Going Gently

The Meter Reader

2012-02-20T09:47:00.003Z

I was just about to start a blog about the merits of modern day phenomenon of "The Bromance" ( alongside the obligatory steaming cup of coffee) when the electricity meter reader turned to, interrupting me for the third time before 9 am !

I am trying to fit in a few jobs this morning, The buff Orpington who had the impacted crop, still has not shifted the blockage, so is presently sat quietly in a black bucket on the kitchen table waiting to go to her vet's appointment at 10am, I have a load of eggs to hand deliver and I have promised to give a friend a lift to the doctors before midday.

The meter reading guy is a morose kind of character who never stays long when on his rounds.He runs the gauntlet of dogs with his usual dead-pan expression, takes his readings then leaves with his usual comment of " see you next time".

Today he walked into the kitchen, and after giving the forlorn buff a glance without saying anything, he side stepped Mabel who was waggling her bottom rather energetically into George's face and went into the lounge to read the meter, followed by William and Meg

On his return he pointed to Mabel and uncharacteristically asked

" what's up with her?"

"She's desperate for a shag" I answered as Mabel slow danced backwards yet againwith a hopeful smile on her face.

The meter reading man's expression of gloom never changed

"I know exactly how she feels" he said sadly and left without further comment.

*********************************************************************************

I'll blog about the buff and my weightwatchers weigh in later when I have time

One Fanny Too Far

2012-02-19T13:40:00.000Z

Sometimes it is interesting to see yourself though someone else's eyes

It doesn't happen very often,as I am sure we all possess that strange subjective ability to view oneself in a more than glowing light

But, at certain rare times , I think It can be rather amusing to see what other's do

The resulting image can come as a bit of a shock!

Last night, I took a patient handover from a new itu nurse who has an interest in chickens

As it turned out, she is in fact the grand daughter of a lady who was my mother's best friend for over 25 years- a fact I found to be rather surreal..so not only did we have a brief chat out past times, we waxed on fairly lyrically about the beautiful colour of aracuna hen's eggs.

Now I have not been at work for 18 days (bliss) so throughout the night, during those brief moments of quietness between turns, hourly observations, drug administrations and alarm silencing , I regaled my colleagues with fascinating stories of pig culling, meat freezing,blind Rooster tales and goose re homing....

At 5am I was quietly discussing Mabel's sexual adventures

when a patient chirped up from his bed, nearby

"Enough animal stories please"

and added somewhat testily

"You're boring the tits off me!"

Point Taken

Geese gone!

2012-02-18T17:43:00.000Z

The geese have been duly collected and have left the field sat meekly in the back of transit van.

I am just about to leave for work, often Saturday night can be a little busier on ITU, so we have eaten a wonderful "home grown" pork chop ( the size of my head) for tea as a treat.

It's been a strange sort of "nothing" day.... hail storms this afternoon were a bit of a shock..... and the sex starved Bulldog is still flashing her bits around to all

Have a Good Weekend all

The Walking Dead "I hear Nebraska is nice"

2012-02-17T23:18:00.000Z

This is a bit of a classic episode
Intelligently written and well acted.. give it a watch if you have not seen it
I really rate it

A Slut In The Living Room

2012-02-17T19:56:00.001Z

Mabel is in season

Now.....having been through the constant "come hither...goo goo eyes" that Constance exhibited when she was ready for a good seeing to.... we are sort of prepared for the rather nauseating shenanigans female bulldogs get up to as they approach " that time of the year".... mind you.... having said this...Mabel's behaviour towards a somewhat surprised William and an even more horrified George is presently bordering on a porno slut from Hell rather than the more demure eyelash flickering employed by her predecessor.

Presently she has been banished to her sofa in the kitchen after all her Mae West-ish attempts at seduction have failed to achieve the required sexual pleasure........I had to move quickly as Chris was being driven to distraction by constant glimpses of Bulldog fanny being waved around the living room with such gay abandon

Never a dull moment

Ebb And Flow

2012-02-17T10:19:00.002Z

The break up of a long term relationship is always a sad experience. Of course it is a terrible time for the two central protagonists and for each of their immediate families but it is also unfortunate for others to watch such disintegration and sadness.

Someone I know split up with their partner last year. It was their decision, and a difficult one no doubt, and like a good friend I tried to be objective and supportive with what was happening.

But something happened to my friend as the dust began to settle.

They changed

Every time we met, the conversation always came around to how awful the "ex" was and this bitterness and bad mouthing has increased every time we met up for a chat.

Yesterday I decided to to let them know how much I think they have changed and effectively, I guess, I ended our friendship because of how negative things have become.

Perhaps pure objectivity is just too much to ask of someone eh?

Perhaps sides just have to be taken....

********************************************************************************

On a brighter note I think I have rehomed Thomas, Elizabeth and goose. A local woman rang last night looking for some more geese. She needed some company for her 24 year old ( yes 24!) bird....and will come to visit this afternoon to give them all the once over..... here's hoping that she'll take them.... ebb and flow.... it's all ebb and flow here...

This morning, an old aracuna lay dead underneath her perch, at the same time as spunky old blind Rooster Cogburn started to crow lustily in his newly found baritone voice.

The fully re feathered Crackhead whores are now fully integrated into field life and are looking healthy an happy and this morning I will start to clear out the deserted pig pen ready for new occupants...... ebb and flow.......ebb and flow............ Hopefully the geese will go, freeing up the old turkey house for something else and more fertilised eggs will be hatching beneath a couple of broodies when they start to sit in a month or so's time.

The Indian runners have started to lay their blue eggs again too...... as Elton John and Tim Rice would say

"it's the circle of life"

The Cottage By Candlelight

2012-02-16T18:41:00.002Z

It is a cold and rather damp evening.Chris is working away and the dogs and Albert are all asleep in various warm places around the living room.

I have lit the candles and am just going to settle down to watch Olivia De Havilland in The Dark Mirror.

At night the cottage living room always looks at it's best.

I was talking to Olwenna the other day, she was one of the ladies that volunteered to be interviewed for my sister blog Trelawnyd -Voices from the past.

She reminded me that when she was a small girl in the late 1930s she used to come to our cottage to learn songs from a lady called Brenda Smith, the coal merchant's daughter.

(The Smith family, incidentally were the first non Welsh speaking people in the village I have been told)

Apparently the cottage living room looks very much as it did way back then..minus the piano of course

"Duck!"

2012-02-16T09:14:00.001Z

I wonder if there is any Italian in me?

( don't you dare Tom!!)

I only say this because during a row, I do have a tendency to throw things.

The last inanimate object that was flung in anger as I recall, was an unfortunate packet of basmati rice, but I have been known to hurl more adventurous fare, the most messy being a whole plate of spaghetti bolognase, which decorated the living room quite nicely.

( The dogs were made up because they all were left to lick it up!)

Having said this, I can " come down" as quickly as I go "up", and generally It will be me to be the first to make up and offer an olive branch so to speak.

Now to all of you out there that need a little more help when making up, the following link may be of help... click on it, write your name in the box and wait 20-30 seconds for the movie to load..... it's worth the wait!!!!!!!!! Enjoy and Happy Rowing!

http://www.obtampons.ca/apology

I don't like tea, I like .........

2012-02-15T22:22:00.000Z

David Cameron has just banged on about the cost to the nhs of alcohol abuse.....

"Lesbians in Dyserth"

2012-02-15T08:17:00.001Z

I was up early this morning taking Chris for the 7am train to Bangor. As I drove back home,somewhat blurry eyed, I recognised a man I know exiting the paper shop and he waved as I went past

I won't say more about just how I know this guy as it would, I am sure give his identity away to village readers, suffice to say he is a man in his seventies.

Anyhow I remember this morning a conversation I had with him a few years ago now which was excruciatingly embarrassing for him and exquisitely funny for me... it went roughly as follows

"Does your wife work at the hospital too?"

"I live with Chris , he works at Bangor University"

"oh"

"He's a research fellow"

"oh,....... that's good, "

Slight awkward silence

"We used to have a gay lesbian couple living next to us, they were nice big Jolly girls"

"Really?"

"Yes both worked for Flintshire County Council as I recall

"..........had a lot of rabbits...."

you couldn't make it up

No News Day

2012-02-14T14:55:00.002Z

Last year I split some snowdrops from the garden and planted them in the old Churchyard

It was lovely to see them making the effort to appear

No amusing story today, I am afraid, as it has been a day for outside jobs. Paths have been cleaned, the accumulated detritus against the cottage wall has been removed and the front garden stripped of dead wood and the debris of winter.

I have even made that extra effort and have made a start of the largest of the allotment beds.

The only thing of note to report is that George has now taught Mabel how to steal and eat chicken coop eggs......Between them they have polished off five from the Tribe of the North's house

They'll both have the shits later!

Valentines

2012-02-13T22:48:00.001Z

Forgive me if I have blogged about this before.. but seeing that tomorrow is Valentine's Day.. I thought it was perhaps appropriate to repeat it!

My very first date with Chris was in the Sheffield City Centre wine bar ALL BAR ONE.

I was trying to impress ( so actually looked clean and tidy for a change) and because he didn't at that time live in the city.. the night was my treat!

We drank a bottle of wine

We chatted and laughed

We ate and drank some more

and we flirted outrageously

OKOK we got all a bit silly and just a little drunk... but it was fun!

When It was time to go, the waiter ( who I knew) glided up to our table so I could pay the fairly substantial bill and trying to look cool, urbane, in charge and witty I took my debit card out of my pocket and slid it coolly across the table at him

He took it, smiled gently then slid it back to me

I missed the real point of his actions and slid it right back at him

He repeated his actions and slid the card back at me

I turned my head with a quizzical expression

as he said quietly right into my ear

"We don't take Sainsbury's saver cards in here sir"

I could have died

Chris had to pay for everything!

A couple of months later he moved in!

hey ho
* for those that don't know Sainsburys is a supermarket

Single and The City

2012-02-13T10:00:00.001Z

Now I have not always been the welly wearing, animal smelling, country oik house-husband you know and (love). Years ago when I was single, I was a bona fida, card carrying member of the "keep yourself busy" clean cut Man-about-the-city club, when I would spend my few days off from work exploring the museums and urban places of interest in the city with a spring in my step and a song in my heart!

The magnificent art deco Sheffield library and arts gallery, The Millennium Galleries (above), Weston Park Museum, The Showrooms cinema and media centre and the Winter Gardens all proved to be valuable panaceas against a certain amount of loneliness that is inevitable when you are in your 30s and you are single in a couple dominated world.

I was always off doing something.......

Think of a fat, bearded Carrie Bradshaw without the bling!

The Winter Gardens ( pic by Diane)

So it was with great sadness that I read my Sheffield friend

Diane's account of the dire problems faced by the millennium Galleries in this awful climate of public sector austerity cuts.

Apparently the museum has lost all of it's funding from the Regional Arts Council this year and is facing dire financial problems as it struggles to maintain a World Class, modern Day service to the South Yorkshire Population......

This sickens me.

Museums like the "Galleries", I always think, bring a certain sparkle to the ordinariness of life. Not only do they teach, inform, stimulate, celebrate and flagwave; they offer a free centre for escapism, for socialising and for comfort.........and when I look back on those few days off I had when I was a single career nurse, I always remember these places of sanctuary with a great deal of nostalgia and affection.

On Saturday when Chris and I ambled around the art gallery at that single beacon of "culture" which is North Wales' Theatre Clwyd, I did spare a few regrets at not having all of those Sheffield cultural places of interest "on tap" as there were when we lived in Hillsborough.

And I say to Sheffield residents.... you need to realise that these museums must not be just taken for granted.... in these days of cut... cut.... cut.... they need to be fought for and they need to be cherished.

Well done to Diane... and to all of those people that made the effort to support the Galleries by taking part in the big sit down picnic at the venue yesterday. Their visual demonstration of dissatisfaction and support was fantastic and...... believe me...... I would have happily taken my flask and my butties down to Arundle Gate, and I would have joined in without a single hesitation

Sit down for what you believe in

*********************************************************************************

Weight Watchers Weigh-in today 14 stone 11 lbs

Weight Lost since 2nd Jan 1 stone 3lbs

Weight Loss last week 2lbs

The Best TV in the World?

2012-02-12T22:10:00.001Z

We have the cheapo package from sky tv

500 channels\ 24 hours a day

Plenty to choose from

and you know what?

I only found one good programme over the entire week

Borgen.. the Danish version of The West Wing

The worst programme?

The vomit inducing Call The Midwives

is pretty high on the list

But the winner must be the BBC weekly journey into rural life for the Middle Classes ONLY

The bloody patronising

" Countryfile"

Thank Goodness The Walking Dead resumes next week

I THINK I WILL GO AND READ A BOOK!

Sans Everything

2012-02-12T09:30:00.001Z

Hedydd Dylan as Rosalind and Alex Felton as Orlando

Last Night we went to Theatre Clwyd to see perhaps the easiest of all Shakespeare's romps to understand...Terry Hand's production of As You Like It.

Now Shakespeare isn't quite my cup of tea, but apart from some painful overacting from the obese actor playing Touchstone, I absolutely loved this version of the play.

My enjoyment was primarily down to the Welsh actress, Hedydd Dylan who played Rosalind , for it was her faultless delivery and timing that most impressed me and the audience. Indeed,in the second act, when she turned on the selfish shepherdess Phoebe with the line "Sell while you can... you are not for all markets" the place was in uproar.

I was equally impressed with Philip Bretherton who played the melencholey Jaques,,,for me it is his character that has the lion's share of the most moving lines "sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste sans everything!"

A cracking description of the seventh age of man.

It was nice to do something "adult" for a change

Phillip Bretherton (far left) with the cast

A Moan From Myfanwy

2012-02-11T17:38:00.000Z

myfanwy said...

"Shameful stereotyping on your part. The fact that the pensioners were from Liverpool is irrelevant."

She was in fact unhappy at my stereotyping of the scouse grey hairs in my previous "old people fighting over the eggs blog entry" (http://disasterfilm.blogspot.com/2012/02/you-can-take-pensioners-out-of.html)

And of course she is right.... it was wrong of me to stereotype Liverpudlians as battling old gits with no manners and I am sorry if she took umbrage .....

As it happens my mother was born and bred in Liverpool( Everton)..... having said that.. I must admit my mother was a bit of a battling old git......who in her latter years would have quite happily bitch slapped any woman who pushed ahead of her in a queue!!!

Have a nice day!

Liebster Award

2012-02-10T22:07:00.000Z

Well thank you Cathy over at http://muskokariver.blogspot.com/

for my infamous "Leibster Blog Award"

Apparently according to the "lovable Rosie O'Donnell of Bracebridge" the Leibster blog is awarded ( and I quote)

"All this is in aid of the Liebster Blog Award, which John Wiswell honoured me with this morning. I think the rules are something like, take a photo of yourself with the sharpest object in the house and name five other bloggers who you think aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. Or maybe they ARE the sharpest knives. Sharp. Dull, wtf, I don't know. I forget and I'm way too lazy to go back to John's and find out."

And so

I have to say that strange as it would seem, I am the sharpest thing in our house!!!

I only say that because I have just beaten Chris again in a game of Scrabble!!

Now as long term readers of this blog will suddenly realise, that this is no mean feat

basically because I am a really SHIT speller

and Chris is a PhD with little grey cells oozing out of his arse!!!!

I will give my nominations further thought!

You Can take the pensioners Out Of Liverpool but you can't Take Liverpool out of............

2012-02-10T10:27:00.002Z

One of the buff orpington's has an impacted crop.

I have tried the usual instillation of oil and have tried to massage the mass away but still the obstruction remained, so I asked animal helper Pat to come around to help me try shift the blockage with some brisk physiotherapy.

She arrived dressed in her scruffs (believe me it can be a very messy job) and as I came out of the cottage to meet her around 30 professional ramblers strode into view from around the lane corner.

I am well used to ramblers.

The cottage lies on a published "walk" so come rain and come shine, long lines of walking "geeks" often march by, all dressed in their designer Berghaus clothing and sporting the obligatory ski pole walking sticks.

Pat (right) with daughter Joanne

As it turned out this group hailed from the city of Liverpool, and after a quick scan I had the impression that all were in their late 60s and early 70s and probably all belonged to a walking club. Before Pat and I could make a break for the field, the group crowded around and amid a flurry of questions, I was asked if I had eggs for sale.

I only had half a dozen in the kitchen, so I instructed the walkers to wait and I went into the field to collect as many as I could find.. When I returned I had around two dozen eggs in the bowl and customers for at least double that, and that was when the arguments started.

At first I just thought the bickering between the three elderly ladies was just high spirits, a bit of theatrical banter between friends, how wrong was I? In seconds the three were screaming at each other about who was next in the queue, so much so, I honestly thought that the ski sticks might have been brought into play.

"Derek! Der--ek" the most aggressive of the crumblies kept yelling to her slightly embarrassed hubby

"Derek!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! do something!!!!!!! we were first we were f i rs t!!!"

The whole situation had become rather surreal

" I don't know who was first" I said helplessly to the sea of grey hairs, woolly hats and designer jackets

"you all look the same""

The bickering continued

I couldn't quite believe my ears, so finally I placed the eggs on the wall and said in my best patronising voice "You just have to share them between you" and I strode off to join an astonished Pat who had walked away in disgust.

"Did you hear all that?" I asked her

"yes" she said " shaking her head, and ever the pragmatist, she added....." you should have charged them all double!"

In The Dark

2012-02-09T07:38:00.001Z

I have decided that when it is dark, animals of all species enjoy order and routine more than at any other time. Well before dawn, as Chris is just thinking of getting out of bed, the house animals slumber and rest. On the kitchen sofa, Mabel will have her head jammed tightly behind her own green pillow as she snores like a train and in the living room William is stretched out on his own sofa, gently woofing in his sleep. Between us in bed, lies Meg who couldn't quite cope with not being in the direct epicentre of the house pack and at the foot of the bed is George, who is content with being just close enough to Chris--- but happy, in that inimitable Scottish Terrier, "I am ever so slightly aloof" kind of way

Only Albert and I are awake.

He remains on sentry duty at the bedroom window, and is scanning the field and lane for interesting nocturnal activity. I know that something is around because he is still and alert and is obviously watching something moving around in the frost. I suspect it is a fox or perhaps a badger because the Guinea fowl are muttering to themselves like worried pensioners. The threat however remains at the field borders at present, I can always tell that if their grumbling is subdued.

I get up and get the sleepy dogs walked, we will all go back to bed for a short while when we return. But before we do, I take my trusty wind up torch and went to check on the coops, just in case a predator was about.

Hearing me crunch in the severe frost the geese "chunner" their own kind of warning. There is a small window in the goose house and I can just make out a couple of heads popping up to see what is going on........ the "chunners" subside as they recognise me. A similar low chatter comes from the duck house, but it is more a squabble about best positions rather than one of anxiety and from the nearest hen house, one of the usually silent hens allows herself a brief and rather musical little "cluck" of concern before going back to sleep.

When it is dark, hens for the most part are truly useless creatures.

It was badgers that Albert had seen from the bedroom window, In the moon light I can just make out a large dark grey arse by the pond, shuffling homewards before first light, They won't be a threat again tonight

Even in the dark, everything has an order and a pace of it's own.

Constants

2012-02-08T10:00:00.000Z

What is that phrase about death and taxes? It's something like..what is life's constants? ..the answer being death and taxes.....well it's near enough.......

This morning I have been thinking about constants........

After what was hailed as the coldest night of the year, I walked out onto the field as I do every morning and was greeted by the guinea fowl legging it over the rock hard ground, all desperate for their breakfast of mixed corn.

The guinea fowl are just three of my constants.

Come rain, come shine, come everything, every morning Alf, Hughie and Ivy will be there chattering away like little clockwork toys as they scuttle neurotically back and forth as though they are stuck on a video player's fast forward.

And every evening, by force of habit, I will always check on their roosting positions in the Churchyard trees, counting their silhouettes...one...two....three...as they settle down against the sky .

Apart from is twice daily contact, our paths rarely cross during the day, for these three odd little birds will be off foraging but like anything in anyone's life that is taken for granted, if by any chance they don't turn up in the stillness of the early morning,one day, I am sure,I would be quite heartbroken.

Alf

A programme I watched on television last night gave me nightmares this morning which have probably caused these melancholy thoughts about constants and death first thing. Death Unexpected, a documentary on the BBC last night was a fascinating look at the work of London coroner Alison Thompson in a typical week that saw her and her team cope with the constant puzzle of suicide, murder and, sudden death .

With typical British understatement , the mechanics of the coroner's job were tastefully all left "off screen" for the most part, and it was left to the articulate and rather glam Mz Thompson to explain her role to camera, which she did eloquently and with some passion.

Coroner Thompson

On reflection perhaps watching a documentary like Death Unexpected was not really a good idea,for I dreamt about death for what seemed like an absolute age overnight.

In my last dream, I found myself emptying the car of bags of layers pellets. As I looked back at the cottage I saw my brother standing on a ladder painting the gable end.

"make sure you don't fall" I called out and without saying anything he just stuck up his thumb in way of an answer

A fairly innocuous dream, you may think, but it has unsettled me somewhat...

I'm off to clean the church

200 Books

2012-02-07T00:02:00.000Z

It was our Flower Show Meeting last night.

The meeting was just a short one really as the schedule for the day and all other necessary "to dos" have already been finalised and sorted but it is always rather fun to meet up around auntie Glad's kitchen table with tea, scones and chew the fat so to speak.

This year's Flower Show will be the village's 40th.

The proceeds of last year's show will go towards re stocking the Churchyard with native saplings (I have yet to sort this out) and last night we have agreed to help out the newly formed Village Jubilee committee this year with a donation to support their plans for a village gala in June.

It was lovely to be in a position to boost a new Trelawnyd venture, especially one that celebrates the ideas of people that are not the " usual suspects" in village affairs. I have promised to big up the new committee's itinerary as soon as it is made "Public"

After Auntie Glad dished out the tea and scones, Irene our Treasurer told us all about her up and coming cruise holiday then showed us the newly printed certificate for first and second place entries as well as the 600 odd raffle tickets we all need to sell before and on the day itself.

92 year old Gladys asked for her portion of tickets there and then explaining that she wanted to get organised with her sales!"

"How many books do you want?" Sylvia the show Secretary asked

"Oh my usual 200!" Gladys said cheerfully, scooping them all up in her arms

And you know what? she'll sell every bloody one of them!

no not our comittee... but it could be!!!!!!!!!

For those that are interested
The 2012 Schedule for the Flower Show can be seen
here
http://trelawnydflowershow.blogspot.com/

A Baby Elephant In The Room

2012-02-06T10:11:00.000Z

Love me love me

Mabel has not really ingratiated herself with Chris.

Some of this stems from the fact that he is, in fact, a terrier fan, pure and simple.

But most of the time it is Mabel's slightly neurotic and rambunctious behaviours that leaves him shaking his head with a certain amount of resignation.

Terriers are quick, light footed and needy. They demand cuddles like well intentioned babies, and have a gentleness about them which everyone seems to enjoy.

Mabel on the other hand is overactive, totally uncoordinated and incredibly clumsy....she craves physical contact but cannot quite rein in the heavy breathing hysterics that always accompanies being made a fuss of...and 25 kilos of paw waving bulldog is a lot cope with sometimes in a cottage the size of a postage stamp.

It can be a little bit like being molested by a constantly bouncing fur covered fridge freezer.

Not easy when you are not in the mood for it!

Mabel requires consistency and firm handling, to control her desperate need for affection, and she needs a calm structured approach to deal with her nervousness, which , I think it the root of her excitable behaviour........we have not quite got there as yet, but we are close, and I have to smile to myself, for as I am typing this blog entry at the kitchen table, I can see her watching my every move with her big brown sad eyes never leaving my face, just waiting for that moment she can gallop forward like a steam train for a cuddle

*********************************************************************************

Weight Watchers weigh in this morning 14 stone 13lbs

Total weight loss since 2nd Jan 1 stone 1lb

Weight loss last week 1 lb......(a surprising result given those homemade sausages!!!)

All Together Now

2012-02-05T18:50:00.000Z

I have just re read my previous post

so I ask all readers to stand up! come on stand up!

and in a theatrically girly voice everyone throw their hands out wide and repeat after me loudly"

"out with Anger!"

Now s-l-o-w-l-y draw back your hands back to your bosoms

and say breathlessly

"In with love"

There!!! do you feel better now?

Thought not!

Oh don't you just love irony!

To Whom it may concern

2012-02-05T09:48:00.000Z

The downside of blogging it that you always seem to be upsetting someone with something at sometime.

Now, to me, there are two things that you can do if "one is upset"......

You can have a lively and somewhat infantile debate ( like we often do c/o Tom Stephenson)

or you can just stop reading that particular blog........simples!

Last night I received a somewhat abusive post comment relating to the culling of the pigs. It was graphic, somewhat rude and threatening, and instead of embarking on any discussion with it's author I deleted the comment immediately banning any further comments from someone, who was so strangely....well....... aggressive.

Since we took the decision for the pigs to "go" I have found it interesting that I have lost five followers, perhaps it is just coincidence, after all Blogger seems to be playing up quite a bit recently, but if my deserters are a result of 85 kilos of sausage lying on our kitchen table, so be it........you can't please everyone !

The anonymity of blog land can give some bloggers a certain carte blanche to vent their spleen in ways that they couldn't possibly do (or dare to) in real life ( and before you go off on one Thomas, I am not talking about you...... I know you, in your real life can be a real stinker face to face so to speak!)..it has happened to me a few times with characters that I once thought stable (oh how wrong was I?).... That is the problem with blogland , sometimes lunatics can slip under your well homed nutter radar!

I remember that one affable old duffer that I follow with some loyalty- the bouncy old soul that is (Yorkshire Pudding) - well he had a awful time once, with one particularly nasty character who left a whole novel of abuse on his blog.

As a regular reader, I remember finding the whole thing unnecessary and all rather upsetting...

If you want a fun debate... great!

,If you disagree with an idea, a philosophy or an opinion....do so respectfully

and if you strongly disagree with anything you read or see...

then..........just fuck off

Life's too short!

In Trutina from Carmina Burana - Carl Orff.

2012-02-04T23:34:00.000Z

lovely........lovely.........lovely

Pork, Pork and More Pork

2012-02-04T17:32:00.001Z

"look at my meat!"

Well I feel a little like a serial killer who has been spent a busy afternoon packing bits of my victims up in a whole plethora of plastic bags......yes number 12 and number 21 were picked up today from the butcher's shop in six large boxes and were carefully re bagged ready for a hastily bought chest freezer, which has been set up in the back shed.

85 kilos of sausages, massive leg joints, a ton of belly pork and chops galore ( or should that be gore) have covered every surface in the kitchen. and I was grateful that amid the carnage there were only four recognisable trotters to cope with and not a whole pigs head. ( the butcher's don't generally give you the heads unless requested)

Looking at the prices of meat at our local butchers, I think that we have well over £1,000 quids worth ready to be eaten!..... Bless number 12 and 21 have done us proud.

I dropped some goodies off for the RFWF, and to Eirlys and John who helped me so well last Tuesday and then just had time to leave a chop with Auntie Glads for her tea!

85 kilos of sausage!!!

We have just had sausages for our tea!!! bloody lovely!!!!

The 4 Tribes Of Trelawnyd

2012-02-03T10:50:00.001Z

My sister in law called around yesterday, I had missed our weekly "coffee and cake" meet up as I had fallen asleep in arm chair, warmed into slumber by a blanket of fluffy Welsh Terriers and tired out by that morning's altercation with a trailer trash hag who ruined my morning by trying to bully free petrol out of a teenage petrol pump attendant.

It is just eight weeks since my brother died, but what with Christmas, New Year and the anniversary of his Birthday all part of those two months, his death seems almost an age away now.
It's a weird thought....

Andrew at my 2009 Open Allotment Day

Jayne watched the field for a while after she parked and after hearing all about the blind Rooster Cogburn she watched the hens milling around the gate and said "Everyone of them has a story to tell"....

she seemed surprised...after all hens are only hens........

Just recently I have realised that the hen population on the field has evolved into four distinct tribes or factions. Three of the four tribes now have their own cockerel leader where the fourth has an alpha female in charge, and each group have chosen to inhabit their own corner of the field.

The Tribe of the West is the most eclectic of the tribes.Led by the diminutive Eric, it comprises of the remaining crackhead whores, a bullied arucana and her team mate Phylis Diller (Below) and three shy re homed Wellsummers

The Tribe of the North comprises of all seven of the oldest hens on the field which have been joined by the three of the crackhead whores who arrived bald and damaged from a year's mistreatment by their over randy cockerel . These hens are all now fully re feathered and healthy birds and all three have just started to lay again, a sign of good condition ,

I have found it rather amusing that the youngest and most inexperienced cockerel, Badger has taken over as leader in this coop. Some readers may remember that he was the single chick that survived a fatal badger attack on his mother last spring and alone and lonely was luckily teamed up with Camilla the gosling when she arrived.

Badger with Camilla

Badger now!

The Tribe of the East, is the "front of house" group of hens on the field, for their designated area is the most sociable and most visual to anyone passing by in the lane. Subsequently the hens in this tribe are the most confident and the most pushy, for they are the ones that always benefit from scraps and bread donated by villagers.

Stanley, the old cockerel, interestingly enough has moved hen houses with his trusty white guinea fowl, Angostura in tow, to "take charge" of the Tribe of the East. which comprises of seven re homed orpingtons and a large group of bog standard red hens that arrived last year after being mistreated by their owner.

The last distinct group on the field is the Tribe of the South. This is a rag tag group of geeks, shy saddos and lonely hens.from three coops, who like to hide away from the hustle and bustle of daily life.They always remind me of those kids at school that never played with anyone at break time, you remember the ones?, the kids that read their books on the periphery of the action, wanting to join in but not having the confidence to do so

Their "leader" is Lillian, a white hefty Orpington, who enjoys peace ,quiet and periods of warm sunshine.....it is not a coincidence that their part of the field remains in the sun for the majority of the day

Lilliam.....a gal not to be messed with

......yeap Jayne was right...... every hen has a story.......

Slag!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2012-02-02T10:50:00.004Z

"And your fans think you're all heart..."

and so said a close friend of mine that read a somewhat acerbic comment I wrote about the Occupy Sheffield demonstrators....

and he is right in what he said......I am not the Mary Poppins of Welsh poultry, or the Francis of Assissi of Flintshire....at times I can be as bad tempered and as much of an old bastard as anyone out there in blogland ......and that's official.

I don't loose my temper often, but when I do, I can easily do a cracking impression of Aurora (Shirley McClaine) loosing it , from the movie Terms of Endearment

I have not got time now to tell you exactly How I lost my temper early this morning after I had left work for home.... suffice to say that it involved a rather common woman in tracksuit bottoms at the petrol station........and the phrase " you Rancid old slag!"

The price of a pint of milk

2012-02-01T12:49:00.002Z

What can you get for around 44p nowadays?

A pint of milk?

A cheap Newspaper?

A stamp?

No, Chris has just spent 44p on something for me and will continue to pay 44p a day for the next year on it!

What is it he has bought me, I hear you all ask...?

Well he has just bought me the best pressie ever....

He has paid the field rent for me

44p a day!

The best pressie ever!

Thank you! x

Pigless

2012-01-31T13:13:00.000Z

Walking through the village with the dogs a few minutes ago, I spied affable despot Jason ambling down Chapel Street with his daughter on his shoulders.

"Have they gone?!" he called over and when I shouted out that they had, he added with a chuckle

"Bet you feel like that chap out of Schindler's List"

22 as a baby

Sweet natured number 12 and the killer-on-trotters number 21 left the field peacefully this morning. The Red Faced Welsh Farmer and his ever cheerful son Ed turned up exactly on time as did my farmer friends Eirlys and John, who had kindly agreed to give us a hand and after a quick chin wag and "plan of attack", we set up a whole line of hurdles leading a path up to the waiting loose box by the gate.

I filled a bucket with corn, opened the enclosure gate and called the pigs out. Number 21 followed me immediately, with number 12 tottering up rather shyly behind, and within five minutes we had just about loaded 12 into the trailer where he peacefully scooped up big mouthfuls of corn with relish. The more sly number 21 played up just a little and tiptoed gaily around the field for a few minuteds, presumably searching for a spare hen to kill, followed by all of my helpers with their pig boards at the ready.

Neither pig was stressed, that's all I was truly bothered about, and when we eventually loaded 21, they both looked as though a trip in a trailer was the most natural thing in the world for both of them to be doing on a cold Tuesday morning.

Their calmness made me feel so much better, I just couldn't bare seeing them anxious and frightened.

At the abattoir

It was the same story when we arrived at the butcher's abattoir, where a huge South African Butcher, gently encouraged them both into their holding pen. "He's a big friendly bastard" he commented when number 12 ambled forward to sniff at some tiny looking porkers in the next stall, and a second later I was off to complete the paperwork . It was as quick and as simple as that.. no time for "goodbyes....no time for second thoughts!

I was glad I was with the RFWF He would have stamped on any indulgent emotional romp if I dared to perform one.Things had to be matter of fact...that is the rule with farm animals.

"You are now a real farmer!" the RFWF said as we drove off......."welcome to the club "

Welsh Movies

2012-01-30T23:34:00.000Z

Now one of my all time favourite movies is the 1942 propaganda film Went The Day Well.

For those that don't know, it is an account of the Nazi takeover of a rural English Village during the second World War, and features a whole plethora of stiff upper Brits killing the bosh over their tea and crumpets!


The postmistress from Went The Day Well -axing the filthy hun

Tonight at Theatre Clwyd, there was a showing of two "Welsh" films which kind of mirror the story in Went The Day Well. The first was a cracking "short" propaganda film from 1943 called The Silent Village.

Aimed to be a tribute to the population of a small Czechoslovakian mining village called Lidice, which was destroyed by the Nazis, The Silent Village "reenacted" the 1942 atrocity by using the real life citizens of the South Wales mining village Cwmgiedd in a documentary type narrative that works remarkably well

The real men of Cwmgiedd sing "Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau "just before being "shot"

The main feature.... the Welsh thriller Resistance

proved to be somewhat of a bummer especially after the creaky spirit shown by The Silent Village, but it did take a slightly different slant on the same subject matter.

In Resistance, the Germans have invaded Britain, and in an isolated Welsh Valley a somewhat sympathetic German Captain (Tom Wlaschiha) and his men, encounter a small group of women left alone by their menfolk who have joined the resistance movement.

Hampered by a tiny budget and a somewhat confusing story, this beautifully shot film,proved to be in the end , well, just a little bit dull... but I must admit that my disappointment was probably fuelled by memories of Went The Day Well's robust postmistress running amok with an axe!

The Talented Tom Wlaschicha and Andrea Riseborough in Resistance

Time To Go

2012-01-30T10:44:00.001Z

The RFWF and other villagers constructing the pig paddock 2 years ago

The Red Faced Welsh farmer has called around to discuss moving the pigs for slaughter.

Moving any farming animal is not just the simple process that it once was when animals were driven to market along country roads and through villages.

The pigs now have to be tagged, and the paperwork has to be completed in triplicate before number 12 and number 21 can be cajoled into the RFWF's trailer for their last journey.
Strict guidelines are set and need to be followed about how they will be transported and I applaud the Uk for spearheading the implementation of these rules in a Europe that often cruelly treats the farming animals it is responsible for.

It is vital that the pigs are kept as stress free as possible, my decision to cull them together I think will go a long way in ensuring that will be the case, but some thought needed to be given to how we are to move and load them into the trailer, after all, the only thing they have known for the past 10 months is a small paddock and a dry old hen house filled with straw.

The RFWF knows all this. He is not in any way sentimental like me. He is simply a pragmatic old character that knows what to do when it comes to animals and will implement his knowledge with the minimum of fuss

Today I will try to conscript a few villagers to be "on hand" tomorrow morning in order to help.Village elder and cemetery carer Islwyn has already said he will be available and I am sure gentleman farmer Ralph from up the lane may be able to spare a half hour............I must not forget to tell Pat, my unofficial animal helper, that number 21 is going; after all she worked so hard last summer helping me inject the little bugger up the arse with antibiotics when she had a septic knee, she may like to call down to "say goodbye"

Perhaps I will be like the RFWF one day.....who knows..... but today... big softie that I am.,..... I hand fed number 12 and number 21 a huge bowl of warm spaghetti..........their joy at sucking the pasta in without chewing...made me feel just a little bit better about tomorrow!

*******************************************************************************

btw Weightwatchers weigh in today 15 stone

Total weight loss this week 2lbs

Total weight loss since the 2nd of Jan 1 stone

Coconut pieces?

2012-01-29T14:47:00.002Z

Now first let me tell you that I am having a few computer problems, so for a while things may be a bit erratic from now on until Mr Computer Shop geek can sort it all out.... My second point is a bit of a question.... why would someone place a dozen or so small pieces of rock hard coconut shell ( no flesh) in an egg box on top of our kitchen wall?

Now I know we live in a small rural village, that could have been mistaken as the backdrop for the film The Wicker Man, but even I cannot quite work out the significance of this strange offering?

If anyone can work a plausible answer , please contact me

And thirdly, the out and out winners of a traditional Welsh Love Spoon are Kiwi "Lady Mondegreen over at

http://ladymondegreenssecretgarden.blogspot.com/ who got all of the questions right thanks to her quick witted daughter Bironey! and to "Dan" Congratulations to all three of you!

The answers ( if anyone is interested) are Brett Claywell ( Mr painfully Cute) A young Russell Crowe ,Downton Abbey's Dan Stevens, Norman Reedus from The Walking Dead,Lancastrian comic Jon Richardson,actor Jospeh Mawle, crooner and all round sex pot Matt Cardle, Miranda sit encom sweetie Tom Ellis, Reece Shearsmith from The League of Gentlemen and finally the delightfully cute Scott Evans

Shame on Prestatyn resident Gwyneth,( you know who you are), Aussie Carol and Gloria Abyss....who all cheated in order to retrieve the "right" answers!!!!.....disqualification is a nasty word eh?
Naughty Naughty!

Suction Excitement

2012-01-28T16:44:00.000Z

Trelawnyd nestled at the foot of the Gop (on the right). Photo taken from the East

You know when you are middle aged when you spend a Saturday afternoon playing with your new Dyson vacuum cleaner !

It wasn't that long ago when we used to get dressed up and spend any free afternoon sipping at couple of bottles of pinot at the local wine bar...

Now it was the excitement of "cyclone" suction that dominated the day as well as a brisk walk above the village with George in tow.....

A "Fickle" update

2012-01-27T18:22:00.001Z

The Blind Rooster Cogburn and a very cold and wet ...me

Well enough of the shiny and beautiful in the previous post and let's get on with a huge dollop of reality and "not-so-rugged" good looks. Amid the plethora of emailed Quiz entries (4 !) there was an email from U.S. gal, Beatrice Fickle asking me for a factual update on the field and politely requesting me not to be so teenage with (and I quote)

"bimbo men old enough to be my sons!!"

tee hee.........another email from someone who has a "pen name " with the deliciously camp title of Gloria Abyss stated that they hadn't realised I was so " homosexualist!"

(she/he managed to get all the names right btw)

Anyhow, the field ( or as it can be now nicknamed- The Somme) remains largely unchanging in it's routine and make up. The winter has taken it's toll on the old and weak (one of the Crackhead Whores, Gloria the old turkey and an ancient old black rock have faded and died ), but most of the population is doing quite well.

The four tame geese, Jo, Winnie, Russell and the Canadian Goose Camilla square off gamely every day with the three interlopers that were dumped here in the autumn. I have provisionally sold the ever aggressive Thomas and his subordinate female to a guy down the Felin and aim to keep the pretty Elizabeth to augment my little flock....the female geese will be starting to lay fairly soon


Winnie, Jo and a perky Russell

The field now has four cockerels though with Rooster Cogburn safely in his own run with vinegar tits, there are only three "alpha" males to protect the flocks. Old Stanley who is almost 7 years old remains firmly in charge. His "second-in-command" is a feisty little fart of an unwanted frizzle who I have called Eric .

Not six inches high, and with an attitude the size of an elephant's head, he spends most of his short winter's day streaking back and forth across the field in a desperate attempt to shag anything he can get his tiny little beak on.

For most of the time it is the slow moving giant buffs that he buttonholes and it is almost heartbreaking watching him riding these unconcerned fat ladies without ever being able to "dunk the carrot" so to speak

Little man syndrome .....Eric the ever randy frizzle

Way down in the wettest part of the field, the pigs are enjoying their last few days in Trelawnyd.

I have given them extra rations today ( complete with the recently expired old black rock) and blissfully unaware of their fate, they have squabbled and bickered over the most tastiest bits and pieces like old pub drinkers on an afternoon binge.

No 12 schleping through the mud

In the cold and rain, I stood and watched both pigs for a while....enjoying their obvious delight in filling their fat, greedy faces....despite the weather, the whole of the field seemed to be in constant and interesting motion. Boris and Bingley the stag turkeys spar together in lazy circles as the hysterical runner ducks totter by desperate to reach their pond before the geese beat them to it.

In the distance Albert is stalking back towards the warmth of the cottage as the guinea fowl scream at him from the top of the Church wall and everywhere else little knots of hens shelter against the weather, their shoulders hunched and bowed against the wind.....

nothing much changes.......

Quiz Time

2012-01-26T23:37:00.001Z

cute

sexy

Edwardian

Zombie chic

Northern Humour

English actor

Matt who?

Miranda

Strangers in the village

sigh

Ok if anyone can name all (OR most of my lastest cinematic and tv pin ups) then they will win (aka Chris over at http://growfisheat.blogspot.com/) a handmade Welsh Love spoon!!!!
email me the answers jgsheffield@hotmail.com
All Answers by Sunday please !

Arguements

2012-01-26T10:24:00.003Z

I woke just before dawn this morning because of Mabel who had a humdinger of a panic attack over something insignificant going on outside the cottage. I usually can ignore her occasional bouts of worried barking but when she followed Albert through the living room door and shakily up the stairs, I couldn't quite ignore her worried fat face pressed closely against mine as I lay in bed.

For a powerful dog, she can be a neurotic bundle of nerves when the wind blows in the wrong direction.

So I got up, drank some coffee and after boxing up six eggs , I took Mabel out on an early morning egg delivery.

I seldom knock on peoples' door when I drop off eggs. Usually I just leave a box on a window sill, on a door step or in the case of one "particular" customer, in their greenhouse under a plantpot shelf, so I didn't think twice in ambling around the back of this particular home to deposit the eggs on the top of a wheelie bin!

The lights were on in the house and suddenly from within there came the sound of crockery breaking . I held my breath, not sure of exactly what to do, and there came more crashing,, a loud bang and the sound of a woman shouting.shrilly at a man who was pleading with her to be quiet.

I started to creep away from the house before Mabel started her usual nervous barking when after a few more explosions of kitchenalia I heard the woman yell clearly

"YOU CAN KISS MY ARSE YOU SCUMMY TURD"

I almost burst out laughing....the woman in question usually is such a delightfully polite and well spoken individual

as my mother used to say

"You don't know anyone unless you follow them home!"

We disappeared before we were caught!

You Have Mail

2012-01-25T12:59:00.002Z

My hotmail email inbox had six messages in it this morning.

Six little lines

Five names that I knew

Six people that wanted me to know something.

There they were, silent and waiting.

Six messages.

One from a dear friend shared sad news of a family death.

The next was an upbeat message from the blind cockerel's previous owner seeking information on a much missed pet

and the next was a chatty story from a friend suffering from depression, that could not quite hide the mental pain in her heart, despite an effort to be upbeat and positive.

The fourth,was from a work colleague, excited at her imminent trip to New York (she emailed from the airport I think)....and the fifth was a business like news from a rural animal feed company offering cheap poultry wormer.

The sixth was some spam which had somehow made it into my inbox....it was marked " top secret" and was supposedly sent "from" someone called lawel Garba.....lawel was deleted away without a thought.

Six messages...four of note.

All sent within minutes of each other.......

It's a strange world.......

A Welsh Soap Opera

2012-01-24T23:36:00.001Z

Now for those that thought the pretty Americans in the previous soap video were not quite to their taste, I thought you all would like to have a look at the one and only Welsh soap Opera "Pobol y Cwm" (People of the Valley)

Now here is a soap I could watch

2012-01-24T22:52:00.000Z

Now I never as a rule watch any soaps.....too depressing, too silly, too boring...
But I could watch this silly froth from the US.....
sometimes all you need is a pretty face and a bad script

True Grit

2012-01-24T15:13:00.000Z

The pigs have had a week's reprieve. The butcher's son couldn't pick them up and the "transport" that was going to fill in so to speak, never materialised, so after flagging down the red faced welsh farmer on the main road and enlisting his help, I have provisionally booked them in for next Tuesday.

It's been another gloomy wet day here and I feel it has been a bit of a waste hanging around for phonecalls and the like, however in between the showers, I have spent a little time getting to know Rooster Cogburn, the blind cockerel from Alton Towers.

He's a sweet natured lad, who is well used to being handled, and despite not really knowing me or my voice as yet , he sat carefully on my knee when I picked him up and stayed calm and still as I stroked his feathers and checked his eyes.

Eating and drinking for him seems not to be a major problem as I think he can just make out his bright green feeding bowl in his one barely functioning eye, however all it takes is a finger splashing the water in his water bowl or a rhythmic shake of his corn and his head is immediately down eager to find out what is available.

Putting Vinegar tits in with him was a bit of an inspiration, for he seems to love the company of another bird, and I have found it rather touching to watch him occasionally reaching out with his beak to comb through her feathers in a gentle gesture of contact

Yes he is useless, he has not even got enough meat on him to make 4 points on a weightwater's supper, but looking at him sitting still in his run, alert and careful I think that there is something quite valiant about him and his gentle ability to keep going

Laurel & Hardy

2012-01-23T20:57:00.000Z

When I took the dogs on their afternoon walk we passed a couple of guys unloading a trailer in the village....
The men were making a real bloody hash of the work and even the terriers sat there half amused by their antics as they dropped box after box...
"You two remind me of Laurel and Hardy" I chirped up when the younger guy dropped yet another package and I had had to smile when the other guy asked "who the bloody hell are they?"
Bloody Heathens.........

Baby Steps

2012-01-23T10:14:00.000Z

When we, the nurses arrive at work, we line up at the nurses' station waiting to be allocated to a patient for the shift by the nurse in charge. The whole routine smacks of those long distant school days when we lined up waiting to be picked for the games teams, and last night, after handover I sort of just knew which patient I was going to be working with.

I was paired with a very poorly patient who was dying. Unconscious and sedated, the man was fading fast and I had to take a deep breath when I saw him with his wife and his son at his bedside as he could have been my brother albeit a slightly older version of him.

It had to come, I suppose, and it had to be coped with.

Luckily there was a lot to do, a lot to get busy with, and as I "got on with things" a warm natured Irish nurse who was going off duty stopped briefly and reached over and squeezed my arm as I was introducing myself to the family..

She didn't say anything, she didn't have to.

Her touch was enough.

With it, she said clearly and with feeling " it's tough for you and I recognise that it is"

and do you know..... it helped.

The patient died not long into the shift.

... I think I looked after him and his family ok

**********************************************************************************

btw

Weight watchers weigh in this morning weight 15 stone 2 lbs

weight loss this week 2lbs

Total weight loss since 2nd Jan 12 lbs

Exciting Days

2012-01-22T12:36:00.001Z

I went to bed for a few hours yesterday afternoon in preparation for a Saturday night shift only to be woken up by a rather irate Chris informing me that I was in fact due to work this evening instead!

Humm a siesta in the afternoon.....proved to be an unexpected treat.

This morning,before my little snooze this afternoon,we took George up on the millennium trail above the village to see the observation cairn that was erected in 2003. ( I had never bothered to go and see it before)

I was impressed with the view of the village and will go up there again to take some photos when I have time as there is a lovely view of the village from up there , all huddled away out of the wind in the shelter of Gop Hill.

The dovecot at Gop farm on the millennium trail

I have no real news today, the walk was bracing, the coffee and cake afterwards very welcome and I am about to have 40 winks before night shift tonight!...

This on line diary is knicker wetting in it's excitement!!!....

Iron Lady

2012-01-21T00:02:00.001Z

There is a scene in the film The Iron Lady

where the Conservative party spin doctors give Maggie Thatcher's budding Prime Minister a style make over in order to boost her popularity amongst the electorate and her party. What they should have employed even then, was a budding actress called Meryl Steep, for it is her performance in this story of Lady Thatcher's Journey through dementia, that gives the former Prime Minister, substance, heart, a certain likability and indeed soul.
She would have made a cracking style guru!

It is clearly one of Streep's best performances to date.

The story outlines Thatcher's twilight years, where the fading Maggie is virtually under house arrest with only the ghost of husband Denis ( a fabulous Jim Broadbent) for company. Through flashbacks, the increasing confused Thatcher surveys her political career from its early days in her Grantham Grocers shop to her resignation from number 10, and in between we touch upon the Miner's strike, The Falklands Conflict and even Thatcher's famous waltz with President Reagan

However, for me, those parts of the film proved to be far less interesting than the film's real message, and that is the heartbreaking and dreadfully moving story of a woman dealing with grief and coping with dementia, and it is in this portrayal that Streep is so good. She gives her character a cunning, guile, balancing out Thatcher's vagueness with flashes of clever confabulation and steely resolve. (The scene when Thatcher outwits her patronising psychiatrist is a real stand out)....it is a lovely,intelligent and impressive Oscar worthy performance

8/10

Off to work tonight.....
BTW I have placed Rooster Cogburn in his own run with ( of all hens ) Vinegar Tits, who has been a bit under the weather recently....... when I last checked on them both were sharing a bowl of corn! ( cue smiles all round)

Everyone's so well behaved Nowadays

2012-01-20T13:42:00.002Z

The weather is atrocious.

I managed my daily power walk with only two of the dogs this morning. Mabel, taking in one long somber look at the driving rain and ever-so-slowly crept back to her place on the kitchen sofa...not to be moved.

The cottage has felt damp and cold, thanks to the smell of damp dog and wet coats, so I have lit the fire early and have switched the lamps on in the living room to create the illusion that it is actually daylight outside.

The University lecturer that contacted me about the blind animal farm rooster, Frodo will be driving over from Shropshire to deliver him later today. I don't envy her the journey, it is a day to hide away in the dry warmth of indoors.

So, for a couple of hours this morning, I busied myself sorting through some old files and papers for burning and for throwing out. As I mooched through the rubbish I found an old report card of mine from when I was a student nurse at an old Psychiatric hospital back in the early 80s.

The assessment was a good one, generally all of my reports were, for as a student, I was keen,conscientious and eager to please.

The report was filled in by an old lag of a charge nurse, who never once left his office in the whole eight week placement I had on his ward. He was in fact a knowledgeable and charming elderly Scotsman, who loved his whiskey more than he loved his wife and although his philosophy of psychiatric care was, shall we say, hardly cutting edge, he commanded a quiet respect from many long term patients who remembered him as a young man within the care system.

During the day, he would often disappear into locked bathroom at the back of the old ward to complete "paperwork", which, the patients would quietly explain away to me as his quality time with a home brew kit...

As a student, it never crossed my mind to report this old soak for such unprofessional behaviour, behaviour that would figure more on Fleet Street than in an nhs hospital

These characters do not exist anymore, I suspect even in the dark recesses of Fleet street . Badly behaved and colourful old dinosaurs that act badly and by the seat of their pants no longer have a place in industry and the workplace and it is not surprising that Policy development, whistle blowing, HR and performance reviews have all but culled them all off in this age of professionalism and technology.

I guess it is all for the best... but some of me kind of misses the mavericks and the Rooster Cogburn's of this world.....

Mind you......... I have just seem the Red Faced Welsh Farmer shoot past the cottage with a jaunty wave and I realise that in some very small pockets of this land Rooster Cogburn's still are very much alive and kicking

And speaking of characters Frodo has just arrived

and he is a bit of an old sweetie.........blind as a bat and tame as a lamb he sat comfortably on my lap after arriving as I gave him the obligatory health check and once over.

I know he's a lame duck....I know he has no use to me or the gate post... but some space in a small coop and a handful of food a day isn't too much to ask to give him a country retirement is it?

Frodo -Blind as a bat but full of personality... perhaps I should rename him Rooster Cogburn ?

Coincidence

2012-01-19T10:53:00.001Z

This morning I remembered the oddest thing, a coincidence that really made me sit up and question how strangely things can turn out when you arn't "looking", so to speak.

In 1986, when I lived in York I briefly dated a general nurse called Fiona. Our relationship was basically platonic in nature, but it was all very intense and "serious" given the fact that at the time both of us were....well......very intense and serious people, she more than I , as I recall

Finlay

Of course both of us went our own ways in life, so you can probably imagine the surprise I felt when I was driving through Crooksmoor , a scruffy suburb of Sheffield some 18 years later when I saw her pushing a pram down a tree lined avenue.

I stopped the car and got out with my dog on his lead, and we walked over to say hello.

It was lovely to see her again. Apparently she had worked as an alternative therapist all over the world, met her husband in Italy and had helped open a restaurant with him not two miles from where we lived in Hillsborough.

A small world eh?

On the spur of the moment we went for a coffee at a student cafe nearby and as we shared gossip, she showed me her son who was fast asleep in his pram.

"what's his name" I asked

"Finlay.." she said " but we all call him Fin"

I had to laugh a little......and I picked up the Welsh Terrier who was sat at my feet

"Meet my son", I told her

"What's his name? " Fiona asked

"Finlay" I said with a smile

Hippo Comment

2012-01-18T18:13:00.003Z

One of the better comments to my blog ( see previous entry)
Thanks Hippo

Pryvit

I Vladimir from Ukraine.

Why you compare small, small farm in tiny country with village in Ukraine? You been Ukraine? You ever come her, drink Slavutych (won gold medals, you won gold medals?) you seen Ukrainian chicken? You visit Ukrainian farm? We Ukraine, we say bad thing Wale farm? Why say bad thing Ukraine?

I spit on your chicken, Ptooh!!

You name place. I bring Ukrainian chicken, he kick shit out your chicken

Then I give Salvutych and we drink. In morning you stop nasty about Ukraine. Ukraine much bigger than Wale, Gregoriev say Wale men only Irish men who no swim. All Ukranian man swim, I show you when I bring chicken. When my chicken kill your chicken we swim Ireland, drink Irish Salvutych and swim back. Then I show you how build real house for chicken.

I read your blog, I think you nice man but stupid, You do work for woman, feed animal. You need Babushka. Mebbe I bring Babushka for you, no? She good. Beat her in morning she work hard and sleep with chicken when snow come and fry kovbasa in morning for you made from pigs you kill. All Ukrainian man like kill pig. If you no like kill, Babushka do it.

Do pobachennya
Vladimir
Kiev

There's Some sun In The Distance

2012-01-18T14:48:00.000Z

The sun was shining yesterday and the village was galvanised into some sort of activity......today it is cold , damp and grey and the place is deserted and somewhat depressingly quiet.

Tom over at "Tom Stephenson recalls", has summed up this mid winter feeling so well, referring to it as the January Blues......for me, this time of year means just one thing----mud!; it means a constant battle with shitty paw prints on the kitchen floor and it means caked wellington boots and dirty, chillblained hands.

We all need a little hope in January don't we?

We need a glimpse of better things to come, some good news, some positive thinking.....

and at least here in our tiny corner of Wales, I think there are small islands of positivity to celebrate and to look forward to.

1. The Post Office makes a welcome return to the village in a month or two.

Ok it will be only be set up on a Friday afternoon over at the village hall, and of course we still won't have the accompanying shop and newsagent services we used to have when Jenny the flamed haired post mistress fought her way through the reams of paperwork at the old Central Stores but it is a wonderful baby step at keeping the village functioning.

I looking forward in manufacturing a sudden need for stamps and banking every Friday!

Historically the Post Office has moved sites at least 4 times over the years

2. A committee has just been formed up at the Crown Pub, to sort out some sort of Village Celebration to commemorate the Queen's Jubilee in June. I think this is a cracking idea, especially as I have decided not to hold my "Open Allotment Day" until next year and I have already said that I am more than happy to help out with anything the committee comes up with.

In this age where people only seem to make the effort to look after themselves, any altruistic enterprise, in my mind should be celebrated, supported and encouraged.....

Now....where's my bunting?

Trelawnyd Coronation Carnival 1953

3. With the pigs' imminent departure, I have decided that 2012 will be the year that the allotment will go from strength to strength. The Ukrainian village will be having a full face lift and I aim to have a couple of milking goats this year.......milk, cheese, self sufficiency in veg and who knows.... more piglets in July perhaps......

and of course more waifs and strays will be turning up with gay abandon over the next few months.....

4. and I will be going to Choir practise this year.........losing Andrew underlines that old hackneyed saying...." life's too short"

And as the Two Ronnies used to say "and finally"
here is a blog header that will lift your spirits... it's a candid shot from http://lifeonthesmushieranch.blogspot.com/
Enjoy xxx

Moving Onwards

2012-01-17T14:48:00.003Z

No 21 and the delightful no 12

Was it only Six Months ago since number 12 and Number 21 arrived at Bwthyn-y-Llan? It seems such an age ago now. Both have blossomed into two huge, fine looking pigs, each with a personality and attraction all of their own.......but I have always been mindful that both are now ready for bacon, for sausages and for chops.

I have just got off the phone with a rural butcher. A jovial Chap, full of Welsh chutzpah and good will, he gave me a whistle stop menu of pork cuts,explained the whole process of butchery from culling to table as it were and even offered to pick them up for me, which I have just now agreed to.

I am now just waiting for the phone call, telling me when it is all going to take place.

I feel ok and ever so slightly relieved that I have finally summoned the nerve to finally get the ball rolling, but I know I will find it just a little difficult to look no 21 in the eye a little later today....he's such a sweet natured fellow.........

I feel like a real farmer ( well just a little)

Barcelona 1992 Olympic Flame

2012-01-16T22:53:00.000Z

I am getting excited about the Olympics...........we ( the family) are talking about going down to London to soak in the atmosphere of the closing ceremony ( no we have not got tickets)
I Just Hope the organisers take a leaf out of the Barcelona Olympics ( the most classy) and the Sydney Olympics ( The most Joyous!)
My Best friend Nuala and I went to the opening of the World Student Games at The Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield many years ago now.... I remember that Uk Astronaut Helen Shaman ran in with the "Games Flame" and bloody dropped it running up the steps to the cupola!
and...it was so embarrassing as THE BLOODY FLAME WENT OUT!!
The Sheffield crowd....( good natured as always) laughed it's bloody socks off!!!!!

5 Bags of Sugar

2012-01-16T10:16:00.003Z

Weightwatchers weigh in today 15st 4 lbs

Weight loss in the past week 6 lbs

Total weight loss in 2 weeks 10 lbs

Having suffered that bloody awful virus last week, I just knew that my weigh in this week would be fairly successful.......... So, I didn't need to employ all those pre weigh in tricks that we all employ just before dragging my sorry carcass onto the bathroom scales

( by saying "tricks" I mean the forcing out of a big wee just before assessment time etc!!!)

Give me a couple more weeks and I just know I will stop farting with the force of the Queen Mary's Hooter when I bend over........Way to go Girlfriend

Ps will blog more "appropriately" a little later!

Noise

2012-01-15T12:47:00.001Z

Sunday mornings in the country are not always peaceful. This is especially true in winter when the sounds of bird shoots echo constantly around the circle of hills that surround the village, giving one the sense of being a mile or two from the "front line" so to speak.

It has been like that this morning.

The village Church Bell strikes up at ten minutes to eleven and does not stop until the Rector arrives.........Robert is sometimes a little late, so the monotone "DING" of the bell can go on just a little, and it often sets the lurcher howling from the corner house which can be somewhat tiring.

I am on night shift tonight, so have retired to bed for a few hours. It is a necessary luxury as I will not have any sleep until tomorrow night now, and it is a luxury that I rather enjoy.....

Its just me in the bed.....no one else is allowed......the sheets are cool and the room is dark and even though I can still hear the occasional shriek of the geese as they bicker, the pillow over my head cushions most of the Sunday Morning soundtrack........

Sweet Dreams x

Oh Dear

2012-01-14T22:46:00.003Z

Well, I went to be entertained and I went to have a good bawl.........and unfortunately I did neither....

Warhorse, I am afraid to say, is not one of Steven Spielberg's better films.Sure, it has a chocolate box view of Edwardian Devon, sure it has a totally underused Emily Watson as a plucky farmer's wife and sure it has sweet boy in love with his pet horse which is sadly taken off to the Great War...... but what it doesn't have is any real dramatic tension, in a story which, on stage at least, has gripped and moved literally millions of people.

The play is narrated by the central horse character of Joey; subsequently the emotion of the trauma of separation,loss and of War itself can be shared by words, as well as visuals... The film lacks this device and is, I am sorry to say, much the poorer for it, as horses, although beautiful animals, can look ever so slightly inscrutable to the untrained eye. If they show human emotion...they can unfortunately look a little cartoonish

Warhorse also does not have many of those flagship Spielberg touches that satisfy the soul.

But a few scenes do linger in the mind

- the horse Joey galloping madly across the besieged trenches at night

- the shooting of two deserters as seen through the sails of a working windmill

- the gentle banter between a sweet natured German soldier (Hinnerk Schönemann) and a chirpy Tyneside Squaddie ( Toby Kebbell) who meet up in no-man's land

( incidentally the best performances of the film)

But overall, I felt cheated there was no "Lassie Come Home moment".....

I needed a bit of cheap sentiment, and a lot of blubber

Unfortunately I had neither!
6/10

A Chink In The Armour ,"Coppers" and the unsung 7,500

2012-01-13T15:25:00.003Z

I have just had a run in with Thomas the gander during feeding time. This perhaps underlines the fact that I am not quite firing on all cylinders at the moment, for when I bent down to fill their water bowl I never noticed his low, rear guard attack posture and only really "reacted" to his presence after he had took a firm hold of two inches of underwear elastic and an unhealthy amount of buttock in his sharp, serrated beak.

I hit a top "c" that anyone on the male voice choir would have been proud of, spun around and instinctively punched him as hard as I could right in the kisser.
He let go, staggered back a few steps in shock then gave me a rather half arsed "Honk" of threat
I jumped around a little, fingering a hole in my undies and flicked him the "v"s even though I was feeling dreadully guilty
No matter how ill you may be, animal enemies will always seek out a chink in your armour

****************

Moving on.....

Last night I watched with interest a channel four documentary entitled quite simply Coppers

This second series started off in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire and followed the mundane, stressful, irritating, hands-tied and frustrating world of an urban British CID force.
Part of the documentary was the "seen it all before" fly-on-the wall details of crime investigation, which was interesting enough given the fact that the law seems always heavily on the side of any potential perpetrator, but it was the face to camera interviewing of the senior police detectives themselves that proved to be the most illuminating parts of the documentary.
Straight talking, wry and in most cases very VERY pithy, the detectives thankfully didn't tread that hackneyed old path of political correctness.....colourfully and with some feeling they told their story of frustration and impotency with the criminal classes rather gamely and I could have happily cheered when the dry-as-toast Sergeant Marcus Oldroyd (above) was asked what he thought of a burglar's house he had just had to search in order to find a neighbour's stolen goods.....
"It's a shithole" he said simply and directly to camera.

The police came over as hard working, decent people; people that have to face not only the tragic and the exciting every day, but the boring, the stupid and the lazy in our society who make petty crime a way of life without hope or want of rehabilitation..............One DC summed the whole thing up when after an age patiently trying to interview a vital but reluctant witness she turned to her collegue and said "As the famous saying goes... you can't polish a turd!"

Thank Goodness for them all, that's what I say.

*************************

And finally...........
This morning I had a chat with an old guy in the village about the movie WARHORSE which opens today....He asked me if I knew that WARDOGS were commonplace in WW1 and were used not only as guard and sentry uses but more importantly were invaluable as message carriers between the trenches and command centres
"Over 7,500 dogs were killed in the the Great War alone" he told me "did you know that?"
I had to admit I had no idea
Mr Spielberg...please take note...............

Novovirus Blues

2012-01-12T14:18:00.001Z

I have not blogged for the past few days because I have been rather dramatically ill.

On Monday I could feel a "bug" coming on, and by Tuesday morning, I could hardly lift my head off the pillow. There was a funeral on in the Graveyard and I could hear the gravedigger's lorry arrive on my field ( he has to access the cemetery from my land) but just felt too ill to go over to save the poor man from being chased by the geese.

By midday I was suffering rigors,nausea and joint pain worse than I have ever experienced before and after an aborted attempt to walk the dogs I did what I have never done before, I rang Chris at work and told him to come home.

I have been in bed ever since, watched over continually by a loyal and slightly anxious Meg Well that is until this morning when I dragged my sorry, stinking arse out of my Tracey Emin-ish bed......and I can honestly say that I have never experienced a virus which has made me feel so bad...ever......ever in 49 years!. This is no word of a lie....but on Tuesday night I had visions of me being whisked away to hospital I felt so awful, ( and even the cool-as-a-cucumber Chris was worried when he saw me all vague pale and feverish hidden under the duvet)- I must have looked like Kate Winslet in her sick scene in Sense And Sensibility.....

Anyhow I survived and thank goodness for Carer's leave, that's what I say

Without Chris having the flexibility to come home to look after me and the animals, I really don't know where I would have been with it all........

Things can change on a sixpence can't they?

"Put The Bun Down, Walk Away From The Bun"

2012-01-09T10:16:00.000Z

I have always enjoyed my food

Chris says that it comes from being a twin,

It's Something about having competition at food time.....

Once when I was tucking in to a plate of goodies, he laughed and said that if we were infant birds rather than babies then he was sure that I would have kicked Janet right out of the nest when mommy came-a-calling with a beakful of worms...

Even at a year old I was chubby and just a little camp!

Of course weight gain is sort of natural when you are fast approaching 50. My regular twice a week badminton games with friend Mike stopped long before we came to Wales.......(because of creaking knees and pressures of work) and we have got into the habit of big meals in the evenings, too many takeaways and for me, the fatty perils of a crisp white wine!

Add to this recipe, a propensity for comfort eating, a liking for big portions ( a legacy from my Grandmother who re enforced love and affection with feeding) and a genetic "Gray double chin" and is it no wonder that I look like a pig in a leotard?

So it is time I do something permanently about it.....

I know I can do it.

A few years ago I lost three stone in six months, and did so fairly easily ...

I just didn't keep it off.

This time I am serious........ I can do it again and for good this time.......Looking like Shelley Winters on a bad day and having embarrassing, uncontrollable and uncomfortably loud flatulence when I cock my leg over the field gate is the last straw........

There...I have said it publicly........

My Name's John...... and I am a porker.

So from now on Mondays will be my weightwatcher weigh in...Last Monday I was 16 stone exactly

Today I am

15 stone 10 lbs.
"Way to go Girlfriend!!!!!!!!!"

A Little Extra

2012-01-08T10:37:00.000Z

Meg, Mabel, William and George and the ubiquitous blue rug

Sunday morning is a time for slow paced activities...

Chris has gone to Church in the next village and the dogs are all heaped together on the kitchen sofa, unwilling to get up into the fine , grey mist and rain which looks as though it has set in for the day.

This is the time for coffee, eggs Benedict and Radio 4 Extra.....

Radio 4 Extra is a little gem of a radio station. For those that do not know ( and I am quoting wikipedia here) Radio 4 extra is:-

"BBC Radio 4 Extra, formerly known as BBC 7 and BBC Radio 7, is a British digital radio station comedy, drama, and children's programming nationally 24 hours a day. It is the principal broadcasting outlet for the BBC's archive of spoken-word entertainment broadcasting "

What wikipedia does not make clear , is the fact that Radio 4 Extra often cherry picks the best the brightest of the BBC productions for a re airing...this morning I have enjoyed a cracking adaptation of Kipling's Jungle Book....(with Eartha Kitt literally shining as Kaa the snake) and as I type this, Kirsty Young is in the process of interviewing Debbie Harry for Desert Island Discs

Vintage Peter Coke

Tomorrow, I will catch the 1959 re run of Paul Temple and the Conrad Case and if I remember on Thursday, I will try and catch The Chief Inspector Dover Mysteries from way back in 1976,

We are lucky having the BBC here in the UK...... but if it was up to me I would rip most of the shitty tv programmes off BBC1 ( apart from Sherlock of course) and replace them with some of the quality radio productions from the past and present.....

But, alas, a day cannot just be crammed with breakfast eggs, good drama and a warm kitchen....

dogs have to be walked in the rain..........and I need to burn off the calories before my weightwatcher's weigh in tomorrow morning

Have a nice Sunday

It's All Go.....

2012-01-07T17:02:00.000Z

I am still keeping on eye on Village affairs

Trelawnyd seems rather quiet in this post Christmas time lull

There is little news to report....

Neighbours Della and Arfon found an abandoned Jack Russell outside their farm gates...she's a sweet little gal too

The village noticeboard has been finally erected

-The builder who did the work gave me the key as he knew I am on the community council--( oh the power!)

and Kit Hopkins kindly presented me with my second pair of handmade slippers this afternoon.....she apologised for the wait......she had a rush order to get out!

The ever cheerful guy with multicoloured hair and numerous piercings from Maes Offa dropped off a load of wood for me to burn in the lounge stove...

Carys at 1 London Road said she didn't mind that I had forgotten to deliver her eggs this week as she has enough

and there is talk of a part time post office being opened up at the Village Hall very soon......

The Trelawnyd Village folk seem happy enough despite the lack of excitement!!

Frodo's tale

2012-01-06T10:14:00.000Z

Frodo

Now as regular readers will know, I am a bit of a sucker for a sob story.

At least 30 animals on the field arrived as a result of being neglected or unwanted, and most have blossomed into healthy, happy and in the case of the "Crackhead whores" productive birds, who have all started to lay after a few barren and somewhat bald months.

Yesterday I received an email from a woman in Shropshire, who had rescued a predominantly blind bantam cockerel from a farm after he was bullied by the resident cockerels and the farm children who delighted in throwing stones at him..

She had heard , through a mutual friend that I keep poultry (and probably that I am a soft touch) and wondered if I could help her

Frodo, apparently is a bit of a character. Before being re homed at the farm, he was one of the star attractions in the petting zoo at Alton Towers, subsequently he is tame, loves human contact and a cuddle, and now is almost fit enough to be re homed

I have a spare run, and the Rhode Island Red who had a stroke would make him an ideal companion so of course I have emailed Frodo's rescuer and have said yes.

She was lucky, I think, as her timing had been pitched just right. With the start of the New Year, and the faraway prospect of better weather, I am beginning to feel more like my normal, more positive self.

The dreadful 2011 is now behind us

The Wind Doth Blow!

2012-01-05T11:51:00.004Z

70 mile an hour winds, horizontal rain and hail ....I could hardly see the field this morning

I managed to snap a quick photo of the hysterical runners all leaning desperately into the wind

Strangers On A Train

2012-01-04T17:39:00.003Z

I have spent a rather pointless afternoon battling the vagaries of a banking call centre, which proved to be as lengthy as it was irritating..In between huffing and puffing at faceless jobsworths, I almost forgot that Albert needed his inoculation boosters, so after bundling him into the berlingo, I popped up to the vets.

As it turned out the vet was running late ( it is a rural surgery) so I had to wait, and as I sat there I struck up conversation with a woman who had been booked into the slot after me. The woman had brought an over weight and rather cheerful Labrador to be seen, whose name, she informed me, was Winston.
Winston, she added had a bit of a nervous "tummy"
My companion, was a garrulous old soul. Within a few minutes, she had told me that she was a retired legal secretary, that she had recently been hospitalised for suspected gallstones and that her niece had recently obtained a doctorate in some high flying subject over in the States.
She didn't think much about the Christmas Television schedules, though quite enjoyed "Downton Abbey" and was fed up with the increasing number of fireworks that were set off by people on the "Estate" when the New Year was welcomed in.
Winston had been with her for three years and she also had at cat at home called Frank or Franks....... and after those facts were shared I think I started to glaze over just a little.......
But she just kept on spouting.
The Stephen Lawrence case was discussed, her niece's slightly disastrous love life was touched upon and even the merits of cranberry juice for "bladder probs" was thrown into the mix.... and even though I sort of enjoyed our conversation, the sight of the vet hurrying into the surgery was a very welcomed sight

With Albert tucked under my arm, I said my goodbyes, and the woman beamed at me, holding up Winston's paw up in a jaunty wave!!

"oh I have enjoyed our chat" she said and with just a hint of sadness in her voice, she added candidly
"Do you know you are the first person I have spoken to properly since December the 18th"

I gave her a brave sort of smile ,and suddenly felt like crying.... and I wondered who she chatted to over two weeks ago

Injured fingers,Storms and Sherlock

2012-01-03T10:27:00.003Z

The second in command Cockerel, Badger and the marsh which is now the field

Now bare with me if my spelling and grammar is ,moderately worse than usual....

I can only type with my left hand and with the third finger on my right hand......a result of a particularly nasty fridge defrosting injury.....I won't bore you with the details...suffice to say that I am having a little trouble typing, picking my nose and wiping my bum!

Yes....enough said....

The storm which has buffeted the Uk today, hit home in Wales in the middle of the night. and at 4am, me and my sore fingers were battling the elements on the field as part of the Churchyard fencing crashed down onto the goosehouse ripping part of the roof away.

In the dark and with Mabel watching every move, I fixed the roof and checked on each coop in turn.....we have been lucky .........despite up to 90 mile a hour gusts, nothing else has been damaged severely (so far)...

Hens a lucky little souls, when it's dark. At night they literally go totally blind and will sit comfortably side my side, blissfully unaware that anything untoward is happening in the big bad world..

I didn't even get a murmur out of them when after opening one coop door, Mabel stuck her big fat head through to give a group a buffs a somewhat energetic once over!.

The torrential rain has saturated the field, to it's limit, too and most of the animals are living in rather damp unhealthy lives during the day.....its been a lousy winter so far,

Last night, with the wind screaming around the cottage we had an early night and watched the first episode of the second BBC series SHERLOCK on iplayer.

Now for those that have not yet seen Benedict Cumberbatch's modern day portrayal of the famous detective, you are in for a real treat, as his Sherlock is a masterclass in charisma.

His "more damaged" Sherlock is a borderline asberger sufferer....as being the genius we all know and love,he is sexually immature geek, who is at times socially inept and rather isolated, a facet which makes his character even more compelling to watch.

He is clearly my favourite incarnation of Holmes.....

...and I am not alone...... fellow blogger Kyna over at crystalcoastgardener

seems to be a bit of a fan..it always amuses me when she refers to herself as a .........

If you are having a bad time at home, hiding away from this bloody awful weather........ go to iplayer and give the New Sherlock a go...... it's great fun

To everyone in the UK.... be careful and safe today.... that weather is a bitch! and not a cumberbitch!

A Better 2012

2012-01-02T09:59:00.000Z

The Family Photograph Jan 1st 2012

Good Riddance To Bad Rubbish

2011-12-31T15:01:00.003Z

It wouldn't surprise any one that 2011 has not been the best of years for us all..........in actual fact, tonight at the stroke of midnight I will endeavour to raise a large glass of a crisp white to the arse end of 2011 .......at the same time as I stick two fingers up at it.

My brother's illness and eventual death has had a profound effect on the family .......for most of the year in our own different ways we have tried to support him , his wife and each other as the inevitable deterioration of his body and mood took place as surely as spring turned into summer,and summer into Autumn.

It might sound strange but I kind of miss my weekly visits up in Denbigh. Without Andrew there to "look after" I now feel strangely redundant and "all at sea" when Thurdays come around....."Out of sorts" is another phrase that comes to mind as the nagging thought of "there's a job that needs to be done" continually creeps into my consciousness.......of course it's nothing to what my sister in law will be experiencing.... but the feeling is there.... and it is an odd, unsettling emotion to deal with.

2011 has been dominated by the shadow of MND.

It is an unforgiving, destructive and terrible disease...............and I hate it with a passion.....As a result , I am filled with a contempt that makes me want to turn my back on anything to do with the disease in the future..and I mean that.....
......I have had my total fill of it.
.....a fact that shows.............

Of course, I lost Constance this year too. And this little sharp pain of grief was unexpected as it was cruel.

Constance was a sick old dog. But she possessed a big heart and a rather moving and profound attachment to me, which not only pampered to my need "to be needed" but which also moved me greatly.

Watching her blossom from a shy sickly bag of nerves into a confident, kiss loving mass of flatulence, underlined just why keeping dogs can be such a pleasure....... a pleasure that sometimes is so brief and bittersweet on occasion, but one that is to me, as important as breathing.......I still miss her dreadfully

I also miss two friends that went their own ways in 2011 ...another two losses......it feels like a year of losses!

Of course there was good things to remember in 2011.

-Watching the bloody awful "deal or no deal" with Andrew in the afternoons when he was more active, and watching him laugh at my feigned annoyance at not understanding the quiz rules

-Seeing my sister Janet take on the role of fund raiser extraordinaire, despite being convinced that she would be no good at it

-Being a part of the successes of the Village Flower Show and the annual Allotment open day

- saving no 21s leg with the help of Pat B, my amateur animal helper

It has not been enough though.....

Yes fuck off 2011..!........2012... you, are going to be a better year....I just know you are
and if you are not...... welll... then you can fuck right off too!

Lou Charloff,

2011-12-30T00:55:00.000Z

One of my favourite late night tv programmes is OLD JEWS TELLING JOKES
I love it!
makes me feel ok with getting older!!!!!!!

Pretty Bollocks

2011-12-29T17:36:00.003Z

When I was growing up in the seventies, it was the Roger Moore Bond movies that thrilled and entertained us. Fast paced,and with a plot line that would not tax the average twelve year old....they were full of exciting set pieces, exotic locations, busty sex objects and gadgets galore.....so it was much amusement and nostalgia that I enjoyed the 2011 reincarnation of say Live and Let Die in the modern day guise of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol.

OK everything in MI4 is bigger, better and more polished than any Bond that I remember but the essential premise is exactly the same....

It's all flash, bang, wallop!

The Lovely Mr Renner

......The set pieces ( a tense standoff in the tallest skyscraper in the world -the Burj Khalifa in Dubai during a sandstorm and the bombing of the Kremlin) being just two of several standout sequences, where the bland Eithan Hunt (Tom Cruise) struts his box office pleasing invincible stuff.

This time Hunt's team is pared down to just three. A busty platonic Amazon (Paula Patton), a friendly geek (Simon Pegg) and all American Jock-with-a-past (Jeremy Renner) (right) and

Of course they have only a few hours to save the world, which they do ingeniously and with some style and excitement.......

It's all bollocks...certainly it is... but it is entertaining, enjoyable and satisfying bollocks.......

8/10

Pretty but Dull- Lady Mary and the floppy haired Mathew Crawley

.......and talking of enjoyable bollocks.....This morning I actually made the effort and watched the

Downton Abbey Christmas "Special" Now....despite my scathing criticism of the lacklustre second series... this two hour Edwardian romp finally showed it's dramatic backbone which echoed writer Julian Fellow's cinematic period piece....the glorious Gosford Park, and provided an enjoyable Yultide story!

At last we saw dull Lady Mary ( who should have "had a canary Up the leg of her draws!") getting all romantic with the beautiful Mathew while Maggie Smith chewed the scenery like a good'un

Like Mission Impossible 4, Downton is generally good looking frothy bollocks........it's pretty to look at and it's easy on the brain......

just what you need on a wintry, cold and blustery day!

10 Things You Don't know About Me

2011-12-28T18:27:00.002Z

It's been a lazy kind of day.

Couldn't think of anything interesting to write about........ I considered discussing the merits of the infeasably large photo of Kim Jong Il being paraded on his funeral parade......

but seeing that I was kind of impressed with the logistics of it all....I won't waste time slagging it off.....

So, in lieu of a slag of... I set myself a sort of quiz....... could I actually come up with a list of facts that no one else knows about......some of which may be of use to anyone writing my biography...( when I eventually become famous!)...

OK here goes...

1. The first guy I had a relationship with, was a cheerful scouse medic called Roger...... he lived in Manchester and I lived in Sheffield, so we basically saw each other at weekends, high days and holidays......

After 9 months a friend of his, who decided that she liked me more than him, rang me up one day to inform me that he had a fiance ( A WOMAN!) ,(who he lived with) ...suffice to say I didn't get an invite to the evening do!

2. In 1984 I did a parachute jump for charity even though I cannot abide heights.

Luckily I was connected to a static line, which thankfully opened my chute automatically as I totally forgot any of my pre jump training...........

I wore one of my Brother's old all in one silver rally suits ( I was showing off ) which totally got covered in shit when I crash landed into a ploughed field, subsequently broke my collar bone and got dragged around it for an age when the wind caught in my canvas!

3. I was once voted "best arse" in the Prestatyn High School 6th form awards ( no jokes please!)

4. I never owned a dog until I was 40

5. I was once attacked by an 80 year old hebephrenic schizophrenic when I was kneeling on the floor putting on her slippers..........she blacked both my eyes!

6. As a child I nearly died twice...... I once choked on a mint imperial when I was around 8, and was saved by my quick thinking mother who upended me over a sink in my father's shop to dislodge the offending sweet .

I also very nearly drowned in a hotel swimming pool in Loret del Mar (Spain).....I went under for the third time.....silently ( I didn;t want to make a fuss) and was only saved when a man noticing my hand poking up through the water, lifted me onto the side of the pool.....

I have never liked water since! (and to be honest I have never been too keen on mint imperials either!)

7. I suffer from sleep apnoea.....once, at the Guttman's Paralympic village when I was sharing a dormitory with a score a paraplegics...... the lads got so sick of my snoring so much so, that in the middle of the night they got up in their wheelchairs and pushed my bed through the emergency exit!

8. I am colour blind........(take a look at my fashion sense if you find that a difficult one to believe)

9. Walking down 2nd Avenue in New York on one rainy Monday morning, I once literally bumped into Sigourney Weaver

10. I have never been arrested but I was once cautioned by two York policemen when I was caught peeing in the street dressed as a gorilla

Normality

2011-12-27T14:17:00.002Z

Fine Weather!

No rain!

No wind....

Bugger me...I can't quite believe it.!!!!!

The village seemed awash with walkers sweating under their woolly hats this morning... and even octogenarian Olwenna Hughes, who is extremely shaky on her old pins was out strolling in the sun.

It tickled me that even though she had been effectively marooned inside her bungalow for weeks because of the bad weather, she still knew exactly what had been happening in the village...

"It was nice that you went to Church on Christmas Eve " she called out in her sing song way.."

I reminded her that I only went for the carols!

For the first time in weeks, I had the opportunity to check over the animals on what has turned out to be an unseasonably warm day. The Crackhead Whores with their Alpha female, Vinegar tits, now smart in their newly grown feathers, have blossomed under some intensive "feeding up". Settled in to their part of the field, they have relaxed somewhat and have stopped their bully-girl activities with the older hens....

I will reluctantly admit that I really should change their collective name seeing that they have all undergone a sort of "pretty woman-like" transformation over the past two months.......but I shall resist the urge......I really think I should be true to their drug taking and loose knickered past!

The Crackhead whores all looking rather splendid (Vinegar tits is on the right)

And so, all afternoon, I have cleaned away the rain soaked damage inflicted in November and early December...and it has been therapeutic as it was necessary....I have just been seeing to the basics for a while now......

Boris....happy at surviving another Christmas

One of the Crackheads blooming


The Indian runners still, fit and healthy and hysterical around their pond

As I dredged the pond at the back of the field, I noticed an old couple in the graveyard. They were leaning against the fence, watching the geese "arguing" with the indian runners over a bowl of corn and called me over in order to buy some eggs.

The graveyard is always busy at Christmas with people dropping off wreaths and flowers .....and I always try to be respectful of people's feelings, especially if they look like they need some quiet and reflective time by the graves of their loved ones. (The geese in particular, can be bloody invasive with their honking!)

Hummm...respectful eh? Look what T shirt I had chosen to put on today

whoops

Even Mabel was not impressed

Boxing Day Big Up!!

2011-12-26T12:57:00.000Z

As I walked around a gale lashed Trelawnyd this morning, the rather dishevelled woman in a towelling dressing gown who I spied washing up the dishes, summed up all of the festive stressors of the past few days as she puffed out her cheeks with that "I 'm soddin' well knackered" kind of look.

I tried to send her my best "I've paddled that canoe" sort of look right back....but she was already fishing around her cleavage for a dropped piece of hot ash from her cigarette so couldn't see me!..

Boxing day...... it's all the same.

Yesterday was a game in two halves really..... a restful day together with the dogs

(yes below if my "official" New Christmas hat photo)

and then a complete bunfight of cooking when the family came around for dinner.

It all went well..... the food was ok........Chris won the Downton Abbey general knowledge Quiz and after too many small sherries we all raised a glass to Andrew in a coordinated iphone toast with my sister in law,

And so it's over....

Boxing day is here with it's obligatory long walk....crap tv and cold meat.

I managed to sneak a few cold roast potatoes out for the pigs this morning who sucked them up with exquisite piggy pleasure....but there was little else to share with the hens, who have all disappeared into the hedgerows due to the bad winds.

To keep out the cold... I have treated them to a huge bowl of festive spaghetti......they are easily pleased....

Chris has just gone to B&Q to buy some picture pins to hang up his pressie from me...which is a small French miniature of a "lady"......he liked it...and it is rather sweet, even if I do say so myself.......

Perhaps Tom....you could tell us something about it?......It's all French to me!

The Red faced Welsh farmer has just driven past the cottage.....he sounds as though he's doing a Long John Silver impersonation.......the wind is getting up and the thought of braving the elements to fight over a cheap tv at comet seems vaguely disgusting.........

So that's our Boxing day......I will leave you all with my best wishes......and a BIG up for fellow blogger ELIZABETH STANFORTH-SHARPE( see her blog entry:-

a-dip-in-the-ocean

http://www.justgiving.com/Elizabeth-Stanforth-Sharpe1

After reading about my sister's Herculaneum efforts to raise money for Motor Neurone Research and of the sad death of Andrew only a few weeks ago, Bette ( and I hope you don't mind me calling you Bette!) has got off her arse so to speak and has organised herself into a one woman, money raising swimming champion...... and all in aid of MND......

My family have been moved, so very much by her sincere and generous offer of help ( she must be mad as a box of frogs too as she is braving Scarborough's Icy waters in the height of winter) so I wanted to "big up" her plan here...so that if any of you would like to sponsor the plucky old gal......please follow the links and do so..................she and indeed WE would be VERY grateful if you did.....

Bette Stanforth Sharpe in slightly earlier days

Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T19:42:00.002Z


Finlay, our first Welsh terrier loved Christmas

Like I said Yesterday....Have a lovely Christmas x

Merry Christmas fa---la----la-la-la..lalalala

2011-12-23T21:35:00.000Z

Well I have woken up from a fireside slumber ( complete with Welsh Terrier attached to my face) and have just realised that my last post was far too depressive

So I will leave you with my much lauded festive Christmas photograph (taken last year) and some heartfelt good wishes to everyone who actually reads this ....my "diary of a middle aged nobody" pile of shit

Let us all have a peaceful Christmas eh?

Please take my advice!!!!!!!!!!!!
Catch up with family, with friends or just your significant other

Sit through 2 hours of Downton Abbey with a whole chocolate Orange in your mouth

and whatever you do DON'T watch the news

xxxxxxxxxxx

pps

watch this from 23 seconds onwards..... I dare you not to give me a little Christmas smile

xxxx

Blackout

2011-12-23T19:02:00.002Z

Last night we were sat in Sainsburys cafe and just about to tuck into a rather tasty fish and chip supper, when all the lights went out!
The whole retail park and adjoining streets were totally in darkness, and after a moment of uncertainty (when I couldn't quite locate my last chip) the supermarket's dim emergency lighting kicked in and suddenly a few hundred shoppers all acted as though they had survived a terrorist attack.....
The powercut continued, but we were allowed to shop in the gloom as the tills re booted.....and as we did our shop in the muted hysteria people indulge in when faced with a collective "threat", I had a seriously worrying "think" about just how we, as a nation would cope without the all singing , all giving God Electricity......
Not very well...I suspect.......
People today have no reserves when it comes to disaster have they? . People just don't have proper larders anymore, they have no stockpiles of food,fuel, water and other vital items. We rely on these monolithic supermarkets for food that would empty within hours if not refilled by fuel guzzling lorries and we rely on electricity for almost everything else......electricity that can disappear literally at the "flick of a switch"

Yes I thought about all this as we filled our basket with tasty stuffing and Christmas baubles..........
and before we left.... I made sure several packets of store cupboard candles were placed into the trolley.

....as I wait......

2011-12-22T12:54:00.002Z

I am sat at the kitchen table waiting for a delivery man to drop off some vital computer equipment for Chris....of course no time can be specified, given the Christmas deadlines....so I have to be around, and available all day....

There is an upside to all this....for as I wait here...I have been making lists for the "Christmas dinner" shop we are embarking on this evening......In between the planning of the sherry trifle and the reviewing of a recipe for Braised Red Cabbage ( thanks Pat), I have had time to notice

those grubby little marks around the kitchen that have always been previous neglected.....namely the dog snot on the back door ,the dribbles of kittikat down the side of the fridge and that lump of something unmentionable under the sofa.....

Not being content just to look at these little badges of pet ownership, I have got off my arse and scrubbed the offending areas clean.......so much so....that the kitchen is actually starting to look......er.....well....... habitable......

A first for me, I can tell you.

Most of the dogs have stalked off for a sleep, all that is except Mabel who feigning slumbers is now keeping one eye open to see what I would start scrubbing next......she closed both eyes firmly when I found myself muttering in true Joan Crawford style

"Its not you I'm mad at...I'm mad at the dirt"

Being a typical bulldog, she cannot cope with any bad feeling!

Anyway, it's 1.10pm and still there is no sign of Mr Delivery Man.....all visible signs of dog snot have now been removed from the kitchen and I have completed at least three " to do" lists on the back of three envelopes.........I am confident that most Christmas day boxes have now been ticked...

My two sisters and their husbands are all coming for Christmas dinner here.....Non of us really feel like celebrating but the effort has to be made to mark the day .....tomorrow I am going down to B& Q to buy some cheap as chips Christmas lights....with the aim of transforming something like this

into something like THIS

This being......Nigella's twinkling Kitchen....

Hopefully the effect with raise a few , well needed smiles!!!!!!

Hello?

2011-12-21T21:47:00.001Z

Message Left on the Answerphone this afternoon

This is a transcription in it's entirety

"I have a little something ready for you!" rasped the breathless voice.......".I will be in alllllllll day!...pop round if you're free!!!!"

That was it!

A secret admirer...organising a bit of rural extramarital rumpy pumpy perhaps?

Naw....... Auntie Glad has just baked me a load of mince pies!

Sherlock Holmes- A Game Of Shadows

2011-12-21T10:35:00.000Z

A tough, sexy Watson and a vulnerable Holmes

Now first let me say that I am a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes.....Basil Rathbone....Benedick Cumberbatch.....Jeremy Brett........I have enjoyed every one of the sleuth's reincarnations both on the big screen and on tv....and even though Guy Richie's first foray into the genre (The slightly zany

Sherlock Holmes 2009) was somewhat superhero-ish, I must admit, it was a most enjoyable romp of a movie.

Richie's sequel is very much more of the same.........overly stylised , and cinematically complicated...the movie uses GCI and slow motion visual tricks to highlight Holmes' lightning intellect....so much so, that the audience is whisked away from the "normality" of Baker Street and Victorian London literally within seconds of the opening credits being rolled......

This film is a totally different take on the Conan Doyle's hero...

Robert Downey Jr. makes for a charismatic and rather dangerous Holmes...He is not the asburger loner portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch (my personal favourite Holmes) nor is he a calculating Jeremy Brett, posh toff......he is, in fact, a drug addled,brittle, hyperactive child genius...who relies more on his cool as a cucumber best friend Dr Watson (Jude Law) than ever he did in the original novels

Both actors make the characters their own.... Downey is likable and just vulnerable enough to be always sympathetic....and Law oozes a smart sexiness and toughness which keeps him on level pegging status with Downey on screen.....

Their partnership works beautifully.....

Having said all this, both lead performances are almost eclipsed by Jarred Harris's menacing performance as Professor Moriarty....he makes for a cracking baddie........a necessary foil for Holme's seemingly invincible hero..

Stephen Fry does a nice comic turn as Sherlock's brother Mycroft and Noomi Replace ( the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) even turns up as a Gypsy fortune teller...... it's all very silly, it's all very showy.... and it's all great fun.....

A new Sherlock Holmes franchise continues

Stephen Fry as Mycroft

War Horse

2011-12-20T22:05:00.000Z

We went to see the new Sherlock Holmes film this evening....and a cracking romp it was too!
I shall give a review of it tomorrow...but I will leave you with this trailer for the forthcoming Spielberg weep fest WAR HORSE, which proceeded the main feature this evening.
I can honestly say that this is the only trailer that has actually brought me to tears (I lasted until the 53rd second when the look on that horse's face literally finished me off)......Bugger alone knows what will happen when I eventually see the film.........
Watch and weep....... Spielberg is a master

"Oh, I wish I was Good With me hands"

2011-12-20T12:46:00.003Z

Oh I wish I was good with me hands......
(No it's not the start of a Pam Ayres poem by the way)

I really envy people which have such talents...

Today Jackie our ever-cheerful dog groomer Transformed this

Into THIS!

and did so effortlessly and with some considerable skill!

As she worked, I pottered around the cottage like some reject presenter from Blue Peter

I made a simple Christmas wreath for the doorway

and spent a somewhat irritating hour or so making paper chains for the living room .......
(Occupational therapy for the mentally bewildered!)

The red faced farmer made me laugh when I told him what I had been doing.....

"Not a job for a man!" he bellowed cheerfully as he drove off down the lane!!!!!

so Ronery?

2011-12-19T13:42:00.003Z

I am having a moment to dry myself off.......

I don't know exactly where is wetter..... INside the cottage or OUTside in the rain?

All I do know, it that I needed to employ the "spirit that won the war" kind of mentality and stop bellyaching and start cleaning and drying.

Apart from the now post industrial looking concrete floor, the kitchen now looks almost human again. A neighbour Arfon, hearing about our misfortune brought around a dehumidifier this morning, and with the help of a few mobile heaters, the place is habitable once again.

Pat B, my unofficial animal helper called around too, with a festive cake (complete with bow) and Carys, who is one of my egg customers also battled the rain to deliver a small Christmas gift.... it is these little tokens of kindness that really lifts the spirits..........Even Mrs "Pen-y-cefn" Jones, who is well into her eighties and who always insists on referring to me as "Mr Gray" sent a generous donation for the Motor Neurone Disease association after she heard about my brother.......

Anyhow I need to go and get changed......I may even make an effort and go and have a bath.....

I need to make sure that I make more of an effort with my personal grooming....

Especially given the fact that the only person I know with worse dress sense and a more unforgiving haircut died today!

Kim Jong il

John looking ill

"Ho Ho, Bleeding Ho"

2011-12-18T19:35:00.000Z

I was reminded of this old joke today

"Well, it was during the famous Johnstown flood. The dam broke and when the water hit our house it knocked it right off the foundation. Grandma got on the dining room table and floated out safely."
"How about you?"
"Me? I accompanied her on the piano!"

Boom Boom!

I flooded the kitchen today.

It was a case of too much on my mind and lots of jobs to do.

I started to wash up the dishes. Collected the dogs and put them into the car. Made sure I had found some Christmas Cards to deliver and went off blissfully unaware I had left the kitchen sink tap running full pelt.

I returned home an hour later, to find an apoplectic Chris standing in two inches of water amid the wreckage of the kitchen...he was late for Church and was surrounded by a collection of sodden towels and the strangely odd spectacle of the lino floating gently on top of a small lake...like a low . flat water bed.

I had promised to go with Chris to the Church Christmas Lunch, after the morning service, so had to work like a Trojan to rip up the lino and remove 26 loads of water with the carpet cleaner!.Luckily the water had only infiltrated 2 to 3 inches into the lounge (originally Chris had bellowed that the flood had covered half of the living room!!!)..so apart from the kitchen looking remarkably like the floor of the pig hut.....we were fairly lucky.......

Oh I could have done without all this today.

As it turned out, the Christmas lunch at the village pub was rather a jolly affair...A couple of large Pinot's, a nice meal and the rector and organist being on "good form" helped a great deal...... and for the first time since my brother died, I actually found myself enjoying our one and only Christmas "do".

Having said that........the kitchen still looked like a cess pit when we returned home

The Ghost Of Christmas Past

2011-12-17T18:12:00.003Z

I think I have only ever had one naff Christmas

It was in 1990 when I was a student nurse working on an acute medical ward.

I completed the early shift on Christmas day with a miserable hangover ( and with a menopausal Dutch staff nurse in charge).......then went home, fed my cats...piled up all of the family gifts into my car and set off from Sheffield to drive the two hours back to wales.....full of Happy Christmas feelings and good will to most men!

Only my car wouldn't start!

It was cold

It was miserable

It was dark

I was alone...

and to cap it all..... I had no food in the house

Christmas dinner, as it turned out, was two individual pork pies and a mars bar bought from the 24 hour garage

and when I turned on my battered old portable tv (in my luxurious student pad living room complete with deckchair seating)........fuck all happened.........

I remember crying in my deckchair , whilst drinking the dregs from a bottle of gin and listening to radio 4

Thank goodness things before and after 1990 have been generally more festive, even though I have often worked!!

So come on everyone.... give me your best (WORST) Christmas Stories...........

Share it with the group!

I Think It's Going To Rain Today

2011-12-16T23:34:00.000Z

Shit!

2011-12-16T09:51:00.001Z

Well it had to come.

The first blizzard of the winter caught the field totally unawares this morning, and in just a few minutes has deposited ( and is depositing) tons of wet, cold,unwelcome snow.

The old hens, led by veteran Stanley all disappeared undercover leaving the new girls and the crackhead whores forlornly hunched at the field borders......already I have endeavoured to bring in the stragglers, especially the bald hens who have no reserves when it comes to being cold AND wet....but faced with this sudden downpour of cold stuff...some of them seem transfixed to the spot

....hens can be so stupid sometimes.

Already I have given the pigs extra feed.......and now I am off to check on the turkeys.....being more dense than a block of concrete, god knows where they will end up in this weather!

Sleeping Beauty

2011-12-15T22:50:00.001Z

With Chris working away..I thought a night out would be in order.

I managed to get a couple of tickets for Sleeping Beauty ( the live performance from the Royal Opera House) and Janet said that she would like to go, so we both thought that a bit of culture was just the thing to lighten the week a little.

WRONG

I didn't really get into this revival of the 1946 production and was almost relieved when

Janet was taken ill just as the second act started, and we had to go home...

Andrew's Eulogy

2011-12-14T21:50:00.003Z

Ann and Janet's floral tribute ( a drum kit)

Eulogy at http://supportingandrew.blogspot.com/

Postie Big Up

2011-12-14T14:45:00.003Z

Don't you just love the Post Office sometimes..

Today I received a lovely Christmas Card from a person who reads the blog. I am sure they won't mind me sharing the rather original way they addressed the envelope

It said

Mr John Gray (John-the-dogs-Gray)

Organiser, Trelawnyd Flower Show + allotment day

Caretaker of pigs,fowl,dogs and Albert the cat

Trelawnyd

Flintshire

It made my day!

Little Dramas

2011-12-14T09:12:00.002Z

Thank goodness Chris is away until Friday.....for some reason Albert has increased his rodent collecting abilities and since the infamous "rat incident" he has brought into the house no less than 6 field mice in 24 hours!.

Mabel, the only dog not to be swayed by Albert's rodent obsession

Of course the terriers have enjoyed these little gifts immensely, mouthing and crunching them like Nigella's Christmas titbits at a cocktail party.......only Mabel, from her position of comfort on the kitchen sofa, has refused to join in any of the fun.

Yesterday I posted the Christmas Cards, and delivered the ones in the village. It was a dry, cold day, which was perfect for walking around with a load of paper and as I ambled from one house to another, I saw an elderly lady, I only know very vaguely, standing in her front garden.

As I stopped to say a brief hello, she came to the gate to make a fuss of William, who I had brought out with me, and although she was pleasant enough, there was something in her affect that pricked my attention.

As I exchanged chit chat, the lady's husband came out of their house and joined her. I know him a little better, and as we made small talk , out of the corner of my eye I noticed that his wife had moved quietly away to the garden hedge where she pottered around the privet.

Only after I had started to walk off, did I realise that she had in fact started to water the hedge with a tiny indoor watering can..and finally the penny dropped.... the lady obviously was suffering from some sort of dementia.

As I looked back, I saw the man gently guiding his wife back to the house. He waved brightly as she took her slightly shaky tiptoe steps...and I couldn't help thinking, that behind every little neat garden, and inside every curtained window in the village, little dramas are being played out every hour of every day.

Only ours have more mice in them than most

Please, Please, Please,

2011-12-13T21:18:00.000Z

Hijacked by the sickly sweet John Lewis Advert... this sad little song has nothing to do with Christmas
It is perhaps the saddest song I have heard in a long time

A Rat Under The Sofa

2011-12-13T06:26:00.000Z

It is 5.45.am

I have been awake since 4.55am

As you know, I just DON'T DO mornings..

and I am not a happy Bunny.

Chris woke me up with a somewhat worried "Something is squeaking under the sofa"

He was up early as he is due to work in London this week, but even so.......informing me of a half dead mouse at that time was just NOT ON.

Of course I could not sleep.

I could hear William and Albert scuttling around the lounge after the poor animal, so I thought "fuck it" and after getting dressed waded knee deep into the melee

Chris was standing there holding my wind up torch in his dressing gown .

He looked worried.

"There's a rat under the draft excluder" he said lamely.

Chris doesn't DO rodents!

"Get me the rolling pin" I ordered....taking charge of the situation and I rolled my sleeves up ready for a bit of a tussle.

Chris returned with a large pepper grinder

Typical academic

I huffed, found the rolling pin, and after removing the excluder, gave the small rat a couple of hefty whacks

He was bloody invincible!

Chased by William and a somewhat joyous Albert ( who was thoroughly enjoying himself) the rat made a dash for the bookcase. then dived behind the radiator before squeezing himself under the writing desk....

By this time I had just about had enough.... the room resembled Dresden after the bombing ,and my first cup of coffee of the day seemed a real age away...so swearing like an old docker, I marched into the kitchen, donned one of Chris' old moterbike gloves, marched back to the lounge ( still swearing) and after pulling away the frantic animals reached down and grabbed the struggling rat by the throat.

He knew the game was up

Shaking with early morning anger... I strode to the back door, took a deep breath and threw the rat across the lane and against the Church wall, killing him instantly...

Message to all rodents... don't mess with Mr Gray before he has had his morning coffee

Keeping In Touch

2011-12-12T20:45:00.002Z

It's a cold, windy and rather wet night.

I am sat at the kitchen table after the marathon of Christmas Card writing.

A Sherlock Holmes mystery is playing on the radio.

There are four piles of cards in front of me

55 for stamp posting

60 for village delivery

10 or so for family

and an eclectic pile of 15 "miscellaneous" cards "to do"

Usually I absolutely adore the yearly tradition of card writing

This year it's been done... but my heart wasn't quite in it

Decs, Confirmation and the Trelawnyd Oskar Schindler

2011-12-11T18:13:00.001Z

Our New York snowglobe caught in the Christmas lights

It's been a day for old traditions.

We bought the tree, decorated the living room and ate mince pies (the best sainsburys could muster) in front of the fire.

Chris and Cannon Robert

Chris went to Church this afternoon and collected his confirmation certificate from the vicar, and dressed in wellies and smelling of dung, I met them both after the service to capture the "official moment"......it always amuses me , that on all formal photographs Chris has a tendency to show off his Roger Moore eyebrow......

Which one would you choose

And on a fairly festive feeling day....I will leave you all with a heart warming tale of Christmas past....

Five years ago, at the beginning of December...I had only one turkey living on the field.

Boris was a mere youngster then...a rather skinny adolescent with a winning nature and an lonely disposition, he spent the short days of winter wandering his enclosure in the vain hope of finding a busty mate.

Unsure of exactly where to get a female turkey from, I put an advertisement up at the post office which read

Wanted

Female TURKEY for sex starved Stag

looks and age immaterial

No time wasters Please

On the 5th of December I received a phone call from a poultry farmer in Hollywell, informing me that he was about to cull his entire flock of English Whites, and if I was quick I could have one female!

I jumped at the chance.

And minutes after the call, I found myself standing in a huge aircraft hanger of a barn, looking at 800, fat, stupid and very loud Christmas turkeys.

"Help yourself" the farmer said and I suddenly found myself with the awesome responsibility of choosing one turkey survivor out of hundreds!

which one should I pick?

Which one looked more nervous?

Which one had the most gentle or needy expression?

I was literally spoilt for choice.....as 1,600 dark soulful eyes watched my every move......

Who would I save?

Which girl would have the opportunity to gallop gaily in a green field with the sun on her beak?

I looked pleadingly at the farmer for inspiration, and without a pause he bent down a picked up a slightly slickly looking female who just had been pecked on the back of her head.....

"Here... have this one" he said..... as he plonked her under my arm

"What should I call her?" I asked, trying to make conversation

He smiled and laughed

"I'd call her fucking lucky....that's what I would call her!"

And that's how Gloria appeared here on the field!........

I told the story to Jason today, when he stopped by when on a dog walk....

"You're a regular turkey Oskar Schindler " he said brightly, when I had finished!

Christmas prep

2011-12-10T18:36:00.000Z

Today has been a day for normality.
Cleaning the kitchen, getting Christmas cards planned ( I have usually written and sent mine by the start of December!) and organising small, inexpensive gifts.
Traditionally I send small, sweet Christmas decorations to a couple of friends and to my mother in law every December...so these need to go off too, ..........
There is a chill in the air today too, the first time I think it has felt really cold....... Auntie Glad, back from a week's holidays caught me in the centre of the village and held my hand kindly and tightly as she mentioned my brother......
"Get inside Gladys" I told her" you'll catch a chill!"
"Oh I don't mind the cold" she said brightly "it kills the bugs!!!"