Going Gently

The Prestatyn Flower Show

Only a week before The Trelawnyd Flower Show ( which takes place on the Aug 9th) is the much larger and more robust Prestatyn Flower Show.
I have done my stint taking monies on the gate today....in the glorious sunshine.....almost content ( but not quite) in the fact that I got a third place for my veg basket and 3rd prize for my hen scarecrow
( there were only THREE ENTRIES IN EACH EFFING CATEGORY!)
To add insult to injury my two competitors in the scarecrow competition were aged 6 and 7 respectively.
Little bastards.....bet they got their parents to help them!
It's not fair
I'm an orphan

My basket of veg is the piss poor one in the background

A Monster cabbage entry

Garlic Farts

Chris has gone to London for work, then he's off to spend a few days

With his family in Kent

He won't be back for a week.

I treated me and the dogs to a pepperoni pizza tonight

It was Winnie's first experience of a " thick garlic crust"

And I think she liked it given the amount of herby farts coming from her cage at bedtime

"My land's only borders lie around my heart"

The unlikely star of the games...one of 41 Scottish Terriers

So says the final stirring line from the musical number Anthem from " Chess" , and the sentiment kind of captures the national pride evoked by sporting and cultural events such as The Commonwealth Games.
I always cry at open ending ceremonies.
It's the surge of emotion that carries me away........
And when you analyse it, the odd situation of several thousand happy people celebrating the fact they all live in a country that the emotional romping organisers have wrung every bit of positivism out of in one huge set piece...it is no wonder that the tears start to flow.
National events like these provide us with a collective " feel good" moment
And we don't have many national feel good moments in the great scheme of thing ...do we?

I am patriotic but not particularly nationalistic...does that make sense?
My loyalties have always been somewhat split.
I am very proud to be a Welshman, even though I don't particularly have a welsh accent and can only hold down a rudimentary welsh language conversation. I am a typical hybrid of North Wales.
My parents essentially were English, ( hailing from the North West) and my Grandparents came from Scotland, Liverpool with Irish and Lancashire backgrounds themselves....I am, as most people are in the uk, a mongrel.
At the end of the Trelawnyd Male Voice Choir concert, I adore standing with the audience to belt out the Welsh National Anthem ( which I taught myself to sing from reading it time and time again from a tea towel someone had given me)....yet when I watched the Yorkshire segments of the Tour de France , I could have popped with pride for my adopted home of South Yorkshire, as the population good naturedly took the event to their hearts.
It's a simple psychological phenomenon
We , as a species , love and need to be a part of something... We need to be owned by a tribe.

Last night, swept up with good intentions and good will, the Scottish crowds warmly greeted the Malay team which were flanked by several Malaysian air hostesses .in an act of solidarity and respect the stadium fell silent to mark the recent air disasters and messages of goodwill were sent to Hollond on their national day of mourning.
Such is the power of events like these
I just wish politicians and the fundamentalists in this world could take note

Commonwealth

As I could make out ,the only thing the organisers of the Commonwealth Games didn't throw into

it's opening ceremony was porridge

Everything was there

Rod Stuart, The Loch Ness Monster, charity donations,

Susan Boyle , men with kilts and Lulu

But for me

The real stars were the dozens of scotties

Leading out the athletes

With their fast little legs and proud fierce looking faces

Yawn

Bloody hell, I am even boring myself now!..... I have just read this morning's Blog.....what a shite previous post!
I have been going around the village conscripting people to enter the Flower Show and I felt a little like the bandit king riding into the Mexican village in The Magnificent Seven.....when no one could be found........

I will leave you with a couple of photos of my next door neighbours wild flower garden
Absolutely stunning and oh so interesting.

Sunshine Cleaning

Contrary to public opinion, a moderate amount of sunshine can be bloody good for you.

Sunshine lowers cholesterol, lowers blood pressure, disinfects and heals wounds, improves the immune system,kills bad bacteria and improves depression

It also cleans and deodorises cottage carpets , once they have been scrubbed within an inch of their lives

In the 1950s and 1960s thousands of sickly children were often given weekly " sunlight" treatments in order to be healed from anything from skin disorders to respiratory problems. Skin cancer was never considered.....sunlight healed all..or so it was thought

Notes On A Tuesday Evening

It's a warm and still evening..... The ideal panacea to a very long study day in a claustrophobic office

I have just put the chattering ducks to bed in their duck house on the periphery of the Ukrainian village and have sat down in front of the geese who know they are next on my list.
They eye me patiently, and will turn for home as soon as I tell them to go.

Like all animals, they are creatures of habit and routine.

The field is full of feathers. The ducks and geese are all moulting and the place looks rather untidy. Tomorrow I will rake everything up into neat little piles..........
It's too nice to do it right now.
Nervously the ewes edge forward in order to steal the chicken feed from the red feeder and Bingley makes way for them, flashing his big turkey tail noisily as he does so.
Turkeys don't frighten sheep, even though everything else seems to do so.
As the sun sinks slowly , the hens in lazy groups of twos and threes amble towards the hen houses
and the dogs, I know, will be waiting for their last walk to the day, dropped into lazy clumps on the living room carpet
Albert knows it's " walk time " too, but he is sat conspicuously on the cottage wall, impatient yet bored at the prospect.
Paloma Faith drifts over the field from the badger radio, as the terriers from Tawelfan down the lane bark at some or nothing.and I can see Chris watching from the cottage window.
He is eating muesli out of a large bowl.....the one with multicoloured spots on it.
The muddy coloured hen pulls at my shoelaces as I take a big breath in of green air

I am home.........