Friday

 I met my friend Faisal for coffee this morning. 

He was, you may recall at the first LGBTQ book club a few months ago.

He is the politest man I’ve ever met and soon will be moving back to his family home abroad, where he will help with the family business which is a garage and convenience store. He is in his forties and not out to his family. 

I like him. He speaks carefully and with much thought and never rushes an answer, which is always considered and balanced. 

He’s never had a boyfriend, but seems not to mind this fact explaining he has only been out with his friends for just under a year. 

We have lunch from the Thai on Thai and I was made up as the owner came over as were were eating to tell me how good my technique with my chopsticks was. I was eating rice traditionally with the bowl up to my mouth and she gave me a toothy thumbs up which really made my day

It’s funny that I’m so clumsy with eating my food using a knife , fork and spoon but give me a pair of chopsticks and Im a wizz…..

This afternoon I took Roger to the groomer and he’s looking mighty fine when returned 

Just after we got home I got some beautiful roses delivered. 

A surprise gift from Nu 

She does this from time to time

Venice

 

Thank fuck for that ….covid neg today.

I was out minutes after the swab and with my friend Colin in Liverpool within an hour where I soaked up my weight watchers extra points on a fab Lebanese lunch ( no pud)

It’s so nice to sit in a window of a nice cafe and talk and eat and talk more.

We gossiped like old ladies do in Central Park on a Sunday.

Towards the end of lunch Colin turned to me and said 

“ Do you know what, I really fancy going to Venice for a few days do you want to come?”

I said yes before he could take another slurp of his foul mudammas

How good is that ?

Spring Flowers

On the back of the feelings of springtime this morning

I had a mooch in the garden at dusk to look at the spring flowers

Which are just showing their faces to the sun.

Pink ribus, miniature daffodils and grape hyacinth are valiantly colouring patches of my borders 

And I filled an old cut glass ink bottle with a bunch and listened to The Archers as the dogs turned slow circles in front of the fire and Albert sighed in the middle of them stretching his bad leg slowly towards the heat

The flowers are next to my bed

On the blue pained Lloyd loom table

And they look cheerful 

As I wanted them to 

Lily

 I lowered Bluebells’ windows wide and drove down the A55 at a pace.

What covid I breathed out soon was blasted out of the car in an instant and soon I was feeling cold but exhilarated by the wind. 

that’s cleared the old tubes I thought

I drove to Colwyn Bay and sat on the beach with my flask of coffee

This was 9 am this morning and I had already walked the dogs.

Women were wild swimming in the sea and I could here them laughing from where I sat.

It’s always nice to hear laughter no matter where it’s from

It’s been a long and fairly miserable winter all told

I’ve never experienced one so long, except in lockdown 

And with spring here things seem to be on the up. 

They feel better? 

Don’t you think? 

Two women passed me , they were talking about Paul O’Grady whose death was announced this morning

“ I loved him as Lily Savage” one said to another and I wondered if O’Grady knew just how affectionately he was thought of I thought.

I loved the story about him when he was comparing a drag show in the 1980s in London and the bar was raided by Policemen all wearing rubber gloves ( HIV protection) because it braking section 28 rules, Lily Savage called out to the punters that they were there to help with the washing up.

Thanks to O ‘Grady we now have drag Queens in our libraries reading stories to children. 

With his Liverpudlian wit, amazing legs and fuck you attitude that never lost a little warmth, he endeared himself to the majority that met him. 

He did a great deal for the  LGBTQ+  Community 

And he loved his dogs.

You were a class act Lily …..a real class act

Zoom

 

It was skills practice in college tonight , so I played the counsellor (on line )which was interesting.We are a group of three and this evening had an opportunity to honestly share why we picked each other to “ do” therapy .

I like my fellow students and I guess that is why we were all there …for we like each other. 

Donna is a fast talking , nervous Social worker who loves her cats, is theatrically and constantly irritated by her husband and who laughs without a filter. 

Caroline is deep, a saleswoman who is good at what she does but who needs to change her career 

And there’s me 

Three different people who bonded over Carl Rogers, CBT and Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs 

Tonight we did skills practice and I talked about my weight and it was important and supportive and caring 

We also talked about other things not for Going Gently to share, but I must say that we left tonight’s session each feeling we’ve made two new friends.

Otters

My WW app gave me a round of applause this morning.

It sent me several ❤️❤️ a bit of 👏🏻 But it wasn’t the same as 14 overweight ladies giving you a standing 

ovation next to leader Irene in her pencil skirt

I’ve lost 4 .8 lbs 

An ok start.🥰

I’m reading Tarka The Otter by Henry Williamson today .

The 1927 novel I picked for Gay Book Club 

£2.99 from eBay 

I feel a bit washed out

Goddamm.

 

I met a similar looking guy on Saturday night who I had a lovely long chat with

Unfortunately just found out that he is straight 

Bloody hell lol,

What a bugger……some straight guys flirt with everyone 

Trash

 

For some this will be a boring ‘ bad” blog

No long conversations. No long replies. No in depth recognition of the merits of off the wall films. 

No discussions on everything important.

So be it. 

I have covid again and I’m grounded from a much anticipated cinema trip.

Apart from feeling I’m swallowing ground glass when I sip my coffee I’m fine.

My back garden looks like the stink bombs front garden. I realised that yesterday. Now the “ stink bombs” were a family who lived in a rough looking council house near my primary school. The hedges were unkempt, and opened up wide enough in one side to allow the Ford cortina to park up to the living room windows. Scattered around would be a skip load of mostly broken plastic toys , a deflated paddling pool and beer cans. 

Even as 8 year old children , we were snobby and judgemental. 

Not nice eh? I only turned into Anne Shirley Cuthburt when I was a teen.

My garden has a look of the stink bombs and it’s all Roger’s doing

Empty milk cartons and plastic bottles, lie around next to bits of solar lanterns and  pieces of paper lie sodden after being gleefully held aloft like a fluttering flag and thrown in the air like a shuttlecock. 

An old lasagne container, parts of an old lead, a used coffee bag, the contents of a small houseplant pot.

He’s been skipping around with an empty coke bottle stolen from the recycling bag for the past half hour.

Bless him

Testing testing 1. 2, 1. 2

By eleven I thought my hangover was too bad to be true

I had a sore throat which rang alarm bells 

So I tested myself and yeap covid positive 

Bollocks

 

Pissed

The ukulele band gave a “spirited” performance and won over the local crowd quite magnificently 

I was on the door , selling raffle tickets and window panes and did well at both. Suffice to say I was busy And had to keep sending friends to the bar for a beer….

Over 150 people turned up including lots of old faces  

And would you believe it 

The lovely Chic Eleanor ( centre) 

Turned up 

Affable despots Jason and wife claire with Claire’s dad 

Gwawr and the lovely Tracy Manchester 

Locals from the village  Turpins  et al 

An action shot of Velvet Voiced Linda , Village leader Ian and bouncy Bridget 

Neighbour Sailor John and  Med…

Hattie and Adam 

The object of the night was to publicise the TCA and not to make a profit 

But with food sales ( all my chilli sold) raffle tickets and pledges for the window panes as well as the band donating their gig to us for free we made a rather impressive profit 

I got home to walked the dogs around 11.30:…..I was pissed and walked  into the garden arch without a clue….big laceration on forehead  lol 

A great night ….of a place …we all felt a part of /

Chilli Mouth

 I went to the hall which was almost ready for the Children’s party this morning.

The whole idea of today was to sell the Hall as a social venue. 

The children’s tables were lined up and decorated and the popcorn machine was out and smelling glorious, so we ticked the box there. 

Bales of straw lined the stage with the TCA posters on them, giving the hall a sort of Ceilidh feel and the bar, for later was hid away in the corner for later. The bar tonight will be run by The Crown ( the village pub)

Bridget had set up a wedding table, using the utilitarian chairs and table from the hall and it looked lovely.we are advertising the Hall as a do-it-yourself wedding venue so this corner speaks for itself.

As for the chilli ?

Well I’m sick of the fucking taste of it!

I’m made four batches so far

One more at least to go

One in the oven

A Long Time Dead

I usually listen to LBC Radio when I’m sitting down to my bucket of coffee and now much reduced breakfast , but there seems a lot of shouting everywhere at the moment. Shouting on the tv, on radio, in real life and in blogging, that I’ve turned on classic fm.

To be honest that was all a bit much too and so I’m now sat in silence 

Last night David Sidaris discussed how he was once berated by a woman for talking about vaginas. He made  a simple enough point, for as a fifteen year old aide in a psychiatric hospital he was once witness to a naked 80 year old woman having “ therapy” a scene which would have turned himself gay if he hadn’t been gay already. 

The point of his essay was simple, for when David left the sadness and restrictions of covid lockdown, the complainer’s power was diminished to nothing. 

I get this…covid was poisonous in so many ways 

Last night, a friend phoned. Like me they have just entered their seventh decade and they were feeling it, like I do after two long day shifts. 

They talked about feeling on the last lap of life so to speak, where they needed to do all those things they’d planned to do, before age and illness and covid and the like could stop them.

I recognised this feeling 

That last Hurrah kind of feeling.

“ So what do you want to do ?” I asked.

“I want to see the Sagrada Familia” they said 

Feelings intertwine..they always do. Mortality, and age and real life and post covid lethargy and a sense of a clock ticking…

“So let’s go” I said

And so we are going to see it in July!  

Hall

 

I’ve spent the afternoon playing with bits of paper, this was after I photographed the village telephone box which the TCA is renovating into an information centre, book swap and noticeboard.

I am Sat on the stage of the Memorial Hall in silence with only the ghosts of villagers past for company.

The hall has its own distinctive smell. 

Slightly musty, of polish, and wood floors and old doors, and sunlight trapped inside an airless huge room by long windows framed with old fashioned curtains.

I love the smell of the Hall.

It reminds me of all of the above , as well as the Flower Show and of long, tired but happy days in Summer when the tiny cream painted side windows were forced to be opened by the sheer numbers of people in the hall.

I cut photos out and pinned them to the noticeboards and remembered and was almost done when the Velvet Voiced Linda, buoyant Briget and Nick arrived to help set up

Then the ghosts disappeared as the chatter of the modern day villagers filled the space with echoes.

Women

 

Hannah Churchill

Most of us know the vignettes that make up Little Women.

Amy’s pickled limes. Jo’s selling her hair. Meg’s love of the Ball and Beth’s piano.

The stories are almost as real as those in our own families, especially if you grew up with siblings.

Last night I went to see a one woman show in Theatre Clwyd where actress Hannah Churchill reenacted most of the novel as Jo, hiding away in the attic after Beth’s death. Here she writes her book in her head, playing each sister in turn, only supported by a quiet Laurie, who plays an accompaniment on Beth’s piano

Churchill’s jumping from one character from another works best when Amy and Jo are portrayed which is unsurprising given their powerful personalities. Meg, Beth and Marmie are slightly less successful , but only slightly, as at times the play becomes incredibly moving. (Beth’s illness) and even exciting ( Amy falling through the Ice)

It’s a hard gig really as we all know the story and bringing a fresh look at it must be hard.

So hats off to Hannah Churchill who did a very good job of carrying the story.

I’ve broken the back of my assignment and will finish that today. This afternoon I’m going to the hall to sort out the noticeboards for the open day on Saturday.

Rome

 

With Boris on the firing line today at Partygate, I’m amazed to hear that it’s three years since the first lockdown . Three years!!

I’m almost overwhelmed by the thought.

I’m looking at the art wall in the kitchen…..at the start of Lockdown there was only a couple of paintings there…..

The dogs and I had a serious chat this morning, 

Over in the Churchyard, in the weak sun of the morning.

Well I did most of the talking to be fair and Mary and Dorothy hung on every word as they have a want to do.

Roger spied an early bee flying in disorientated circles near the flowers on Auntie Gladys’ grave and smiled to himself .

He never listens  to anything more serious .

Albert limped over and head butted Roger who almost toppled over in shock

I left the boys to it.

I feel more energised than I have in a while. 

I feel more in control and more hopeful with things

I think I’ve been a little depressed over lockdown and a smidgen beyond it

And I told the girls so this morning.

I’m sure they nodded carefully

I have them a big smile and told them that

I’ve just booked a trip to Rome 

It’s in September and I’m going alone.

If a friend wants to join me ….then great.

If not, that’s cool too

Im going to Rome, and I will be able to fit in my best Walking Dead T shirt ….the Large one….

Not the extra large one when I do so.

I fly from London and hopefully see friends there before I go.

What do you think? I asked the gang

Dorothy blew a kiss and Mary pushed forward to be first

Roger was now watching crows in Well Street trees and hadn’t a clue

Io Vado a Roma…Bella

It’s Time

 For all of my adult life I have battled with my weight.

Comfort food is my go to despite on line healthy Korean recipes , mindful sushi and photographs of nice soups 

I eat on a late evening 

When things are quiet and I’m not diverted with “stuff”

I lose weight when I’m ready to do so, and have done so before 

And I’m ready…more than ready now to get my ample arse into gear.

So there you have it.

I’ve joined weight watchers again, weigh in college and choir day every Tuesday 

It’s up to me now 

Hey ho

Less is More

I

I jammed in Everything, Everywhere All At Once this afternoon, in between essay writing and the pre TCA launch meeting at The Velvet voiced Linda’s home. The film was what I expected to be honest, a full one, in your face , frenetic romp of movie with lots to say, even more to see and a cast that was clearly enjoying every bleeding moment of their time on screen.

It’s just not for me .

A conventional story started at a cracking pace. Blink and you’d miss half of what was going on. Evelyn ( Michelle Yeoh) is a frazzled owner of a busy laundromat. She is swamped with difficult customers, a mounting tax bill, a lesbian daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) who wants and needs validation, a smiling  cheerful husband ( Ke Hue Quan) who wants a divorce and a demanding , negative father ( James Hong) visiting from Hong Kong 

The family meet up with the IRS inspector Deirdre Beaubeirdre ( a hilarious Jamie Lee Curtis) in an effort to sort out their failing business and this is where everything is turned on it’s head and present day characters become superhero alter egos in a parallel existence 

Fart and you’d miss something as the off beat comedy drama suddenly became surreal, absurd, a fantasy based martial art dream like time busting bit of anarchy. 

And that’s when I left it .

Now I know I wasn’t suited to this kind of genre, I placed the above less-is-more clip from Pride and Prejudice as an example of just why I didn’t enjoy it, but I did pick on the films main theme, namely Evelyn being trapped in a life she can’t control or even wished for. 

Michelle Yeoh is a beautiful actress and much of this theme was shared by her to the audience in just a few telling expressions and glances in the very first reel. That would have done me.

She was sublime

But the film took its own narrative path and for some that was challenging, exciting and innovative .

It just sort of bored me . 

I did love the performances though. Quan is genuinely sweet as Evelyn’s hopeful/ superhero husband. 

Jamie Lee Curtis clearly enjoyed herself as the baddie of the piece and Yeoh has that amazing ability to move you with a  mere glance. 

She has an old soul that woman

I did walk out eventually , and I’m sorry but it was necessary , it was a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes for me

I did so want to love it . But I didn’t 

Library

 I’m off to the library for the day 

Trendy Carol will be collecting the dogs.

I’m taking her dog Bengy to the groomer tomorrow 

I work better in the library and have always enjoyed sitting alongside people who are studying

I was once picked up by a floppy haired student in a hole filled green jumper in the reference library in Sheffield . 

His name was Alan 

He dropped a piece of paper with his telephone number onto my desk.

https://disasterfilm.blogspot.com/2018/06/pride.html

I also remember watching a Muslim woman support a distraught stranger in that same reference library.

A bit of kindness with someone going out of their way for another

It still sticks in my mind after thirty years 

https://disasterfilm.blogspot.com/2020/11/sheffield-central-library-1992.html

And my biggest Library joy was this 

https://disasterfilm.blogspot.com/2017/01/immortal.html

Anyhow back to today, I grabbed some clothes

Brushed my teeth 

Stuffed my notes in my very untrendy Sainsbury’s bag for life 

And hurried to the car with my flask of tea.

Only then did I realise I was wearing a green jumper with holes in the neck

Sheffield Botanical Gardens

I remembered his face, but not his name 

I had forgotten it a second after he told me.

I was wrong footed at the door what with the dogs barking and all.

So it took several minutes to restore order, quiet and peace.

I sat him on the couch , and I sat on the grey chair under the lamp 

He refused the offer of tea.

Albert walked through sniffing loudly before we cut to the chase

I will call him Jim 

Jim used to enter my flower show a decade ago 

He asked about the “ Sponsor a pane “ initiative for the hall, that’s why he was there

His partner had died four years ago now and he wanted to sponsor a pane in her memory

But they had lived almost 7 miles away so he wasn’t sure he could fit the criteria

I told him of course he could sponsor one.

He was so worried that he didn’t qualify 

We chatted

“ I miss her on Sunday’s the most “ he told me gently “ having breakfast which we made together listening to the radio “

“Cooking alongside someone without chatting “

I nodded and told him that I was divorced so understood a little tiny bit of what he described .and 

Jim surprised me by saying without any guile

“Oh Divorce can feel worse than a regular bereavement “ 

We talked about it for a while and I was oh so grateful for his insight and vindication , …he was divorced too

He booked a pane of glass in memory of  his partner 

And I told him the inspiration of the whole event was the fact that for his 31st birthday, many years ago,  I had sponsored a pane of glass in Sheffield’s newly revamped Botanical Gardens glass house Pavilion, for the Prof ….

“How Good Is That.” Jim said with a smile 

Brain Worm

This is my favourite video relating to self care, love it to death.

It’s 10.30 am and I’ve already walked the dogs, straightened the cottage and enjoyed Breakfast

Ham and eggs on toast with coffee.

The blog is the final distraction before I get down to writing my assignment .

No radio today

Just 

A patient at work keeps playing it….it’s my brain worm this week

And finally to work