Vegetable beds ready for planting

here's hoping it goes on the blog

Mugabe & the White African

I know a little about Zimbabwe's crash into economic and political disaster following President Mugabe's land reform initiatives. My information came first hand from some of the black Zimbabwean moderates that left the country to take up nursing jobs in Sheffield . Their move to this country was a last dash effort to escape the disintegration of democracy and poverty in a failing Zimbabwe.
What I didn't know,was that the land that was effectively stolen from the white African farmers was given, not to the poor Black Africans that had nothing, but to the friends, family, close officials and in one case a girlfriend of the country's elite.
Mugabe and The White African, is an amazing ,covertly shot documentary, about the last stand of a 75 year old mango farmer Michael Cambell , who along with his son in law, (the articulate and charismatic Ben Freeth (above pic) take on the Mugabe regime in an international court of law to win back their rights to stay on their own farm.
Cambell and Freeth as it turns out are no pushovers, despite constant intimidation, threats, a near fatal and truly horrific beating (when Cambell's elderly wife is also severely assaulted ), the two men take on all comers with a deep religious faith, good humour and a pragmatic arsenal of weapons to back themselves up.
The family farm is also supported by a large group of loyal local workers whose livelihoods depend on the successfully run business, a business that would be left to rack and ruin if the farm fell into the mobs inexperienced hands.
Scenes where a neighbouring farm is overrun is heartbreaking to watch as we witness the white farmers wife breaking down at the despair and angst suffered by her loyal black workers, who are forced to leave their own homes as she herself is evicted.
At one stage I felt that It was almost unbelievable that we were in fact watching a documentary and not just a piece of fiction.
The overtly racist abuse finally overwhelms theCambell/Freeth families as even though they win their case in an historic landslide result ( the Zimbabwe lawyers walk out the court in an astonishing display of disrespect), their farm is finally burnt to the ground.
It is testament to their strength of spirit and moral fortitude that to this day the family remain in Zimbabwe (the home they love), fighting their cause with a hope that has to be seen to be believed. 8/10

The Wynyard Cup

Now, I did post a video via YOU TUBE earlier but for some reason it has not arrived on the blog as yet!

I am absolutely knackered after digging over two vegetable patches, and even though it is only March I have caught some sun this afternoon....so much so that I now have a healthy glow after returning back to the cottage.

I found a real bargain on the wonderful EBAY the other day and it arrived today. It is an old ( around 1910) art nouveau trophy to add to the prizes that we are giving at this year's Flower Show, and will be grandly called the "Wynyard Cup".

Wynyard Road was the road where we lived in Sheffield, and I kind of liked the "mystery" in the cup's new title rather than name it after someone who is now dead!

Mind you I have already put in another cup into the show in memory of Finlay (our first Welsh Terrier)- That cup goes to the children's' entry which I though was rather apt.

Tonight I am off to see the move MUGABE & THE WHITE AFRICAN.......review later......

Bun fight

The open meeting at the village hall was an interesting bash. An official spokeswoman made a valid plea for the need of affordable housing for the village community but had to concede that the official feasibility study had yet to be commissioned and viewed.

Until then, of course nothing concrete will proceed, but I did feel sightly sorry for this woman who had to face some of the frustrations and anger from some people present.

The frustrations, of course seemed to be worries centred around three specific areas :

1. If the proposed ten houses are built then would there be enough village people to utilize them

2. In view of there being several empty houses present in Trelawnyd, why cannot the housing association purchase these properties?

3. Would the building proposal be just a start of further development? Development that the village infrastructure may not be able to sustain.

I think what was in fact needed was another open Community Council meeting so that the villagers could actually clarify some of the concerns that they have and where misconceptions and half truths relating to the whole process could be ironed out. But my suggestion that such a meeting was required was met by a less then enthusiastic agreement by some on the council.

I know affordable housing for the village young ( and there was a persuading plea for such housing from a young man I had never seen before) is needed as it is an every area, I just think that as in most initiatives there a substantive need for the community council to listen to the thoughts, worries, wishes and hopes of the community which they represent and to address these areas individually and with patience.

The presentation today, did go some way to clarify the issues.......but I must admit, there are plenty of other concerns that need addressing.

hey ho

Bullying

My first blog today was centred around the extremes of bullying behaviours that we sadly see in our human world...but bullying happens without rhyme or reason in the animal world too .
Yesterday two of the turkey poults ( females) suddenly turned on the smallest bird which is the slate grey poult. Viciously the little stag ( I am still quite not sure of his sex) was pecked and harassed by one of the females even though he constantly ran to the performing Boris in what resembled a plea for protection.
The attack was sustained and completely out of the blue, and in the end I had to intervene and remove the little guy from the enclosure to walk safely around with the hens and ducks (above)

Last night I replaced him into the turkey house with the others, in the hope that things would settle down overnight, and this morning the aggression ( although still there in bursts) is no where as pronounced as it was yesterday..
I am digging out the veg beds today, so I can keep an eye on the little fella!

Tonight there is a community council "open" meeting at the memorial hall to discuss the proposed building of houses "outside" of the village envelope in greenbelt land.....I suspect a large proportion of the village will be in attendence and the whole thing will be a bit of a bunfight!!!
I shall be there!!!

The Death of hope

It was with great sadness that I read that Jon Venables, one of the killers of the baby Jaimie Bulger, had been returned to jail after breaching the terms of his release.

It is unclear just what this man has in fact done, (by not knowing the press and the general public's imagination has run riot), but I cannot help worrying that the biggest victim of this re hash of the infamous "children that kill children" trial of 1993, will be the death of hope in the judicial rehabilitation process.

I thought that the only good that came out of the the prosecution of the 10 year old Venables (right) and his friend Robert Thompson was that when the boys were "imprisoned" the general public was reassured that they had been removed from the "toxic" home lives that may have helped to shape their destructive behaviours and had entered a more supportive, educationally superior and structured environment.

To the lay person that perhaps did not just want to see vengeance,the boys had some hope to grow into more balanced and productive members of society, and the news of today has gone along way to perhaps shake that beacon of positivity, which is a great shame.

I just hope the hysteria in the press can be balanced in some way

Let The River Run - Carly Simon

I was going to post this when I reviewed Working Girl....another blast from the past......doesn't Carly look pleased with herself?

Yazoo 'Don't Go'

Now I found myself humming this blast from the 1980s past today and It took me an absolute AGE to remember just what the song was................it was NEARLY THIRTY YEARS AGO!!!!!

Graveyard at Dawn

I have always loved old Churchyards, which is a good job really as I spend much of my life in and around one! Now it is not a morbid fascination that I have....( I never spend any time at my parents' or grand parents' graves), but I do find the slightly run down, ancient Churchyards to be interesting, comfortable and, well homely.
This morning at dawn I took my camera for a mooch around St Michaels.
Above this the "hooded" tomb of the Wynne Family which dates from the 1700s , but there are also tombs with "table top" covers that date from 1674 (the year that our cottage was originally built)

I only found out recently that our village of Trelawnyd (or "Trevelesneu", as it was known as) was recorded in the Doomsday Book of 1086 and that the church was first referred to in the 1291 Pope Nicholas Taxation documents.

(Above) Albert sitting quietly on the graves, (Below) the famous 14th Century Churchyard Cross in silhouette

Another day of jobs lie ahead. The weather looks a little brighter

Little man syndrome

I have six cockerels. Four of them (Rogo, Stanley,Scotty and Jesus) are large full size fellows, each with their own group of hens, while the remaining two (Pirrie and Roger) are tiny bantams, that live alongside the heavyweights in sometimes an uneasy kind of existence.
Pirrie ( a wyandotte) roosts in a small brooder box with a single hen of his own (Ripley a black rock). Ripley was a single hen out of seven cockerel chicks I hatched last year and after they left the field she was left alone and isolated, unable to join any of the 10 hen coops because of the shirty behaviour of the existing hens. Pirrie soon teamed up with her, after a little manipulation on my part, which helped, while Roger ( above) was set up with some of the bullied hens in their own run.
Now Roger is quite a handsome little cockerel ( he is only 9 inches high) and like most male animals he has no conception of just how small he is. He also has the most aggressive nature of all of my cockerels and will fly and posture against me every time I enter his enclosure.
Now I find all this quite amusing especially as I can usually swat him away with my little finger, but today his bouncy nature did not serve him at all well, as he slipped out of his enclosure and got cornered by a somewhat irate ( and considerably larger ) Jesus.

Jesus is the most junior cockerel and even the guinea fowl give him a good bashing from time to time, so I am sure a sudden contact with a small bantam gave him the opportunity for him to flex his testosterone muscles so to speak, and he well and truly battered Roger before I saw the final pecks of the battle from the bedroom window.

Cockerels when they are beaten, freeze on the ground with head down, almost as if they are waiting for the "coup de grace" to be administered, and I just got there in time, before Jesus went in for the kill. Poor Roger, covered in blood and fairly lifeless on the ground was, I thought , a gonner, but after I ran him under a warm tap to clean him up for a bit, he came round just enough to give me a few weak but painful pecks on my fingers.
The above photo was taken a hour or so after I returned him to his enclosure

The third lesson in my Chicken course takes part tonight.....Chris is away working in London again

Dydd Dewi Sant Hapus

Happy St David's Day!
(Remembering Welshies across the ocean)
x

You can take the boy out of Rhyl........

.......but you'll never take Rhyl out of the boy!
(for those that don't know Rhyl is a grotty seaside town 5 miles away)
The "stunt double" for actor Benicio del Toro (aka The Wolfman) is no other than local boy Spence Wilding, and at the cinema tonight he was there at the Scala (supposedly answering questions about the film and signing autographs for a quid!).....mind you, when we entered the cinema he was sat down in a cinema seat chatting to someone on his mobile phone!...so we missed any interesting insights he might have shared about this uneven, cut-to-hell and rather miscast horror movie.
I can understand why del Toro was chosen for the lead. Craggy faced and mean and moody looking he has the "look" of wolf even before all the CGI kicks into gear, but unfortunatly he sorts of sleeps through the mayhem and gore which is set in and around a rather untidy and decaying Chatsworth House ( that doubles for Blackmoor house). It is a long time since I have seen such a lacklustre performance from a leading man.
Emily Blunt and Anthony Hopkins fare a little better as del Toro's chaste love interest and father respectively, while Hugo Weaving gives his chief inspector Aberline, a rather lugubrious and pleasing twist. And rather surprisingly an ancient looking Gereldine Chapman even pops up briefly as a gypsy wise woman ( with some dreadful looking dirty nails)
Having said all that, non of the impressive cast can save this rather unoriginal and at times rather boring movie which obviously suffers from a bit of over zealous editing, which is a shame.
Mind you, some of the action sequences are truly horrific and rather suspenseful to watch, especially when the wolfman runs amok against the obligatory Yorkshire villagers! ( and better still a Gypsy encampment), but in general I was disappointed by the whole Gothic romp thing.
Sorry Spencer! in the end I am glad I didn't fork out a pound for your autograph
6/10

Sunday

Sundays in winter are quiet and nondescript. Chris has gone to Church this afternoon (the vicar mentioned in the service that two of my chickens had welcomed him at the vestry door!), while I pottered around in the cold and wind. The dogs had extended sleeps in front of the fire as it is freezing cold today while Albert (above) relaxed on the kitchen table
My cousin, Carol and her hubby kindly called around with an old family bible this morning to show us some family photographs (including one photo of my great grand parents, who I had never seen before!) and later in the afternoon Chris made a huge banana cake and dollops of custard for tea...which was a nice treat.
Tonight we are off to the cinema to see The Wolfman (we really want to see Chatsworth House on film)

Sell a couple bottles of Doctor Good

In response to my brother's illness, my sisters and I have been asked to participate in a genetic research project. I say this only as a backdrop to a conservation we all had last weekend, when we brainstormed the well known tv programme phrase "Who do you think [you all] are!!

From basic family hand-me-down history, we do know that our family tree (on my Mother's side) has its origins in Wales, Liverpool, Northern Lancashire and Ireland whereas my father's father heralded from central Scotland. But it is my paternal grandmother's family that provoked the most discussion. Short, dark skinned and swarthy we are now convinced that the ancestors of my Granny Gray and the likes of her brother Dyson came from perhaps Eastern Europe, and that "slightly ethic /"Mediterranean colouring has found itself working down into the features of my nephew Chris, who could easily pass an an Italian "Uomo".
I know all of us are mongrels of sorts. especially given the mobility of populations due to economic need in the last century, so perhaps we should not be at all surprised that the "Grays" are not just pure red headed Celts from the hills..............

My sister Ann is convinced that we have "gypsy blood" somewhere around somewhere......I can't see that myself.....especially as I have a healthy aversion to caravans, gold earrings and old Cher songs!

No News

There is a lot going on in the world......according to the BBC, Britain's economic growth has grown 0.3% during the past three months, the NHS Trusts in Wales is millions overspent,and another UK soldier is killed in the war in Afghanistan.....

Closer to home Chris has secured a multi figure research bid for work and a practice nurse from Rhyl wins a national good practice award!

Here in Trelawnyd, the cold weather, sleet and snow is back, the dogs have all had diarrhoea overnight and I have spent much of the day shampooing the carpets.

Be still my beating heart....the excitement is almost palpable!

Mind you I have broken the greyness of the day by looking for rosettes for the Flower Show Committee members to wear at this year's show. The Internet has opened up a hitherto unknown world of double ruffs, knife and Box pleat, ribbon tails and personalized centre logos.

And I am in two minds whether I shall plump for gold foil or satin for the best in show rosettes......

I am working tonight, so with William still looking a little wan, I will leave the exciting world of rosettes for a brief hours sleep with my sick dog........

Not every blog can be a work of art

Happy Birthday Maisie

Happy Birthday Maisie
Uncle John & Uncle Chris
xx

Wild Flower Border,Funeral Turkeys,Strawberry Beds,Potato digging and the Island Girls settle

It's been a busy day here on the allotment.
And I have only stopped once (above) to drink my coffee and eat my bagel alongside the turkeys

I raked and levelled the plot of land by the stream that was churned up by the gravedigger who kindly scoured the stream banks a few weeks ago, and seeded it with four bargain boxes of wild flower seeds I bought from a discount shop in Prestatyn this morning. (below) I am hopeful that the eager beaks of the chickens will not eat the majority of the seeds and that I will have a beautiful backdrop of field flowers come the early summer.

The new turkey stag is growing at a rapid rate of knots. He is taller than Boris already but still retains the gentleness of a poult. I have become quite attached to him, but have agreed for him to be picked up next week. He is off to the other side of the village to be a mate for a lone single female at another small holding.

Mind you my turkey population will be growing by another two adolescents as soon as he goes, as my friend Eirlys has asked for me to take in her two slate turkeys as she no longer has room for them.
I saw my neighbour Pat this morning. She is the lady that lost her husband a few weeks ago, and during our conversation she commented that the turkeys provided a welcomed moment of lightness during her husband's funeral, as they "gobbled and called out" as the mourners walked through the Churchyard. So much so, that one of congregation could be heard "gobbling" back at them as the procession moved forward.

Pat commented that the horses in the riding stable fields (that adjoins my field), as well as the hens, ducks and turkeys all give her some solace when she visits her husband's grave.

"With all the animals around....it somehow makes the place even more peaceful" she said kindly

The strawberry plants which were a kind gift from Sandra's allotment have been planted up in their own bed (above) but have suffered somewhat from the snow and rain, so I don't hold out for their chances.

This afternoon I have started to dig over the main potato plot (below). and plan to finish all of the allotment preparations by next week. The bad weather has put my work schedule back at least a few weeks.

I let Thelma, Laura and Audrey out of their run today to join the rest of the field population. I have never had Rhode Island Red hens before and they are quite beautiful looking birds. I think I may get a few more.

Tosh

Sometimes you just need some mindless rubbish to settle down to on an evening. For Chris it is his box set of Miss Marple (with Joan Hickson) while he lies on the couch with a blanket; for me it is a routine thriller with a bit of action and pretty leading man.
I was going to see something arty with Hazel tonight, but there was absolutely nothing on in theatre Clwyd and our local Scala, so Chris treated me to a nice bottle of white and a dvd.
As it turned out, the dvd called Whiteout, was total tosh, but it was noisy, occasionally exciting and did have a pretty leading man (Gabriel Macht), so I will forgive the holes in the plot and the dreadful acting..........

Walk where I walk

Now I know most of my neighbours think I am a tad weird (it's something to do with the multi coloured beanie) but this morning I think a couple of them had the fact confirmed big style.
Overnight we had a fair smattering of snow,so before I let the animals free of their houses, I decided to check for fox footprints!
I started at the hole in the hedge near to where the pigs are housed, it is an area that the fat faced Welsh farmer indicated that foxes were entering and leaving, and there clearly marked in the snow were a set of footprints.....
I followed the footprints with the tenacity of Danial Day Lewis from The Last of the Mohichan's, up they went to the first coop. then they circled it, then off to another and so on, until every coop had been visited. I was so engrossed in my outdoor pursuits that I hadn't seen my neighbours from down the lane who were standing by the gate. The husband called over, "have you lost something?" he said........
"No" I replied importantly "I am just tracking game!!"
He shrugged his shoulders and laughed "fair enough!"
I didn't look much like a big game hunter...not with a cup of coffee in one hand and a camera in the other.
After review of the prints (back in the lab) I think the "spoor" is in fact that of a badger rather than the dreaded fox and the whole affair reminded me of the time that I went badger watching with my brother years ago.
My brother in law Ned, used to be a game keeper, so knew his onions when it came to wildlife. He took me ( and I was a real city boy back then) to some local woods to see badgers entering and leaving their setts, and was quick to instruct me into the "ways" of animal tracking.
"Walk where I walk" he ordered quietly as we entered the near pitch black wood and stifling a fit of the giggles, I tried to follow (on tip toes like a big fairy!)
Anyhow after a few minutes blundering around in the dark, we laid down in some grass to get a "lie of the land", and in the silence I could hear all manner of rustlings and slithering in the undergrowth. Ned seemed not to notice all this activity, but to me the noises were terrifying! (I had forgotten that we were in fact in rural Wales and not in the African bush)
After a few minutes my imagination was running riot and I remember creeping up to Ned to ask him what animal was stalking us....
"It's a rabbit!" he said with mild disgust.

At least for now I couldn't see any fox prints.....
Before I went in for breakfast, I snapped this photo of Jesus (the cockerel that was abandoned with me at Christmas)
He has been courting the three new Rhode Island Red pullets in their run.

You gotta Have BIG HAIR

Last night, with the snow still falling, I settled down to watch a real "blast from the past" movie from 25 years ago. Working Girl (1988), is a sweet natured , typically American, Cinderella Rom Com that clearly underlines the boom and boom era of the mid eighties.
In it we meet Tess McGill a poor but bright secretary (Melanie Griffith) who turns the tables on her wicked boss (Sigourney Weaver) and makes a success out of herself in business and in her romantic life.
Ok the plot isn't perhaps that original and nor is the dialogue (the famous line "I have a head for Business and a bod for sin" sounds incredibly cheesy when heard in the "more sophisticated" noughties.) but the film works incredibly well as a rags to riches parable thanks primarily to some very winning performances .
Melanie Griffith is charming and likable as the whispering heroine ( though she does not look that great in a set of black bra and panties). Harrison Ford does his usual charm offensive as the wall street boyfriend but it is Sigourney Weaver's performance as bitch boss Katherine Parker that almost steals the film.
She obviously had the time of her life taking her first evil steps away from the virtuous alien ass kicker Ellen Ripley.
Joan Cusack ( with some massive hair) turns in a few nice moments as Tess' rough as a bear's bum best mate and I had great fun picking out the before- they-were-famous likes of Kevin Spacey,Alec Baldwin, Rikki Lake, Olympia Dukakis and Oliver Platt in all the minor roles.

In the cynical 80's Working Girl , recalled a little of that wisecracking banter of the romantic comedies of the 1940s and by doing so , it made a star out of Melanie Griffith