Andrew

Brothers and sisters

My brother died just as December showed its cold face in 2011

Twelve Years Ago

 I used to care for my brother every Thursday daytime. He was confined mostly to bed then, with a bubbling tracheostomy and the cruelty that is motor Neurone disease.
My presence was more a confidence boost for my sister in law , so she felt content to leave the house for a days' shopping and apart from the occasional meds round and tracheal suction  my day would be peaceful as the dogs would run amok in the garden as my brother slept or watched crap tv.
I remember one afternoon he had a coughing fit and needed his tracheostomy inner tube changed and his airways cleared .
To me this procedure is second nature but that day my brother had become irritated and difficult.
He was angry, and had no voice and as I fiddled with the tubes and catheters his eyes flashed red with anger
Moments later he slapped my hand hard as I reached forward with a suction catheter and shocked and suddenly upset I paused for just one second and said a slightly exasperated " I'm sorry" 
I remember my brother closing his eyes and flopping back on his pillow as I finished the procedure and without saying anything more I cleaned up the equipment  and busied myself with task orientation.
I was ten years younger than my brother and we couldn't be more different in personality if we tried.
I knew I would often irritate him but I never quite knew just why that was.
Initially the gay thing was an issue , but I knew it wasn't really that that irritated him now.
It was more me, my personality  and I get that, me coupled with hidden sibling rivalry  so often experienced between brothers.

I felt that slap long long after it had happened though

And I remembered my training too on spinal injuries as I watched bulldog Mabel bounce around the edge of the pond. The pond she would fall into a week later
Training which said Internal anger was so much harder to deal with than external anger.

This memory is over twelve years old now. I had to look it up on Going Gently finding the post where Mabel finally swan dived into the pond like Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure
See
https://disasterfilm.blogspot.com/2011/11/sock-down-trouser-leg.html

But I suddenly remembered it as though it was yesterday.

I also remember how the afternoon ended as an hour or two later when I went to check on my brother he gestured to a crappy quiz programme on the tv.
It was our habit to watch it together with me inanely shouting out the answers
And he gestured for me to sit to do the same
There was no need to revisit the burst of anger

It was there and it was out,

And it was finished with.

Cheers

Reading an entertaining entry on a fellow blogger's blog reminded me of a lady I "nursed" while I was on student placement to The Merseyside alcohol dependency unit at The West Cheshire Psychiatric Hospital in the 1980s.Sylvia was one of those ex colonial types, with a cut glass accent, a weather beaten face and the kind of spirit that made Britain what it was during the 1930s and 1940s, an arrogant world power.
She was, opinionated and racist, in that old fashioned sort of way that made you smile at her rather than it provoking an angry response towards her, and she had spent her life of privilege in colonial Malaya , for 40 years pickled in pink gin.

God knows just why she had been admitted to the unit. She was far too long in the tooth at 83 to successfully give up alcohol, even I as a student realised that fact, but I suspect that she had been "encouraged " to enter rehab for a formal assessment, as it was suspected that she was suffering from the start of Korsakoff’s dementia.
People suffering from Korsakoff's dementia lack vitamin B 1 due to their alcoholism, and treatment , as I recall is a combination of vitamin supplements, good nutrition and plenty of rest in addition to the "talking therapies" which aim to explore the cause of their drinking behaviour.
"Talking Therapy" was not something that Sylvia took too seriously as I recall

People that have Korsakoff's, often have great gaps in their memory which they cover up with confabulating history accounts.
In one morning group session I remember one Liverpudlian patient asking her just how much she drank before her admission
In her best Maggie Smith delivery Sylvia announced loudly and with some conviction to the group
"If you must know ......I only ever had a few little drinkies after meals!"
The Liverpudlian, missed nothing from her vague reply
"and how many meals a day did you actually have?" he asked with a smile
"34!" Sylvia called out with a triumphant cackle

Funny Men Have Feelings

 

My sister made me a Christmas Wreath 

I haven’t seen “Brian” Since the Flower Show. He’s taken early retirement and spends a great deal of his time golfing. We banter when we meet, which is usually as one of the village events and I like him.

This time, in front of a large gathering he made graphic reference to my weight. 

It was all very jolly but at the same time incredibly rude and I suddenly felt like a picked on child at school than an affable 61 year old at a village fair.

I covered up any embarrassment with a witty retort but wanted to say 

“Why say such a thing to me when you wouldn’t dream of saying it to a woman or indeed a man of lesser good nature?.”

I have no doubt that he meant to be funny

But why say anything like he did? 

It was unkind, and it left me feeling bruised 

It’s All About The People

Kelda made us two videos to share 

 I wish I had taken more of the villagers in today’s exhausting Christmas Fair

Bunty in mufti 

Dave Smith in his usual garb

Dave and Liz 

My sister Janet and Mrs Trellis

Ian and Nick

Cameron

N

Pippa and Anne

Hattie and Adam 

Cameron’s Parents

The exotic Melinka LevVey and the very sassy Loraine

Tracy Manchester with an exhausted Bridget in the background

The Manley’s 

Gwawr and Jack

The day was hard work but fun, and the TCA should be praised for their dedication 

We had a harpist 

A community choir 

And just three members of the Rhyl brass band which, despite being left in the proverbials by their colleagues managed several sets of jolly hymns 

I went for the fat bastard Christmas jumper look seeing that my Victorian outfit didn’t fit

And enjoyed my lantern making

Outland (1981)

One of my favourite actresses died yesterday 

Frances Sternhagen a renown stage and screen actress died aged 93. For many people she was known to play tough talking mothers( and grandmothers)  in the likes of Cheers, ER and Sex and the City but for me her film roles as the tough talking and loyal doctor to Sean Connery’s hero cop  in Outland and as Irene Reppler the 80 year old feisty home made flame thrower  heroine in the monster movie horror The Mist that stand out for me 

She will be missed

In The Mood

A local business sponsored our Christmas Tree at the hospice which was kind. And they set it up tonight which was also kind. My sister has been busy making wreaths for the Trelawnyd Fair and I see
 

That the Village Christmas Tree has been erected outside the hall, 

It looks cheerful enough.

The support worker I’ve been working with tonight brought me a curried Scotch egg

Which was bloody lovely.

At home tonight, my festive penguin is the centre of my decorations . I will never have a tree at home if there’s just me to see it, 

Happy Christmas xxxx 2023

 

     

This is my Christmas Card for you

My Followers

Of Happy Times when a man could love his turkey

freely and without prejudice

Its been a funny old year this year all told...... suffice to say that despite all of the shit in this world, this little part of North Wales plods along at its own particular pace and in its own inimitable way. 

There is something constant about things here, 

Going Gently isn't a notable blog, I have no insightful news references, no waspish political satire to share. it remains what it is ...a bit of whimsey where an ageing old spinster homo can complain about "cheap Christmas cards hastily written" in a world where Christmas Cards suddenly seem a creature of the past.

Idiots

Well last night’s blog entry went well.  

Apologies for not adding spoiler alert to the title.

I’ve now lost a half dozen followers 

Hey ho

Serves me right for me trying to be current.

I’m an idiot 

I’m on nights tonight, so will just potter cheaply today. I’ve had to buy a laptop for college which was a necessary but naive expense . 

Why can’t you do everything on an iPad ? I asked 

Well you can’t 

Plain and simple is the reply.

My machine is second hand and rebooted and sorted so will fit in quite nicely when I’m feeling pretentious and want to bang away at my homework in the Storyhouse cafe. 

I thought of going this morning but that’s just an extravagance. 

It’s fickle too.

And I bloody hate fickle. 

You see fickle all of the time here on social media.

Secretive and private bloggers who regurgitate great swathes of private information moments after they demand with a thin lipped, emotional just don’t ask . 

I can’t be doing with it.

I’m annoyed this morning can’t you tell? The guy who always lets his overactive spaniel loose on the walkways did so again this morning. He’s an idiot and although he accepts that his dog bothers other dogs by running into them and sticking his nose up their arses ,all he does is shout at his dog and move on. 

Dorothy and Mary have both bitten this dog several times , a fact that upsets me more that anything else. 

The dog needs to be on a lead, for his own safety. 

“ You’re  the arsehole not YOUR dog” I told him this morning, a somewhat ruder précis of the situation that the polite ones I’ve taken beforehand.

I’ve even changed the times the dogs and I take a walk so we don’t meet him

Some people are just fucking idiots

Out with anger

In with love