Earthquake

I almost didn't blog today.
A case of real life getting in the way of blogging
Apparently there was an 4.5 Earthquake in Wales today

A local wag reported on his Facebook page that there was over 40£ worth of damage

The animals were traumatised by the quake, they say animals pick up on the 

Vibes! 

Ps. I see that hippo-on-the- lawn is appantly back after almost a three year hiatus
It doesn't feel right to me.....
At all

George Day

The passenger Seat to himself 

" They are taciturn, aloof and not for everyone !" 
So warned our dog breeder when we went down to pick up our first Scottish terrier
I didn't know what taciturn meant so I smiled politely.
A gaggle of ten scotties bounced around our feet like fat black beetles.

I later found out that taciturn actually means reserved and reticent, which are perfect adjectives to describe a dog which has become synonymous with the Art Deco style, Highland whisky and George Bush Jr.
I must add here, that I would also describe Scotties as being fiercely loyal, quietly comic and at times dreadfully grumpy little dogs who keep themselves to themselves when all about them is swirling.

Today is George day. He has been to the groomers, got to sit in Mary's co pilot seat and has accompanied me in interviewing prospective volunteers where he sat quietly in the corner with curious black button eyes which followed everyone's conversation .
He has refused to accept pats on the head from three strangers but has wagged his tail hopefully when  someone unwrapped a fisherman's friend . He's bloody friendly when food is concerned.

He will follow me into the hairdressers when I get my hair cut this afternoon and will arrrrrooooo loudly when I tell him we are going. Scotties aren't friendly to strangers but they are vocal when approached....painfully so at times.

Anyhow, I'm typing this in Marks and Spencer's. I'm having a coffee and a mooch -George is eating a small packet of cooked ham all to himself in the car.
It's another treat just for him today.

There is white in his coat now and a slowness in his step, but he's twelve years old so he's allowed to look a bit faded around the edges.
Aren't we all

Soup That Blows Your Tits Off

I've spent much of the morning clearing the field of rubbish in the freezing cold but sunny weather we've got today. William , Winnie and George mooched around after me whilst Mary was tied up at the gate . I cannot train the hunter in her and set free she will chase Irene and the bachelors until exhausted. The older dogs behave themselves with livestock.
It's amazing what winter crap I collected. Bin bags full of plastic bags, plastic flowers ( blown over the fence from the cemetery) paper and wrappers are the most common but I did find an empty bottle of Malibu and a child's plastic hammer on my travels..
I swept the wood burner flue out when I got back in to warm my hands then I  ate homemade  red pepper and carrot soup laced with chilli for lunch ( which incidentally blew my tits off).
I was going to offer done to old Trevor who lives behind our cottage but I thought the chilli may cause a drastic problem with the digestive tract of a 94 year old.

Anyhow I digress.
Last night the affable Despot Jason and I went to see the much acclaimed play The Weir at Theatre Clwyd . The subject of the piece ( which was set in an isolated Irish pub) was one of rural Irish ghost stories ( the supernatural kind as well as the emotional baggage kind that follow us around for most of our lives) and it sort of dovetailed my recent post on ghost stories quite nicely as we highlighted In our post production discussion in the car on the way home)

The Weir has  four local men jousting at the one room rundown country pub.
Jack ( Sean Murray) and Jim ( John O'Dowd) are lonely single men who drink together for company at Brendan's ( Sam O'Mahoney) bar. They are envious of the more successful Finbar ( Louis Dempsey) who arrives with a young woman called Valerie ( Natalie Radmall- Quirke) who has just come to live in the area.

As the group drink, the men start to share ghost stories in order to impress Valerie, but as their stories become more personal and painful in nature, the cathartic nature of the conversations encourage Valerie  to share a tragic and ghostly story of her own.
The Weir is a dark and at times creepy play which starts to come alive when the ghost stories ( each one progressively more chilling than the last ) start. The supernatural nature of the subject matter highlight the personal backstories of the characters where the themes of grief, loss, loneliness and regret are just as important as the ghostly goings on .

Sean Murray is excellent as the lonely, blustery Jack but for me it was Natalie Radmall Quirke's tear stained final monologue that was a real standout .

Natalie Radmall-Quirke plays Valerie 

Valentine

Going Gently provides The Prof with a somewhat shadowy home.
Here he is often depicted as the bellowing straight guy to my bumbling, shabby, slightly comic fool.
He huffs and puffs like a Victorian patriarch when I fall over, dress inappropriately and wax lyrical over a zombie tv programme and seems to be constantly disappointed by my slap dash country ways.
Some of this is true, some is exploited for comic effect...that is the truth of blogs

He is my husband and I love him dearly.
But I am no Doris Day.
I'm not an easy spouse despite my depiction of self as a Mother Theresa/ James Herriot sort crossed with Alan Bennet.
The truth is  that I am an opinionated, stubborn and at times incredibly difficult character to live with and The Prof has lived with me for two decades.
I was thinking only yesterday of when we actually started to live together and do you know that I cannot remember the date clearly.
One day I was living in a large Victorian terraced house in Hillsborough all alone with my cats then the next  the Prof had filled the left hand side of my empty wardrobe with natty clothes and had his own office in the back bedroom!
It all felt very fluid and right.

Our wedding day was the happiest of my life
It felt very right too.

He is my valentine

Snow Go

By eleven am the village school closed and parents and grandparents turned up looking harassed in order to collect the pupils.
It only had been snowing for a few hours but effectively ( and in the U.K. So Commonly ) the whole village almost came to a standstill.
Trendy Carol ( in a nice cream coat, natty pullover and woolly tights) knocked on the lane window to let me know know that the Shrove Tuesday's pancake lunch at the London Road Chapel had been cancelled.
It was up to her to do the cooking, now she's nose to nipple with eggs, milk and lemons.

I've spent my " trapped" tine making curry,  pancake batter and butternut squash ( with chili) soup whilst listening to a BBC radio production rerun of The Maltese Falcon 

Ordinary People

I think I was around sixteen when I read Judith Guest's Ordinary People. The book resonated with me more than any other at that time.
What book resonated the most with you?  And why?
I'd be interested to know

Little dramas, little victories

Little dramas
Little victories
Life is made up of both
Every day.

William picked up something as we walked along London Road this morning.
I only noticed when Winnie crowded in to see what it was and he deftly turned his head away so she couldn't get near.
I stopped quicksticks thinking he had picked up a disguarded chocolate bar or something similar ( our previous Welsh terrier had almost been killed by scoffing a mars bar he found in Hillsborough park) and so I stopped him and ordered he drop what he had picked up.
Out plopped a male sparrow.
I think it must have been struck by a car, as it seemed lifeless and had a bloodied eye, but it raised its head feebly so I picked it up and tucked it into my pocket.
It was still hanging on when I got home and so I tucked it into and old French biscuit tin and placed the tin  into the airing cupboard  

An hour later, I opened the tin and looking up at me was the sparrow with one bright button black eye.
It flew away over the Churchyard moments later in bouncy and powerful half loops.

Game of Thrones

I've burnt my arse on an over bleached toilet again !
This is at least the fourth time I have done it.
Even Pavlov's dogs eventually learnt from their mistakes.
I always sit on the bowl rather than the seat....
The seat pinches me

No news Friday

Been clearing the garden for most of the day

So it's a lazy post 

Trelawnyd from the air

Being Watched at the kitchen table

After leaving her too long

Good News

I've wasted the morning by falling asleep in the arm chair and I would have stayed there if the dogs had left me alone.
Chiding myself with a brusque This won't do!  I pulled myself up by my bra straps and took the dogs out. The village was quiet in the blustery weather but I did say hello to affable Despot Jason ( sporting a sort of rock star roadie look) and Trendy Carol who was out and about in her best dayglo ski jacket ( and matching leggings)
The phone was ringing just as I returned home, it was Animal Helper Pat and she sounded joyous.
Now over the past few months Pat has effectively been going blind. A combination of macular degeneration and cataracts has forced her to give up her car and some of her independence and even small jobs such as the composition of an email had to be put on hold until one of us could go around to help.
It's been a tough time for her and she never complained once.
Not once.
I had forgotten that earlier in the week she had some last ditch cataract surgery and last night as she recuperated in front of her tv she suddenly regained her sight in one eye.
It was lovely to hear
" I can see the trees and the flowers in the garden and the back of your cottage " she shared, the happiness palpable in her voice
" I can even see the snow on the mountains !!!" 
Your heart does soar when you hear good news, I teared up at her obvious elation

When I went out to buy my tea, I bought the most colourful bunch of tulips I could find and dropped them off  before I went home
"Enjoy the colours again!" I told her

insomnia

I was assessing a new Samaritan volunteer until well past 1am this morning and it left me thoughtful and wired.
It's now 3 am and I'm still awake long after coming home.
Although I am a night owl, I hate being awake at this time. It's just not normal
Being awake at 3 am can be rather lonely.
Especially as everyone else in the house is sleeping

A few minutes ago Mary awoke, and bounced on top of me then onto the small table in front of our lounge window. She gazed into the front garden with tail raised and as I stood up I could see two badgers play fighting on the lawn.

A lovely piece of drama amid the dross....
What do u do if you can't sleep? Please share...cos I have no idea

A Ghostly Story

Last night, as the fire crackled in the wood burner, the conversation on line fell to ghostly stories.
In 1985 I experienced such a story.
Back then I was completing my first EMI placement in one of the back wards of the old Deva Asylum in Chester.
EMI used to stand for elderly mentally Infirm
For the most part the patients were all suffering from dementia. They were the bad cases, the difficult to control and the aggressive, and at night there was only myself and an enrolled nurse to care for 24 patients.
23 of the patients were ambulant and only one was bedbound and physically very unwell. He lay in a bed nearest to the dormitory door with a small office light illuminating his locker, the night nurses pulled our chairs into the corridor nearby so we could watch the goings on carefully throughout the night.
The sick patient wasn't expected to last the night, so we kept a close eye on him in between bedding down the other patients. It was around 1 am before we were able to sit in our chairs and drink our first cup of tea.
Now dealing with senile patients at night can be a tiring, thankless and never ending job. Its a constant round of toileting, bed changing, reassurance giving , and reality orientation, work set against the dark tall walls of a regency mad house
Around 4 am my co-worker donned a large woollen cape and swished off the ward for a cigarette leaving me alone in the darkened corridor and from the far corner of the dormitory I saw a figure sit up in bed suddenly. The patient, sat there for a minute or so and I could hear him muttering about something before he pulled back his blanket and started to get out of bed.
I hurried over.
"Tell that man to go away" the patient whispered pointing to the patient in the corner who was dying.
"He keeps asking me to take him home"
I was confused as the dying man had not moved a fraction since we last turned him an hour before but the other patient was convinced he was right and seemed rather indignant at having been bothered.
I settled the man back into bed after a short trip to the loo and moments later he sat up again and called out a clear "Bye Bye"
I returned to the bedside this time with the staff nurse who had just returned smelling of cigarette smoke "Who are you saying bye bye to?" she asked
" The man" the patient said clearly referring to the other patient  " he's gone through there" he added pointing to the fire door.
We bedded the patient down again and tucked warm blankets around him.
our next check of the poorly patient revealed that he had passed away peacefully only minutes before

" Look At The State Of You!"

It's started to snow here.
It's only dusting at the moment but as we walked through the village this morning a scattering of houses have already lit their fires and wood stoves and the air is heavy with woodsmoke.
I've kept our stove running all night. The cottage is warm and toasty.

Irene eating her breakfast as the snow started to settle

Yesterday I bought a set of knee pads.
They were cheap and when on, very comfortable.
I wore them all afternoon.
Now the story of these knee pads is somewhat meandering.
I've been thinking of buying some for a while, but a pair of 70 quid jeans sealed the deal.

A few weeks ago The Prof bought me the pair of jeans.
" please look after them" he pleaded " They are the only good pair you have" 
I marked them with coal dust within ten minutes.
"Look at the state of you!" The Prof sighed
This statement is a common one in the cottage.
Now in my defence, I am the one that usually does the dirty work around the place. Log burners are sooty little devils to clean, dogs jump with mucky paws and the new kitchen floor doesn't mop itself , but it's true..if there is dirt around , invariably it ends up on me......usually on my knees!
And so yesterday I bought some cheap knee pads.
I stacked the wood delivery on my knees without getting one mark on my jeans!
I cleaned and lit the fire.....spotless afterwards!
They are comfy and warm too so I ended up wearing them for most of the afternoon, including on a trip to the shops, a dog walk and a brief pop in to the vets.
Everyone should buy a pair!

Best Buy Of The Year

They cost me 4.99£

More about them tomorrow

Alone Not Lonely

My knee is never empty 

The Prof is away until Friday evening
He left with bags packed early this morning.
This happens fairly regularly....
I have been the partner at home for two decades
I have drawn the long straw here.
The initial draw of conferences in sleek hotels and dog empty beds have paled over the years .

This week, on paper I shall be alone.
Of course I won't be lonely.
I never feel lonely.
One reason for that is where ever I do a small furry body is by my side .
Occasionally it's a large furry body ( Winnie insisted that she watched me have a poo this morning) sometimes it's a limping feline body demanding food
You are never alone with an animal in the house.

I'm presently planning my week with a small Welsh terrier on my knee
I am waiting for load of logs to be delivered shortly and they will need sorting stacking and then the plumber is due to arrive to " ohhhh " and " arrhhh"  at the leaking u bend.
I've booked lunch with a friend,have earmarked two sneaky trips to the cinema and have training  to do with two new Samaritan volunteers....
The charity's mentorship is detailed and comprehensive and takes time to carry out.
Thank goodness I can make the time in this climate of volunteer fatigue.
I'm going to a local history talk on Wednesday  !
The garden needs clearing. " Bosoms" is in need of digging over and I still need to find a joiner to complete the kitchen shelving

Snippet

Normal life
I am listening to the comedian Sindhu Vee on the radio in the kitchen while waiting for the oven to heat up.
She's very funny
The Prof is in church
Before he went....it went something like this
Me: " Have you made the bed?" 
He: " no there's a small skid mark on your side"
Me : " oh"

It's Almost Back Geek Alert !!!

Melissa McBride and Norman Reedus as Carol and Daryl in The Walking Dead

Well Cameron did a grand job. All animals happy. Only Pizza, Crisps and one beer taken
And everything intact at Bwthyn y Llan!
Thank you Cameron ...we want to book you again if you are interested?

Anyhow, just about to retire to bed but just found the new promo of The Walking Dead  on YouTube I can only post this screen shot of the video  but it sure looks like everyone from Alexandria and Kindom finally reach Hilltop!
It looks awesome ! Happy days

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

The ballet Giselle, was mighty fine as we no doubt expected and as always the WILLIES provided terrific value for money. 

Now for those that perhaps don't know, the Wilis are ghosts of the dead. Spurned women from doomed love affairs who inhabit the forests of Bavaria looking for men to exact their revenge on. 

The Corps de ballet at the Royal Opera House give the Wilis a precision and the visual delight of one of the ever changing clouds of Starlings once so common in the British countryside. They literally move as one, and their veiled entrance at the beginning of act two is a theatrical delight second to non.

Anyhow enough about willies !

We stayed the night in a very comfortable hotel in Bloomsbury, where I slept all night uninterrupted by bulldog feet, terrier scratching and the Prof's early morning iPad glare. There is noting quite like a long sleep in a comfy bed. 

I dreamt I was buying hats with Sandra Bullock 

Freud sort that one out, if you please.

Anyhow , as usual I am digressing.

I share with you now the fact that my hair is thinning. 

I only noticed it the other day when I took off my beanie after 24 hours solid wear. 

I've always had thick brown hair now although still here and others may have noticed anything drastic, I have noticed it has changed perceptively 

Now it's flecked with grey and feels like the mane hair of a pony

I look like my dad.

He didn't go bald, just a bit thin and it came as a bit of a shock to realise that my usually unruly mop is turning Gently South like the rest of me.

The Prof is practically bald and wears a jaunty hat to complete is usually natty ensemble. 

I may have to stick to my beanie to keep the wolf from the door.

I'm typing this on the train home. The Prof is on the next table across, his work spread out , his laptop busy. Opposite is an Asian couple. She has just caught me looking at her husband and has given me a hard stare.

I wasn't ogling him.

I was looking at his thick black hair........

......with envy.

Lovely Wilis

I didn't sleep that well last night.
With the Prof away Winnie decided that she would leave her normal sleeping position ( poured into an Edwardian arm chair in the living room) to join me in bed.
Now, I should have known better, but once you've given a row of implausibly floppy teats a cursory and rather sleepy rub, a bulldog like Winnie will tap you constantly with a paw the size of a dinner plate until you continue.
Perhaps she knew the Prof was away. Perhaps she was just in a needy mood,, all I know is that the paw tapping only stopped after I had covered her with the bedspread and slipped a hand under her head.

I'll leave you with the arrival of the Willis from Giselle 
We shall be watching this very scene later on at Covent Garden.
I'd better scrub up well

Go On ....Hit me!

Meeting The Prof tomorrow in London
So tonight I went over the cottage sitting care plans with Cameron the teenage boffin.
I told him to help himself to anything he wanted
Gave him instructions for the wireless, tv remotes and satellite tv
And have left him some cash, beer, a massive pizza and Crisps
Now you are all going to post horror stories about leaving a teen in charge at home
Aren't you?