R's rue

  You have probably never heard of Kelley Swindall and neither had I until five o'clock this evening. Ian's girlfriend Sarah got in touch from London to say that her American friend Kelley would be playing at The Alder Bar in a former industrial area of downtown Sheffield called Neepsend. It was a very unusual thing for us to do on a Friday night but at eight o' clock Shirley and I rocked up at The Alder Bar - somewhere we had never been before - to see Kelley perform. She specialises in what you might call Americana and her split set included one or two well-known songs from that genre including "Me and Bobby McGee" by Kris Kristofferson and "Wagon Wheel" by Darius Rucker. In between there were several of Kelley's own songs including the example below - "You Can Call Me Darling If You Want To" - courtesy of YouTube She was alone on stage with her acoustic guitar and harmonica and though there wasn't  a big crowd to see her, we were ...

  This Christmas will be the first one ever I will not be sending any Christmas Cards. The posting cost is far too prohibitive. After much thought I will make a donation to CALM which is a charity against living miserably  And this remembered old blog is the reason why( it is often posted this time of year) Christmas 1985 Christmas week 1985 I was  shadowing a community psychiatric nursing sister with her caseload in a deprived and depressing northern town Through a succession of faceless maisonettes, we sat on grubby sofas and listened to  sad stories of loneliness, mental illness and substance abuse and I watched as my mentor tried her best to keep heads above water and bums out of the local psychiatric unit. The last visit of the day was to a woman I shall call Jean. Jean lived alone in the top flat of a ten story complex. She had suffered from severe mental health problems for forty years and had recently been placed in her flat from long term psychia...

 Good morning from the frosty South Fire is crackling Blanket wrapped around Music playing And I’m warm inside from R's rue https://ift.tt/O5CdMI0