New Routine

 My five year Dorothy routine is in disarray.

The Welsh like a lie in, and walks are not greeted with an hysteria bordering on a1960s Beatles concert.

So I’m starting the day later in general , in a quieter, less fraught environment.

My blood pressure will benefit, I’m sure.

I have a journal to complete for college.

This time centring upon a childhood memory, resurrected during personal development group. I have a few in mind and discussed possibilities with myself during dog walks this morning. 

I am a big self chatterer. 

I have picked a rather painful memory when I challenged my mother about the level of her drinking.

Instead of exploring the subject, brought up by a gauche and very young 17 year old, she did what she often did and retreat to bed blaming her unhappiness on me or us ( her children) 

Incredibly passive aggressive and exceptionally dysfunctional, her behaviour found its mark  and , I found  myself ultimately apologising for upsetting her, which in retrospect was a terribly skewed expectation of an adolescent to behave .

And so I’ve tossed the memory around this morning. That’s half the battle all told. Memories can warp themselves into passable chunks. I just need to map out the essay,

In half an hour I need to take Trendy Carol’s Hubby for a hospital appointment, he is a regular attender and I’m happy to take him. I will refer to him in the future as Ieuan which the Welsh version of John.

Today I found the ceramic heart on the kitchen wall, a gift from the velvet voiced Linda and a few days before the pencil drawing of Dorothy was left on Bluebell’s passenger seat by Margaret from Choir,

Kindnesses go far….

I’ve made a lasagne today as I’ve a friend coming over for supper tomorrow.

Silvia Sanz Torre

If Silvia Sanz Torre was conducting my choir, I’d do out if my way to please her. That’s the sign of a charismatic choir master.

In my mind charisma and passion go side by side, you see it in the great divas such as Diana Damrau, who Command  the stage with a certain something, that if you could bottle it, it would send a rocket far into space. I saw her once in New York at The Met singing The Queen of the night aria and you could literally feel the audience stiffen in glee as she started her chorus.

Peter Ustinov had oodles of charisma in spades too but his passion used to lie with words and with stories as many actors do

Audrey Hepburn had a still charisma. The late Queen a strength behind the eyes. 

And I’m remembering The Red Faced Welsh Farmer here, who looked and sounded like an old pirate 

And whose charisma was funnelled under a beanie had and a battered red landrover.

Without a bulldog to wake me up, I slept in after night shift. The Welsh patiently wait their turn to go out and we’ve just returned from an afternoon walk and venture to the supermarket for treats.

It’s wet and cold and I’ve heated up chowder and garlic bread which I’m going to eat with a serving spoon. 

I’ve made garlic bread for me and a small mozzarella bun for the Welsh,  when cool they  will take their buns away to enjoy in a dark corner. 

Dogs adore cheese.

 

Feels Like Home

The little bow of acknowledgment lifted this humorous encounter into something so much more ……special I always think.

This moments are rare 

I was moaning about something only yesterday. 

Something about a friend letting me down.

I what’s chunnering away to myself, whipping things up when there was no need to.

I don’t deal with rejection well, I never have.

Friends don’t let me down, they just say no occasionally 

And Dorothy listened to that, 

She always did. 

Yesterday I went banging along and the Welsh remained firmly dozing.

Sure an ear would twitch 

And a half eye would open, 

But content they were not the centre of my moan, 

They rested the rest of the just, 

And slept.

Dorothy however would take everything on board.

I miss those big eyes, unblinking and watching carefully as I moaned and kvetched and shared that life isn’t always a bed of roses.

Like Mr Kim’s nod, she had the ability to acknowledge things with a long serious look

Even though she had no idea of what was being said.

She was my confidante, my conscience….my priest 

And she would never look away……….  

Mixed Bag

It’s sunny this morning. Sunny enough to warm the south facing stone wall of the cottage by 9.30 am.

Taskmaster has restarted this week, and Sophie Willan had me in stitches with the hooplaring of Gary ( watch it from 4.30 to see what I mean )

I’ve drank coffee and was mindful by eating some hot cross buns covered with clumps of butter for breakfast

Last night’s The Kite Runner was an interesting adaptation of the multi awarded book. It lacked a bit of drama for me given the epic nature of some of the story but the lead (Stuart Vincent) was impressive enough. 

I’m working the weekend on nights 

The aubretia is flowering

Good Friday

 I’m not a lover of Easter. 

It feels what it is, a now defunct holiday with no purpose or reason.

The supermarket was packed today, which told me enough

Just an excuse to waste money.

Having said that, I bought some chocolate eggs for the work staff . I am on nights tomorrow and Sunday, and felt I wanted to treat those on duty. It’s not that long ago, that I bought eggs to hide in the garden for my mother -in-law to find. It is her birthday over Easter and it was always a silly tradition I used to stage for her. 

I doubt she would remember it now.

I bought flowers for the cottage and pigs ears for the Welsh, and some noodle ready meals to use over the weekend, and I’ve washed clothes and underwear which are festooned over the bushes and back kitchen walls to dry. I’ve messaged my friend Ben in Korea and spoke to Nu. 

Easter is usually a quiet weekend.

I’ve been invited to Gwawr’s 40th at the hall and will pop there later after I go to the theatre. 

 

Monster

 A rainy day and a cold one.

I walked the dogs and left them cuddled up asleep and went to the Chester Storyhouse. I was too early so had pad Thai in the Market and ate it with chopsticks on one of the communal tables in the vast dining room

Monster is a carefully crafted study of the pain of feeling what you feel when you are a pre teen, and everything is not quite what you think it is. Seen in a long series of flashbacks taken from differing points of view from a succession of characters we watch single mother (Sakura Ando) trying to understand why her young son Minato ( Soya Kurosawa) is acting so strangely. She hears through the grapevine that his outwardly diffident teacher Mr Hori ( Eita Nagayami) is bullying him and as she battles with the grief stricken and obsequious headmistress ( Yuko Tanaka) it is suggested that Minato is in fact bullying  another boy, the gentle and slightly effeminate Eri ( Hinata Hiiragi) 

Like the skin on an onion, director Hirokazu Kor-eda, slowly peels away the reality of the story with some care and with a Japanese eye, examines  homophobia, physical and sexual abuse, and maintaining honour and saving face within the story of two boys growing up.

Yuko Tanaka

It’s an incredibly fascinating and rather sad story all told , acted beautifully by all involved. Ando and Nagayami are especially strong as the lioness mother and bemused teacher and veteran actress Yuko Tanaka is compelling in her emotionless turn as the damaged headmistress.  

Kor-eda finally brings all the threads together by the final reel , but he gives the audience two endings, one hopeful, one tragic .

I’d like to think everyone picked the hopeful one

I’m off to Chester again tomorrow , but this time to the theatre to see The Kite Runner. How lucky am  I Japan one day Kabul the next .

'What Me Mam Taught Me'

Sometimes your evening doesn’t quite work out the way you expect it would . 

John Copper Clarke

I went to see the poet and raconteur John Copper Clarke last night. 

And I kind of fell in love with fellow poet Mike Garry who was supporting him. 

They sound the same.

A thick, proud Mancunian accent. 

Nasal and rhythmical, his poems of childhood and a rough working class life in a Northern City had an obvious energy and life to them, and he lived each one with the power of an evangelist preacher.

I was captivated from start to finish, so much so that I was slightly disappointed when Cooper Clarke came on stage, late and ever so slightly drunk. 

At seventy five John Cooper Clarke is still the old king of his craft, and he performed a good selection of his poems with a wry wit which is both appealing and affectionate. But he is much more an all rounder now, more a stand up comic who hurtles one liners out like machine gun bullets rather than just a performing poet. 

I felt as though Mike Garry was his younger version 

Having said that, I remember one short poem which had the audience screaming in laughter when Cooper Clarke lugubriously threw away his short poem called Necrophilia 

“ Are you fed up with foreplay and all that palaver? 

‘Ave a cadaver” 

Cooper Clarke and Mike Garry

A Little Piece Of Home

In the wee small hours this is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 fM

I tune in perhaps three or four times a year

And there it is 

Like poetry, or a prayer

More about that tomorrow….it’s been a poetry led evening and I’m feeling suddenly melancholy 

Sweet dreams ( thank you Philip xx)