Turkey Lurve

I have spent 6 hours clearing weeds and strimming the whole of the untidy bits of the field, which has been an exhausting but satisfying job. If I can keep on top of the now rapidly growing grass, then I won't have to work too hard when it comes to the last minute preparations before the allotment open.
At 2pm, knackered and hot I had a break to eat my lunch with Boris (above) and shared my bagel with him. I could have quite happily fallen asleep with my head resting on his back!

The goslings have hatched ! So far, out of the six eggs two ungainly clumsy babies have flopped untidily out of their shells. I will bob the other remaining eggs tomorrow to see if I will have any latecomers, but as I cannot hear any further piping, I suspect the other eggs are duds.
The goslings are huge and incredibly sweet. I hope they do ok.

I took a few minutes off this afternoon, to deliver some posters to the lady that oversees the village notice board. The Trelawnyd conservation group seem to have been busy as the empty flower beds have all been planted up outside of the pensioner bungalows.
They have done a good job of it all

Open allotment day, pig and gosling news

Some of the friends and helpers at my First Allotment open 2008

Open Allotment day
At the Trelawnyd Church Glebe at
Bwythyn-y-Llan, Cwm Road
1pm onwards on August 1st
Admission £1.50

(proceeds to Trelawnyd Church funds)
(tea and homemade cake included)
Vegetable produce
hens,turkeys,ducks,
Stalls, allotment tours

The above is the rough template for my poster for this year's open allotment day. We have held an open day for the past two years and each time it has been well supported by villagers and friends and family alike. The money raised goes to the Church, but more importantly the whole day fosters good relationships and it, I am reliably informed, an old fashioned and enjoyable afternoon out.

This year I am already conscripting family and friends as volunteers for the day. Chris and my sister will be manning the most popular cake and tea stall (admission gets each person a cuppa and a home made cake). My aunt Judy and her sister Bridget have been "bullied" into helping them whilst my elder sister ( and hopefully my sister in law and Brother) will be manning the gate and produce stall.

Friend Geoff hopefully will be all practical and helping me set up the tents, tables chairs and bunting and already I have had kind offers of cake and scone making from some of the ladies of the village.This week I will ask for a few more cake making volunteers and already neighbours Arfon and Della have kindly potted up plants to be sold on the produce stall. People are very kind

When I called down to my aunt's to ask her to help she had some good news for me. Recently she had visited her sister Bridget who lives near Peterbrough and Bridget took her for a day out at Hammerton Animal park , where they visited my old pigs Gladys and Nora! I was made up to hear that the two girls are doing very well indeed....it's a very small world sometimes isnt it?

I am feeling rather spaced today...no sleep after night shift....off now for another cup of coffee, and another surreptitious peek into the incubator. The goslings are starting their pipping, and a few days early the eggs are starting to crack!

Jet lag and thin sausages

Chris tried not to succumb to jet lag but gave up the ghost yesterday evening and has slept heavily throughout the night. I gave him a lie in, walked the dogs then made him breakfast in bed.
When he has travelled, Chris has a tendency to obsess slightly about food he has enjoyed in the country has just left. Apparently he loved breakfast sausages, eggs and fried potatoes in Canada ( Canadian readers please let me know if this is a "national" dish)..so left instructions for us to recreate this feast today.
I could be arsed sorting out potatoes, and Chris was too tired to worry about it, he shovelled down his breakfast and with a happy George curled up next to him has returned to a jet lagged sleep.
It's nice to be back to normal

Yesterday I constructed two magpie-proof chick enclosures. Kate Winslett and Chick Constance is installed in one and Lilly and her three chicks now have the other (above). I always marvel at the robust nature of these little scraps of fluff . I always think that they look like dandelion seed balls balanced on the top of a couple of pipe cleaners and their ability to leap on top of their mothers never fails to impress me.

The goose eggs are due for hatching in 3 or 4 days time, and the shed is all ready for them if I am lucky enough to have some goslings. I have no experience of hatching out geese but I suspect that they will be as tough as ducklings are when very young. Only baby turkeys are delicate and often sickly after hatching.

I am working nights tonight,so both of us will be mooching around doing nothing special- it sounds like a normal Sunday to me.

DSTV Fireman - funny commercial

thanks to Gill for this one.......

In fear of Children

I have been informed that I am pretty good when dealing with children. I cannot quite see this myself as it seems my contact with kids of any age is extremely limited, but I will concede that when I do talk with a child I do so without patronising or condescension.
It is clear to me, that in this modern age, there is a generalised and insidious fear of children. Now of course what I actually mean is that there is a unspoken fear of other peoples' children in today's world of stranger danger and risk assessments.The new unwritten law is that Children, especially ones that you do not know have to be ignored in fear that anyone would think that ulterior motives are afoot!
It is a sad state of affairs.
I was only thinking about this a day or so ago. I was walking the dogs in the village as the school children were leaving the village school. One little boy of around 8 was walking back home alone ( gawd how many times does this happen any more?) Now I know him to say hello to as he and his parents have visited the allotment for eggs and I always have found him a bright little boy with an eager and enquiring mind. He called out a polite hello then asked where Maddie was. I stopped to tell him our sad news, but all the time I was chatting I felt uncomfortable that how this perfectly normal conversation may be viewed by say other parents or passing drivers. Would they see my behaviour as "inappropriate" especially as I was not a family friend or indeed a relative?.
This overwhelming "worry" of being seen in the wrong light does a disservice to children. It isolates them from normal interaction with adults and creates an imbalance as those adults that they don't know, literally do fear them.
In today's world Children are only brought up by parents. In my day adults generally were trusted to do the right thing by children. You had non biological aunts and uncles that you minded and trusted and the treat of stranger danger, although present, was never overwhelming and restrictive.
My elder sister was on holiday once, I think it was in Portugal, and she and numerous other people on the beach noticed a woman who was a little "lax" at caring for her small toddler. At times this child seemed cold and distressed, and despite the general consensus that this was not acceptable, the population of the beach seemed to be paralysed into any action. Again this unwritten rule that children must not be approached, frightened people into indecision.
In the end, my sister, who is a forceful character scooped the child up,warmed and consoled her and gave the mother a bit of a "talking to", but this directness and community action is sadly lacking in all areas of our lives.

Perhaps the pendulum will swing back to a more relaxed age. But I cannot see that happening.
I would like to think that the generic "we" will mean a more community "we" rather than this modern day nuclear family "we" that pervades everything nowadays

Smile

The images on the internet never fail to amuse me ( I found these in a two minute troll!......however the above family photo does worry me just a little...but hey ho

I am tired of bad news, dead animals and predators........ and am in need of a good belly laugh.

Not quite the desired humour level here...I need a good belly laugh me thinks

Pet hates

Well it starts today.
Media hype; an excuse to drink to excess in cheap Wetherspoon pubs, the usual disappointment when England gets kicked out of the quarter finals and white van men from all over the country indulging in some pointless male bonding.......
Yeap the bloody world cup kicks off yet again.
Already those naff plastic Flags of St George can be heard rattling noisily on top of a huge selection of tatty vans and cars and although here in Wales, I think the numbers are thankfully lower than they would be in say Sheffield. my opinion of them and the competition itself remains pretty low.
The blue collar culture of football fanaticism is something that has always baffled me. I cannot think of anything worse than being trapped in a testosterone filled pub or front room with a hoard of loud drunks and a plasma screen tv.
I just don't do tribal
I cannot see the appeal.
My best friend Mike is a big footie fan, and the environment I have just described, he adores with a passion. I did go to a football match with him once over at Leppings Lane in Hillsborough, and found the die hard fans and crowds just a little intimidating....Having said this we did used to go the Ice hockey and basket ball matches in the early late 1990s and I yelled my support with the best of them.
What is it about football that turns me into Margot Ledbetter I wonder?
Who knows?....it is a question that I dont fancy thinking about at 7.15 am after an early morning dog walk.......in a couple of weeks time the whole World cup will be over ( probably earlier for the English team if past exploits have any indication) and those bloody awful cheapo flags will be consigned to land fill

The morning news is that Kitty one of the American turkeys has met her end hidden away in a far flung nest within the hawthorn bushes.
Last night she went missing, and I suspected that she had taken herself off to a new nest in the hedgerows. Despite a long search there was no sign of her, so I was not surprised when Albert pointed out a large pile of brown feathers at the bottom of the field

we followed the feathers out through the badger run (the badgers have a clearly defined trail leading through the hedge and across the lane into the fields beyond) and what ever had taken Kitty had carried the heavy bird up and out of my field and away. Whether it was a fox or a badger who knows, but it is unfortunate that the stupid bird hid herself away.

She was not the only victim in the night. Something has dug out the baby rabbits from their shallow burrow from beneath the parsnips......

A surprise trip to the vets and mother love

It's been a funny old day.
I was due to attend a study day at work that covered health and safety issues as well as a resuscitation update, but found out when I arrived at work ( all clean and tidy I have you all know) that half the day had been cancelled.
The dogs had gone to our neighbours for the day, and as I was all smart and human looking, I decided to take a drive and complete all those outstanding jobs that I had let slide.
I went up to the feed wholesalers to buy chick crumbs.The owner, Helen, seemed to be that surprised to see me so smart that she asked me if I was going to church or as she wryly added "court!"
I then delivered some posters advertising the village Flower Show as well as handing out others publicizing the allotment open on August the first and my next proposed "Chicken keeping for beginners course"
After that, I called at the stone masons to have Maddie's gravestone engraved, then on impulse I called into a local vet surgery to see what they had to offer the dogs and Albert.
The surgery I had picked is small and run by only one vet. The practice looked clean and tidy and the practice nurse, who looked remarkably like Nicole Kidman from Dead Calm , was all pert and friendly. Rather proudly, she informed me that she was a trained dog psychologist and we chatted at length about the recent spat between William and George, Of course I felt comfortable registering the dogs and Albert with her.....after all you don't meet a movie star every day.

When I left, I literally bumped into a woman coming through the gate and would you believe it. she was carrying an elderly black Scottie that was the spit of Maddie. The suddenness of the situation took me completely unawares and as I stopped to say "hello" my eyes promptly filled with tears. The woman was very kind, clearly she could see I was upset but kept the conversation light as she described her pet's eyesight problems and personality. Her bitch was called Lassie (of all things) and she was 11 and as I reached out to touch her head, the dog ducked away exactly the same as Maddie would have done. The experience wrenched my guts out
I cried all the way back to the hospital when I left them.
I guess it had to come. Anyhow things are fine now. I completed my resuscitation study day (enrolling the course leader on my chicken course too) then came home to check on Lilly and Kate Winslet's new chicks.
Compared with the hybrid mothers I have had, the two buffs are incredibly more protective over their babies. So much so, that I only just managed to snap a couple of "distant" shots of them all before the growling got all a bit much.

Chris is still in Canada and is due back on Saturday..it's been a long week without him around

After the jobs are done and the animals are settled for the night I aim to sit down and watch the dvd HAPPY ENDINGS.

Lawrence of my labia

Humm where shall I begin?
Ok lets concentrate on the good bits:

1. Liza Minnelli's legs..which are fabulous and can still dance with the best of them (don't dare look at her mummified face though)
2. A funny and oh so non PC clip of a pair of bouncing boobies
3 A 3 minute , pithy and rather amusing interaction about motherhood between Miranda and a rapidly inebriated Charlotte.

...and that....I am afraid is it!

Sex and the City 2 centres it target neuroses away from the single girls' love and career lives and directly directs its designer attention to marriage, motherhood (avec nannies of course) and ageing.....it also unwisely centres most of the action away from New York, takes an ugly side swipe at the traditional Muslim lifestyle and embarrassingly ends up with the girls escaping the clutches of some irate Arabic men by wearing the hijab.

The movie is a bit of a mess .

Now this is a shame, for hidden away amid the dross, the sparkling fairytale that was the tv Sex and The City could just be seen lurking underneath the surface of this movie. SATC2 lacks its old charm! it also lacks Carrie's trademark squealing ( we only hear it once!), the razor sharp breakfast table banter and Miranda's hidden warmth.....and strangely enough it is left to Charlotte (Kristin Davis) to nab the best acting honours, when she has a breakdown when trying to hard to be the ideal Stepford wife.

.....at least all the girls looked their ages.....................SATC3?.......please set it back in New York, give it more pathos and pace,include steve,Magna and a pair of manola Blahniks and perhaps ( and only perhaps) I will give it one last chance
6/10
ps. this blog's title refers to Samantha's "best " line........... sigh

Pre dawn shenanigans

It was just going light when we all were woken by something screaming its head off in the kitchen. The dogs as though electrocuted, tumbled down the stairs barking and growling and by the time I got there all three had trapped a rather irate Albert on top of the cooker. He had a small baby rabbit in his mouth and the poor thing was screaming like a little girl.
When I yelled at him (above the din of howling and barking) he dropped the rabbit, who promptly leaped off the cooker onto the floor.
The dogs went wild!
I booted George away first (he is the best ratter), slapped Meg out of the way and lunged for the baby as it tried to dive under the fridge. by some miracle I caught it!,(the dogs were beside themselves at this stage) and still in a rather unflattering pair of boxer shorts I took the little thing outside and placed it inside a wicker picnic hamper in the shed (with Lilly and her THREE chicks)
I know nothing about baby rabbits so checked the trusty old google to see what to do, below was something useful


"The baby rabbits leave the nest at approximately 3-4 weeks of age. If the rabbit is as big as a tennis ball (or fully fills your hand), then it is able to survive in the wild. If it fits within your hand or is obviously tiny and small or injured, then it needs to be re-nested or given to a wildlife rehabilitator as soon as possible. At 3-4 weeks of age, their instincts to survive in the wild are fully intact. They know how to camouflage themselves, what natural foods to eat, and what a predator is and how to behave around it. They automatically know to run away from a predator in a “broken path” pattern to make it difficult for a predator to catch them"

Armed with this knowledge I picked up the baby, ( still in boxers and t shirt) and walked over to the field where I let it go in my parsnip bed (there is a baby rabbit hole next to it) off he/she went down his burrow and the hysteria of the night was over
Our poor neighbours

I'm Spartacus

It's all a bit silly but Andy Whitfield is so better looking than Kirk Douglas

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1442449/

Trelawnyd Male Voice Choir - The Rose (mpeg test 3+)

Tonight at around 9pm, I took the dogs for a walk to the Memorial Hall in the centre of the village, The Trelawnyd Male Voice Choir have their Choir practice every Tuesday evening, and it's wonderfully relaxing just standing outside the hall,listening to them singing their hearts out.

I so want to audition for the choir, but am crippled with the anxiety of not being good enough....another legacy from a pair of disinterested parents me thinks......

regrouping & more babies

I still have felt rather blue today.
Everyone has that special "something" that they can do to re centre themselves. A special treat that restores their Zen and balances the old yin and yang (!) , may be a relaxing bath, a quadruple whiskey....pneumatic sex...a long sleep......trashy food.......whatever it is, it is necessary to make sure you indulge in before you feel as though you are going slightly bonkers.
For me, it is always trip to the cinema, and because I was feeling ever so slightly maudlin today AND it was raining, I thought a trip to a movie would be appropriate.
So what was on at the scala? The Prince of soddin Persia, Sex and the cruddy city 2 and the bag of laughs Bad Lieutenant.....ie bog all good.....so I had to resort to plan B and went to Llandudno (above) for a mooch around the book shops and a proper coffee.

If I cannot get into a movie, a proper coffee, and the smell of a bookshop is usually just enough to make me feel "normal" The coffee shop in Waterstones bookshop in Llandudno is of course one of those plastic chain cafes, but the coffee is passable, the service by the verbally challenged teenage staff is just this side of ok and the books always are on hand.

I treated myself to two cups of coffee and read a few chapters of Nevil Shute's Pied Piper (Thank you to my father-in-law for the birthday book token)....hummm I know I looked all Bohemian and pretentious, sat there with my coffee and a book....but for a hour or so I could pretend I was Carrie Bradshaw and was content with my short "urban" break.

Nevil Shute, is a very readable author. His stories are simply told and organised and although they seem rather old fashioned now, they are a cracking good read. Pied Piper is a kind of adventure story in the Inn of the Sixth Happiness vein. It concerns an elderly English gentleman who is caught in France at the start of the war. Before the fall of the country he continually finds himself entrusted with a succession of children and the novel chronicles their attempt to escape to Britain.

I got home at 4pm more like my normal self and was just in time to catch a visitor to the Churchyard who pointed out some frenetic Magpie activity around the broody boxes. Lilly the buff was still firmly sat on her eggs, but was growling fiercely at the two magpies that were stood right outside her hutch door, obviously wanting to shift her from her nest. I took a quick look and there underneath her were two small black chicks. I have now moved the entire box into the shed, where mother and chicks will be safe. Kate Winslett and her single white chick, Constance seem to be doing well, safely in their closed coop.

Priscilla Ahn "Dream" (Lyrics)

I have been playing this a great deal over the past few days..........

Returning Mojo

I am now bored of moaning. After an early night,(a VERY LARGE wine) and a good night's sleep, physically and mentally I feel a whole lot better.......The busboy Paul Giamatti summed it all up when he said to a depressed Julia Roberts in My Best Friend's Wedding "this too shall pass"
and of course yesterday's shitty experiences have now passed into memory.....(er well almost!)
Jane, the slate turkey returned to the field briefly this morning to feed and drink. I was not swift enough to track her back to her secret nesting area, but at least she's still around.

Kate Winslett's single chick is doing ok. I bobbed her remaining unhatched eggs and all 5 were duds...so it's just Kate and her baby.

I don't usually name chicks but this single ball of fluff I have nicknamed Constance. I have done this because the name has been stuck in my mind for a few days now. I understand quite clearly why it has lodged there, Chris stated at some time he wanted another bitch to replace Maddie, and I have agreed but not until next year. I have already experienced just how a change in the dog's pecking order can cause mayhem, and I feel it is vital that we don't rush into anything that could upset the apple cart yet again....

Anyhow it has become a tradition that I name our pets. I hate fluffy bunny type names for dogs ,preferring ordinary down-to-earth ones, and dogs in particular need easily recognisable individual names that they can respond to. If we ever get another bitch then I would like to call her Constance or "conn-ie!!"
Today I remembered just why I like the name Constance. It stems from my childhood movie watching days, and in particular comes from the film The Three Musketeers (1948). June Allyson ( yes she of the deep gravelly lisping voice) played the virtuous Constance Bonacieux who was so unfairly killed by the bitch-face-from-hell ,Lady de Winter (Lana Turner). At around 8 years old or so, I remember thinking just how awful it was that Constance could die, and willed that Gene Kelly got to her in time before Milady stabbed her. It was a seminal moment in a movie going childs life, and in retrospect probably taught me a great deal about the unfairness of death.(as well as teaching me to deal with a bit of a hero crush on Van Heflin who played Athos)

Hummm...on further reflection I probably wanted to BE Constance just a little....she was so sweet and likable but was bound to be a bit of a victim in that Judy Garland type mode.........hey I was sooo gay....even then....and even at eight!

ps

....just checked on the stock before their bedtime..Jane, the slate turkey has dissapeared.....bollocks!

A shitty kind of day

I don't have many crap days, but as you can imagine as it has been a pretty shitty fu*king week, today just had to be one of the shittiest!
It has been an amalgamation of factors that has led to all this...all of them pretty insignificant in themselves..but when you add them all together! It's a big soddin hey ho!

1. Blanche squashing all of her chicks flat on her nest
2. After my sister and I weeded the largest of the vegetable beds: a raiding party of Indian runner ducks have stripped the hearts out of everyone of my little gem lettuces
3. After collecting the eggs, I left the bowl full of them on the field wall. When I remembered what I had done, someone had removed all of the hens eggs (the duck eggs were thoughtfully left!)
4. Two of the bourbon red turkeys went walkabout from their enclosure and had to be chased back up the lane, halting a somewhat irritated farm worker in a large tractor
5. Albert has beheaded another sparrow, thoughtfully in the centre of newly laundered duvet cover
and number 6:

The dogs had a mega fight in the living room! I suppose my guess that the canine pecking order had not been affected by Maddie's death was wrong, as out of the blue William suddenly and without any warning attacked George. I must have overlooked the possible reason for it, but when I got to them, both dogs were locked tightly together growling loudly. Meg hearing the ruckus galloped down the stairs and joined in the attack on poor George, and despite being soundly slapped with an enamel jug ( the only thing that came to hand) I couldn't separate them.

After an age, and several blood splatters on the carpet. I ran into the kitchen, emptied the washing up bowl of dishes and hit all three dogs with over a gallon of cold soapy water, which distracted them all for a split second , which was long enough for me to reach down and drag George to safety.

Apart from a few puncture wounds, no one was seriously hurt, however the living room looked as though an elephant had run amok all over the place! George stalked outside for a sulk (above) and the Welsh settled down as if nothing had happened...perhaps they have been unsettled with Maddie dying....after all her presence always seemed to be the steadying influence within the pack. The fight has upset me greatly

To make it up to George I have just taken him for a drive to the village shop where I treated him to a pack of pre cooked turkey slices...... well it me feel a little better!

Yorkshire Accents

The other day , three of Chris' old colleagues called round for a visit. The three of them (all hailing from the South Yorkshire area) had gone to Llandudno for a couple of days rest and relaxation, so when they came, I did the usual allotment tour, presents of duck eggs and tea and cake.

The "girls" all possessed varying thicknesses of the South Yorkshire accent, and I found myself "enjoying" their speech patterns as those flat vowels bantered back and forth.

Accents fascinate me. Physically Britain is such a tiny area, but the number of different accents and dialects that you can pick out is absolutely phenomenal.
Anyhow I mention this only because one of the visiting girls made a point of commenting just how "welsh" I had become. She had met me a few times when I lived in Sheffield, and presumed that I was a "posh Yorkshireman"...now she couldn't get over the fact that I had reverted to my native drawl.
I couldn't bare it. Now if I had the true pure North Wales accent, I could cope with the observation, but I suspect that I now possess that mongrel Liverpudlian and Welsh hybrid accent that I hate. When I have time I will do another video talk over, and you and all figure it out for yourselves.(I am sure my friend Nigel will have something to say on this subject)

The video gives those "non Yorkshire" readers a brief snippet of the wonderful Sheffield accent....Russel Crowe note.....this is what you should have sounded like in the movie Robin Hood

I feel rather chesty today as my twice yearly bout of bronchitis has arrived but will soldier on, checked on Blanche early this morning and found all her newly hatched chicks dead and flat in the nest. Chickens can be thick as mince sometimes.

Georges Bizet: L'Arlésienne-Suite - Farandole

MY FAVOURITE PIECE OF MUSIC....lifts the spirits

Everyone's brooding

Like my birds, I have been somewhat broody today. I received the final bill for Maddie's care, which was efficient if not just a little unthinking of the surgery given that the old girl died only a few days ago.
I drove up, and paid the bill and gave in my letter of complaint which I addressed to the entire practice staff. I made a point of thanking one of the nurses that has been particularly professional with me, but underlined just why I was leaving their practice. It's all a bit sad.
The whole thing has left me broody and somewhat irritated.
The weather is scorching this afternoon, and it is too hot to get stuck into the weeding. I have given the broody hens an extra feed and water, but have left Nell, the old runner duck on her eggs inside the duck house

Blanche (left) is an old hand at incubating and two of her eggs are hatching as we speak. One other chick was dead in its half hatched egg and I removed it carefully. The first chick looks like one of the black hybrids.


Lilly( left) has not hatched out any chicks before although being the eldest buff I have. She is so broody, she has hardly eaten and drunk anything over nearly three weeks, despite being "encouraged" to do so.
Kate Winslett the youngest buff is a little heavy footed when sitting on her eggs and has accidentally smashed 4 of them so far.Each one had a tiny chick inside which is a shame. She has only 4 intact eggs left!
With Chris jetting in between Halifax and Quebec my usual Saturday routine of banter, bickering, and shopping has been curtailed. I have taken the opportunity of reorganising our files, bills and other paperwork "things", so the kitchen resembles the study of a particularly unorganised professor.
Once I get the whole sorry mess sorted, the happier I will be today.
Have a good weekend everyone