Going Gently

I Want

After a 6 am walk ! The dogs and I went back to bed.
I dreamed an odd dream about having a new bath tub fitted and woke up all upset that it wasn't true
It was one of those bloody lovely vintage round topped tubs that seem so common in America.
I've always wanted one.

Before I summoned the energy to drag my carcass out of bed, I played one of those little mind games people play when putting off the inevitable .
What ten things would I ask for if I had the chance.
Nothing too big, nothing greedy.
But, ten arbitrary things that would make me squeal with delight.

1. Well number one is the bath.An American , deco ( ish) bath with a gentle curved top.
2. The kitchen cabinets from Mrs Miniver's kitchen
3. A "new"enamel cooking pan to replace my old one which was thrown out recently
4. A patchwork quilt
5. My 34 inch waistline
6. A dog sink
7. A posh ink pen
8. A one off trip to comic con to meet the cast of The Walking Dead
9. Calorie free scotch eggs ( unlimited supply)
10 A1940 cinematic housekeeper.

A lesson in show stealing

I know we were just chatting about drag queen names

( am loving your suggestions btw)

But this short video has just been emailed to me

It shows Gladys (" i'm not saying anything at the show") Jones

effectively stealing the show by giving her own brief speech..

I'd wish I'd given her the mike

What's Your Drag Queen Name?

An occasional guilty pleasure in Bwthyn Y Llan is the screamingly over-the-top RuPaul's Drag Race.

Now, for those that don't know, DragRace is basically a foul mouthed, alternative beauty contest where 14 dragqueens sashay, scream and bicker for a top spot in front of the stunningly diva judge RuPaul.

It's all terribly loud, contrived, bitchy and full of those sassy stereotypical one liners that Terence Stamp out of Priscilla would be proud of.

Yes all incredible fun!

The queens' drag names are just as entertaining as the frocks
Jiggly Caliente, Pandora Boxx, Jinx Monsoon, Sharon Needles Laganja Estranja and Ginger Minj are just a few of the ladies giving it large !

What would your drag name be?
I asked my friend Nigel this question once and without a pause he said Gloria Abyss
Good answer!
So what is your drag name ?
Answers on a postcard!

Boys Will Be Boys

It's a long time since I was an adolescent .
But I still recognise teenage behaviour when I see it!
The three abandoned juvenile bantam cockerels have now set up a bachelor pad in hut 4 in the Ukrainian Village.
They spend most of their time mooching around on the street corners eyeing up the bigger girls with the false look and swagger of boys that had never touched a female breast .
From time to time one of the hens will tire of their chirpy energy and will strut over to where the boys are chattering, sending the teens into a panicky mass of insecure hormones.
Chaos will then ensue, with awkward feathered feet galloping through the grass that needs a strim.
I need names for them....any ideas?

The boys don't know what to do with a real woman!

What went wrong

Auntie Glad cut up one of the exhibit cakes which had been placed in the kitchen for safety and distributed it for the refreshments!
Mrs Williams ( not her real name) who lives very near the hall spent the day muttering and yelling about the " inconsiderate parking" which galled me seeing that she was once the Flower Show Chairman and knows full well the amount of work that goes on setting up exhibits.
Mr Rowlands ( our biggest vegetable exhibitor) broke down ( car not emotionally) before the show and missed the deadline for entries. He arrived an hour late, and through a bit of hysterical pleading ( on my part) we were able to get 6 out of his 20 exhibits placed and judged. Thought the man was going to have a stroke!
The winning chutney was in the wrong jar!
Through personal circumstances several of our domestic class and Veg entrants were unable to show this year which is a shame and pretty understandable but I was slightly miffed by a couple of no shows including one villager who, when seeing me in the pub after the show stated loudly that they hadn't got a decent thing in their garden to exhibit! ( not realizing that had just gone past their house and had seen the beautiful display on offer! - attendence apathy does irritate me, but I guess it's as valid enough reason not to come as any other.
Real life sometimes gets in the way of this chocolate box view I have of the world and it's good to be reminded of the fact sometimes. Teenage boffin, Cameron is having a bad time (with a poorly grandmother) and I was glad to share some advice about nursing care with him as he checked on how his chutney got marked. Trelawnyd Val, I understand was having a hard time too, as The Flower Show was always loved by her partner Peter who died in the spring -this year's show must have held bittersweet memories for her.. We send her our love and best wishes.
Although we made slightly more money this year than we did last, attendence was noticably down yesterday, which depressed me somewhat. I guess Flower Shows are a bit of a dinosaur nowadays......
Hey ho

And finally......

No more Flower Show talk for another year I promise

But I wanted to share this photo which was sent to me

this evening,

It's Gladys' speech

Flower Show 2016

Thank you to our hard working committee

To the people that made the effort to enter and to visit the show

And to everyone who entered the international veg comp

We had a nice day xxxxxx

Gladys preparing the judges table

What are YOU doing this evening?

It's 22.32 pm on a Friday

I am 54 years old

What am I doing?

Making fucking art deco racing cars out of baby aubergines

That's what I'm doing!

Humanity

Owners of bulldogs always say that their dogs have true humanity in their personality

This evening is a case in point.

I looked up from my paperwork around nine

and carefully watched Winnie sitting comfortably in her armchair gazing into the middle distance

She was obviously thinking about something important

Checklists

It's dawn and as one particulary dozey bulldog sleeps the sleep of the righteous with her head on my foot, I am mentally ticking off jobs that need completion.
The list seems endless
Noticeboards for the children's art ( tick)
Make Chocolate cake ( tick)
Make Coffee Cake ( tick)
Make Boiled fruit Cake ( tick)
Mrs Trellis reminded of entering that nice rose in her front garden ( tick)
Collect the previous winners' cups ( tick)
Box up the hundreds of craft hearts made by June from Kent to be sold ( tick)
Photocopy the international novelty vegetable entries ( tick)
Unravel the bunting ( tick)
Challenge teenage boffin Cameron into entering another poorly supported class ( tick)

Luckily there are more ticks than not in my mind at the moment, but there are outstanding jobs to be done
My mother's hand embroidered tablecloths are yet to be ironed,
A quiche lorraine needs baking
I need to mooch around Alan Walker's garden to pick his entries for the flower section ( he's been a bit under the weather recently )
Susan from Erw Wen needs gentle bulling about that bloody lovely dahlia she's in two minds cutting
Oh and I need to check if the hot water heater is still working in the hall's kitchen.

A few minutes ago, when I was wandering the lane in my night clothes, I spied " Trendy " Carol standing in her doorway with a wooden spoon in her hand ( she was dressed btw in designer paint splattered jeans and a floaty top)
" I've just made a carrot cake and there's not one on the schedule!!!!" She wailed

Such are the trials of running a flower show.

Big Pants On The Line

There's a big funeral at the chapel next to the village hall today.
It's so big that there is a PA system set up from the chapel to the hall which will act as an overspill.
It's a farmer from the next village of Llanasa who has passed away.
Old farmers always seem to have big funerals!
Seeing that there was agood turn out, I placed a few extra Flower Show Schedules in the hall's foyer,
and confessed my sins to Claire ( wife of the affable despot Jason) who lives next door.
" I better get my big pants off the washing line" she said, " we can't have them flapping in the wind when there's a big do on"

The " Feeders" & Jason Bourne

On the opposite part of the village, in a neat little house live Rosemary and her husband Bernard- the- German.
They are a sweet couple who spend a great deal of their time cooking, baking, preserving fruits, pickles and making jams.
I found myself at their door last night, selling my 356 th raffle ticket and within seconds of ringing the door bell Rosemary was spooning me dollops of mango curd , lemon curd followed by fruity sharp lime marmalade in an impromptu taste test....all of it going on , on the doorstep in full view of the people living opposite. Who must of thought it slightly strange that husband and wife were soon feeding a rather robust looking middle aged man stood on their doorstep!

By the time the mango pickle came out, I was feeling just a little nauseous, so I said my goodbyes, weighed down with jars of jam in my raffle bag.

I'll leave you with a brief review of Jason Bourne. We went to see it this evening.

Ok if you like watching Matt Damon walking quickly down corridors

What Fresh Hell Is This?

The Prof is on holiday for one month

One month!

So on, this, the fourth day of the break

he's just had breakfast in bed

Two pieces of toast with butter and marmite!

Topped with two lightly posched eggs!

Speech

This afternoon I wrote Gladys' Flower Show speech supervised by a very talkative and very on the ball Auntie Gladys.

" I've had a woman from social services come around this afternoon " she told me " she came around to see if I was looking after myself...to see if I was eating"

I pretended I didn't know of the visit and said " oh yes? ...what did she find Gladys?"

" I 'll tell you what she found" Gladys said with a somewhat satisfying laugh " she found me eating a full chicken dinner in a gleaming kitchen that's what she found"

Little Britain

Only fans of Little Britain will understand this one.
Winnie was beside herself last night. For by a quirk of fate she found herself in the arms of our friend Nigel, who let the old bulldog heave her multiple saggy titties onto his lap, where she slept as pleased and as contented as Scarlett did in Rhett's manly arms.
After an hour, however , the circulation was effectively cut off in his legs and he had to extricate himself as she waved her fat paws in some resigned and futile pleading.
" Fucking hell, it's like being sexually molested by Bubbles Devere" he observed

Happy Heart

Our Friend Nige is over

This is his funeral music of choice

A cracking choice

On The Gate!

I worked on the gate of the Prestatyn Flower Show today.
I didn't have any sleep after work, but I think I was cheerful enough.
I worked alongside an elderly chap called Keith ( not his real name)
Who had to go home early after I'd given him my suger sweet cupcakes to eat , not knowing he was a diabetic!
Hey ho.

I fell asleep in the car in the sun when I went to pick the Prof up and nearly fired myself to death ....
Not a pretty sight.
I hope our exhibits are as good as the aboveentries!
Hey ho

In Vino Veritas

An old friend left the cottage recently.
The old honeysuckle which covered the front door and most of the front of the cottage had become too overwhelming and too heavy to support itself so had to be cut down.
I miss it.
It was a haven for the scores of house sparrows who bicker and argue on the field
and William will miss the facr everything is quiet

At least the old victorian incription can be seen again

In vino veritas

In wine there's truth

Saying the RIGHT thing.

I wrote a brief blog a few days ago that received quite a great deal of attention.
It was a blog about saying the wrong thing.
This blog entry came out of a chance conversation I had today with a dear friend
It's about saying the right thing!
It's a true story.

My friend recalled the time her mother died.
Decisions were made about her care home that wrongly upset siblings and soon after her mother eventually passed away after a short illness my friend was left devastated, guilty, and incredibly tearful with her sisters' anger to deal with as well as her own grief and loneliness

Soon after, hen she was back home, there was a knock at the door and a woman my friend didn't recognise stood there requesting some apples she had for sale. Strange as it would seem, the woman, who looked Romany, wanted only red apples not green, explaining that her mother liked only red.
My friend was initially irritated, but because the woman had mentioned her mother, she obliged with the request, which pleased the visitor.

As she was leaving, the gypsy turned to my friend and looked her carefully in the eye.
" You know you have nothing to feel guilty about " she said gently" You have done nothing wrong"

It was all the vindication and support that my friend needed and she sat at the kitchen table and sobbed and sobbed as a great weight left her shoulders.