Shout at the tv time!!!!!

I have never liked to see cruelty on tv , in fact I have never liked watching it anywhere in fact, and I was a little surprised just how much the BBC dished it out with huge relish on this evening's I'd Do Anything, tv show.
As some two dozen girls belted out "when 'e needs meeeee" during one audition, favourite tv Queen John Barrowman stalked around touching various Nancys on the shoulder to force their elimination, one after another from the competition.
The smiling Barrowman contrasted sharply with some of the sobbing girls many of who looked physically sick as they waited for the "axe to fall".
Distasteful tv

Hen village grows

This afternoon Chris, Ned, Ned's Brother (also called Chris) and I went to collect the latest poultry house in my bird empire. For 30 quid, the large hen coop was a real bargain, the only problem with it, was the fact it was originally located half way up a hillside, across yards of scrub land and behind two barb wire fences.
The ever so practical Parry brothers were pretty good in dismantling the fences and between us all, we managed to drag the whole structure (like something out of the construction of Stonehenge.) to the waiting trailer and my field just as the snow started to fall..
Being unused for so long, the hen house is in remarkable nick, however it was rather dirty inside, with old poultry poo,a ton of spiders, a dead magpie and several large and small wasp nests to remove.
We went to B & Q and bought some wood preservatives and face masks and I got stuck in. The new house will house ( and I am not counting my birds BEFORE they hatch) my new runner ducks and hopefully a couple of geese.I "candled" the new ebay batch of runner duck eggs today and it looks like several are indeed fertile. The last "survivor" of my first batch is due to hatch tomorrow....if successful I am going to name the little blighter Ripley (after Sigourney Weaver's character in Aliens) quite apt I thought..

On a lighter note

Chris is home after his red cross jaunt to Broadstairs, and home is where he loves to be. He is lying on the couch with Meg ( and a large chocolate Easter Egg which I bought him this morning) and is asleep "watching" some period Agatha Christie rubbish on Tv.

It always tickles me that he . is so easily pleased and I find his attachment to the cottage and "home" sweetly childlike. My attachment to home is always tinged with a slight martyr complex, you know secretly happy but trudging up and down,muttering under my breath whilst feeding chickens,cooking dinner and walking the dogs, whilst organising the car service and recovering the seed potatoes in the allotment.

I went to Prestatyn this morning and got a load of cheap lettuce from a lovely woman in the veg shop that is a sucker for a chicken story, got a few other bargains ( I cannot be too specific here to protect the guilty) for free from other egg customers at the same time and felt everything was good with the world when I came home.

Ned and I are off to work out how we are going to get the large new hen house onto the field ( the one I have agreed to buy from the top house on the gop) then I hope we can settle down with Michael Clayton (2007) on DVD with a fish pie..........hummmm Life in the fast lane

Abuse

We are such an angry nation us Brits. I see evidence for this every day, and participate in my own grumpy old man sort of way, to the decline of calm serenity that should be a rural middle age existence. Drivers barge past you in the queue for the petrol station. They flick you dirty looks when you wait at the zebra crossing with the dogs as if to say "how dare you disrupt my journey", and sighs abound when you are negotiating the narrow aisles of Sainbury's on a busy Thursday morning. I am as much to blame as other "irritated"members of the human race. I get irrationally angry when my beach walk is spoilt by other dog walkers (How dare they?) on the very public beach. When a car fails to stop when I am stood at the aforementioned crossing, my diastolic blood pressure is way over 200, and if you get an ambling mother with snails-paced stroller in front of me in the street, you couldn't wedge a piece of tissue paper in between my tuts of disapproval.

Generally though I think I am not overtly angry about life in general. Irritated by what I see as bad behaviour,- certainly, but I feel I have most things in some sort of perspective, a statement that most decent living people would probably agree with.

Unfortunately there seems to be a sub class in society that would not agree with this statement. People for one reason or another either cannot or will not control themselves. We as nurses experienced this rather black side of human nature on night shift

Two young men were admitted to intensive care for what was expected to be short term admissions following drug taking. During their "recovery," staff was subjected to a humiliating barrage of abuse,foul language,emotional and physical threats, not only from these patients but by a group of relatives that had accompanied them. Impotent, ill trained security staff were of no use and in the end (and two 999 calls later) two diminutive but very welcomed police women stormed onto the unit to arrest the most vocal protagonist, who was at this stage spitting at any nurse who was trying to help him.

What shocked me, wasn't the behaviour of the patients ( I am far too long in the tooth to be surprised by people suffering drugs or/and alcohol issues) but more the total lack of shame exhibited from these patients' relatives. Watching her son spit in the face of a 23 year old junior nurse, the mother was more interested in yelling about suing the trust for what she perceived as bad care, rather than apologising for her son's disgusting and unacceptable behaviour. And in that I guess lies the crux of the matter. This battling sub class actually does not see that angry exhibitions such as the ones we saw on night shift, are indeed wrong. To them, we are the enemy- Faceless and undeserving uniforms that are out to get them and therefore we get what we deserve in a "get them before they get you type- mentality".

I was glad that one nurse last night, near tears but defiant, turned round to this relative and said quite calmly "How very proud you must be of your son's behaviour". I know it didn't make a jot of difference, but for one brief moment her words stood up in support of doing and saying the right thing.

Grotty day

The weather has drawn in yet again. Windy wet and stormy, I have been limited to pottering inside the house today. Working this evening too, (oh joy)

Caught up with Hazel last night at the Ivory. She has just got back from New York so it was fun to hear everything over too many wines.

Chris finally gets back from Broadstairs later after looking Sorrel who is better after her surgery.

What you wish for......

I am writing this as I am waiting for pasta to cook for tea. The kitchen feels like the wreck of the Hesperus, with four sets of dog paw prints across the lino, a newly thrown pile of cat sick on the table and the faint whiff of canine farts (they all have just had some extra strong worming tablets this morning), billowing around the room. I have always had a bit of a fantasy about my kitchen. Avidly reading Period Homes and Country Living, I dream of having a free standing bespoke kitchen, with country fabrics,aga, 1930's kitchenalia collections and the obligatory loaf of bread and vase of flowers on the kitchen table.Oh yes add to this a vintage fridge and enamel saucepan collection-just to set the whole thing off

Our present kitchen does have a flavour of this fantasy, but just a hint ! I would have to admit that no way would any self respecting editor of Country Living, photograph a Trelawnyd "rural" kitchen and place it on page 2. The dog baskets are grubby, and even though I clean the floor twice a day, it remains an odd grey colour for most of the time. Trays of chitting potatoes lie around next to the incubator which is filled with duck and TWO goose eggs and piled next to that is all my seed packages, heaped high in an old pie dish.. Dust from the coal fire covers most of the untidy crockery and tins of cat food sit next to daffs in cheap vases on the window ledges. Not a show kitchen that is for sure, but a working one. The fantasy is a nice thought but I guess at least the existing kitchen works for 2 blokes, 4 dogs and a senile old cat

Trelawnyd Male Voice Choir - Myfanwy

Some lovely shots of the village, taken from the top of the Gop!! I am going up there this morning....

Very Regal

I was sorry not to be able to go over to Sheffield recently to see friend Jonney H in the revival of A Man For All Seasons, Robert Bolt's drama about the conflict between Sir Thomas More and Henry VIII over the future of Christianity in this country. The whole production was staged in Sheffield Cathedral ( not the most impressive of Churches I must say), but it sounds as though the surroundings added a certain reality to the production...as did the costumes which were rented from the RSC no less........

Where is Raquel Welch when you need her?

Chris is still away, so I have treated myself to a cheap afternoon out at the cinema. Now I have always had a soft spot for a boys own type action adventure film, so two hours in front of a bit of daring do is just what the Doctor ordered, Unfortunately 10,000 B.C. (2008) is the worst film of the year, it truly is! in fact it is the worst film I have seen for many years, and in a strange perverse way, I actually enjoyed some of it, albeit for all the wrong reasons.

The plot has been directly stolen from the bloody Apocalypto (2006) Dreadlock'd Mammoth hunter D'Leh (the pretty Steven Strait) is separated from his tribe and girlfriend Evolet (a Blue eyed and cardboard Camilla Belle) by evil slave traders. He and his small band of helpers battle Sabre tooth tigers,man eating birds and a hoard of,zealous Egyptians to get her back. Yep you can see the holes in the story from space......stampeding mammoths trash the great pyramids, the cave men are all made up of native African Americans along side New Zealand Māoris (with Jamaican Mona Hammond from Eastenders) thrown in for good measure and everyone talks very-very slowly in a sort of mid European heavy accent a pebble's throw from allo,allo.......

Unlike the director's most famous adventure romp (the campy but stunning Independence Day (1996) 10,000 BC lacks any sense of tension and suspense. The editing is invasive even though the cinematography is at times quite stunning, and the whole narrative lacks drive and emotion. In short the whole thing is a disappointing mess, but I must be honest hero Steve Strait has got lovely teeth and looks marvelous in an off the shoulder bearskin.

I could hear myself chuckling when Strait uttered lines such as "A good man draws a circle around himself, and cares for those within: his woman, his children. Other men draw a larger circle and bring within their brothers and sisters. But some men have a great destiny. They must draw around themselves a circle that includes many, many more" and I suspect the film will become a bit of a cult classic with University students all over the world as it does have a clunky campy sort of charm........I think I will get the DVD when it come out

10000 bc trailer

I think you get the idea

A lost duckling and Village news

Chris has gone down to Broadstairs to support a somewhat sore and worried Sorrel during some minor shoulder surgery, so I am left to man the cottage and allotment.

Slightly upset this evening as when I was turning the 8 runner duck eggs in the incubator, William, who was play fighting with Meg, knocked into me and caused me to drop one of my own eggs.(we only have two of our original four eggs left from the first clutch)

I was convinced that our own embryos were not growing properly, so I was upset to see that there was a tiny black ducking dying in the broken yoke. The poor little thing didn't live long, but at least I now know that the little chap nearly made it. The last remaining chick will be due to hatch on Sunday, with the "new" bought clutch due 2 weeks later. I hope they all do a little better than this poor duckling did today.

I worked nights last night, so took the dogs to the beach late with the hyperactive Jess in tow. I dropped some eggs off for Auntie Glad and took a minute to see the work completed on the New Memorial Hall's boundary wall (right)

The day was glorious, as was the view from the lane (below) The field seemed to burst into a bit of a wildlife zone as a large male pheasant with two females stalked around the coops (much to the irritation of Duncan who shadowed their movement with a large group of hens in tow) I tried to get a pic of the fun but the photo below doesn't quite show the wild birds clearly.
I know there is a lot of badger activity in and around the field at night, but we also have one hare and several rabbits living in the hawthorn hedges just behind the duck house that can be seen during the day.The hare is constantly being "flushed" out into the open ground when I am clearing the weeds and dead grass, and makes a rapid, slightly hysterical circuit around the field boundary.

It was warm and sunny today, so warm in fact that most of the girls were sunbathing for long periods this afternoon. Mind you,I was dismayed to find out that the weather reports from the BBC indicated that we are due a severe frost tonight ( the five day report omitted this fact when I checked on Thursday- and on the strength of this I planted all of my first early potatoes!!!)



Spuds cannot suffer frost and I had gone and planted 6 bloody long rows of them!!!!!!!!!! What a bloody waste.......Village Elder Steve, (as usual) has come to the rescue by loaning me all of his tarpaulins from his his grave digging job, and although it looks untidy and slap dash, the seed potatoes have all been protected somewhat from the -3 temperatures expected tonight.

Planning a murder!!

I am lucky I have siblings I am close to and it always surprises me that many people, just, well don't experience that closeness! Many friends of mine certainly love their own brothers and sisters, several of them are certainly not close and a few actively dislike their closest relatives, so I do feel (with a risk of sounding like one of the soddin Waltons) pretty lucky.

Watching the play last night, I realised that one of the reasons why there is a bond between us all, was the fact we all received a "shared", sometimes dysfunctional upbringing. David Benson in his play, explained that his family would plot to kill his destructive and aggressive mentally ill mother, but was very quick to reinforce that this "plotting" was only a supportive,fantasy which enabled them all to deal with the oppression and hurt of every day life.

When Benson joked that "even the dog hated her", I caught my sister laughing heartily at the line, and I remembered how we as a family mirrored the play's theme.

My mother was often bitter with her lot , and towards the end of her life could become rather "difficult" to say the least.( In actual fact she could be bloody dreadful) and coping with this erratic and constant drip-drip misery was hard. Like Benson's family, I remember us all sat with wine and nibbles one night, plotting how to get rid of her. Trip wires at the top of the stairs was one unimaginative idea (as was slippy pet toys strategically placed mid step), and although it sounds dreadful when the words are actually written down remembering it , the guilty laughter and silly fantasy of it all was such a vital and important cathartic release at the time.

Sharing such silliness (even if the root of the problem was VERY real) is the cement that binds a family. Those painful times collectively coped with by humour and irritation mean that there are several members frequenting the same club not one person shouldering the burden quite alone. I guess it is a case of swings and roundabouts.....if we as siblings had not had experienced family lows then our strength as brothers and sisters perhaps would not be as close and as supportive as it now is........who knows.

(pic) Agatha Christie circa 1956

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