Downton & Roses

Finally Barrow Snogs the royal Butler

 Downtown Abbey has perhaps thirty characters of any note. Add to the mix four Royals, two far distant family members and a gaggle of half a dozen Royal aides and flunkies and you have forty people to juggle on screen.
A near impossible job to be done in just two tight hours I would have thought.....and my thoughts proved to be right as the story galloped away with itself as the likes of Mr Bates, Mrs Crawley, Mrs Hughes and Lord and Lady Grantham just stand around in the background and mutter a few hastily edited lines on screen.
Anna ( Joanne Froggatt) Branson ( Allen Leech) and Lady Violet ( A frail looking Maggie Smith still providing the best one liners) fare better with more screen time but it does feel all a bit of a rush as the movie throws a Royal Visit, pregnancy, an inheritance question, an assassination attempt! and  an Ealing Comedy-esque understairs mutiny into the mix before hinting at a gay romance for Thomas Barrow ( Robert James-Collier) after he gets caught in a Gay Nightclub in York ( more than I ever did when I lived there!)
As a piece of cinema , it's all a bit of a mess.....but having said this, the whole production is so infused with good humour and affection for its characters, I finally found myself enjoying it, especially the bits where Anna leads the Downton mutiny against the Royal servants and Smith's bravura handing-over-the-reins to the sullen Lady Mary in what turned out to be a rather moving finale as the whole upstairs cast waltz colourfully past the camera.

I got home later afternoon to a package delivered much earlier
Whoever sent me a lovely bunch of yellow roses

Thank you
Xx

Mouldy Old Pongos!!

I need to drum up some interest in the concert our choir is supporting on the 2nd Of November.
The Rivers are described as a Groove Driven contemporary Acapella choir of some note and they will be performing a one off concert at our village hall in Trelawnyd on the 2nd !
They will be supported ( briefly) by our Gwaenysgor Community Choir who can be described as an eclectic group of mouldy old pongos ! 
Tickets can be bought on the door  or at the following link
click here for link to buy tickets

We look forward in seeing you there

Henry

Unlike most Gay men
I've never really fancied young twinks
But Henry from The Great British Bake Off
Was an absolute sweetie!
I thought he is adorable
And sadly Voted off today...I shall miss him dreadfully

" Daddy ......my Daddy"

" Have you got kids?" my colleague asked .
We were talking about my divorce and subsequent  return to work
"No I had a husband" I said thinking she had originally misheard me
" I know , you said , I just wondered if you had children?" She replied
A silly presumption on my part, I realised all too late
" You look the type to have children " she added.

" What type is that?" I asked her curiously
" Jolly and warm " came the reply
In my book jolly and warm are euphemisms for large 
But I took it as a complement

Working in a hospice invariably leads one to think about family.
Family dynamics, family love, family ties.
But Family woes, family spats and family problems lie just under the surface
As we all know, death brings out the best and the worst in people

I bought a pumpkin today.
It's a tradition I've always done living here in Wales.
I remember one year when the Randa girls came around after school  to disembowel one ready for carving
It was such a joyous event , full of squeals and acting and false vomits over the drainage board.
And as they chatted, and included me in their day dreams and silly talk, I found myself fantasising about how cool it would have been to be a father

I talked to two grown up daughters at work the other day
Daughters who felt useless and helpless at their father's bedside
" You're here !" I told them....." You're here........that's all that matters!"
I think they understood

20 Years

Tv series I have followed

1960s- 1970s
Land Of The Giants
Thunderbirds
Peyton  Place
Coronation Street
Farmhouse kitchen
Space 1999
Survivors
The Tomorrow People
Starsky And Hutch
Charlie's Angels
Banana Splits


1980s-1990s
Tenko
Ally Mc Beal
Sex and the City
Tales of the city
Victoria Wood as seen on Tv
Paint Along With Nancy
Prime Suspect
It's a knockout
ER
Hill Street Blues
Call my Bluff
The last Train


2000-2019

Man In Orange Shirt
The Walking Dead
Miranda
Taskmaster
The Great British Bake Off
Hinterland ( Welsh cop show)

Sunday

I've got today off.
It's a drab, grey kind of Sunday and I'm cooking a Sunday lunch for a couple of village friends.
Roast chicken, roast potatoes, leeks, carrots, homemade stuffing and onion gravy.
It's nice to be preparing a proper meal again and the dogs have caught up with my activity and are all a bit excited by it
I bought cheap white cheerful chrysanthemums and dotted glass jugs of them around the cottage

I've lit the log burner too and aim to watch some long overdue unseen films throughout the afternoon.

I bought a new limited edition print the other day
A bright colourful Welsh woman by Ruth Jên
All is fine

Friends

My very own Bel Ami 

I've caught up with several friends by phone and FaceTime the last couple of days
And I've felt the benefit of that contact
I've felt the benefit of warmth , and affection and of good humour
I've felt the benefit of a waspish comment and a joke over a Welsh Love Spoon
I've felt loved and I've felt supported
And I am lucky to have them, standing in the wings of my life
They are Just like Thelma Ritter in All about Eve

One Crazy Bitch

It's official
I AM A SLUT 

Now  I am referring to the archaic meaning of the word which, as memory serves, defines slut as being an unkempt slovenly woman and not a tart whose knees are behind her ears!

I've had a lie in!
Ok I got up at 7am and walked the dogs, but shortly after we all crept back into bed for a smelly  PJ lie in!
A lie in! I have not had a proper , teenage , fuck-the -word lie in till 11 am since Noah was a boy!
I got up at 11am and made eggs on toast
Then WENT BACK TO BED AGAIN!!!!
I'm one crazy bitch !!

The dogs don't know quite what to make of this behaviour and are watching me carefully through narrowed eyes.....
I have one more hour to go before I go in to work for a half day late shift!
And so I'm going to drink a bucket of coffee in bed and watch YouTube videos of Chris Pratt with his top off!

Guilt pleasures anyone?

French Soup

 It was the best French onion soup I have ever tasted. I told the waitress so at the Mostyn Gallery Cafe and she told the chef who looked a bit tearful and very pleased with himself when he poked his head around the kitchen door
I had bought birthday presents for a friend and a great niece  and a return gift for John ( the snogee from Sitges) and some Halloween horror shit for my nephew Leo and so I spent a merry hour or so eating soup and writing envelopes and cards
The waitress brought me over a free flat white , I think for being so nice to the chef
And I photographed the soup stains on my front ....just because I could

 When I got home I took Dorothy on her first walk around the village which was a task and a half.
Everything frightens her still, especially loud noises and traffic , and so we invested over half an hour  sat on the village green with her face hidden  under my armpit .
By the end of that time she was able to look out at the farm tractors without shaking....after this we walked around the Chapel on London Road which has just been sold. I hope that it's converted into a family home and not left derelict. We only have one working chapel left now....and that's located next door to Jason the affable despot..

Tonight a friend and I went to see a so-so production of The Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
In Chester...we had a better time in the Storyhouse bar than we did in the theatre....
That's how it goes sometimes!

Judy

A lot has been made of the biopic Judy .
Renèe Zellweger's powerhouse performance
The long suspected child abuse by the studio boss Louis B Mayer
The tragically hopefully story of a performer bred solely to perform
I get all that.....
....the finished film is a polished version of a sad story, and a story we all think we know and understand ...
But one lovely scene lingers long in my mind and it is a tribute to Garland's array of gay fans , whose lives were essentially illegal in the late1960s, the time when the movie was set

Finding herself alone one night after her sell out performance at The Talk Of The Town , a lonely  Judy asks two middle aged gay fans out to dinner. Unable to find somewhere to eat the trio end up at the men's flat and after a rather sweet and enjoyable evening Judy sings a melancholy version of her signature song Get Happy, accompanying a tearful fan  ( Andy Nyman) on the piano .
It's a beautiful and telling scene in a rather interesting but ultimately unsatisfying  movie
But it wasn't THAT sad.....

when Im Calling you

I bought new work shoes yesterday
Plain black supermarket shoes
My smart trainers, though bloody comfy
Are not regulation
One of my new colleagues thought they looked like " calliper shoes" with built up heels
Ive walked in them for 13 hours
And am presently soaking my feet in a washing up bowl solution of Epsom salts
My bed is calling
It's singing this song
At the top of it's mighty unmade voice