‘When you come to the end of a perfect day.....’

     I could hear my father’s voice inside my head as I looked out of the window and across the bay. The book launch had been a success! Everyone was excited to see their stories in paperback and my tale about animals that went to war was tucked inside the middle of them all. I wondered what my father would think and wished he could have been there with me.

     Many evenings, whilst my grandmother watched television, my father and I would sit at the table and write poetry. We eventually filled a book with poems about our life in a little wooden house on the edge of a valley. ‘It’s a good way to end the day,’ he used to say, ‘a perfect way, in fact!’

     Across the bay, the late afternoon sun glowed softly over the village of Mumbles. I turned to see a room full of authors, editors and publishers, joined together by a love of words! Nothing more nothing less! And although my story was just a wee one, I couldn’t have felt prouder to see it in a book, written by some well known authors.

     With hard work, my father once said, you can achieve anything. So its power to my pen from this day forward and hopefully it will be my novel next time!

      And to my beautiful family, thank you for all your support and kindness!

What better way to spend a sunny Saturday, than strolling through the grounds of a medieval castle. With 40 acres of woodlands, filled with fungi and wild flowers, my camera hardly stopped clicking. But then it was time to go inside and sit besides an enormous log fire while an orchestra played nearby. I can tell you, it was bliss!

     Picton Castle was built besides a hidden waterway known as the Cleddau Estuary, at the end of the 13^th century. This magnificent and elegant building overlooks the rolling hills of Haverforwest in Pembrokshire. Once a family home, today you can stroll beneath some of the largest and oldest trees in West Wales.

     Later, as the sun still shone, I wondered aimlessly through the enchanted walled garden where each medicinal herb is labeled with its remedy. I can well recommend a visit to this magical place.

‘You talk too much!’ the Sister on the ward once told me. ‘Get them in and get them out!’

    Get what in and what out, I thought to myself. Was she referring to people or injections? Surely she couldn’t mean the patients. Not these patients! So I nodded and smiled then continued just as before. I was a nurse after all and since when had the word reassuring been switched to chatting?

     The following day I was called to the Sisters office. She was on the phone when I entered, so I gazed out of the window and across the car park. My eyes were drawn to an old campervan, something I had always longed for. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, I thought, to just up and go! No more shifts, no more sadness, no more being told to stop chatting.  

     ‘Sit down!’ the Sister said in a voice that told me this was serious.

      ‘You are a wonderful nurse!’ she said as my eyes wondered again to the top of the camper, waiting for the ‘but’ to come next.

      ‘But,’ there it was, so I looked directly at her and waited for the blow, ‘you are a Social Butterfly!’ she said peering at me over her glasses. And she smiled a sickly smile that even I would refuse to wipe up. All the while, I hadn’t said a single word.

       ‘The pace in this department is quickening and there is no time to chatter. We have to get them in and get them out! Do you understand? There is no time to talk!’

        The old camper across the car park looked more alluring than ever. That is all I could think of! Not rules or regulations. Not ways to save money. Not forgetting to nurse holistically!

         ‘You have to toughen up if you’re to survive in nursing,’ she kept going on. ‘You will burn yourself out!’ I already had, I thought miserably, and she had started the fire, not the patients. Oh she was right, of course, in a strange sort of way, but not my way. My way would cost the department a lot more time and money.

            As I walked across the car park, on that late summer’s evening, I noticed the old camper still sitting there as if waiting for me. It was in perfect condition, considering its age. The pale blue curtains matched the bodywork and then I saw it. There was a butterfly sticker on the side of the window with the words ‘A butterfly never lands on the hand that grasps it!’ What a coincidence, I thought, remembering what the Sister had called me earlier that day...A Social Butterfly!

           ‘It’s for sale if you’re interested,’ the voice startled me and I turned to see a handsome man standing there. He looked the clever sort, the sort that is kind and unassuming!

So I bought the old camper and married the kind and unassuming man soon after!

One day I went to the shop to buy milk and came home with a goat called Billie! I had no idea what I was going to do with Billie, but I assumed it would all fall into place. I was wrong.

     My kind and unassuming husband was very surprised when I opened the gate to our home for waifs and strays with a goat in tow. The bearded animal snorted when he saw the garden. Heaven, he must have thought, a Billie Goats Heaven.

     I was a very kind but assuming wife, my husband said, to think that we could easily accommodate this animal that had one eye on the washing line and another on our prized allotment. But Billie was here to stay, at least for the time being.

     He didn’t make friends easily, which was probably due to his horns. These  had the potential to toss an unsuspecting person into the air. And they certainly scared many of our friends away.

     Billie escaped once or twice, could have been more but I hate to think about it. Oh, the trouble it caused. We thought that Gilbert the Great was a handful, but Billie the Goat beat him hands down.

     ‘A goat can live for twenty or more years,’ a friend told me kindly, ‘but I suggest you don’t tell your kind and unassuming husband that!’

    ‘He’s probably not far off old age,’ I replied and instantly felt sorry for poor Billie.      

     I knew we couldn’t keep Billie indefinitely, our home for waifs and strays just wasn’t right for him.

      ‘We could rent him out,’ I said jokingly, to my kind and unassuming husband many months later. ‘Someone must need a natural lawnmower.’

      He shook his head and said that Billie deserved somewhere permanent and I had to agree.

       It was after Billie got into the allotment, that we sought a new home for him. I asked Tom the Egg (he really did exist) if he would put some posters around the villages and off he went on his new bicycle.

       Within two days, someone called and asked all about Billie. What he looked like, colour, size etc. When I had given them a full description, they asked if they could come to see him straight away.

        Well, what a surprise. Billie found a new home on the stage. He was to star in a play which was running for another four nights then off to live the rest of his days on a farm close by.

        I have often been to visit Billie and I'm delighted to write that he is a happily retired acting goat.

 Goodnight Billie! I often wonder where you came from.

Boys will be boys, and Gilbert the Great was no exception. In fact, he often over stepped the mark. You see, Gilbert was a ladies’ man and all the ladies loved Gilbert. Well almost all!

     The posh girls, with their plumped up feathers, loved Gilbert and his amorous ways. The raunchy rooster would strut about the yard with his chest out, trying hard to make himself look twice the size and butch.

     Although he was a great protector, Gilbert the Great was actually surplus to requirements. You see, hens do not need a rooster in order to lay eggs but they need one, if a chick is to be born.

     Gilbert the Great would sit on a fence at our home for waifs and strays and threaten anyone that came near his girls, especially those that were sitting on eggs. I’m sure the poor postman dreaded coming anywhere near the place and often left parcels in a house across the road.  As you can imagine, Gilbert the Great didn’t make us very popular!

       Well as I said, all the girls loved Gilbert, but there were one or two exceptions and Sandwich was one of them. At least, she pretended to have no interest in him at all but she did watch him from a safe distance

        When Sandwich first saw Gilbert, she was pitiful looking, having just arrived from the battery farm, and so Gilbert didn’t pay her much attention, however, he did tend to watch her over the shoulders of the posh girls. And when Sandwich’s feathers returned to full shiny glory, she outshone all the others. In fact, she looked amazing.

         Gilbert the Great saw the transformation and would strut across the yard towards her. He would dance the cockerel waltz, with one wing stretched downwards. This amused our many visitors but certainly not Sandwich, at least, not at first. In fact, they almost came to blows, on many occasions. This, it seemed, only fuelled Gilbert the Greats amorous ways.

          As I watched the love affair develop between Sandwich and Gilbert, I often wondered if she knew that this raunchy rooster had the potential to fulfil her dreams. Remember the egg she craved for at the battery farm, the one that almost rolled away? I knew then, that Sandwich would make a great mother one day. But whether Gilbert the Great would win her over, you will have to wait and see.....It’s later than you think now, and the house is quiet once again. I can hardly keep my eyes open....Oh no! It’s that strange noise again, coming from Mocha’s old room. Time for Bed!