Holiday.

 Last night, on my break, I made sure all of the Madrid trip was sorted. 

Flights tick

Lisping Choir Tickets tick

Airbnb tick! 

I’ve booked a two bedroom apartment which three balconies overlooking a cafe filled square

If that isn’t Spanish enough then I’ll eat my sombrero 

You always take a chance with Airbnb, who knows what horrors lie under the bed

Painting

 The yappy dogs from next door woke me around three. I gave the Welsh a wee and fed the twins who were annoyed that the dogs were upstairs. The sunshine is glorious ( a bastard of a thing to happen for night workers) so I’ve eaten spicy bean soup out of the slow cooker followed by houmous and celery.

I checked my emails to see if Yorkshire Pudding had received my message ( 😟 he hadn’t) but did open an email from Donna in Tennessee who enclosed this copy of her painting of Winnie 

It’s so captured the essence of that bulldog, who spent her life acting like a gay man in a fat suit.

It’s wonderful, and it made my day

Rattle , Emails and waiting for the Binmen

 It’s sunny with a cool wind.

On our morning walk I picked yellow Rattle which fills the gateways of the fields down the felin . It looks cheerful in a vase on the table and will look better in the lounge after coffee. 

The twins still have not left the cottage after dawn, and sit by the open door by the stairs blinking in the strong daylight. 

It’s Saturday and Roger is waiting for the bin lorry to arrive.

The bin men make a fuss of him which he adores

I’m going to have a long shower and a shave before work tonight. I may go in early if Yorkshire Pudding emails me. He’s on a short break in Llandudno and according to his blog, emailed me to, in order to hopefully meet up. He’s emailed me on my old hotmail account which has now effectively locked me out after a bout of difficult log ins so I’m effectively cut off from an email which I’ve had since the Dawn of the internet. My new email is similar but strangely quiet 

jgsheffield@icloud.com.

I’ve left him a message on his blog, I hope he reads it, or reads it here.

I will leave you with the lisping choir whose first chorister to be seen is my very favourite . The piece rises to a crescendo of sound, much more effective when heard live like I experienced last year. 

It’s one of my favourite pieces

Death By Rubber Chicken

 

It’s been a bit of a death filled week all told 

I’m working the weekend which will no doubt be death centred, so today I’m rolling with the punches so to speak

Apparently my  father died telling a joke at the breakfast table. 

I’m not sure this is true as my father seldom told jokes at home, and certainly didn’t exhibit a sense of humour early in the morning. 

My mother died in hospital, it was peaceful, but she was post respiratory arrest so there was no way back.

I took her oxygen mask off which was belting out 15 litres of useless oxygen only to be told off by an officious support worker to replace it.

I didnt 

My brother died peacefully minutes after I had looked after him on one of my “babysitting” Thursdays in December. The car slid on black ice when I came home.

Funny what you remember.

We would all like a Hollywood death me thinks ….

A clean bed, next to an open window, overlooking a perfect garden

Your significant other running their fingers through your hair as you gently fade

The dog by your side,

As the neighbours lower their heads and remove their hats

Life is fickle and seldom helpful when that sort of death is concerned

People die on the toilet, or fall behind the dinner table at ungainly positions 

People collapse at the theatre and stop the show, 

That’s not a bad way of going I suppose…

To die laughing.

Winifred, my second to last bulldog had the best death ever

One cold night after a mad half hour trying to disembowel her rubber chicken, 

She quietly collapsed against the kitchen door and lay her huge head on her bear like paws

Like Shelley Winters did in The Poseidon Adventure 

( the collapse part not the rubber chicken part) 

I never cried over Winnie, ( unlike Gene Hackman who sobbed over Shelley’s face until he spat on her) 

Her death was valiant and brave and right, I just sat down next to her and gently rested my head on hers

It was during lockdown too, as I remember .

I still have that rubber chicken, it was going to be framed but my requests for a pink frame with the epitaph 

Queen Salote Tupou III 200?-2020 overfaced the picture framer somewhat so I never felt I could nag him to complete my order.

The chicken still lives in my heart  and my bedroom

Until it is flung away, 

It’s significance unknown, 

After I pass away, hopefully,  after telling a joke 

Or made blissfully unaware by a syringe pump filled with opiates.

Or even bouncing around the kitchen with Winnie’s rubber chicken in my mouth

Now wouldn’t that be something?

Stand up

 

Chic Eleanor and fellow theatre lover Del and I went to see the stand up comic Mark Steel tonight. 

Known for his left wing humour, Steel concentrated his set on his recent experience of having throat cancer. 

Humble, honest, incredibly funny and poignant it was refreshing to hear a man celebrate his friendships which saw him through the darkest of times. But real life took an even darker turn when after he noted the demographic of the audience and told a story of how one member collapsed during his show , as he was almost finished , an audience member in the Gods suddenly collapsed and I think died 

We left after the stage cleared and the house lights were turned on.

Are You Free?

 I caught up with The last Of Us tonight

Moving as fuck ….

I’m drifting today, and am overly reflective

Someone I know committed suicide on Monday, 

Not a friend 

But someone I met professionally 

I’m drifting and am out of sorts 

and then Chic Eleanor rang out of the blue

Did I want to go to the theatre tomorrow?

Darling I hope you are free she gushed

I said yes immediately 

Grateful, oh so grateful 

That

Someone remembered me 

Unidos por un sueño, Alejandro Vivas - Grupo Talía

This gentle little piece was performed by the lisping choirs and the Metropolitan Orchestra on line during covid, and is more of a hymn or a lullaby than anything else.

In light of some more information I have received I have edited this entry today

The music was written as an on line performed piece during covid 

Turandot

 It’s been on my bucket list ( the back burner one) for years, Puccini’s  Turandot

But tonight a friend asked me to go with them to see it as they had been let down at the last minute .

I’m not asked very often so I jumped at the live showing of the Royal Opera House production .

Operas are often overlong, ( and this is no different ) but I loved Seok Jong Baek as the tubby Prince and

Sondra Radvanosky as Turandot and the 1980s staging was wonderfully impressive