Chutzpah

We have a small " posh" housing estate on the edge of the village. It comprises of just a dozen " upmarket" properties. Strangely enough, I don't sell more raffle tickets there compared with anywhere else in the village.
One newer resident looked somewhat confused when I introduced myself
" I already bought some Flower Show raffle tickets!" She said
" That's strange!" I replied " I'm the only one selling them!"
" No" the woman said " I've bought them off an old blind lady the other day " she came around with Ann" pointing to a nearby house where Ann, a school teacher lived.
The penny dropped,
Auntie Glad had struck again.
 I went round to Ann's house to find out what was going on.
Ann was laughing yet was incredibly concerned, for Auntie Glad , for  without having our official raffle tickets to flog the old gal had manufactured her own tickets to sell even though she literally cannot see her hand in front of her face.
Luckily Ann had rushed out of her house and had safely chaperoned Gladys around the houses then back home
Another resident sounded rather exasperated when I called
" She can' t be allowed to do these things" she said " she's not safe" 
And all I could do was to shrug my shoulders
I should have been wearing a  nun's wimple as this verse came into my mind

" How do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Maria?
A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown!
Many a thing you know you'd like to tell her
Many a thing she ought to understand
But how do you make her stay
And listen to all you say
How do you keep a wave upon the sand
Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?" 

I will leave you with these novelty veg entries

Camille's bridesmaids

Gayle's monster! 

" Would You Just?..."

I hate selling raffle tickets

But it's a job that needs doing.
I know which householder will hide behind the curtains when I knock on the door, and I know who will buy a load from me, but I am not as talented a seller as the master Auntie Glad, who used to sell 500 door to door well into her 90's.
I must have got three dozen requests from Trelawnyd residents about her wellbeing yesterday. Being a diminutive old lady features high in the sympathy stakes when wanting people to be parted from their cash.
My chirpy smiley approach just cannot quite compete.
This afternoon I shall knock on more doors, give out more schedules and schmooze more villagers into entering their impressive blooms and oversized vegetables!
The guy from the still House may enter his bread this year, as will Affable Despot Jason who is thinking twice about giving the Adult novelty veg a go, given that he won second last year with a truly awful butternut squash creation! ( and it was shit).
One of the new residents in the pensioner bungalows used to be a multiple winner in the Mostyn Flower Show and she toyed with me somewhat about entering her baking even though she doesn't like the village.
You've got to be a serial politician doing this job!
Gay Gordon and Big Mary bought a huge handful of raffle tickets from me and cackled and laughed like drains as they did so........while a few doors away one miserable old fart literally slammed the door in my face with a curt " no!" when I waved a raffle book at him.
I'm taking Mary with me this afternoon.
Cute sells!

British Politics Is Now Interesting!

George Osborne given the boot by Mz May! 

Bloody hell, a few months of politics have passed and I'm hooked!
Another formidable woman is in charge of our country, Boris Johnson is our voice to the world ( !) and Mr Cameron leaves number 10 with his head held high.
What an exciting time!
I've been watching the relay storyline of the new Cabinet with interest only to have a brief break to watch  long lost family on tv tonight!
God I was sobbing like a broke whore when the dirt poor Central American woman met the grown daughter she had been forced to be adopted by a uk couple due to poverty and desperation.
She knelt at her daughter's feet begging forgiveness as the invasive cameras rolled...
I cried like a baby

Gut Feeling

Been dancing around today catching up with outside  jobs as the weather ( for the first time in a week) has been somewhat more than kind. I've washed the car, bought white gloss to paint the backdoor ( 18 months in the waiting! ) and visited the vets to get the dogs weighed and wormed .
On the way home I walked them on the Dyserth walkway, and amongst the social walkers out for their constitutional was a man I have come to mistrust deeply.
I say this only in passing, as it is a rarity for me to mistrust anyone, but for some reason this man totally gives me the creeps when I see him out walking.
I have only a gut feeling to go on, but there is something rather sinister about this character, something off.
Normally I would never really bother about a hiker in his early 70s , apart from a short " hello"........ they tend to all look a like to me . Designer waterproof jacket, ski sticks , woolly hat if its cold and shorts when it's hot. Backpack....you get the idea, but this guy, who I often pass is always alone and always uncommunicative .
He is pale has what my imagination would describe as  cold dead eyes and always looks incredibly angry and/or preoccupied and I always have the unsubstantiated idea that he has a propensity to violence.
Of course this sounds all very drama queenish , and when I share the thoughts with you now, it all sounds rather far fetched but gut feelings are there for a reason and my gut feelings about people have often proved to be right on the money.

Perhaps he's just shy, or ill, or both, perhaps he's just eccentric or autistic in some way, but I don't think it's as simple as that. For what it's worth , I think he's dangerous

So, my question to my readers today is......
Have you ever had a gut feeling about someone which turned out to be the right call?
I'd be interested to know the story!

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

I'll leave you with two photos. The first is a study of  two Welsh terriers on either end of the age spectrum
Old William with his milky blind eye, and Mary full of youth and exuberance. Typical of the Welsh breed, they stood together on the armchair for an age today, watching the bickering of two blackbirds

The second is the latest entry in the International Novelty Veg class and is a study of a cat by Jenny!
Keep 'em Coming!

A Brief Story Of Rejection

The fitter came yesterday to measure the front of the cottage for new windows.
Winnie was apoplectic when he arrived at the back door in his overalls.
I've told you before that she loves blue collar workers.
Before I let him in the house,I asked him if he minded dogs and he gave me a frown
" I could live without them" he said.
So, before I let him in, I locked the terriers up in Mary's crate in the kitchen and when eventually he walked in, I pointed to Winnie ( who was doing her best to smile coquettishly at him) and said
" The bulldog is friendly"
The fitter snorted nervously .....and we all went into the living room.
He got his tape measure out and started to do his thing as Winnie climbed onto the arm chair so that she could get a better look, and as he wrote down his figures she leaned over to watch, her nose centimetres from his notepad.
He ignored her.
He then went on to explain the whys and wherefores of just how the windows opened,and as he did so Winnie continued to look hopeful and blew him kisses with fat lips but he continued to behave that she was invisible.
We all trouped upstairs where the window measuring continued.
This time Winnie jumped up on the bed so she could have a better look at the workman and without thinking he put his tape measure down at her feet whilst he made more notes.
Winnie immediately picked up the tape measure in a desperate  effort to ingratiate herself but the fitter saw her actions as predatory and demanded that I retrieve it immediately .
I wiped the bulldog slobber off with my t shirt.
He wasn't best pleased.
Winnie blew kisses at him as we exited the cottage, and all the way through the kitchen and down the garden path he refused to accept her presence even when she practically did jazz hands at him to get his attention .
He simply didn't like dogs and it showed and Winnie was devastated.
She pressed her fat face against the bars of the garden gate and watched his car as it drove away, then snorted loudly and flounced back into the cottage where she hurled herself into the armchair to sulk.
And sulk she did.
For hours and hours!

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

I'll leave you with latest novelty veg/fruit entry

This catterpilker is from Jan 

Keep your entries coming please! 

jgsheffield@hotmail.com

What's the worst job you have ever done?

This morning before dawn, a colleague caught me washing a patient's underwear in a sink.
Some people have no one to wash for them, no one to complete those jobs that need doing.
I didn't mind. I had gloves on.
My colleague noted somewhat dryly that it was a scene that you wouldn't see on Grey's Anatomy or on ER
Anyhow, my question for you all on this rainy and miserable Monday morning is inspired from this remark...so,....
WHAT's THE WORST JOB YOU HAVE EVER HAD TO DO AT WORK? 
I'd be interested to know!

And speaking of best jobs...here is a screen shot of The Prof ( left of centre) calling out the new graduates at the university graduation ceremony this morning! How wonderful is that! Hey ho

Bumping Gums

Before old Tom Stephenson starts bumping his gums at the fact I've not replied to most of my commentators, I shall remind him that I was working last night and I am due to work tonight too....

So I am off to bed without so much as a tiny titter to enjoy...

I shall leave you with kate's novelty whale! 

Keep em coming! 

Calamity

Picture the scene

We had just been shopping in Marks & Spencer's food hall for a picnic lunch

Items bought included

Cooked chicken, 

Sushi 

Nectarines ( extra juicy)

Strawberries and cream

A very ripe advacado

Apple juice ( a litre) 

1 low fat chocolate pudding

Bacon and cheese puff pastry roll

Me, slightly miffed about the recent Prof remarks about my driving ability

The Prof very hungry, waiting for his lunch.

In front of three teenage girls sitting on a car park seat, We get in and back out of driving space

Right over aforementioned shopping

Winnie's watching

Winnie Watching!
I mentioned this in my post of yesterday morning but my words were lost in the internet fog that sometimes overwhelms blog land
I am repeating the phenomenomen today!
Last night Winnie did " the thing"
At ten - ish pm , when I am watching crap copper chopper tv , she got down heavily from her arm chair to sit at my feet.
There she sat.
She sat and watched , her gaze never leaving my face with the big brown sad eyes of the Mona Lisa
I am always moved by this behaviour.
She demanded nothing.
No head pat  no belly rub , no word of encouragement , all she wants to do is to sit and watch .
Like Miss Marple crossed with Buddha.
I wonder what is going on in that fat bulldog brain of hers.
But I think its just her touching base.
She wants to check that I am there, as I have always been.
A bulldog psychological hug so to speak.

Those big sad brown eyes

Thank You

We need another 20 or so veg/ fruit entries to fill the Memorial Hall noticeboards

Please Keep em coming xxxx

jgsheffield@hotmail.com

Gill's choir! 

Thank you Susannah for your no publicity tomato 

Song

Wrote a post
Posted it
And now its gone!
Cannot be bothered re writing it
So will post mine and the Prof's song
Enjoy

I'm Just One Crazy Bitch!

To illustrate yesterday's post I put the words Prestatyn High School 1970s, or something similar into google images. Not finding what I wanted, I scrolled down the pages until I spied this old newspaper photo image tucked away in the internet photobook.

It's a publicity shot of the North Wales rock band Resistance which was published in The News Of The World newspaper circa 1974 and yes the band were " playing" their motley set of instruments in the nude. My brother Andrew is sat rather coyly behind his drum kit and little did he know that the fallout from this silly stunt would have drastic ramifications for his ultra " respectable " father who was high up in Prestatyn council life at the time.
The shame was palpable .
Looking back on it all, in these days of celebrity bad behaviour, the whole thing now looks rather lightweight, but it kind of illustrates the fact that my brother was a bit of a wild child in beige covered life of 1970s Wales.
For a few years in his late teens/ early twenties my brother sowed his wild oats. He drank and dabbled with drugs. He toured Germany in a music van and he shared a flat in a rough part of Rhyl. He wore his hair long and " used home as a hotel" as we, his younger siblings by a decade wore our school uniforms straight and went to bed early after Coronation Street.

I never sowed any wild oats in my late teens and twenties, I just wasn't the sort.
You need to be reckless and excited and free and confident to be a wild Child
I was gauche, and shy and awkward and boring
I was Saffie  out of Absolutely Fabulous. My brother was more like Patsy .

So ...I am long overdue for a wild period me thinks! . Perhaps one day, I will get a tattoo and dress too young. Perhaps one day I'll trash a hotel room and shag a rent boy in a rubber suit  or smoke a joint from start to finish in a stolen car whist being chased by a police helicoptor.
Don't hold your breath eh?

Lets hear your " wild child " stories Everyone

Miss Betts

Never underestimate the power of praise..

I was perhaps fourteen or fifteen and was sat at my desk in an English lesson reading a chapter of The Catcher In The Rye" 
The teacher, Miss Betts,  was marking essays at her own desk in the corner by the window. She was a kind of a hippy-type character. long hair, long floaty skirts. Flat Chest, ethnic jewelry.
She was a serious teacher. Earnest and never, as I recall, happy looking.

Anyhow, after a long period of silence , she sighed and spoke out to the class
"John Gray, I am impressed with a simile you have just used in your essay!

" The summer sun flowed through the dining room windows and warmed the house like a hand shake on a cold day"
She didn't look up from her marking and the rest of the class didn't react that much to her comment, but for me, that snippet of public praise made me feel ten foot tall!

That was 40 years ago. And I still remember it as if it was yesterday.

Old " Friends"

Everyday I visit old friends
I say hello after checking the only non grassed grave in the graveyard
The grave Albert has visited in the middle of the night.
Sylvia who ran the Flower Show with such a hypertensive strength lies with her husband a dozen rows from the Red Faced Welsh Farmer who has fresh geraniums by his headstone. Gwyneth from Pen-y-cefn Isa Farm ( the 80 year old who used to stand proudly on the back of Ralph the gentleman farmer's tractor ) is a little to the left, her headstone is all in Welsh.
I say hello to them all.
I also say hello to the ones I feel I know but never  met.
Miss B A Jones ( Bessie Bryn Teg) the schoolmistress who used to rule the village school children with an iron fist  lies with her sister Ginny Bryn Teg ( who used to own the cow!) Old Norman Roberts who did so much for village affairs.  and 16 year old Edwina , Auntie Glad's daughter who died after a  car accident up in Lloc.
Further back there are the Hannah Jones' , Parrys and Williams' ........Teddy, beloved young son of Ann and William, and Elias Jones who was killed in the mining accident in Gronant in 1890...2000 people came to his funeral .....2000!
In a odd way they all feel a little like friends...
Am I strange?

Mandatory Training

I'm sitting at the kitchen table early this morning drinking coffee.....the Prof is away and I have to go into work to complete mandatory training. In my day, mandatory training was always done in work time.
Not anymore!
Hey ho....Trendy Carol has just passed the window ( Laura Ashley Coat, frilly blouse, skinny jeans and pumps) and Terry from the flower show passed earlier. He gave me his best " I see you"  eye poke thing......the rivalry in the Great Trelawnyd Bake Off  continues.
I will leave you with a video to watch today.
I took it last night as I rested my croc feet.
Watch carefully....it's a play fight between baby Hippo and little dog.
The baby hippo pulls her punches so well

The Great British Sewing Bee

The latest series of The Great British Sewing Bee  has been ever so slightly lacklustre only because most of the characters involved have not been that interesting tv fodder.
The winner , Charlotte made a late spurt in the interest stakes by making her final model the step mom of her kids......how so very Hollywood!
Bring back the Bake Off

Regret

The " Big Bundle of fun" that is Vanessa Feltz has turned out to be a rather insightful interviewer.
I listened to her this afternoon interviewing a 30 year old woman who demanded a sterilization on the nhs because she knew she didn't want children ever! 
The woman was articulate and unwavering in her beliefs, yet I thought it interesting that the woman's own mother had requested a sterilization which she had requested a reversal so that she could bare children from a second marriage.
Feltz explored the fact that the interviewee's upbringing was poorly parented .  The woman's father had also comitted suicide and it was incredibly sad to hear the woman admit that her own mother regretted having any children.
I wonder if the regret of having children is ever real? Ok if your son turned out to be Jeffrey Dahmer the seriel killer then you may furnish some disappointment in the decision , but then , it is widely thought that seriel killers are bred and not just happen.........
Oh dear I've opened a can of worms in my head.

How many people out there planned their kids?
How many are brave enough to say that they regretted that decision?

I'm In Trouble

I fell asleep at the kitchen table this morning with my head resting on that flamingo and woke up over an hour later with an orange shaped pressure sore on my forehead which was colour pink. The prof likes this fruit cover, he says it stops Albert farting on the oranges.I was woken by Mandy my neighbour, who wanted to know if the chickens would eat an old christmas pudding.

The Flower Show Committee

Terry , my nemisis is second from left

Anyhow a day ago, I recieved a facebook message from Ann fronm the flowershow committee. It 

on behalf of husband Terry who is currently 2:0 down in our yearly needle match. 

And I am in trouble.........for Terrence , the wily old bastard, has chosen a range of cakes for our bake off as well as a plate of Welsh cakes, which are Terry's speciality. 

So if anyone has a fullproof chocolate cake recipe , please let me know! 

I'll leave you with some novelty veg photos...please keep em coming

From sue

From anonymous   

Bunty Catch Up

I have not seen Bunty for an age.
Not that this bit of information is in anyway surprising given the fact that I don't have her phone number and she has obviously lost mine.
But I kind of wish that she lived a bit closer to us, for I do find her entertaining in a big butch lesbian kind of way.
For those that don't know Bunty first appeared in Trelawnyd many moons ago. She bought some very aggressive geese from me and her foul mouth, blustering way and fuck 'em attitude entertained me from the very get-go.
She is not a lady to be trifled with.
At the time she lived with her long term policewoman girlfriend up in the hills somewhere, but commuted into England daily for her job ( which she never spoke about) she loved her livestock, cut her hair short with a masculine side parting and had arms like hams.
Anyhow, I tell you all this in way of background colour for when I was just about to turn up the Marian with the dogs, she stopped her jeep on the main road.
" HELLO GRAYBAGS!" She bellowed ( Graybags is the nickname she gave me when we first met)
" You look like shite! "
I explained that I had gone into work this morning only to find out I was infact on night shift, and that was why I looked so tired
Someone beebed her as she hadn't put her indicators on so she bellowed out of her window a very lusty " PISSSSSSSSSS OFFFFFFFFFF" before giving me a big smile
" what's new? " she asked.
It must have been well over nine months or so since I had bumped into her and so I was thinking about our news to share before Bunty jumped in to tell me all hers .....
Apparantly she had split from the policewoman ( who had been banging a fellow copper) , had met a new beau on line , and had moved in with her and her 5 year old daughter in a semi detached bungalow in Towyn on the coast all within a month.
The new girlfriend, I was reliably informed, was a divorced lipstick lesbian with a body like Jessica Rabbit.
" why don't you bring her to the Flower Show?" I suggested " I'd like to meet her"
and Bunty laughed one of her long lusty laughs
 " FLOWER SHOW?" She bellowed " We're not friggin dead yet!"
She then pointed to Mary and asked " Is he new? "
" Yes" I said lifting Mary up to the jeep window " Her name is Mary!"
Bunty kissed her on the nose and cackled

" Auntie Mary had a canary up the leg of her drawers
When she farted....it departed
To a round of applause! "

And with that she sped off into the distance, waving a big fat arm out of the window....I could hear her laughing until her jeep passed the garage shop a hundred yards away!

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