There's Some sun In The Distance

The sun was shining yesterday and the village was galvanised into some sort of activity......today it is cold , damp and grey and the place is deserted and somewhat depressingly quiet.

Tom  over at "Tom Stephenson recalls",  has summed up this mid winter feeling so well, referring to it as the January Blues......for me, this time of year means just one thing----mud!; it means a constant battle with shitty paw prints on the kitchen floor and it means caked wellington boots and dirty, chillblained hands.

We all need a little hope in January don't we?

We need a glimpse of better things to come, some good news, some positive thinking.....

and at least here in our tiny corner of Wales, I think there are small islands of positivity to celebrate and to look forward to.

1. The Post Office makes a welcome return to the village in a month or two. 

Ok it will be only be set up on a Friday afternoon over at the village hall, and of course we still won't have the accompanying shop and newsagent services we used to have when Jenny the flamed haired post mistress fought her way through the reams of paperwork at the old Central Stores but it is a wonderful baby step at keeping the village functioning.

I looking forward in manufacturing a sudden need for  stamps and banking every Friday!

Historically the Post Office has moved sites at least 4 times over the years

2. A committee has just been formed up at the Crown Pub, to sort out some sort of Village Celebration to commemorate the Queen's Jubilee in June. I think this is a cracking idea, especially as I have decided not to hold my  "Open Allotment Day" until next year and I have already said that I am more than happy to help out with anything the committee comes up with.

In this age where people only seem to make the effort to look after themselves, any altruistic enterprise, in my mind should be celebrated, supported and encouraged.....

Now....where's my bunting?

Trelawnyd Coronation Carnival 1953

3. With the pigs' imminent departure, I have decided that 2012 will be the year that the allotment will go from strength to strength. The Ukrainian village will be having a full face lift and I aim to have a couple of milking goats this year.......milk, cheese, self sufficiency in veg and who knows.... more piglets in July perhaps......

and of course more waifs and strays will be turning up with gay abandon over the next few months.....

4. and I will be going to Choir practise this year.........losing Andrew underlines that old hackneyed saying...." life's too short"

And as the Two Ronnies used to say "and finally"
here is a blog header that will lift your spirits... it's a candid shot from http://lifeonthesmushieranch.blogspot.com/
Enjoy xxx

Moving Onwards

No 21 and the delightful no 12

Was it only Six Months ago since number 12 and Number 21 arrived at Bwthyn-y-Llan? It seems such an age ago now. Both have blossomed into two huge, fine looking pigs, each with a personality and attraction all of their own.......but I have always been mindful that both are now ready for bacon, for sausages and for chops.

I have just got off the phone with a rural butcher. A jovial Chap, full of Welsh chutzpah and good will, he gave me a whistle stop menu of pork cuts,explained the whole process of butchery from culling to table as it were and even offered to pick them up for me, which I have just now agreed to.

I am now just waiting for the phone call, telling me when it is all going to take place.

I feel ok and ever so slightly relieved that I have finally summoned the nerve to finally get the ball rolling, but I know I will find it just a little difficult to look no 21 in the eye a little later today....he's such a sweet natured fellow.........

I feel like a real farmer ( well just a little)

Barcelona 1992 Olympic Flame

I am getting excited about the Olympics...........we ( the family) are talking about going down to London to soak in the atmosphere of the closing ceremony ( no we have not got tickets)
I Just Hope the organisers take a leaf out of the Barcelona Olympics ( the most classy) and the Sydney Olympics ( The most Joyous!)
My Best friend Nuala and I went to the opening of the World Student Games at The Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield many years ago now.... I remember that Uk Astronaut Helen Shaman ran in with the "Games Flame" and bloody dropped it running up the steps to the cupola!
and...it was so embarrassing as THE BLOODY FLAME WENT OUT!!
The Sheffield crowd....( good natured as always) laughed it's bloody socks off!!!!!

5 Bags of Sugar

Weightwatchers weigh in today 15st 4 lbs 

Weight loss in the past week 6 lbs

Total weight loss in  2 weeks 10 lbs

Having suffered that bloody awful virus last week, I just knew that my weigh in this week would be fairly successful.......... So, I didn't need to employ all those pre weigh in tricks that we all employ just before dragging my sorry carcass onto the bathroom scales 

( by saying "tricks" I mean the forcing out of a big wee just before assessment time etc!!!)

Give me a couple more weeks and I just know I will stop farting with the force of the Queen Mary's Hooter when I bend over........Way to go Girlfriend

x

Ps will blog more "appropriately" a little later!

Noise

Sunday mornings in the country are not always peaceful. This is especially true in winter when the sounds of bird shoots echo constantly around the circle of hills that surround the village, giving one the sense of being a mile or two from the "front line" so to speak.

It has been like that this morning.

The village Church Bell strikes up at ten minutes to eleven and does not stop until the Rector arrives.........Robert is sometimes a little late, so the monotone "DING" of the bell can go on just a little, and it often sets the lurcher howling from the corner house which can be somewhat tiring.

I am on night shift tonight, so have retired to bed for a few hours. It is a necessary luxury as I will not have any sleep until tomorrow night now, and it is a luxury that I rather enjoy.....

Its just me in the bed.....no one else is allowed......the sheets are cool and the room is dark and even though I can still hear the occasional shriek of the geese as they bicker, the pillow over my head cushions most of the Sunday Morning soundtrack........

Sweet Dreams x

Oh Dear

Well, I went to be entertained and I went to have a good bawl.........and unfortunately I did neither....

Warhorse, I am afraid to say, is not one of Steven Spielberg's better films.Sure, it has a chocolate box view of Edwardian Devon, sure it has a totally underused Emily Watson as a plucky farmer's wife and sure it has sweet boy in love with his pet horse which is sadly taken off to the Great War...... but what it doesn't have is any real dramatic tension, in a story which, on stage at least, has gripped and moved literally millions of people.

The play is narrated by the central horse character of Joey; subsequently the emotion of the trauma of separation,loss and of War itself can be shared by words, as well as visuals... The film lacks this device and is, I am sorry to say, much the poorer for it, as horses, although beautiful animals, can look ever so slightly inscrutable to the untrained eye. If they show human emotion...they can unfortunately look a little cartoonish

Warhorse also does not have many of those flagship Spielberg touches that satisfy the soul.

But a few scenes do linger  in the mind

- the horse Joey galloping madly  across the besieged trenches at night

- the shooting of two deserters as seen through the sails of a working windmill

- the gentle banter between a sweet natured German soldier (Hinnerk Schönemann) and a chirpy Tyneside   Squaddie      ( Toby Kebbell)  who meet up in no-man's land

  ( incidentally the best performances of the film)

But overall, I felt cheated there was no "Lassie Come Home moment".....

I needed a bit of cheap sentiment, and a lot of blubber

Unfortunately I had neither!
6/10

A Chink In The Armour ,"Coppers" and the unsung 7,500

I have just had a run in with Thomas the gander during feeding time. This perhaps underlines the fact that I am not quite firing on all cylinders at the moment, for when I bent down to fill their water bowl I never noticed his low, rear guard attack posture and only really "reacted" to his presence after he had took a firm hold of two inches of underwear elastic and an unhealthy amount of buttock in his sharp, serrated beak.

I hit a top  "c" that anyone on the male voice choir would have been proud of, spun around and instinctively punched him as hard as I could right in the kisser.
He let go, staggered back a few steps in shock then gave me a rather half arsed "Honk" of threat
I jumped around a little, fingering a hole in my undies and flicked him the "v"s even though I was feeling dreadully guilty
No matter how ill you may be, animal enemies will always seek out a chink in your armour


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Moving on.....


Last night I watched with interest a channel four documentary entitled quite simply Coppers

This second series started off in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire and followed the mundane, stressful, irritating, hands-tied and frustrating world of an urban British CID force.
Part of the documentary was the "seen it all before" fly-on-the wall details of crime investigation, which was interesting enough given the fact that the law seems always heavily on the side of any potential perpetrator, but it was the face to camera interviewing of the senior police detectives themselves that proved to be the most illuminating parts of the documentary.
Straight talking, wry and in most cases very VERY pithy,  the detectives thankfully didn't tread that hackneyed old path of political correctness.....colourfully and with some feeling they told their story of frustration and impotency with the criminal classes rather gamely and I could have happily cheered when the dry-as-toast Sergeant Marcus Oldroyd (above) was asked what he thought of a burglar's house he had just had to search in order to find a neighbour's stolen goods.....
"It's a shithole" he said simply and directly to camera.

The police came over as hard working, decent people; people that have to face not only the tragic and the exciting every day, but the boring, the stupid and the lazy in our society who make petty crime a way of life without hope or want of rehabilitation..............One DC summed the whole thing up when after an age patiently trying to interview a vital but reluctant witness she turned to her collegue and said "As the famous saying goes... you can't polish a turd!"

Thank Goodness for them all, that's what I say.

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And finally...........
This morning I had a chat with an old guy in the village about the movie WARHORSE which opens today....He asked me if I knew that WARDOGS were commonplace in WW1 and were used not only as guard and sentry uses but more importantly were invaluable as message carriers between the trenches and command centres
"Over 7,500 dogs were killed in the the Great War alone" he told me "did you know that?"
I had to admit I had no idea
Mr Spielberg...please take note...............

Novovirus Blues

I have not blogged for the past few days because I have been rather dramatically ill.

On Monday I could feel a "bug" coming on, and by Tuesday morning, I could hardly lift my head off the pillow. There was a funeral on in the Graveyard and I could hear the gravedigger's lorry arrive on my field ( he has to access the cemetery from my land) but just felt too ill to go over to save the poor man from being chased by the geese.

By midday I was suffering rigors,nausea and joint pain worse than I have ever experienced before and after an aborted attempt to walk the dogs I did what I have never done before, I rang Chris at work and told him to come home.

I have been in bed ever since, watched over continually by a loyal and slightly anxious Meg Well that is until this morning when I dragged my sorry, stinking arse out of my Tracey Emin-ish bed......and I can honestly say that I have never experienced a virus which has made me feel so bad...ever......ever in 49 years!. This is no word of a lie....but on Tuesday night I had visions of me being whisked away to hospital I felt so awful, ( and even the cool-as-a-cucumber Chris was worried when he saw me all vague  pale and feverish hidden under the duvet)- I must have looked like Kate Winslet in her sick scene in Sense And Sensibility.....

Anyhow I survived and thank goodness for Carer's leave, that's what I say

Without Chris having the flexibility to come home to look after me and the animals, I really don't know where I would have been with it all........

Things can change on a sixpence can't they?