night

Pressed into my cubbyhole alongside papers on palliative care and mail was a gift wrapped neatly in brown paper. 

It was from my friend , one of the hospice doctors

Two artworks of Dorothy and Mary

It kinda made my day.

I will leave you with this simple thought for the day

There is a lot of psycho babble on the internet

But this wise old woman keeps it simple, to the point and uses language we all understand

Doesn’t that make life sound so……

So……….

Simple……

The Corn Is Green

 

The actor and playwright Emlyn Williams was born and bred just over a hill or so from Trelawnyd in the village of Pen Y Ffordd which literally means top or end of the road

It is said that he spent some of his childhood in or around Trelawnyd but I can’t find reference to this today. Having said this , I’m a bit blurry eyed this morning, sat, like I am in Russel Square gardens with an Americano and a slight hangover.

The Corn Is Green is Williams’ autobiographical account of how an education furnished by an astute schoolteacher gave a poor illiterate child miner a helping hand in life. 

Most of us will remember the story from the Bette Davis 1945 film.

Powerhouse spinster Lily Moffat ( Nicola Walker) inherits a Manor House in a small rural village in North Wales. Helped by an English singleton Miss Ronberry (Alice Orr Ewing) and a staunch baptist Mr Jones ( Richard Lynch) she turns the hall into a school of boys and in a difficult mission to educate the village children who would have been subscripted into mine work by the age of 10.

The play, which hasn’t really dated in since the 1930s makes use of a fantastic male chorus of singing miners, a stereotype if ever there was one, but it is one that works quite beautifully as the strains of Calon Lân and Gwahoddiad waft gently around the actors and action.

Walker is remarkable as Miss Moffat. Workmanlike and efficient in one breath and a fiery lioness on the mission in the other.she is ably supported by a cast that match her skill and although some of verbalised stage directions was a mistake , this is a production of great worth and one whose message resonates today.

I’m on the way home now. 

Like I said slightly hungover and somewhat bleary eyed .

I will have time for a shower and long dog walk and a sleep

I’m on night shift later….

London

 It’s a lovely day for a train journey

My connecting train from Crewe has been cancelled much to the angst of many passengers who are vociferously complaining that their booked seats won’t be honoured on the following train. 

I’m not meeting Alex until 5pm  and so I’ve nothing planned to miss early doors.

I will take my usual amble through Bloomsbury and may take in an exhibit at the British museum or an early movie at the Curzon. 

If the weather remains good, I may just stroll down to the river

Goodbye

 

I met my friend Ruth for breakfast this morning before she takes a leave of absence from work.

She is going to Northern Scotland for a few months to work in a community collective . Work on allotments and gardens for room and board .

She is grieving and needs to heal 

I shall miss her but her choice to go is a wise one.

We all need time to recuperate when we are emotionally damaged 

So many of us ignore  the danger signals and soldier on regardless .

And that often helps no one. 

I hope she returns.

I hate goodbyes

Always have

I once took Nu to the airport, many moons ago now, when she was leaving to work in Saudi Arabia and I had to stop on the Snake Pass from Manchester to Sheffield in order to sob over the steering wheel. So upset I was, a farming type woman in a land rover stopped to ask if I was alright.

After work when I was driving up to the village last night at dusk, I spied a rainbow arcing gracefully 

Over from the south , the tip of which seemed to lightly Land on the top of the Gop.

Several people stopped their cars in order to take the obligatory photo.

The rainbow I’d like to think is a sign from Auntie Gladys 

The old lass is 103 today and as usual the village make voice choir who originally adopted her years ago has played tribute to her

I miss her

Not so much a goodbye from the old Trelawnyd queen

But a hello

Easter Sunday

 

I'm on my break in our study  and I'm being watched

Work is quiet today, after a fraught few days,and the staff have made the most of the change of pace by sitting together discussing a glossary of Trans words.

It was an interesting and informative hour all told. 

We are sadly not up to speed with the more recent ways of describing the gender/sexuality world.

I hated Easter Sunday as a child btw

It was a boring day filled with too much chocolate and piss long biblical films on the BBC

I've never liked religious movies since

And have never been overly keen on chocolate either

Friend with Benefits

I’m going to London for a flying visit next week.

I’m meeting my friend Alex who lives in Poland.

We are going out to eat, we are going to the National Theatre and he’s sharing my hotel room 

in the nice trendy hotel in Covent Garden.

We are, after last years meet ups ..what is unfortunately termed friends with benefits 

Something my gay mate Dave rolled his eyes rather theatrically at.

“ Now John”, (Dave gave me lecture over the phone) “ one of the rules of friends with benefits is that you never have a sleepover,” 

I didn’t know that rule.

More eye rolling from Dave 

He helpfully listed the rules for me 

“make sure you are emotionally adult for this relationship…..don’t be lovely dovey, set boundaries, don’t expect too much, prioritise friendship over sex, don’t fall in love”

I listened with interest 

Now I’m not Mary Poppins people, and I’m not a fool either. I like Alex as a friend and I like him as a FwB but it’s clear we will never be anything more than that and I’m ok with that 

But Dave knew something else was bothering me

“ What’s up babe?” He asked 

I told him I’ve not shared a bed overnight with someone who fancies me and whom I fancy since my separation 

“ Arrhhuh the first non platonic OVERNIGHT bed share !” Dave laughed “How sweet! “ 

As a Single gay man of a certain age , it’s not that hard to have sex if you want it….hard sometimes but often not THAT hard.

Like I said I’m not Mary Poppins in this respect but nor am I Claudius’ Messalina or indeed Don Juan.

But Dave hit on a nerve..sharing a bed all night is a different thing than rolling about on a cotton duvet for an hour before saying your goodbyes.

Dave gave me the best advice anyhow 

“ Darling man ….enjoy your evening , try not to snore, share a hot shower  …don’t think too much……… oh and don’t dribble gravy on your top”

He knows me very well

Hey ho

Short post

 

Pond and Mincemeat.

 I wanted to do something restful today

I’ve just worked two twelve hour shifts and am about to do two more.

Today I wanted to mooch…quietly

I should have helped the community Association volunteers in their planting out of the newly reconstructed village pond but I went to the cinema instead. 

This may have rested my sore neck ( my work physio almost pulled my head off during a somewhat energetic therapy session) but resting in the cinema wasnt really therapy as the film wasn’t as good as I expected …hey ho.

I went up to the pond later on  to survey their work and I was impressed.

Not only has the pond been dredged of silt and mud. Aquatic plants and reeds have been planted on its borders with shrubs, annuals and woodland plants framing it nicely

The movie was Operation Mincemeat, a true wartime story of MI5s efforts to try to deceive the Germans by posing the body of Welsh tramp as a British Officer with forged top secret instructions outlining the allied invasion of Greece instead of the intended target of  Sicily. It’s a story that was filmed more successfully back in 1956 in The Man That Never Was.

This version has a cast to die for . Mathew Macfadyen, Colin Firth, Penelope Wilton, Jason Issacs, Mark Gatiss, and Kelly MacDonald, but Firth was miscast as the lead role and the whole thing I found somewhat dreary.

Hot Air

The hospice is located just right of those houses

 I have always loved that first blast of hot, dry air you get when exiting an aircraft in a Mediterranean airport. 

That faint blast of hot tarmac, sunshine and aircraft fumes 

Mixed together with waft of bougainvillaea, beaches and distant sewerage.

Conversely I also love leaving work and feeling the cool evening Welsh air on my face as I stand for a moment in the hospice car park

Air, cooled by the Irish Sea blowing over and down the Orme 

The grand peninsula overlooking Llandudno 

An island of limestone dotted with the goats made famous from lockdown.

Whereas the Spanish and Greek blast almost takes your breath away.

The Welsh breeze rejuvenates and cools.

Tonight, I needed a bit more Welsh breeze.

I needed to blow the day away.

I took the girls down the lane when I got home

And in the dark, with common pipistrelle bats flashing under the fairly lights at Trendy Carol’s, we stand at Graham the shepherd’s field gate with our heads to the sky feeling the faint cooling, sea smelling wind from the South hills.

It felt good

A Sausage Apology

 No doubt I’m in store of some sort of internet backlash but I admit I locked the dogs inside the cottage by mistake this morning.

I only knew my mistake when I ventured a quick glance at my phone messages on my break at 11.30 am .

It was a earlier message from Trendy Carol I noticed first

“ I can’t get in ! “ it said plaintively 

I had double locked the back door 

The dogs are never left home alone more than four hours when I’m at work. Today they were left nearly fourteen.

I felt like a right heel 

Now if my mistake had occurred when Winnifred was alive, I would have faced a sulk worthy of Mariah Carey who had not been presented with her usual dressing room full of puppies and kittens but after being released from the cottage , Mary & Dorothy bounced forward like a pair of Bonnie Langfords on acid.

Ive just taken them for a long walk, then cleaned the kitchen of bodily fluids before treating both girls with the  nectar of the terriers 

Cheap, plastic looking hot dog sausages 

They adore them with a passion .

Even Winnie would have been won over if I had waved one Gayly in her direction ….

It’s been a busy day at work …but a productive one

I will be cutting my hours from 150 a month to 96 on the First of July