#NaPoMo concluded

I must admit there were times went I felt myself going mildly cuckoo as I wrangled to make things rhyme or when rhyming couplets spewed forth like a native second language. Still, I have completed the challenge, a poem per day.

Last time I bored you with a few of my attempts. Well buckle in dear reader, here we go…again!

Our lovely group leader posted a picture of a fun fare, think charactered postcard, as a prompt to rhyme.

Yesterday at the funfair, There was so much to do
Throwing for coconuts, Hooking a duck or two 
Crash banging on the dodgems, Screaming at the ghost
Stopped atop the Ferris wheel, Sure scared me the most
Eating hot dogs and candy floss, Galloping around the carousel
Sliding down the helter skelter, I started to feel unwell 
With all that motion and excitement, The injested sugar and grease
My inside started to heave, It had to be released 
Sorry Mr Tristrum I tried my very best
Apologies for spewing all down your bright striped vest.

Another bright thought in the wee hours, triggered by a podcast I was falling asleep to

I love an oxymoron they often make me laugh
Like being 'slightly pregnant', or choosing the 'larger half'

Being 'weirdly normal', when you're 'clearly misunderstood'
My 'unbiased opinion' tell me these are 'terribly good'

I feel your 'deafening silence', hear your 'dull roar'
From 'growing small' with 'intense apathy', wait I have more

How 'awfully good' was that 'crash landing'
What about a 'civil war' or being 'found missing'

It really is the 'living end' how 'seriously funny' these get
'Good grief', it is 'properly ridiculous' and yet

They're 'openly deceptive' and leave 'only choice'
Our language is ridiculous But it's our only voice 

I found the challenge of haiku and fib syllable patterns quite enjoyable.

One
Nine
Thirty
Twenty six
Forty four, sixteen
Bugger, no Jackpot win, again

As for the last day, well…….

When April returns in 2022
Wanting another each day
You can if you want to
I'll be running the other way!

I’ve kept all my creations in a document, after a month or four I’ll re-read them and groan, maybe blush a little that I put them in public view.

 

Being Cuckoo-d by a Cat

There was a hilarious tweet recently that started me on a trip along that leafy memory lane. Someone posted “Our neighbour just put their house up for sale, couldn’t resist a snoop on Zoopla ………. that’s our bloody cat!” There quite unashamedly stretched across the purple bedspread was a very contented fluffy ginger cat. The comments had for more amusement as people across the globe were sharing ‘tails’ of having visitors. So if you’re in need of calm amusement, pop over to Twitter and search #NotMyCat.

Here’s my story.

Back in 2017 I kept my green recycling wheelie bin at the back door so I could easily lift the lid and deposit my green credentials. When Big Sis and I were cleaning house ready for BFF’s visit, Big Sis grabbed the recycling with all intent but as she entered the kitchen said “Can’t put the recycling out, there’s a cat on the bin”.

Now ‘cat’ was no stranger, he was often seen prowling around the gardens, giving cars meticulous inspections and had played with a leaf atop my sisters estate car. He had decided this was his manor and he was security. Postie became a friend to go to for a quick head scratch, bin men were glared at from a distance, window cleaner and gardeners were avoided, a suitable snooze spot in the sun found. He often featured in estate agent exterior photos.

If my front door was wide open he would cautiously approach but not venture over the threshold. His neck would stretch further and further with curiosity but his back paws remained firmly on the door step. Until one day during BFF’s visit the ultimate, irresistible inducement to be courageous was offered – sandwich ham. My fate was sealed.

After BFF had left for home, Big Sis and I were sitting in my lounge when a faint sound could be heard, just slightly, we looked at each other and chuckled. She got up and opened the front door and in sauntered Mickey, on patrol but fussing.

On BFF’s next visit (can you sense a theme here) the bedroom window was opened for air and in the wee hours a voice remarked “Oh it’s you” as a lump walked up BFF and snuggled down for a snooze. A visit to the High Street pet shop resulted in a couple of cat toys and some nip. Somehow while grocery shopping some Dreamies or Felix treat bags sort of accidentally fell in, followed by a box of pouches (well he is a large lad). He confidently strides through an open door or window, has head scritches, chin tickles, back strokes, decides whether he is going to sleep on the wooden chair, desk chair, armchair, sofa or me. Gives me the “Do you mind!” expression if I move a muscle, lightly perpetrates my thigh with his generous acupuncture treatments.

With CoVid delaying BFF’s first visit last year she was concerned that Mooch might have forgotten her (ha! As if). She arrived mid afternoon, front window was opened slightly for air and suddenly this white blob attempted to jump in the narrow gap because he had heard her voice. You could see the joy in his face at having her back again. I’ve told him, June, just 66 days, she’ll be back.

Fur forward four years and “Mickey” (because his black ears reminded me of Mickey Mouse, should have called him Oliver) still sits on the bin, sunning himself, supervising any kitchen goings on, also gently rests front paw on the door handle as a subtle hint.

A carer had a sporty car with a straight exhaust and he’d inspect the car every time, warm his paws on the bonnet, or glare at her when she came in and disturbed his snooze. He is currently working his charm on my other carers. Just last week while I was parked on the porcelain throne Carer was in the kitchen preparing my dinner when she declared “I can’t stand it”. She strode to my lounge and returned to the kitchen and I heard “Here, stop starring at me”, treats were popped on the bin to appease her guilt.

This very morning as I was wriggling into position on my bed, Carer opened the kitchen door and declared “Ohhhh, hello beautiful, do you want in?”….. I think I need to check my care plan, I don’t think it says ‘Look after cat first’.

But, well, he is handsome and charming and……..

 

CoVidVersary

How are we? Things pootling along okay? I am sort of slightly unanchored, with the days getting longer I cannot feel what time of day it is, I have no idea what day of the week it is and I am not altogether sure which month it is, especially in relation to things/events I need to remember. It’s all gone a bit groundhog. Even my three day week method has collapsed as I think it’s today when it’s actually tomorrow.

We are approaching the anniversary of the first lockdown here in the U.K. Oddly for me it wasn’t that much of a change, I can’t leave the house and there’s nowhere I want/need to go to anyway. Once I grasped the book-early book-often with the groceries, that sorted that.

Where it all impacted me was people visiting me. A work colleague (hello Joss) would visit and we’d chatter, laugh, rant, ponder and generally muse over the oddities of life and I have really missed those hours of escape. BFF had to reorganise her visits, although we were able to get together but were isolating except for food. Neph would bring my bread, ably assisted by mini-me and we’d have a brief catch-up. Then there was my bi-monthly pedicure, I really miss that. A hour of scrubbing, pampering and natter which resulted in tidy toes, shiny nails and a general happy inner well being. Plus Neph’s better half would come to harvest my hair and we could catch up on happenings at the same time.

Generally it feels like we have forgotten the seriousness and ominousness of how things were back early last year. It’s amazing the power of the unknown has, where as now, it feels like the atmosphere is a mix of weariness at the restrictions and lack of faith/trust in the information.

As we begin the steady slow progress of coming out of lockdown, I do wonder how the general populous will behave. Will it be the manic, crazy, rush akin to the Harrods January sales of old or will it be the tentative, cautious, creeping animal rehomed after rescue.

 

Same Old New

As much as there is nothing about this year that many of us would want to hang on to, again I feel a tug as I do every New Year’s Eve. There are those who talk of new beginnings, fresh motivation and forward ideas but for me it feels like the things I enjoyed, that I used to do, the people I was connected to, are further in the past. Somehow that seems sad.

Once upon a few decades ago we would all gather at my parents house, have a meal, probably another box of crackers, maybe play a board game (well Big Sis and I would with audience participation) and then an evening of tv, chatter, and a feeling of everyone waiting for the clock to chime so we could all go to bed. Most likely because we were tired of all the preceding festivities.

When things changed after mum died, New Year’s Eve was likely the one night I’d be in bed early with a book and only knew the time by the ships horns and cacophony of fireworks.

There were of course a couple of exceptions, midnight 1st January 2000 I was drinking champagne and dancing on the deck of a tall ship, watching fireworks, being deafened by horns, kissing strangers, moored in Tenerife between cruise ships showing them how mighty we were (some of their passengers didn’t look like they were having a ball) – sailory types know how to par-ty 😉.

There was the year a gang of us on a message board saw the various New Years in as the time crossed the globe. Apart from the in joke of “F5 Renee!” once midnight had passed in the U.K., I could say to my American pals “You guys are sooo last year”, well it tickled me.

As I sit here in my hovel, musing and pondering, I do wonder

• Where will I be this time next year?
• How will I be this time next year?
• Who will no longer be with us?

Still, wherever you are, I honestly hope we are heading toward better things and I wish you all well 🥂

 

As ancient as…

You that feeling when……. you are watching a black & white movie (Carry On Regardless, 1961) and your carer arrives asks what you’re watching and questions “So when did colour tv start?”

I explained that there were colour films shown in cinemas before there was colour tv because colour over black & white was hideously expensive to make. I thought that colour tv was introduced around the late 1960’s (turns out it was a Wimbledon final 1967 on BBC2) before becoming mainstream in early 1970’s.

This branched on to the fact there were (and still are) tv licenses for either a colour tv or a black & white one, this notion seemed quite startling, along with that many homes did not have a colour TV set until the mid/end of the 1970’s.

When I went on to remark that I remember as a child being told to change the channel because there were no remotes, and there were only three channels broadcasting at set times of the day (kids tv about 3pm til shutdown 11pm), and that at close down the BBC would play the National Anthem – well my carer’s jaw dropped to the floor.

When I said channel 4 didn’t start until 1982 and Sky started 1989 she remarked that she found it hard to believe these things happened not that long before she was born (1998).

Talk about feeling ancient!!

 

What cost entertainment

There’s been rumblings again over the cost of the TV License fee, whenever that particular debate rears its noggin I have the same thought. How many of the dissenters could list the areas the BBC covers? This is followed by a second question, how much to the same dissenters pay for other entertainment streams?

Currently the TV Licence fee is £157.50 per annum, which is about £13.13 per month, for thousands of hours of international, national, local news and radio stations, there is sports and nature coverage, funding into natural history and films, commissioning of documentaries, comedy, drama, quiz shows, music shows, buying-in of internationally renowned programmes, some niche series. All the online content on the website, I-player and BBC Sounds. And a heck of a lot more that I’ve forgotten or not found yet.

Back in the dark ages (I think that’s the 1970’s nowadays) we had three channels and none were broadcasting 24/7 (I know, utter deprivation), yet there always seemed to be something worthy of watching. The 1980’s brought a couple more channels and while one was thought to be a tad ‘alternative’ slightly ‘avant- guard’ this expansion still didn’t diminish viewing choice. There have been many changes since then……

So what’s available to us now to broaden our viewing options.

• Sky
• Virgin
• BT Vision
• Netflix
• Amazon Prime
• Apple tv
• Now tv
• Brit Box (how to get people to pay again to watch repeats, classic)

These additional services are not as far reaching, or offer the same degree of entertainment, yet in comparison seem to cost more than the BBC. I guess what the dear old Beeb needs to do, as discussed in W1A, is to “find out what we do best and do less of it, better“!

All the same …. as I scroll up and down the Freeview TV guide and cannot find a thing to watch (that’s a fib, I’m watching Apollo 13, again), I wonder if all this availability has done anything to improve our entertainment access.

 

er, again

The joy of iPlayers, across the past five months, every night I have been watching two episodes of the hospital drama, er. All 331 of them, it became a nightly joy, to see the familiar faces.

Ask anyone who was/is a fan and they’ll remember Clooney as Doug Ross yet he left after season three and Julianna Margulies as Carol Hathaway who left end of season six. Both relatively short lived characters across the fifteen seasons. Noah Wyle appeared in the most as John Carter, closely followed by Laura Innes as Carrie Weaver.

There are countless storylines of the core characters that stay with the viewer after the credits have rolled, when the helicopter crashed on Robert ‘Rocket’ Romano, the incredibly moving illness and death of Mark Green, played by Anthony Edwards, the poem recited by Abbie Lockhart (Maura Tierney) when she married Luca Kovac (Goran Visnjic) I Carry Your Heart With Me by EE Cummings. Some of the more amusing scenes, the patient magnetised to the mri scanner because the students forgot to switch gurney, a Jerry the desk clerk and the new interns getting stoned by gifted brownies. Every corner of life seemed to cross the threshold after suffering some impact, it never shied from the hard hitting issues hiv/aids, dnr and assisted suicide, domestic/sexual abuse, the complexities of religion and families.

It felt so ordinary, by which I mean unstated, not falsely acted, and that’s a testament to the writing, the dedication of the actors and the whole crew, and the attention to detail. It did lose its way a little after Michael Crichton died but thankfully pulled it back for the last two/three series.

After so enjoying revisiting this delight, the first night after watching the final episode, I was at a loss what to watch, so ended up watching various things on YouTube and was left deeply unsatisfied.

 

It’s Beginning…..

I can feel it ….. just beneath the surface ….. bubbling and preparing ….. it starts with a chill in the air, followed by a puffy sinus sensation, progresses with socks on feet and long-sleeved tops, outside the skies are clouded and grey and darkness creeps earlier and earlier forcing the curtains to be closed at tea time. The leaves on the trees start to turn golden and threaten to fall and that cloaking sensation of despondency begins to shroud.

The decent into winter blues feels like it is arriving early, and it likely is considering how this year has behaved, along with my continued confinement and circumstances, but really my normal is lockdown, not having the ability to go anywhere (including the loo) without prearrangement with others.

I feel a detachment and displacement, I’m not connected to anything outside my four walls, it’s a side affect of disability. My anecdotes are getting older, less relevant and more historical.

My prime occupation these past couple of weeks has been a cat bed. With my kitchen window open #NotMyCat has been in daily to claim lap rights. He’s even started ignoring my carers, he gives them an evil glare when they walk in, reluctantly moves along the sofa so I can transfer to the wheeled chair. As soon as I’m back on the sofa the lap is reclaimed.

When we had a rainy day, I had #NotMyCat2 claim snoozing rights, whilst depositing puddles of rain on my t-shirt.

Time to get back to the crochet, get the blankets edged and toys made, I’d like to get the box filled by the end of BFF’s November visit.

Sorry I haven’t been more prolific, I’m running out of ways to say what I did today.

 

Slow Desk Day

 

There really is nothing like playing ‘name that tune’ with the random shuffle of your desktop iTunes, and there are not many places where Saint-Seans is followed by Alice Cooper, Dean Martin, Zakk Wylde, Samantha Gibb or Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band with a side of Lord Rockingham XI (eclectic you say? Maybe).

After a few weeks of procrastination I forced myself to attend to the growing clutter on the desk. I enjoy my desk, I can get on with the admin of life, I can amuse and entertain myself and I can feel like something has been achieved. My to-do lists (I have categories) is totalling 27 and I’ve whittled it down to …..drumroll….. 24 🤣

There is nothing like a new toy to get the motivation going. It may sound pretty unspectacular but I’m a bit geeky. It’s a confidentiality roller. You look perplexed. It’s just a pre-inked roller that you roll across paper and it covers any print with a pattern, ideal for scrolling across letters containing addresses, personal details, before putting it in the recycling bin.

New toys need new homes, as I was adjusting bits and bobs in the desk draw I came across the spare refill for my twisty pen, you know the one I couldn’t find but knew I had somewhere. I found it, yippee, right after opening the replacement I had bought as I couldn’t find the b-loom-ing thing. Sod’s Law is alive and wreaking havoc.

I was just finishing off a little task when my tea time carer arrived, I’d lost time and was unprepared. That’s the power of …… the desk!

Must finish off an email.

 

The Stunned Pause

Yesterday I had one of those instances where Big Sis would have literally laughed out loud. It began with my afternoon care visit, the carer is one I do not have very regularly but has been coming here for a few Saturday afternoons, we’ve had a number of conversations about various things. How to describe her, she’s short and rounded, akin the Estelle Getty look. She has a tendency to speak as if she’s looking after a half-deaf tottery ancient oldie who starts each sentence with a croaky “I’m eighty four you know…” type vibe.

She mentioned that her brother goes to a music evening where those gathered listen to and discuss music, wondered whether that would be something of interest to me (absolutely not). I replied that not many people listen to the styles of music that I enjoy. I went on to explain that I have a very mixed musical taste, depending on what I’m doing at the time. When I am concentrating on writing the HTML for the website I tend to listen to classical music, the likes of Debussy, Bach, Saint-Saën, Rachmaninov and such, for other creative musings it might be general rock and pop of the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s preferring proper good tunes to specific groups, but my absolute go to for pure enjoyment and mood uplifting and this was my driving music was…..

(When I was telling BFF this in a telephone call at this point she went “You didn’t!”, oh yes I absolutely did.)

…..heavy metal, not the main stream but the off main rib rattling proper deep metal.

And then it happened, the face freezes as the mind adjusts and computes, the eyes reveal that they had a completely different perception of you. The sweet little innocent young (not so now) ‘nice’ girl. Ohhhh Noooooo, I have a dark side. I am sarcastic, cynical, stubborn, feisty, questioning. My tastes are eclectic, I enjoy Shakespeare and Dickens, but also Red Dwarf and child animation movies; tv quizzes like Tipping Point or The Chase and will have a crack at Only Connect and University Challenge; films it’s more the grizzly horror or mystery than sweet romance. Musically it’s what takes my fancy.

In a recent online convo with my BFF about getting my hair cut, she suggested like Tinkerbell, to which I posted the suitably cute smiling face and she, knowing me exceptionally well, said no, more like…

Can you guess who posted which, lol.