Trelawnyd Gop Hill

I could not resist taking this short video on the top of the Gop this morning

The Flower Show

We had the first Flower Show meeting of the year tonight at Auntie Glad's house!

and after the usual bunfight we agreed on the format for this year's show!

see: http://trelawnydflowershow.blogspot.com/

I have lots to do before the next meeting. I need to liaise with the village school mistress to organise the childrens' entries, price up yards of bunting, and organise a new cup for the "basket of vegetables " entry!

Oh the responsibility!

The pigs of Trelawnyd

As requested by my cousin Carol.

1.12 am

The mouse has been dispatched........
peace has been restored

12.42.am

I can't sleep
Albert has brought in a live mouse and the whole household (1 cat and 4 dogs) are trying to catch the poor thing somewhere in the bedroom..... I have shut the door on them and am now having a cup of tea in the living room. Upstairs the noise is more frightening than the soundtrack of any horror film! and outside the guinea fowl have started to scream for the second time.....I have bolted out to the field with the torch twice now and have seen nothing
hey ho
Thank Goodness that Chris is still away

Avatar 3D

Janet and I were 3D virgins until this evening and although it was an interesting experience I won't be galloping like a wild thing to go and see my second "amazing multi dimensional experience".
What I didn't understand about 3D before tonight, is that it is only used at its fullest extent sporadically throughout the film. Certain sequences, such as Jake's walk through the forest at night and the 9/11-like destruction of the home tree are admittedly impressive, but generally I think that the slightly blurred and distracting 3D effects do not in fact enhance the experience of Avatar; in actual fact they make the whole experience, just that little bit unsatisfactory.
Avatar 3D 7/10
Well it least we kept the glasses!

Thanks to Kathy

This morning I have braved the icy wind and have manured the main vegetable patch. I have still got four more to weed,turn and fertilize but at least I have made the effort and have started the often back breaking ground work before spring.
I have unearthed the Jerusalem artichokes I planted last year (above left) and thanks to fellow blogger Kathy at The Cottage Garden Farmer-see (Kathy's blog ) I now know what to do with the little buggers (http://the-cottage-gardener.blogspot.com/2010/01/jerusalem-artichokes.html)
I have set out my potatoes for chiting and now have a ton of strawberry plants from my fellow villager Sandra, to plant out after the frosts in a huge strawberry bed of their own.

As I was humping the manure into place, the ducks, forgetting their usual reserve, jumped into action to sieve out the worms and grubs from the ground. Halleh (the only drake second from left) has been courting the runner females but has not as yet worked out how to mate with them, preferring the more "attractive" hens....hopefully it will be only a matter of time before he works out what exactly should go where. I do hope so, I am tired of chasing him off the hybrids on a daily basis.

The grave digger did a great job clearing the rubbish from the field stream, and although it looks rather muddy now, come spring the banks should be lovely and green. I will dam up part of it to make a proper small pond when I have some time, but the first thing I need to do is to re build the Church wall. Thank goodness the days are getting longer.

With Chris still away I am off to Llandudno later with my sister to see AVATAR in 3D.....

Dogs on the Beach

Cassie wanted me to post a video of the dogs, so apologies for the lazy post. As I type this, it has started to snow gently!

The Alarm - Knockin' On Heavens Door - The Gathering 30-01-2010

My brother Andrew is playing the guitar second from the right (in the white t shirt) Chris and I missed his gig with the Alarm ( I was working nights) but my sisters went (and can be heard shouting from the audience!)

A small victory

With the fire lit and the dogs in their usual place on my lap, it has been a relaxing and quiet day. Chris made a tasty chicken stew AND a syrup sponge pudding, so the order of the afternoon was having a doze and that was it!
Half way through the gloriously camp tv programme 60 Minute Makeover , Albert could be heard banging around the kitchen, and on checking he was battering a small beautiful blue tit between his paws and the remains of our chicken dinners!
The tiny bird looked quite dead when I found it covered in chicken gravy, but as I prised it off a growling Albert, it gave a shallow gasp.
Blue tits are amazingly pretty things, but like all wild birds that have been attacked, they die so easily through a combination of rough handling and shock, so I hid the bird in my palm and sat in the living room in the hope that the warmth of my hand would revive it.
The dogs all clambered on top of me, in the full realisation that something was afoot, but I managed to keep them away from the blue tit until I could feel a little more movement from the tiny animal and after another 20 minutes I sneaked out of the house to set the bird down on the wall before it flew unsteadily away still covered with big blobs of bisto.
I told you nothing much has happened today.. but this "little" victory was rather satisfying

Mockingbird Review

Gwyn Vaughan Jones as Atticus Finch
To Kill A Mockingbird, is one of those novels that most (!) people remember with great affection from their schooldays. Harper Lee's warm and affectionate story of the coming of age of "Scout" Finch, the daughter of a small town lawyer, amid the racism of the American deep south, has a resonance with most people, even though they may not have read or reread the novel for years, and I really feel that this nostalgia for Lee's novel sometimes camouflages the brutality within the story....such as child abuse,the abysmal treatment of the mentally ill, alcohol addiction, and of course the horrendous racial divide within a rural community.
This stage version is beautifully set by Mark Bailey on a simple dirt road square of stage. Silhouette's of the tired folk of Maycomb are placed against a "Gone with the Wind" sky before Scout (an excellent Amy Morgan) starts her narration through the eyes of the eight year old tomboy.
The racial and economic tensions of 1935 Alabama grow steadily, until the cracking courtroom scene ( played cleverly still on the dirt road) bats to and fro between the dirt poor white trash Ewells and Atticus Finch who is defending defendant Tom Robinson. This scene is the best thing in the play , and Rhian Blyth ( as the abused Myella Ewell) is a standout, but having said all that, not everything works as well in this stage play as it does in the 1962 movie version.
The climax where the Finch Children are pursued by the abusive Bob Ewell is rather rushed and trivialised, and is absolutely lacking in the nail biting tension we witnessed as James Anderson stalked the terrified Mary Badham in the movie, but I guess it is a small complaint in a generally superior and enjoyable stage production .
8/10

Off to bed.... working an early shift tomorrow

To Kill A Mockingbird

Off to see the Theatre Clwyd Production of To Kill A Mockingbird this evening...review later!

New Oscar catagory

Now the Oscars nominations are out, and as usual the bun fight is uneven, manipulated and unfair!
Many years ago Elizabeth Taylor only won the statue for best actress because she had just had a tracheostomy!
Anyhow, I will not rant on about it all, but I would suggest that the academy would give an oscar for BEST MOVIE TRAILER!
These frantically edited snippets, are often little works of art in themselves, and although many of them bare no real connection to the main movie , the resulting "minifilm" is often a wonderful romp to be enjoyed....

my favourites are:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCqYuBIFE5I
(Dinosaur)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot3UCHHZmvc
(Australia)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBitOl11VnY
(All about my mother-) camp as christmas

I could go on and on and on.......sorry anout the links interested parties will need to cut and paste.....anyhow just sit back and enjoy CLIFFHANGER

Lilly

Well the plethera of videos continue ( and will stop for a while I promise you) with a brief introduction to my favourite hen on the field. the gentle natured Lilly.
Now the "voice over" was a little muted as I was mindful that the gravediggers are in to prepare for my neighbour's funeral later today.
Steve, the village elder (as I call him) is overseeing the work and is using the digger to scrape out the Church wall (which I am repairing) and to dredge out the ditch on the border of the field. Now all this work is his idea, so I am letting him get on with it as itis easier to do that rather than to discuss the whys and whatnots in any detail.....I feel a little like a spare wheel though ,so I will go and busy myself elsewhere

The Cottage and Church

I Know it is lazy blogging but I seem to be on a roll!
I will make one more "video" this afternoon then will get back to typing at the keyboard

Turkey Video

With my crappy old camera I took this brief video this morning.......

Chatsworth House and the movies

Chatsworth House, the ancestral home of the Duke of Devonshire, is perhaps one of the most famous of all of the English stately homes. Located a stone's throw from Sheffield, Chris and I spent many Sunday afternoons there, wandering around the grounds, gardens and house, so much so, that it actually became one of our most favourite places to visit.
I follow the Chatsworth House blog (http://www.chatsworthblog.org/) which is a kind of behind-the-scenes blog of the house and estate written by the staff of the big house themselves. Occasionally a little dry and polite, this diary of daily works is a fascinating account of something which is so English it actually hurts.....
The blog, does not go back far enough, to cover the funeral of the last Duke of Devonshire in 2004. I remember seeing the funeral procession on tv, when all the staff from the estate, from cooks in their starched white uniforms to the grooms in the stables, lined the grand driveway as the coffin was driven past. Amazingly moving!
Now I have blogged about this today as I spotted the house in a preview of the movie The Wolfman, the remake of the 1941 film. Shrouded with weeds and smoke the house still was unmistakable and impressive, and I wonder just how much will be shown of it in the Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, and Emily Blunt Gothic romp. I hope a little more than was shown in Pride and Prejudice where it acted as Darcy's "Pemberly".
Anyhow talking of previews, I saw the new Robin Hood trailer yesterday and was completely flummoxed by it!
Is it me. but is the whole thing a rehash of Gladiator? Same kind of music, same galloping horses and the same very deep manly growling, from a Maximus looking Russell Crowe!
Now I am not complaining here...... as Russ as a sex-on-legs Roman general floated my boat several times in the year 2000 so his rebirth in Robin Hood will be most welcome. Having said that, I suspect the film will be a pile of Sh*t.

Anyhow Chris is away yet again, this time in London. However we did have a nice lunch out today before he went.
A villager stopped me at dusk to complain that she had not seen the Chickens in the Churchyard for a while. She was so upset when I told her that the usual bunch she was used to seeing was the junior hens that had been killed last Saturday.....at least the guinea fowl with Rogo, remain loyal in their ambles amid the graves.

Avatar

Sam Worthington

I was feeling ok until I read all of the previous post comments this morning, and now I think I must have sounded a border line depressive!
The rain is lashing down, so I completed jobs, counted the poultry (all present), walked the dogs and drove to Prestatyn to the cinema , taking some heed of all of the advice to "have a break"!

I know there was a pensioner showing of AVATAR at the scala this morning, so at 10 am (yes AM) I lined up with a few adventurous silver hairs who were clutching their pension books, and asked if I could go in.
Now although I am a youthful looking 47 year old, the manageress waved me through quite cheerfully ( and a little too quickly for my liking) and feeling a tad guilty at bunking off, I sat down in the warmth and dry, intent in watching some mindless rubbish.......tee hee
Cinema is a wonderful diversion from the mundane for me. It is a treat, it is a ritual and it always feels as though I have "come home" in a strange sort of way as I make myself comfortable in the usual pull down cinema seat!
Like many geeky teenagers (I was an expert in 1970 disaster films, terrapins and tropical fish at 15!!!) I was a lonely kid.
There was no internet,computer games and the like to divert me from the misery of puberty, so for me it was cinema that was able to transport me to somewhere a little more exciting......All during the 1970s, burning skyscrapers, overturned passenger liners, Roger Moore's acting eyebrows and a whole series of 747 near misses, kept me amused and obsessed.

Anyhow back to Avatar, which was an inspired choice for a rainy and depressing day!

James Cameron's voyage into movie history is basically an adequate Christmas present of an adventure movie which has been wrapped up in some exquisitely beautiful wrapping paper. To look at, it is quite, quite amazing, and I was entertained with this boys-own actioneer from the very start.

In Avatar, Cameron pays homage to Aliens his 1986, public and critically acclaimed blockbuster, with gut wrenching battle sequences and a reintroduction to some of his most famous characters.

So we have Dr Grace (Sigourney Weaver) who is an older and wiser Ellen Ripley, tom boy Hispanic marine Trudy (Michelle Rodriguez) is a ringer for Pvt. Vasquez and mean bastard corporate manager (Giovanni Ribisi) is definitely based on the reptilian Carter Burke.

Having said all this, Avatar is an adventure film which pays further homages to the likes of A Man Called Horse (1970) and Dances with Wolves (1990) and by doing so, it will please everyone. as the basically simple story of a man finding his true "home" is a universal fairytale of sorts.

Sam Worthington makes for a measured and quite charismatic hero (he is very easy on the eye too!) and Zoe Saldana (who is never really seen except in her CGI form) is also very good as his alien love interest.

But this film's strength lies with what you see AND experience rather than the originality of the plot or the performances of the leading actors (good as they are)........and what you see IS quite beautiful and impressive.

I gave it a spirit lifting 9/10

Perspectives

I didn't sleep well at all last night. Every hour or so I was awake listening for the chatter of the guinea fowl, but of course there was no early warnings and of course the fox was kept safely out of the little knot of coops on the field. I found another uneaten corpse yesterday afternoon, hidden under the snow, so the death toll officially was 8 birds dead with only one survivor, Rose.who got away without a scratch.
Early this morning as I was returning to the cottage I saw a neighbour, Joanne walking by with her large dogs, before I waved I was stopped by her expression, and I just knew that her father,(another close neighbour of ours who had been unwell for quite some time) had died.
There is something quite distinctive that passes over someones face when they are suffering from grief. I had witnessed it time and time again at work and indeed personally, and I can only describe the physical manifestation as a sort of "crumpling" of the features, when the face kind of disappears in on itself.
It is aways an expression that pulls a person up short!
I had a few words with Joanne and said sincere but usual platitudes of support, but as always at these times, there is very little one can actually do to be of any help.
Later I would drop off some flowers and a card to Joanne and her mother Pat, a gesture that would be mirrored tenfold, I am sure, by other neighbours from the village over the next day or so.
Today I have popped into Prestatyn to do some banking, then I collected more feed before walking the dogs on the gop. As I returned home I spotted a man at nearby bungalow, which is situated a couple of fields away from my field. I know the chap has hens so I called in to introduce myself and to warn him that a fox was around.
He was friendly and chatty and thanked me for the warning but informed me that the fox already had snatched several of his hens and a cockerel over the past few days.
Seeing that he had lost his cockerel, I immediately offered him Jesus, the smart male that had been abandoned with us on Boxing day and pleased as punch he agreed to pick him up next week...which was a nice result and conclusion to a miserable day or so.

Chris is working away tonight in Manchester
I am due an early night me thinks

Stupidity

The biggest threat to poultry is a stupid and careless keeper.
Last night I broke the golden rule of hen keeping. I overlooked the shutting of one of the poultry coop doors.
This morning,after I fed the pigs in the newly settled snow, I turned to see my largest coop's door open to the elements. I couldn't quite believe it, as I am fastidious in my routine of shutting the stock up for the night, but there it was , an open door and an empty coop.
I looked around; there was no blood, feathers or any signs of trauma, but all 8 hens had gone.
It didn't take long to find them, well I found five dead birds and one living hen ( a hybrid called Rose). She was cold , but unhurt under one of the coops further up the field, the five others were decapitated and scattered in the snow by the perimeter fencing.
The situation was clear, a fox had taken the opportunity I had stupidly given it, and had killed the lot.
I am so angry and upset with myself.When it comes to my animals I am not at all slap dash, but I and I alone had put the hens in direct danger from a predator who would do the most damage.
The hens killed included Jessop and her sister, the two young buffs, Bill the handsome black rock cockerel and four other young birds who I raised from chicks last year. All of the hens had only started laying properly since our last fall of snow.
First the badger kills the guinea fowl, now a fox with my assistance, kills my hens.
I feel as though I have let the field population and myself down.