Buff Broodiness

Back to hen normality now.......Three of my four golden buffs have gone broody on the same day. Kate Winslett, Sorrel and Violet have parked their fat arses into any spare nook and cranny in an effort to incubate .....only tame Lily remains bright eyed and bushy tailed!....I am working all day tomorrow.....and Chris hates fanny-arsing around encouraging the sitting hens to eat and drink!

Sigh

As a teenager I remember witnessing an altercation between a fifteen year old boy and a science teacher.
Throughout the lesson the boy goaded and pushed the teacher with silly remarks and some schoolboy double entendres but pushed his advantage in front of his classmates a little too much by making a particularly vulgar reference towards the teacher's wife.
The teacher lost his composure completely and soundly smacked the boy around the head back and forth, with a venom that was truly frightening . before dragging him out of the room, presumably to be reviewed by the headmaster.

Now this was in the late 1970s where the odd "thwack" with the blackboard duster was a regular punishment for talking in class.....but as I recall , we the children that were left alone in the classroom after this explosion of violence, only discussed how appropriate the teacher's reaction actually was! In our eyes this boy had overstepped the mark and by disrespecting the teacher's wife he had in fact sealed his own fate on the matter.

The case of Peter Harvey htttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/8652243.stm
is an example of a man that was targeted by the children under his care for blatant and systematic bullying. They chipped away at his eccentricities as children have a want to do, yet took the goading to a level way beyond anything that could be seen as pure mischief making. (One girl in the class had arranged to video the encounter thus setting the scene for an out of control performance) and Mr Harvey lost control and severely injured the ringleader boy.

Of course I am not saying that this boy deserved the injuries that he received, but I am so glad the the judge in the case saw the situation for what it was......a vulnerable man pushed way beyond his coping abilities by some out of control children.
Instilling respect and discipline within schools is an incredibly difficult job, especially as I do feel that respect for authority has been eroded away since old farts like me were at school. I don't want to join the screaming hoards of the Daily Mail readership here, but I do think that children that are not respected by themselves and others are now having children of their own....so where does the youth of today learn respect and tolerance for others when everything seems to be stacked in a... "me, me, me", way of living

Erasing David

I have always "worried" about what information is "out there" about me, in the magical world of Internet/computer and corporate data bases!
Every time we have travelled to the states (perhaps a dozen or so trips) I get pulled by customs for the obligatory stony eyed passport check where I am escorted from the immigration line and asked to sit in silence in an anti room for half an hour or so.
I never have found out just why this happens.....I suspect that my details perhaps mirror someone elses, that may be of more interest to the security minded, but the experience of isolation always gets me to thinking ...... who knows what about me and why........... ?

The documentary Erasing David is a sobering look into how much personal information can be dug out by anyone with moderate intelligence, some time and just a name! The premise is that of a reality quiz show. A detective agency is given a name of film maker David Bond. Without any further information, the agency is given a month to locate David, who has essentially gone to ground in an effort to escape his pursuers.

Interspersed with the fascinating process of detection and chase, we see flashbacks filmed by David Bond, on what information he himself gleaned about himself from everyday companies such as Amazon, the Passport department and even facebook! The resulting mountains of paperwork are chilling to see, as page after page of David's life can be perused for "anyone" to view and indeed buy.

Erasing David is an interesting piece of work, but it is not an easy watch. David Bond is a particularly irritating "performer", who possesses an over abundance of geeky facial expressions and takes part in some very staged and over acted set pieces....I found the scenes between himself and his equally "odd" wife, particularly contrived, uncomfortable and just a little exasperating; so much so, that after half an hour or so, I was praying that the detective agency nab him as quickly as possible.

Of course the agency "catch" David at the end of the movie , however they do trap him by some very human detective work ( he attends his wife's anti natal class) rather than by some Big brother-ish technology or gadget gizmo's and the final lesson that there is too much information about all of us "out there" is a sobering and terribly frightening one.

I gave the film a 6/10. However the importance of its message I give 10/10

Humm perhaps I should not have been so personal...given the subject matter..I bet David has just printed himself a copy of my review

Turkey lore

Turkey lore IS......turn your back on your stock for a few minutes and something bad will always happen!
This morning was a case in point.....finally with the rain gently pattering down, I got stuck in with planting out broccoli and sprouts. I was a little behind in today's jobs as I had called down to Rhyl to collect our donated trophy from the engravers (8 quid to engrave 10 letters!!!!), then took the Berlingo to the garage to sort out some coolant problems (what do I know?)
Anyhow I could hear the turkeys in their enclosure having loud "turkey sex" as I worked so I ignored them (turkey lovin' is not a pretty sight!!!!!!!!!)
After a great deal of calling and shrieking I finally chanced a glimpse at the "action" only to see Bingley totally crushing a prostrate and inert Jane, the slate female in the corner of the field.
I ambled down to take a closer look and was horrified to see Jane with the fence netting wound firmly around her neck. The bird looked dead and it took an absolute age to free her from the fence and from the attentions of a fat amorous young stag! When I checked her, she didn't look as though she was breathing.
I lifted her up cupped my hand around her beak and blew hard. This I did a couple more times and miraculously Jane took a couple of gulps of air....I had resuscitated my first turkey!!!- who says I have not practiced my nursing skills after working only one shift a week!
Below is a photo of her around half an hour later

Like I said I finished some more planting in the light rain, then fixed an additional bit of fencing to the top of the church wall to stop the final three escapee hens Susan, Belle and Blanche from walking around the old churchyard........so far it seems to be working.

Tonight I am off to see the documentary Erasing David, which sounds intriguing..review later

It's a man thing

I have been putting off cleaning the turkey house for most of the morning....it is not the nicest of jobs...as turkey poo seems to be more smelly and disgusting than any waste.

So I have cleaned the kitchen, prepared dinner and cleared the cottage paths before cleaning the bathroom floor of untidy piles of reading matter!

Now our bathroom is often filled with magazines, books and pamphlets...I think that generally that this is a man thing! Men generally read in the bathroom! (Chris whilst in the bath and me generally whilst sat on the loo!!) Our books are varied but generally in the bathroom the reading matter remains "lightish" in nature.....Homes and Antiques Magazines, Empire Film Magazines, an amusing collection of poems (by Pam Ayres- of all people), a history of the Sheffield cemetery (a wonderfully interesting little book!) oh and I have just found a history of the Indian Mutiny, a diary history written from the perspective of housewives during World War II and Patricia Cornwell's The Scarpetta Factor!.......oh and tucked behind the Period Homes magazines was an old copy of Hello!

yes all very cerebral

Field Update

Halleh (centre) my only drake (and the only non runner duck) is still too full of hormones. He has paired off with the black female but as yet I have not seen any real mating behaviours. Unfortunately the main object of his affections have remained two of the smaller hens, Belle,a marran cross and Ripley an amber rock, and both hens have been harried constantly all day, every day!
Belle, has been somewhat broody and has been cornered on her nest several times today, so I have set her up in a spare rabbit hutch on her own clutch of eggs and have moved it into a safe nursery run.....well away from rapist ducks!

This afternoon I have weeded a little more of the back garden which is just about to burst into its best May colours. Give it 2 weeks and the aquilegia , hipericum and alliums will be blooming and the whole place will look like a typical cottage garden once more

At least three cocks by the look of things! The chicks in the shed are now feathering up quite nicely and are already being dominated by the typical long legged strutting swagger of three white cockerel babies (obvious Jesus' sons by the look of things!)..... I am hoping beyond all hope that I have 7 hens!

This is Kitty, one of the three bourbon female turkeys. Every day she has been breaking out of her enclosure down in the corner of the field to hole up in the hawthorn hedge to lay another egg. Stupid girl! She hates nettles and is getting stung badly every time she sits down to lay! The shaded "nest" I constructed for her in her little paddock has thoughtfully been ignored

As Kitty laid her egg from her nettle stung bum Bingley the Stag (another hormone filled performance here) courted the other females Jane and Lizzy.......

sex is definitely in the air

2004th post!!!!

It's been a year and a half since Chris and I met up with Bev and mike and Maisie together and I have heard tonight that they are coming over to Wales for their first "family" visit which is such a treat!!

In this my 2004th blog entry! (can you believe that?----and I have only been blog counting since last April).......I will celebrate the fact that our oldest friends from Sheffield are jetting over the Pennines at last to see us!

We have not seen a great deal of old friends over here! Nigel is a regular visitor of course, Kathryn has called over and Nu and Nia have both made the effort (I know..... Jonney H you cannot stay given your allergy to all animals!!!)....but we have missed Mike and Bev......

Maisie will have the run of the field and will do what little girls from all over the world should do, and that is run amok with a dog in tow and a chicken under her arm....

it will be lovely to see them

Man som hatar kvinnor

I am not a fan of television murder mystery series......I have had to sit through that many midsommer murders, that just one more would make me literally hurl!

Man som hatar kvinnor (English title The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) has the feel of one of those murder tv shows with director Niels Oplev dragging out the no-so-convoluted twists and turns over 150 long and sometimes meandering minutes! Yet despite the mundane pace there is plenty to enjoy in this Swedish thriller that takes more than a sidewards glance at the physical and psychological abuse of women as it concentrates upon the sadism and murder within a rich Swedish family.
What makes the movie work is the refreshing way it portrays the two leads.
Journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is a good natured hack that is brought into a 40 year old mystery disappearance of a young heiress. He is not typical Hollywood hero fodder, he is middle aged and rather shopworn with a paunch and a series of ill fitting jumpers......and his sidekick and object of his affection is not the usual willowy Nicole Kidman ish character but a psychologically damaged,goth, bisexual dyke with an attitude that could cut toast!!! and it is this reptilian performance by actress Noomi Rapace (above) that makes this average thriller just that little more interesting.
The unsmiling Rapace, spits out venom and pain throughout the film, and is balanced well by the benign and righteous Nyqvist; the pair make for an unlikely and compelling movie couple- a risk that the Danish studio took and won easily.
The plot I give 6/10
The cinematic partnership I give 8/10

Cow obsession and a first for Chris

Meg has a fascination for cows. Every time we take a walk down gypsy lane we come across a bouncy,inquisitive band of heifers and out of all four dogs, she alone seems to be completely obsessed with these huge benign and rather attractive animals.
Pulling at her lead, she edges excitedly towards them and nose to nose she allows the cattle to sniff and lick at her and seems intoxicated by the grassy burps they constantly emit.
I would love a cow!

Now the above photo is a rarity!
Chris, in a fit of "outdoor-ness" (I have never seen him with a hoe in his hand for all the years we have been together!), got stuck in with some gardening this afternoon ! We removed the dead fuchsia and an overgrown hebe from the front border and replanted a flowering currant, lavender,some antirrhinums, lupins, pinks, granny's bonnets and three fragrant Rose bushes. as well as some alpines which I squeezed into the spaces on top of the cottage garden wall.
I was impressed , he worked very hard.

This afternoon Chris went to Church when I completed the garden planting. He took with him several boxes of eggs, which I asked him to share amongst the congregation. With all the dry, warm weather and the arrival of the spring grass, the girls have been banging out their eggs with some gusto at the moment!
Perhaps a few freebees my increase my sales!

Jobs Worth

Ah yes, not having to sort out insurance or British telicom issues out recently....I had almost forgotten the "official-rule" speak of call centre micro managers,
so today a conversation with the sewerage department re enforced the kind of jobs worth attitude which is so typical of today's service industries.
The conversation went as follows

Me: I have been for a walk this morning and have seen an overflowing sewerage manhole cover outside your Trelawnyd water treatment plant and wanted to report it
Operator: What is your name?
Me: John Gray
Operator: what is your address and telephone number?
Me; well I will tell you but the leakage is not at my home address it is way down a country lane
Operator: can I have your address and telephone number and postcode
I complied
Operator: Is the leakage covering the pavement?
Me: No I have already explained the sewerage is overflowing on a country lane a long way from our house
Operator: Is it outside your property?
Me: No it is at least a quarter of a mile away from our house
Operator: How old is your property?
Me: (getting slightly exasperated) what has that got to do with anything? the overflow is not near my property and between it and ourselves are three other houses
Operator: can you repeat your postcode again?
Me:yes ( and did so)
Operator: I am trying to locate you
Me; The leak is not at my location, it is at YOUR water treatment works down the lane approximately a quarter of a mile away from this postcode, why do you keep asking for my details?
Operator: I am reading a script sir

I gave up!

This afternoon, Chris has rested his ear infection on the couch after I bullied him in getting some antibiotics from the GP drop in centre.
I have spent a long hot afternoon watering the seedlings (no rain in several weeks now) and have finished painting the 17 hen houses, and nesting boxes

Neighbour John laughed when he saw the uniform knot of little houses.....he agreed that it didn't quite look like the Ukrainian village that it used to

Postscript to this mornings post

This afternoon I have planted out sprouts, spinach, lettuce under cover , and more beetroot. I took a break to call over to my friends the Camerons to give Sandra the news of the next Flower Show meeting.

The Camerons have just had their first pigs butchered and although they found it a little difficult both celebrated the way that they had raised their pigs and looked after them over the past few months.

We talked about the importance of caring for your animals holistically ( which includes culling and butchering them where it was appropriate), and I found it all rather prophetic when I arrived home to find Rogo gasping in his coop.

I have never actually killed one of my chickens personally until today. Bob from the village has showed me how to do it humanely and with dignity, and although I watched him dispatch last year's cockerels and actively got stuck in with the butchering of the carcasses, I had never actually performed "the act" as it were.

This afternoon I had to. It was obvious and was the best thing to do. And in a couple of seconds it was all over. I had raised this lovely bird and I had the opportunity to see it humanely killed.

and you know what.....it felt perfectly fine

Up with the lark- Flower Show plans, painting and poor Rogo

It is amazing what a good sleep can do for a constitution! I went to bed at 9.30 pm and got up at 8am feeling rather washed out, but miles better than I did.

This morning I kicked myself up the arse and got on with jobs that needed doing.

All of the Flower Show committee members (me included) forgot to attend the last meeting so this morning I went around to auntie Gladys' (above at last year's show) to rearrange the next meeting for the 5th of May.

This year we have been donated 2 extra trophies so we have 14 cups to present as well as two new "Judge's Special" rosette prizes for best flower entry in show and best vegetable entry in show.

I have also been proactive in collating suggestions to where some of the Flower Show proceeds can be donated to this year. The Flower show historically has always supported village needs so at the next meeting we can discuss the proposed "good causes" and hopefully sort out donations accordingly.

Our Village Show has a wonderfully dynamic committee team. Sylvia our Show Secretary and Irene , the previous Show Treasurer have been instrumental in keeping the show going for many, many years and have done so without the recognition that is sometimes required . They, like the many "unsung heros" of such volunteer events past and present, sometimes never really get thanked for all their hard work....our village show would never have survived without their efforts as well as the contributions made by previous committee members that still live in the village but have now retired.

Anyhow enough of this back slapping

This morning I have started to paint all of the 13 hen houses a "traditional" green colour, which will satisfy my OCD tendencies and make the field look a little neater.
With the new chicken wire fences in place, escapees into the old churchyard have been minimal today!!! but after discussion with a few locals I have now decided to erect a larger chicken wire fence to screen the entire Church wall. It will take the summer to complete (money permitting) but then finally the "problem" of the odd wander lusting old hen walking on the Church grass will be finished

Rogo is still with us but remains dreadfully poorly. I gave him his last antibiotic this morning and syringed sugared water into him. Which he took without protest.

I took this photo of him as he sat on my knee (forgive the bad angle) and gave him a little cat food which he also took, afterwards.

I doubt he will survive overnight , and some of me feels as though I should have culled him today, but I will have him another day.

He has been a good protective Cockerel over the last few years. Always quick to stop any chicken fighting and always first to face any potential predators.......The cockerels' innate ability to protect their own, never ceases to impress and move me

puke

Not feeling too sparkling tonight....
as my Grandmother would say I am feeling rather bilious!
Chris has a sore throat and an ear infection....so it is all making for a wonderfully sick role orientated evening. My final words of yesterday blog is very prophetic
Not every blog can be a little gem!

No Way!

Gay men from all over the world are yelling "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!" in response to the news that Kate Winslett is going to star in a remake of Joan Crawford's "waitress to lady" pot boiler Mildred Pierce
What next? Nicole Kidman as Margo Channing in All about Eve? or perhaps Rosie O'Donnell as a butch Scarlett O'Hara?

Oh The Horror!
I feel sick

Preventing the Great Escape

Yesterday when I was out, apparently the female turkeys slipped through the badger hole in the fence and went walk about far up the lane. Gentleman farmer Ralph and bird hating neighbour Mandy managed a Sterling job in rounding them up and without my knowledge returned the escapees to the field.

The ducks also have been taking advantage of the rabbit holes in the poultry fencing adjacent to the new Churchyard and have been organising raiding parties onto the fresh green grass therein, sieving it for snails and slugs on a regular basis.

So today, acting like Kommandant von Luger from The Great Escape, I have implemented a six prong attack on the escapee poultry.

Number One: I have nailed chicken wire to the entire length of border fencing between my field and the Churchyard.

Number Two: The turkeys now have an escape proof enclosure at the very bottom of the field (unless they learn to use a spade and tunnel their way out!)

Number Three: The nesting boxes have been removed from the Church wall and now have been situated in the centre of the field

Number Four: After some detailed "field" observations, it has been noted that four hens (including the fat Buff, Kate Winslett have been using a piece of concrete next to my shed as a platform by which they can negotiate the newly reconstructed Church wall. This I have now removed

Number Five: Laboriously I have started to clip the main culprits wings, to limit their flight abilities...However I am fairly loath to do this with all of the hens. Limiting free range hens' flight abilities , I think is rather stupid, especially after the fox attack recently.

Number Six: I have started to fence in the top of the Church wall where the hens have been used to going. I will heighten the wall also when I have a little more time.

When I was working away at the fence one of the recently widowed ladies came over from her husband's graveside to see what I was doing. I explained that I was ensuring escapee hens and ducks don't bother anyone and she suddenly sounded quite aghast.

Her husband had been a farmer, she explained, the gentle movement of the hens as they picked at the grass, she had found wonderfully supportive and restful.

I will evaluate my escape measures tomorrow....

Perhaps I need a watchtower and a machine gun?

ps. Rogo is still hanging on....I have set him up on some straw in the spare henhouse

Theresa, Rogo, a friend of Dorothy and Micmacs

I have a new mouth to feed, albeit for a fairly short time! Chris, a fellow small (small) holder from the other side of the village brought around a rotund, benign and rather dopey bow legged female white turkey called Theresa to be mated with Boris (who has just got the hang of this sex thing); she sat quite contentedly inside his car boot during the short journey, and confidently laid an egg inside the turkey house within minutes of her arrival.
I have left her in a Ménage à trois alongside Gloria and hopefully love will blossom !

On a downside, Rogo remains very poorly despite his antibiotic treatment. He has spent another day sat in the sun by the Church wall and has hardly moved all day. He has eaten some bread and a few handfuls of cat food, and I have made sure he has taken some water. The other cockerels have ignored his presence, which is worrying. Obviously he is no longer any threat to them. In the above photo he has been joined by the lace Buff, Lillian, she has sat with him for most of the afternoon

The juvenile turkeys, who have spent long hours escaping from their enclosure have now been housed in the pig house. I have repaired their fencing and have made them a new enclosure well out of the way of mourners, and the graveyard. Not happy at the move and their confinement
all four have squawked and called throughout the afternoon. Tough titty I thought!

This morning I sold some some eggs and took the opportunity to go to a morning pensioner showing of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Micmacs.

Going to the cinema at 11am!! That is a treat and a half!

I paid my 4£ (OAP discount!) and went to the cafe to have a cup of coffee before the showing. The sweet waitress at the cafe told me that because I was going to a "senior citizen" showing I was entitled to a free cup of coffee and a chocolate biscuit!- which I thought was great fun!

An elderly lady on the next table asked if I was going to the film showing and introduced herself as Dorothy! Apparently we were the only members of the audience!

We went into the cinema together......I didn't think that she enjoyed the movie very much, but as she said...she only really came for the lovely coffee!

Now I love Jeunet's movies.

Amelie and A Very Long Engagement are two of my favourite movies of all time, so.... I had high hopes for his latest offering-and generally, I really liked this sweet, off-the-wall tale of whimsy, even though it wasn't quite in the league of the Audrey Tatou star vehicles.

Micmacs is filled to the gunnells with Jeunet's usual visual jokes and his comic strip touches and I absolutely love the way that he holds huge amounts of affection for his main characters , a fact he celebrates, by giving them tiny and wonderfully human eccentricities which warm the cockles of your heart. As in Amelie, where Audrey Tatou gained vicarious pleasure when she placed her hand in a bucket of beans, Jeunet captures the small pleasure of his leading man (Dany Boon) when he squeezes the contents out of a cheese triangle; he spends time and patience in isolating these tiny moments, and they serve him well, as the audience warms, as he has done , to his leading characters.

As in Amelie we follow the misfortunes of an eccentric who has lost parents and happiness. Bazil (Boon) is orphaned after his father is killed my a land mine in the Middle East. Years later,after he is nearly killed by a gunman's bullet, he is left destitute, potentially fatally injured and forlorn but is "adopted by a group of misfits who live a recycling life of sorts in a local junk yard.

Together with his friends, he finds that two city arm dealers are responsible for manufacturing the weapons that killed his father and injured himself, and the motley group devise a complicated plan to exact his revenge.....

So the scene is set for madcap slapstick chases,some complicated twists and turns and for gadgets galore...and although the leading man doesn't have the draw that the beautiful Audrey Tatou may possess, Dany Boon makes for a rather charismatic and likable hero.

With his distinctive facial tics and sad expressions, Boon is an up-to-date Charlie Chaplin. Comfortable in both physical and verbal humour, he commands the audience' attention despite some scene stealing turns by regulars Dominique Pinon and Julie Ferrier, and exactly as Jeunet
planned, the audience, , falls head over heels for his easy charm, and sweet nature.

Mimacs, is a likable, complicated and enjoyable comic romp which zips along like a bullet. Not quite as charming as Amelie, which it echoes constantly, nor as emotionally satisfying as A Very Long Engagement , it is however a joyful and zany journey into the mind of a filmaking genius

8/10

Underplaying

Chris underplayed his night out in Liverpool when I asked him and concentrated on my sisters' level of enjoyment rather than his own.....
Ann sent me this photograph today.....hummm......quite the wallflower!

Tee hee

Mistaken Identity

Comments from Sharon and Louise on my last blog entry reminded me of a funny story I remember being told by my mother!

My mother was a big movie fan, yet she didn't go to the cinema a great deal when she was in her forties ( remember she had twins later in life!)

In 1969 she saw that there was a murder mystery on at the local scala and feeling as though she needed a rare night out she called my Auntie Greta and the two ladies paid their for their cinema seats and the obligatory box of chocs and sat down in a very quiet cinema to enjoy the cinematic whodunnit!

How shocked these two middle aged conservative ladies were....

They had gone to see THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE!!!

They nearly killed themselves galloping out of the cinema before anyone recognised them!

The 5am flat footed ex dancer

Chris had to get up at some sort of ungodly hour to catch the early train to London, so I am awake and wide eyed now at 5.15am! No matter how quiet he thinks he is when preparing for work, he still possess the heavy flat feet of the dancer that he used to be.
Flat feet on bare floorboards ......means no sleep at 5am!
I am not complaining though, usually I can fall back asleep at the drop of a hat, today for some reason I am now wide awake
So I have walked the dogs who were not really happy to be dragged down the lane in the dark, had a coffee and now am doing what any self possessed blogger would do at this time

Yesterday I caught up with more spring planting. More cauliflower, cabbage, and neat rows of leeks joined the mange tout, early salad fare, spinach and strawberry beds....I am worried I may have peaked too early as I hear severe frosts are on the way. I have some frost protection covers, which I shall unearth today in readiness, but the job of protecting the seedlings is an arduous one to say the least

Rogo looked a little droopy yesterday too. He sat quietly away from his flock looking rather sorry for himself, so I caught him (he must be ill if he allowed me to catch him!) and gave him the once over. Apart from feeling light (a worrying fact in itself) he looked ok...no parasites, no injuries, no sour crop!.
I gave him some wormer, and a broad acting antibiotic and offered him some extra titbits by hand which he took gently from me (not like him!) so I will have to see how he goes. He is three years old and he and Bunny (the hybrid runt with the deformed hip are the only survivors now of the little group of baby hens that were attacked by the riding stable Alsatian a few years ago now. Only 4 out of 8 escaped... I hope he pulls through

Cinema in the blood

Micmacs (à tire-larigot) is Jean -Pierre Jeunet's latest movie and finally it is showing this week at the Scala down in Prestatyn. I missed the evening showing yesterday, so I may have to go to see it at the Pensioner's special on Tuesday morning.

I was thinking about my love of cinema this afternoon and where it all came from.

Visiting the cinema in the 1970s could have been viewed by some as a rather dismal activity. The decade was not known as an uplifting period in movie history as some of the bleakest films found their way to the screen (Straw Dogs, Clockwork Orange,Dog Day Afternoon, Taxi Driver and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's nest) yet as a baby faced adolescent I was spared the trauma of trying to get into see an "X" certificate movie.....favouring the more teen friendly "A" and "AA" movies..............so of course we had the plethora of disaster films of the mid 70's to enjoy, as well as the likes of Jaws, Bugsy Malone,The Omen,The Spy That Loved Me, Close Encounters and Alien)

The cinemas were large cold, uncomfortable orange and beige places that smelled of cigarettes and damp, but I loved making the effort to go to Rhyl on the bus to sit though a matinee by myself, the trouble to go the four miles, really made the ritual worthwhile.

There were always two features on offer,and always an ice cream lady with proper ice cream and wafers all set out in a box strung around her neck. (I never had the money to get an ice cream!)

Matinees were almost deserted every time I went, so even to this day, there is something quite reassuring and familiar when I am surrounded by empty seats and all alone in the dark, the lighter side of seventies movie life (remember the 1970's was a bleak economic, news worthy and political time), could wash over me.

This love of film fantasy has continued to be an important part of my life today. Love of the technicolour epic continues ( and always will do), but thankfully my cinematic interests and experiences are now wide and varied!

The ritual of choosing the film, the paying for the ticket and the sitting down in a chosen ( and quiet) seat remains a joy and on Tuesday if I do go to the pensioner's showing of Micmacs, my experience of the Jeunet movie will be as fresh and as enjoyable as my 1974 trip to see The Poseidon Adventure!