Bumming Chips

The lounge....the kitchen doesn't look much better! 

 The workmen have given themselves until late evening tomorrow to install our new heating system, which seems a huge job to me. Having three workmen in the cottage has been a trial today, so at the height of the bedlam Winnie and I took ourselves to the pub.
There was no one there for the first couple of hours , so we had a pub lunch, several pints of Diet Coke and the landlady all to ourselves.

Watching the diners

Later in the afternoon , two Lancashire couples came in for a meal and Winnie managed to wander over to their table to say hello.
By the time I had got up from my sofa by the fire, she had managed to beg two chips and what suspiciously looked like a croquet potato out of them.

Tell Me A Joke

Tell me a joke this morning...please tell me a joke....any joke! .....anything to lift the spirits of a man faced with a gaggle of workmen decending on a small cottage on one of the wettest weeks of the year to replace a filthy stove, line a sooty chimney and "  replumb "  pipework hidden away in dusty recesses and under aged floorboards and cupboards.
They only warned me they were coming last night!
The Prof has the car and is away, so thankfully friend Eirlys has agreed to house the dogs for the day. When the workmen arrive, I shall vacate the cottage and walk the terriers up to her farm which is located a mike and a half outside the village, in the pouring rain!
Winnie shall remain..........there is no way, I would be able to remove her from a cottage filled with overall clad men!
Her hormones wouldn't allow it.

So please......tell me a joke , any joke!!!!!!!......Rachel in reply to one of her enigmatic one line posts, had losts of fish jokes yesterday which amused me , so please give it your best shot.. Tell me a joke and when you do think of our tiny cottage being ripped apart by a gaggle of heating engineers, think of the muddy footprints, the sooty fingermarks, the noise , the mess, the stress of a bulldog's vulva being wagged " enticingly" against the bars of her crate, the endless cups of tea and the crisis of the enevitable disasterous problem which no doubt will arise in the middle of it all.
Oh the calamity!

I will start the ball rolling by my favourite Holly Walsh joke of the 2015 Edinburgh fringe
" I was very old when I lost my virginity!  I wasnt as much deflowered than dead headed"

Best In Show

I was out and about in the village at midday after sleeping a couple of hours after work. It was lunchbreak at the school and Trelawnyd was rife with the screaming voices of children at play.

The noise is like the sound of planes circling in their waiting pattern for Liverpool or Manchester or the hum of early morning traffic on the main road. 

You only hear it when you think about it.

I was reminded by two villagers that it was Meirion E 's funeral at the village chapel on Thursday. 

Meirion E and his nemesis Meirion H ruled our Flower Show during it's early years.

Both entered their home grown produce into the vegetable classes and both men were as quietly competitive as any two men could be without coming to blows over their monster marrows or longest runner beans. 

Their rivalry was legendary.

Every year, and as nonchalant as Margo Channing stalking through the cocktail party in All About Eve. Both men would arrive after judging, silently calculating each others' wins and assessing each others exhibits .

One year Meirion E would win the overall winner's cup the following year Merion H would win.

It was a standing joke in the village for many, many years. 

On Thursday I won't be the only representative from the Flower Show Committee to pay their respects at the funeral. 

Part of me wants to take along one of the Show's special rosettes

The ones that say " Best In Show" 

************************************************************************

This afternoon, I watched episode 5 of The Walking Dead . A true indulgence as I never watch tv during the day.

It was a quiet and rather hokey episode where the grieving Maggie (Lauren Cohen) and Sasha ( Sonequa Martin Green ) team up with the wily Jesus ( Tom Payne) to effectively overthrow Gregory  (Hilltop's leader ) in order to set up a new home out of Alexandria. 

I kind of enjoyed the play and dynamic between the the weak Gregory, and the new leader Maggie and her defacto lieutenants  . 

However it was all a bit neat to see adoptive daughter Enid turn up to complete the new "one big  happy dysfunctional family" 

Sasha and the big blue eyed Jesus! 

Dyspraxia

There is something you may not know about me
It's something I have had to deal with since I was a child.
I suffer from a fairly mild form of dyspraxia.
Dyspraxia, for those that don't know is a disorder of coordinating certain movements.
It used to be referred to as being " cack handed"

I fell out of my crocs this morning. Admittedly it was on a particularly muddy piece of ground during a particularly heavy rainstorm, but out of my crocs I came and down into the mud I went.
I was still in my pyjama bottoms at the time!
Invariably my dyspraxia is mostly confined to clumsy behaviours. I will drop things, fail to judge distances when moving items and will always catch my head on cupboard doors.
I constantly run into shelves when pushing supermarket trolleys, overbalance when trying to get my leg into a pair of underpants and decanting things like rice, peas, flour and  sugar is fraught with the knowledge that at some time rice, peas, flour and sugar will be flung over the floor or the counter tops like confetti!

My clumsiness constantly irritates me as in most cases, a fraction before it happens, I know just what is going to happen. It's almost as if I have a brain fart just before the peas are unleashed or I turn on muddy ground.

Today I was not only irritated but very embarrassed, as I had to totter back into the house with a huge brown arse stain on the back of my pants. 

The Secret Life Of Albert

I caught him watching the Ukrainian village very carefully this morning
He was following the rounds of Thor, the oversized but gentle cockerel who is leader of team poultry.
Albert's world is small for it covers two or perhaps three acres of land, but he seems content with his lot of three Gardens, one Churchyard, a bit of scrubland and one lane, areas he patrols at least eight times in one 24 hour period.
He is a good humoured but physically distant cat. He's  not a lap sitter, and has never to my knowledge demanded a cuddle, but he does adore Winnie and can be found often pulling at her fat face- folds of flesh with gentle sheathed paws as they lay nose to nose on the floor.
The bulldog accepts his friendliness with a quiet acquiescence, not typical of the canine race.

He sleeps often, and seldom makes a noise about the house.
He is a shadow...that would always be missed if absent 

Hinterland

This is my saturday post

The world is so bloody small nowadays
This is a brief video of the Welsh police tv  series " Hinterland " ( y Gwyll)
The production values equal anything I have seen in the UK and its strange that the actors have to produce two versions ...one entirely spoken in Welsh and another shot in English!
This obviously is the welsh version.....one sold to many countries in Scandinavia
How versatile are the actors eh? 

Stuff

It started off a rather melancholic morning. I was up early as I had already caught up on sleep over the last few days and was feeling a little better despite having a streaming nose from the cold which has now decided to " ooze"
I culled a hen before breakfast which isnt a nice job at the best of times, but she looked so sick that I felt obliged to do the deed there and then.
I laid her body next to the badger track through the field and later her body will be recycled by them as they scratch out a living in the cold autumn ground. In the meantime some of the other hens and the gentle cockerel Thor gave her sad little body the once over.

I was repairing a Mary ripped hole in a pair of pyjama bottoms when there was a knock at the front door. It was a friend from work wanting coffee. She told me she had tried to come through the back garden but a ugly looking dog had prevented her from opening the back gate.
I told her it was Winnie who had just spent an hour watching gardeners doing the garden at a neighbours house, " she's obsessed with workmen," I informed my friend " she has a thing for
overalls!"
" dont we all?" my friend replied , looking around our living room with interest.
I realised that she had never been to the cottage before.

I think it's a common thing to be apologetic when someone new " checks out" your house, after all you are more than aware of that blotch on the stair carpet left by a menstruating bulldog, or that mark on the hall corner which signified  an old Welsh terrier's scratching spot, but my friend seemed rather captivated by the " old lady" feel of the place, which the cupboards and shelves filled with objects, photos, books and clutter.
She wandered around the house as if it was a museum.

She loved the paintings, the carlton ware 1930s lobster bowl and the wooden dog toy above the bedroom door. She loved the crockery and the glassware and read titles from the books on the shelves and ran her hand over the wade jug on the chest of drawers.
She wanted to know about the history of the art noveau desk in the living room.
" its lovely" she said and it was nice for me to see the cottage through bright new eyes.

Be Careful What You Wish For

This post supersedes the previous in importance
Still feeling run down, have had to cancel a planned overtime shift tonight
So popped into Marks today and instead of a scotch egg
I bought myself an egg custard tart
( feed a cold starve a fever like they say)
As I walked through the ladies department on the way out,
I managed to get one out of it's wrapping ( a feat in itself as the box was still in the carrier bag)
And just as I left the store I took one blissfully cool bite out of the pastry
before  a fucking seagull swooped in and snatched the rest right out of my hand!

I almost wept

The Power Of Laughter

I have never watched a whole episode of I'm a celebrity, get me out of here!
That kind of screaming reality show leaves me all rather cold.
But last night, all wrapped up with a lem sip , a menstruating bulldog and a roaring fire, I turned on the TV to watch a couple of celebs face the "  hilarious " Bush Tucker Trial .
The trial consists of the celebs being faced with consuming various " disgusting " small meals. to the delight of the baying audience. If the celebs retch or God forbid vomit up their cow anus or kangaroo bollocks the screaming front men Ant & Dec curl themselves up with horrific delight.
It's a depressing spectacle for sure.
Last night the two celebs kind of turned the tables on the whole thing by realising just how ridiculous the contest was.
They literally laughed their way through it!
Carol Vorderman and the wonderfully named Scarlett Moffat exuded warmth and good humour in their scenes together and within minutes I was enjoying their interactions and natural mischievousness much more than the fact they were faced with eating some poor animals arsehole!

The programme underlines that we don't need all this " throwing Christians to the lions"  in order to entertain ourselves.
Watching two friends laughing loud and strong is much more attractive a spectacle in my eyes

Anthropoid and Bulldog knickers

With the Prof away I took myself away to Theatre Clwyd for a " senior citizen" showing of the wartime movie Anthropoid this afternoon.
Things didn't get off to a grand start as the woman in the box office only charged me senior rates rather than regular ( do I look 60?)
Then around an hour into the movie, I had the mother of all coughing fits and had to leave the cinema amid a chorus of tutting from the greyhairs.
I didn't mind too much as the film was rather too dull, to return, so I went to have a look at the gallery instead.

Returning home, it was clear by the state of the floor that Winnie is now back in season. She is presently wearing a pair of the Prof's underpants with the gusset reinforced with toilet paper

See comments about just why she has not been spayed 

Christmas Adverts!

I am thinking of going to my solicitor 

The new Waitrose Christmas tv advert is a direct rip off from this blog entry

http://disasterfilm.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/a-robin-in-cake-tin.html

But I kinda like this version of the John Lewis bouncy boxer Christmas ad

Clever

For Janice

Janice has just emailed me from Somewhere in Berkshire
Apparantly she enjoyed my recent baby photo and asked in a rather " strange" way to see another photo of me " from my salad days!"
So Janice.....enjoy

ILL

It's a lazy blog today.
I've got some sort of bug which hit home in the middle of the night and I feel like shit.
I'm sure it will pass by tomorrow but today, I feel as though I've been hit by a bus.
I'm coughing so hard that I'm farting like a machine gun!
When I am ill, I look like this......

But feel like this...

I vont to be left alone

How do you cope with illness?
What sort of patient are you?

The Walking Dead Episode 4

This is a slow burn of an episode.
With Negan ( Jeffrey Dean Morgan) wisecracking his way into Alexandria ( his jokes and easy manner already getting on everyone's tits including the audience's) we see "team Rick"reacting to the threat in a somewhat interesting and varied way.
As Carl, Michonne and Rosita bubble away with quiet fury. Father Gabriel cleverly covers Maggie's tracks by showing  Negan a fake grave  ( Negan has already proved himself a talented psychoanalyst by understanding the danger of women scorned)
Rick ( threatened by Daryl and Oliva's deaths) gives away all of Alexandria's weapons and faces the backlash for it even though it is obvious it will buy him and the others some time ....time for perhaps Kingdom and Hilltop to join forces.
I could do without Judith's step dad Andrew Lincoln's goggle eyed overacting but as a stand alone episode this one was an interesting study in psychological warfare, especially as it's the Walking Dead's women who are now stepping up to the plate.

When The Chips Are Down

Over the weekend I watched a normal family unit cope with a devastating series of events. Whilst some members "crumbled" under the weight of the situation, others remained stoic, each person dealing with the news in their own way.
You see this a lot on ICU

I have learnt that you can never ever second guess just how people will react in these situations, because often enough, non have ever been through something similar before.

The other morning I received an email from the wife of an old patient of mine.
I had been instrumental in helping the woman becoming  pregnant, ( something I am sure that you would never have believed ) but you have to remember that the patient involved had a severe traumatic paralysis and that I was the nurse working with the couple  in the fertility clinic at that time.
The patient, who I will call James, was only in his twenties at the time. He had dived into the sea on his first holiday in Spain and had struck his head on the sand at a shallow spot.
This had resulted in a fracture of his fifth vertebrae,and an immediate and devastating paralysis  from his chest down.
He never recovered.
I remembered James well. I remember him being nursed flat for twelve weeks with his neck in traction. I remembered his wife, a pragmatic Nolfolk countrywoman who could only visit on weekends and I remember him never complaining about his lot, even when faced with the overwhelming sadness of loosing every physical thing you ever held dear.
James just dealt with the brickbats.
His mantra was "let's get on with it!" 

The generic email from James' wife remained typically simple.

It said " we are sorry to report that following a short illness James died peacefully at home surrounded by his friends and family and  with his loyal dog Judy at his side.
He was a much loved son, brother, cousin, uncle, husband and father and was an inspiration to everyone who met him" 

I last saw James at that fertility clinic appointment twenty years ago. He remained resolutely upbeat about his life with disability, that is  until I was involved with the intimate and very private moment that fertility patients have to endure, only then did he break down and cried silent tears in the worried hope that all would be well.
I remember wiping away those tears for him, for he was not even able to do that for himself, and he cried long and hard for much of the consultation as the fooodgates opened after years and years of coping without complaint.

James' son was born healthy and happy the following spring. I believe he is now a student at The  University of Suffolk.

Good Fortune

I got home this morning exhausted and rather run down after a busy night at work only to be faced with a somewhat fraught Prof and a pile washing.
Some animal, yet unnamed had run amok on our new bed spread so I was banished to the spare bed room in order to catch with some sleep, which proved to a rather futile job as the washing machine lies directly beneath the bedroom in the west wing!
I got up, stupidly insulted the Prof's rather tasteless parsnip soup, then, while he was sulking, took the dogs out for a walk, dragging my feet as I did so.
On a more positive note, as we crossed a deserted village green,
Winnie stopped to sniff at something lying in the grass!

A lone 20£ !
The Prof told me I should donate the money to a charity of his choice
" fuck off ," I told him
" I'm spending it on beer and Crisps!" 

Robert Vaughn

Vaughn 2nd from left in 12 Angry Men

I'm in the bath.
I've left The Prof in bed, he's muttering about the new Vice President elect, who is a known homophobe..I've had enough of bad feeling and elections and feel a tiny bit more optamistic after watching a dignified and entertaining Henry Kissinger being interviewed last night about the Trump debacle
His " this too will pass" view poured some oil on some waters for me.

Two years ago I took my best friend Nu to see Twelve Angry Men . It had a short but successful stink in the West End, and featured that old suave sixties star Robert Vaughn in the fairly small role of Juror 9 ( The old man ) Vaughan was obviously enjoying himself and ar the curtain call, I noticed with some amusement just how he larked around with the younger and more serious actors. He was 81 then,
Hollywood didn't really know what to do with Vaughn which was a shame, but he was a successful actor for over 50 years appearing in The Magnificent Seven , The Towering Inferno, Bullet and of course The Man From Uncle as well as literally hundreds of tv shows.

He had a twinkle in his eye, which was very evident to me in Angry Men .
It's sad that he has gone.

A Blogging Phenomenon

Much has been written about how  anonymity breeds trolling behaviour on the Internet. Like road rage which flourishes inside the confines of certain people's personal car spaces, bloggers who take shelter behind pseudonyms and fictional characters may often challenge, and bitch and argue and debate with their fellows where, if they met them socially, they would keep their mouths politely and very firmly shut.
It's an interesting phenomenon to be sure.
I've noticed certain bloggers seem to delight in sucking the life blood from any blog entry by consistently arguing the opposite point of view. You can almost set your watch by them .
Is it a case of familiarity breeding contempt ? Genuine irritation? or a sense of entitlement
I am not quite sure
Perhaps someone out there can enlighten me.
Part of the problem , I think, comes from the written word itself.  Like texts and particularly emails , it is easy to misconstrue the meanings and emotions behind a comment, especially one tapped out quickly three thousand miles away.
The answer, like most answers lie within a mash up of all of the points above.

I'll leave you with a morning photo of me and Mary..........

Auntie Glad Catch Up

Another miserable and depressing day of rain started with a mega downpour at 7 am. I was already soaked after walking the dogs, so I guess it didn't really matter me getting drenched again when some frantic honking from the geese got me racing over to the field with a torch.
It wasn't a fox that was bothering them but a collie dog, which I caught peeping through the goose house window. He ran off towards the livery stables after I yelled a sharp "getaway ! " 
The rest of the morning was filled with shopping, buying some adhesive to stick down the loose bath surround, meeting a sad work colleague for coffee and calling in to the feed wholesalers to buy layers pellets.
On the way home I called into see Auntie Glad.
One of the care home staff told me that she was " quite confused today " but I found her as sprightly and bright as ever even though she later insisted that her husband Bob Railway was still alive and in the next room .
Gladys told me that she had been booked to make her famous scones that afternoon, then waved her arms angrily at some of the other resident ladies who were sat, sleeping off their lunches in the day room. " They are a miserable lot, always complaining about the food!" She snapped " They make my blood boil "
The one thing Gladys hates above anything is ingratitude .

She took me to her neat little room, where I read out the Parish Magazine to her and she recounted recent visits from Christine (Chapel House), the vicar and from various members of the male voice choir before letting the conversation fade to old times and vague but happy days from years ago.

As she walked me back to the day room a cheerful young woman in an apron called her over to a table on which was sat a massive mixing bowl full of flour and sultanas " I told you I'm making scones this afternoon " Gladys chirped brightly " we shall be having them for tea!"

Take Me Home

It's Just before bedtime and as I've been listening to YouTube videos 

George tottered over and climbed into my lap, 

And rested his old face next to mine, 

His behaviour kind of went with this song 

A panacea to all the hate and disappointment of the day