Goosed In The Knackers

The Bastards

This post was written exactly eleven years ago…how things change but a nice one remembered

Meet " The Bastards"These two young and badly behaved lodgers have arrived just before Christmas and will be guests on the field until sometime in February. They are the property of the owner of a local bed & breakfast, who is off to Malaysia for a month. I didn't know him from Adam when he turned up with the sob story of not having a goose sitter, but true to form, I accepted the challenge, even though the new bees are two of the most narky, bad tempered birds that I have ever had the misfortune to meet.
Ever since they arrived the resident flock of geese, the sheep and a few of the older, slower hens have been pecked,intimidated and bullied , so much so That I have had to employ a daily regime of behavior modification in order to assert my dominance over the pair, who think nothing of slipping an orange beak down the crack of your underpants in order to grab a pound of flesh when you are bending over a feed bucket!

So, every morning I will drag each bird out of their house. Take a firm hold of their neck and wings, then will take a walk around the field with the bird tightly tucked underneath my armpit.
It's an old trick that can tame an aggressive cockerel, for after a while, you can actually feel the bird " relax" a sign that it has accepted you are the boss.
It's labour intensive...but effective.
And so, every morning I look like a strange Scot playing a set of white bagpipes around the field, as " The Bastards" are hopefully transformed from evil devil birds to a pair of twittering canaries .
Having said this, I was goosed in the knackers rather violently only this morning, when I dropped my guard opening up the goose house......

The resident goose flock

Russell, Camilla Parker Bowles, Winnie, and Jo

Ps. The Bastards stayed for over a year, before a lesbian Policewoman from Llanfair TH called Bunty finally took them over. 

A week to go

 

The Manley's came up trumps tonight and erected their old folk backcloth to the huge area of white behind the village hall's stage.

It looks fab. 

They are a powerful force   the Manleys ...a bit like The Tracey's out of THUNDERBIRDS.

Director Kira sorted out the sound checks for Chelsea ( our solo female singer) and she sounded fantastic as did the folk trio brought by Alun ( who won many a bread catagory in the Flower Show)

Affable Despot Jason slapped me on the shoulder and quipped " Bloody hell John I think we may have a fab show!" 

And I think he maybe right..

One choir has suddenly backed out but ive thrown myself at the feet of my choir and i think they will fill the gap nicely.

The show,isnt just a silly village show in my opinion

( which in some daft way of course it is)

Its a suture which binds people and community together. 

Something to be vaguely proud of 

Something to be shared

And celebrated  

And enjoyed

" I'll need a massive drink on Friday night" Kira shared before we left the hall

And we all agreed rather 

vociferously , like teenagers at their first party

 

Christmas 1998

 

I wrote this post in my head a few days ago.
Reminded by an old photo of a group of smiling nurses grouped around a man in a wheelchair.

When I was a charge nurse, through necessity and like many singletons ,I often worked the late shift on Christmas Day. There was often an unwritten rule that nurses on that shift came in slightly early in order for the morning staff to get home to their families but the interview room was filled with goodies to eat and visitors catered for the patients for much of the day so the shift was as pleasant as it could be,and on Christmas Day 1998 the five nurses working with me were a grand bunch indeed.

Our patients were the spinally injured who were newly paralysed usually through some trauma and most were nursed on flat bedrest in order for fractures of neck or  back to be strong enough to start to allow the patients to mobilise in wheelchairs.
One young patient had proved to be a nursing challenge for several weeks prior to that Christmas Day.
I shall call him Darren.
Now Darren, a man in his early twenties, was paralysed from the waist down after crashing his stolen car during a long police pursuit. A skinny terrier of a man, Darren lived his short life ducking and diving in the extremes of poverty, institutional care and crime and after his injury had become sullen and combative with the Spinal Injury staff overseeing his care.
We all knew that Christmas that year was bringing Darren to some sort of emotional crisis;  the experienced staff had seen this sort of thing time and time again, and so when visitors arrived from all over North Eastern Britain to support the three other patients in Darren's Ward leaving him feeling angry and resentful and foul mouthed, we were almost prepared for how things unfurled .

Nursing care is intensive on an acute spinal Ward, with each patient being specially turned every two hours by a group of three carers and all it took was a gesture of kindness for the floodgates to be opened on Darren's pain. Pain and grief at being disabled and alone at twenty five years old.
I remember Darren being tight lipped with his arms crossed as he was turned and I remember the nurse nearest to him pausing before we left for the next patient.
The nurse was  Edith Marimbirie and I remember her clearly. A heavy set, gentle faced Senior midwife in her native Zimbabwe Edith had come to our Ward late in her career and like most African nurses I have had the pleasure to work with she carried out her work in a graceful unhurried pace all of its own.
With a motherly hand and a gentle word she gently cupped Darren's teeth clenched cheek for a long moment and that's all it took.
The tears flowed.
Without fanfare another nurse pulled the curtains around the bed and all but Edith left the bed space quietly as Darren sobbed and sobbed and sobbed his pain away, and for the next few hours Edith never left his side.
A mother soothing a child of a man.

I remember that Christmas Day well as we were busy.
But with Edith effectively out of duties the remaining nurses on the Ward never complained that they had more to do, not once and finally, hours later , when Edith joined her colleagues in the interview room with its desks heavy with brought in party food , she was hugged and kissed in thanks for what she had done that afternoon.

Darren turned a rehab corner that Christmas Day. And he went on to be successfully discharged , self caring in his wheelchair.
And Edith used her motherly warmth a score more of times in a way the nursing curriculum never teaches you or even really acknowledges .

Playing to an Audience

 

Playing To An Audience

Click photo to enlarge

I shared some nursing stories from over 36 years with a friend recently the funny ones made them laugh...it was nice to giggle along

• I've been assaulted several times over the years ranging from slaps and bites, one black eyed punch, one wet turd flung at the back of my head, being hit with a bag of urine which burst on impact and I've had at least 6 pairs of specs broken.
• I was hospitalised just once following a particularly nasty attack .
• I've crashed a drunken paraplegic into a ditch in his wheelchair during a panicked push back to the rehab unit from the pub during a snow storm
• Ive employed a buxom nurse’s bust as a diversion to a male patient who had a particular painful dressing
• As part of a course I was on I managed to organise a work experience placement at a series of Pittsburgh hospitals 
• I've seen 5 babies born including one that was christened Harley Davison
• I was taught to dance the veleta in 1983 in order to partner long term psychiatric patients at their Christmas do
• I have witnessed open heart cardiac massage twice, held 4 severed fingers in a vomit bowl and witnessed someone bleed to death in a few seconds from ruptured oesophageal varice
• I have sneaked a small dog into ITU  to visit her master
• I was reported by a patient in the community for saying I was working for the gas board 
• Visiting the same patient ( as above) I sat on  but didn’t injure her chihuahua
• I have dated one patient ( only after I had nursed him and he had been discharged) 
• I've dated 5 nurses ( 3women  2 men)
• I 've shagged one doctor 
• I've played myself on a tv medical documentary ( you only saw my arse)
• I have helped at least 3 couples conceive babies
• I have sat with dying patients too numerous to mention , laying them out with well practiced dignity afterwards
• I have attended perhaps a dozen funerals in and without uniform
• I have put a visitor with learning difficulties to bed ! After undressing him and putting him into pyjamas
• I have helped scores of Spinally injured men achieve an erection!
• I ( and my ward staff) have won two quality prizes for our work
• I have sat a course for looking after the newborn baby and got told off for cleaning a baby's arse under a mixer tap
• I have dropped a psychiatric patient down a fire escape
• I have cried a hundred times in a sluice, in a clinical side room or at home over a bad day
• I once kissed a policeman when I was on night duty ( 1988)
• I once shared a bed briefly with a quadraplegic when I was hungover
• I have danced on the roof of a main hospital in sheffield
• I have mentored scores of junior nurses and still keep in touch with many of them
• I once created a whole balcony garden , complete with trees in massive planters for my bedrest patients 
• I once got my arse stuck in the window of the changing room at lodge moor hospital 
• I have never fainted at work but I did vomit once after a patient threw up in my mouth during CPR ( in the old days) 
• I have loved many many many special people and been loved by a few back
• I have had the privilege to be present at more patient deaths than I could count
• A previous workmate has just added" Miss you John Gray you did forget to mention your amazing neck massages and ability to hug me and/ or scape me off the ceiling xxxo and your very fit arse!" ..thank you Shelly

Another Christmas story tomorrow xxx

Cheer

 It’s been a pretty miserable set of night shifts. So I’ve bought a miniature Christmas Tree from Marks compensate, there’s something about fairy lights that make the whole world better.

Talia Grupo is at full lisp during this piece of English Eurovision 

You just can’t help smiling 

I’ve heard it said

 I’ve heard it said, that people come into your life…..for a reason 

Bringing something we must learn……..

I have lost two old friends recently. 

One hasn’t been a part of my present life the moment we left for Wales in 2005. 

The other stood next to me in choir and ballsed up many a song.

I had respect and affection for them both 

David was a charge nurse on the spinal injury unit in Sheffield. He was shy, intelligent, taciturn and patient focused. 

We were not friends, for I always thought that he didn’t know how to take my humour , but we were colleagues and I’d like to think that he respected me as much as I did him 

Peter was a local counsellor who enjoyed being on a committee. Elderly and carefully spoken , I always sought him out in choir where he was kind, and friendly and where he could always be trusted to get the more difficult bits wrong. 

Two men , not my friends

But two men, I think fondly about.

Thinking fondly about someone is such an importance 

And we are led…to those who help us most to grow

Advent Sunday

 I’m in the middle of three nights ( hence) the radio silence 

Thank you for your concern, I see I’m a creature of habit who blogs daily out of the enjoyment of it.

I just have not had the time. 

I couldn’t sleep today and moved into the spare bedroom ( which is darker) to see if that would help.

It didn’t 

Dogs and cat on a single bed does not promote sound sleep.

I was up showering a rather smelly Mary at three pm 

Then had to wash by double bedroom duvet after Weaver shat on it. 

I’m beginning to hate nights 

The one good thing is that I’m catching up with paperwork. On my break and in between jobs I’m getting things ticked off. Christmas cards designed with  The Trelawnyd Productions Logo have been addressed and written. Bank Statements have been checked and the backlog of correspondence caught up with. 

I’ve even almost written a somewhat banal blog post, just to prove that I’m still alive 

In fact my new German friend message me yesterday with the same thought and request to which I answered with a somewhat cryptic not really….

I shouldn’t be so uncharitable. 

Bollywood

The Village Show is slowly coming together. 

Mother and daughter Bollywood dancers took to the stage tonight and Chelsea Cameron ( daughter of the lovely Sandra Cameron aka Champion Boiled Egg Winner in the Trelawnyd Flower Show) completed her sound check as did her wife Nina who has prepared her reading which centres about a Filipino woman’s take on a Welsh Christmas. 

We now have a running list of performers and director Kira is preparing her backing track, ready for the night. The lighting is organised, bar confirmed and I’ve bought the raffle prizes ( including an inflatable Father Christmas !!!!) 

Only one act has not confirmed as yet and that is another local choir ( not mine)  

We are chasing it up…