56 .....50 fucking 6

I am 56 today
I know my own mind, I know myself, I know what I like.
I know what I don't like..I'm not a silly young queen.......never had been
It's my birthday though.....
Later I will tell you about my " No dogs in the churchyard" debacle

But for now this is how I feel about my birthday.....and how I will celebrate it......
ITS A quiet affair
Hey ho

Over To You

Bingley , the turkey on the way to the vets in the car! 

A popular post

I have a question today. A question to my blog followers.
What blog entry on Going Gently do you most remember?
And why?

The Story Of Number 21

Number 21

Recently I was asked by a new blog follower to tell them the story of Number 21
The rather sweet photo of the piglet on my side bar somewhat intrigued them and they wanted to know more about her and why I had celebrated her in such a way.
They may be surprised to find out that Number 21 was a pure monster.

Some years ago now , after some weeks preparation I came home with two piglets in the back of the old berlingo. The little boar was a perky saddleback and the sow piglet was a feisty Gloucester old spot.
I planned to fatten both up for the table.
From the get go, I was determined not to get attached to the two of them and so always referred to both by their  ear tag numbers.
It was not hard not to get attached to number 21.
She was a real bitch.

Where Number 12  grew into a massive, benign six footer teddy bear of a pig Number 21 developed clear psycopathic tendencies . Mercilessly she bullied her sty mate, nipping and biting him away from any tidbit that I or the neighbours threw for them and over a two month period she caught and ate at least twelve chickens who were stupid enough to wander into her enclosure. ( I had put the losses down to a fox until I actually saw her attack and rip to pieces a sleepy buff Orpington who had chosen to sunbathe in the wrong place.

The lovely number 12 with 21

When she was fully grown I refused to enter the sty without a pig board or a stick for protection for where Number 12 would nibble my fingers playfully as I stroked him Number 21 would try to take great chunks out of my wellies , thighs and buttocks when the mood took her.

I was constantly paranoid about her and the dogs as I had no doubt that if she caught one of them she would have killed them within seconds and this fear was substantiated by the sight of her once disembowelling a newly deceased female turkey called Gloria, a body that I lowered into the sty at 8 am one morning and one that had totally disappeared ( beak, feathers and feet included) by noon.

I shed a small tear when Number 12 wandered good naturedly into the abattoir in Denbigh a year to the day after he arrived.
I didn't miss Number 21 at all.
But she sure did taste good!

Over 85 kilos of sausages 

Laburnum On Fire

I was late cooking supper tonight.
In true a Rachel style I'll tell you what I cooked
Lamb, new potatoes in a tad of butter and green veg.
The leader of the male voice choir had rung earlier. He had posted the posters of the village concert  through our letter box and had been embroiled in a tug of war with William after doing so.
He had left the tooth marked posters by the front door after a short battle and had rung me to see if I could display them on the village notice boards .
A few people ask me such favours as I have an allen key which the handiman than put in the notice boards gave me just because I lived nearby!

Anyhow Winnie , Albert and I took the slightly battered posters up to the main road and after hanging them, Albert and I took ourselves off to the churchyard to look at the laburnum tree which had burst into a mass of gold in the setting sun.
Winnie stamped her fat feet by the lychGate in impatience as we did so

The golden laburnum 

Carshare

Many readers here will never of heard of the gentle Uk comedy series Carshare.
Following such Northern based classics as The Royale Family and Victoria Wood's Dinnerladies , Carshare's plot and narrative are simple, plain working class affairs.
Set essentially in a small car on the A roads of rush hour Manchester it is the will-they, won't - they story of John and Kayleigh, two retail workers who share a car to get to work.
John ( Peter Kay)is a lumpy commitment phobe who hides his shyness behind exasperated humour and Kayleigh ( a delightfully warm Sian Gibson) is a bubbly , slightly dippy girl looking for the Mr Right,and together they chat about life, music, shared colleagues and gossip and during the series' brief three year run. All over that time audience has been busting a gut to see the two of them finally get together and bowing to that need Kay has produced a satisfying ending to the uneven courtship
Last night's finale was a typically gentle affair.
There was no big kiss.
No big, drama .
Just a gentle love story of two, slightly sad souls who finally hold hands and commit to each other on the way to work.
Not a dry eye in the house

Tea Tent Shenanigains

My brother in law runs The Prestatyn Classic Car Show 
My sister organises the catering with a team of volunteers that are similar to my old Flower Committee despots.
Thousands of people descend on the seaside town as they did today and most want a drink and a cake and comfortable place to park their arse .
I joined the small team of eight volunteers and a smattering of air cadet teenagers in the furnace hot tea tent.
Pauline was sweating cobs over a mound of babs and stated she " couldn't stop as she'd only done the ham and not the cheese " as the others busied themselves over cutting the cakes into manageable chunks.
It was going swimmingly until the water urns blew their fuses
Luckily previous flower Show disasters have made my sister and I used to sudden tits up moments like these so after collecting a collection of kettles from local shops we entered a local house and started ferrying boiling water into the tea tent whilst the other ladies fended off a small riot with glasses orange squash and the odd Ribena before the handyman arrived.
The lady in charge of the washing up bowl flirted outrageously as I took over the tea making responsibilities . My previous Trelawnyd memorial hall kitchen experience obviously impressed her....but I knew she was only after another trusted pair of hands for the Prestatyn Flower Show teatent as matriarch Denise was on holiday!
There is no room for ditherers in a busy teatent

I only did a four hour stint, ( whilst most of the volunteers did all day!!!)  but after I had finished I had to go home to lay down in a darkened , cool room

A Load Of Bullocks

It's a hot day today and I am just about to walk down the 2 mile ( 600 feet drop) walk to the coast.
I'm helping out in the tea tent at the Prestatyn Car Show an big event organised by my brother in law
Refreshment tents need a cool head, and an ability to squeeze a dozen teabags at once while smiling through the back of your head.
A piece of cake!
I'll post some hetero macho photos of the event later, and because of the mostly " male" nature of the event I will make sure I dig out my zombie apron for the event
In the meantime I will leave you with a shot of the friendly bullocks from the other side of the village
Mary loves them so

Leo Varadkar

A brief snapshot of Varadkar's speech

Driving around beautiful rural Ireland earlier this week,one could not help to notice banner after banner screaming for support of the existing abortion laws.
To me the vote to ammend, what I see as a restrictive , barbaric and illogical set of rules was a no brainer and Leo Varadker's speech celebrating this monumental change almost brought me to tears this morning.

Streetcar

I must had sat through half a dozen or so productions of Streetcar Named Desire in my time but I have never seen one as honestly brutal as the production we have just seen at Theatr Clwyd tonight.
With an uncensored rape scene, and a raw protracted viewof a florid mental illness it was an exhausting watch which made my sister sigh " I need a lie down in a dark room!" When it was all over.
The final scene when Blache ( an amazing Kelly Gough) crawls out of a stylised bathroom where she was trying desperately to shower her anxiety away literally breaks your heart and when she is finally led away to the asylum as fraught sister Stella ( another fantastic turn by Amber James ) looks on , I am sure there was not a dry eye in the house

Wedding

The is a wedding in the village this afternoon. I know the family, they are a nice lot.
Mrs Trellis had parked herself by the lychGate with her camera a good hour before the church bell started to toll.
She loves a good wedding.
Off to the theatre later with my sister.
A Streetcar Named Desire .....

lust in the dust! 

Contratiempo

Great to see a more mature hero taking centre stage

A wonderfully strong , tense performance by Ana Wagener

Now if you fancy a convoluted, classy and satisfying Spanish thriller which has more twists than the Monaco Grand Prix go and see Contratiempo ( The Invisible Guest), its great fun, even though it's got more holes in its narrative than a lump of Swis cheese.
Now I need to take a deep breath here as the story is comwhat complicated.

Successful, married  entrepreneur Adrian Doria (Mario Casas) is accused of the murder of his mistress (Barbara Lennie) after he is found unconscious next to her dead body in a locked hotel room in the mountains . With time running out before his trial a witness preparation expert on her last case ( a statuesque Ana Wagener) has just three hours to come up with an impregnable defence, but it is suddenly made clear that the murder has been made more complicated by the accidental killing and subsequent cover up of the death of a young man and a desperate investigation by the man's grief stricken parents to find the truth.

Like I said this is a cracking thriller that had Nuala and I shrieking at the screen in the  tense excitement of it all and the final reel  twist is so satisfying even Alfred Hitchcock would have been proud to say he had directed it.
9/10

Casas and Wagener

Camp

" May I have a word?" 
This phrase seems such an innocent one doesn't it? But when a patient's next of kin says it with her head around your office door, you know that something awkward is about to happen.
I motioned for the relative to come into my office and I got up and closed the door.
"What can I do for you" I said in my best charge nurse voice
The woman was in her fifties , well dressed and confident
" I'd like to see if we can change my husband's primary nurse?" the woman stated, a polite smile on her face.
Now her husband, had been only recently admitted to the ward following spinal surgery and unlike most of the patients on the Ward he had the luxury of walking out of the unit on his own two legs.
His allocated nurse was an experienced gentle Filipino nurse called Stan.
Stan was as camp as Christmas.
The relative cut to the chase immediately
"my husband feels somewhat uncomfortable having such a flamboyant carer" she said bluntly
I smiled a big smile
A BIG BIG FALSE smile
My reply went something like this
" Your husband has been allocated a talented , well experienced nurse to over see his care, , he has been admitted to a centre of excellence and has even been given a room of his own. We have a long waiting list for admissions here and your husband got a bed without too many problems, 
I'm sorry I'm not changing any of his nursing care"
I was shaking like a leaf inside
But ..........it felt........ Soooooooo goooooooood

Aliums & Aquilegia

It's my birthday next Friday.
I will be 56 years old.
Even without a calendar I know I'm almost there because the alliums and aquilegia have just flowered in the garden. The blue iris should bloom by the first of June too.....
Blue iris lift the heart.

Several bloggers out there have picked up that I've not quite been myself as of late and of course they are right.
I am not quite myself.
But I hope that a normal service will be resumed at some stage soon.

Sulk

I picked the Welsh terriers up from their kennels this morning.
They had been away a week.
Seven days.
And Mary decided that she was sulking.
When we arrived home she took herself off to the bedroom window seat where she gazed off into the far distance with the pinched look of a young Scarlett O'Hara.
This lasted until 19.20 pm when she found me reading on the back patio
I was reading about wartime potato Peel pies and she looked at me for a long long time
And finally jumped up into my lap for a cuddle

Moll's Gap, Lady's View and Kinsale.

 Just off to airport.......
Hey ho

Last Day

The sun is shining

Irish farmhouse breakfast!!!!!!!

Black pudding, potatoes, onion, bacon and an egg! 

Now off to Moll's Gap, Killarney lakes

And Cork

Nu's Birthday

What a cracking day....sightseeing, a long walk, adventures with good food, wonderful scenery,lots of talking, scrabble, a film and lots of laughter..happy birthday Nu! I love ya xxxx

Film night the excellent Spanish thriller Contratiempo

Kenmare Bay

The Ring Of Kerry

Nuala's cottage is picture perfect.
A delightful hideaway surrounded by what looks like an all encompassing forrest
It was nearly ten o clock when I took this photo and the light in this part of Ireland seemed not quite of this world.
We talked, ate sea bass and sipped wine and I slept nine hours solid without having a wee.

A Good Show

I've been watching some of the wedding at Manchester Airport.
I found it all rather moving.
Mind you the dignity bubble which surrounded the occasion was somewhat burst by a rather common woman in an orange singlet who was drinking a pint of lager from a plastic glass.
She turned to her companions and roared " Meghan's a real classy bitch ain't she? "