Charity Begins At Home

 I’ve been pottering around in the kitchen all day.

Nothing stressful , just all rather mindful 

Dinner is more or less ready. Just candles to put on the cake.

It was my sister in law’s birthday yesterday.

From the kitchen window, I could see Islwyn beavering away by the Church , so I took the dogs up the lane for a walk to see what he was up to. 

He had cleared the Church path of weeds and moss and had uncovered many of the old gravestones that had been lain flat in the 1980s. 

The covid snake stones, he had collected up neatly to be rearranged again, whilst another villager Mr Morgan finished varnishing the lytchgate. Mr Morgan Islwyn told me had financed the work himself.

I asked Islwyn why he working on the graveyard after the Church had been closed but I already sort of knew what his answer would be. 

“ I was a bad man my youth” Islwyn chucked “Now I’m earning myself some brownie points” 

Bunches of cyclamen planted by the Church gate by one of the members of the community association .

I haven’t got much else to do ( hence the blog entry) just wine glasses to polish, pudding to make.

Shit I’ve missed out an ingredient for the main course…time to sort it out

Buteo Buteo

 I was content to let the previous, rather lazy post suffice for the day.

Nothing has much happened, so there’s nothing to report.

But I’ve just been for a walk with Mary, who has been a little under the weather today, and I needed to share something, like you do when something quite profound, or beautiful or both has just happened.

We walked down the lane to Graham The Shepherd’s gate. His fields lead off to the West and the dusk sky was still clear against the silhouettes of the hawthorn hedges and trees and fences. 

It was cold and fresh and sat at the very top of the dead Ash tree , the one that always dominates the skyline sat a lone buzzard. 

He was crying out like buzzards do.

A strange mixture of cat call mew and squawk…a keey ya! 

Sharp and plaintive 

A lonely call in the darkening dusk.

I picked Mary up and she rested her feet on the top rung of the gate and she watched and listened as Welsh Terriers do and I could feel the thump of her heart against my chest as it raced to the cry of the buzzard as  it continued to call in the dark.

A moving rather  beautiful and simple little moment,

Caught by accident on a Friday evening

Rainy Day

 Dreadful weather today. Torrential rain 

Three dogs on the couch day 

Watched Amélie, Airport 77 and ate fish pie

Mrs Harris Goes To Paris

 

Towards the end of this movie the gentle hearted Mrs Harris ( Lesley Manville) turns to the finance director of the Dior fashion franchise ( Lucas Bravo) in the street and says “ We all need to dream , especially at this time” 

Suddenly we are not in a story set in 1957 Paris. 

Suddenly the titular Mrs Harris, a sixty something working class woman, is speaking for all of us in our post lockdown society of uncertainty, war and isolation. 

We all need a dream.

And this film celebrates dreams with gusto.

For Mrs Harris , it’s the dream prospect of owning a bespoke Dior  dress, and with a plucky positivism she wins over the elite Parisian fashion house staff in a rather sweet story about how easy it is to become invisible in later years. 

Lesley Manville breaks your heart as Mrs Harris and it’s nice to see her and Isabelle Huppert, as the Dior snobby manager taking the leads roles as women in their sixties. 

I can’t recommend the movie enough

It has a sweetness we all need so very much at the moment .

Normal Day

 Our corner of Trelawnyd seems a bit busier than on late. Three men, including the ubiquitous Islwyn  are working of the Church Gates. 

“They’re fixing the hinges” Mrs Trellis informed me as she and Blue trotted down the lane.

And by the look of the ladder, one of them is giving the Lytchgate a spruce up.

Sailor John is walking around my old field photographing wild flowers.

Mrs X rang me up and asked if I could vouch for her again regarding her shotgun licence.

I’ve bought some cheap solar lights and have lined the back garden path with them in readiness for Saturday night. Mr Poznân thinks that they are an excellent idea for stopping accidents 

He also told me my gate needed a lick of paint.

The yappy dogs are still at it next door. 

I’m playing radio 2 a bit louder than I should to compensate.

Depeche Mode Everything Counts 

Operation Dog Snot Removal

 

Typical of most families, mine tends to meet around the matriarch’s home for family meals , birthdays and Christmas . 

It’s what people do.

We congregate around the queen, sometimes the King.

For a change I’m having my sisters, their husbands and my sister in law to dinner on Saturday .My nephew is invited too but he has a social life busier than mine so we will see if he turns up

After covid and my divorce , it will be the first family meal that I’ve hosted 

So there’s a significance here that’s left mostly unsaid , but which screams of emotional importance.

I’m making it easy on myself and going simple 

Aioli and warm Spanish style bread, 

A one pot chicken, rice and chorizo bake, baby lamb chops, soaked in garlic yogurt before cooking , 

Glazed long green beans and “homemade” Spanish ice cream whisky cake

A typical Sitges meal.

Tomorrow I’m initiating Operation Dog Snot Removal like the exercise I used to indulge in , in the days I had in laws to stay.

Study Day

 

Tuesdays used to be choir days. 

For the next nine months they are now my study day.

Tonight until nine, I have my lectures.

Before that this afternoon, I’m having special help by the IT department in order to get my head around Google classroom. 

This morning and early afternoon , I’m studying.

I miss choir, but have solace in the understanding that I will be returning 

So it’s study day today, work tomorrow and Mrs Harris Goes To Paris on Thursday.

Saturday I’m cooking dinner for my family 

My first supper party for them for over four years.

The Storm of 2017

 

This is my favourite photograph taken by the boffin Cameron .

It’s a real stunner

It is of my Soay Ewe Irene during the harsh snowy winter five years ago.

She was hardly bothered by the weather.

Irene was a particularly difficult Ewe. After her mother Sylvia died ( and yes I did name both sheep after the flower show matriarchs ) Irene spent most of her days in the livery stables fields, shunning any attempt to be caught and moved, and there she lived with the horses until her peaceful death today 

Her face lying straight on the grass facing the ponies in the top field 

Don’t anyone say they are sorry. She wasn’t my ewe for nearly a decade, so I had no real investment in her care.

But I kind of respected her chutzpah at choosing where she was going to live.

Thank you to Rachel who runs the livery for allowing her to stay for so many years 

The final series

 

Apart from theatre tickets, oh and a new carpet washer, my only real indulgence  is my subscription to Disney +.

This will come to an end in eight weeks or so with the final airing of the last season of The Walking Dead.

I will be sad to see it go, but it’s time it did.

The last season has now morphed into a war film, with our multicultural and predominantly female “ family” set up as the French Resistance in WW2 

The zombies are only a side threat. Revolting set decorations. 

Halloween miss en scene 

I’ve followed the series from Frank Darabont’s seminal first episodes and carried on watching this morning with my bucket of coffee and Roger cocking his head at all of the zombie grunting

Like all good friends, I will stay to the end

A Face Only A Mother Could Love

 I didn’t have time to reply to yesterday’s post comments . 

It was past ten when I finally sat down after working all day.

I’d been on my feet most of that time and before bed, Dorothy gleefully licked my rancid feet until they shone like my chilblains used to when I was eleven and walking home in the snow.

Does anyone suffer from chilblains any more? 

With global warming I doubt it.

I was never cut out to be a buff hero

As a child I had chilblains, a mild stutter and warts on my left hand 

Later on I suffered from prickly heat , late diagnosed dyspraxia and vikings finger

Now I have the bladder of woman that might of borne a dozen children and the kidneys of  an old cat who has licked antifreeze

Oh….And stress psoriasis worthy of an exploded cereal packet in a confined space 

I’m not a catch for sure, but I’m writing this with a bucket of coffee 

At 5.45 am 

Before work on a Sunday morning

Ps I’m colourblind too

The Heat Is On

 I’ve just sent in my electricity reading on line. Trelawnyd has no piped gas, so heating is generally oil fired or from gas cylinders. As you all know my central heating and thermal store is fuelled by kiln dried logs and prices for these haven’t risen drastically as yet. 

The Community Association has a fuel expert on its committee in the shape of Gwawr . I have a feeling her ear is going to be bent double in the months to come.

When did central heating become standard ? I suspect it was the early 1970s after the fuel strikes and power cuts ? Am I right? 

Only last week I had a conversation with a young nurse about the downsides of no central heating. She couldn’t quite get her head around how freezing it was behind the couch once the front had been heated by the coal fire 

Hot water bottles and eiderdowns so heavy you almost struggled to breathe underneath them were the norm, and thickly cut white bread with strawberry jam was a treat after it was toasted in the fire with a long fork. 

I wore a vest then 

With baggy bottoms 

And bathrooms were small then too, and filled with great clouds of immersion heated water and steam , overseen with a cosmic zeal by a father who paid the bills. 

Bwthyn y llan has 18 inch walls of limestone which finally keep the heat in once the place is eventually heated up ( which takes an age) and the new windows I had put in  are double glazed and draught proof . My only extravagance being my new electric shower…blissful and glorious on a cold winters morning

I’m ready for winter

Ps….last night just before bed the “unthinkable “ happened

Dorothy cuddled up to Roger in front of the fire

Thank fuck for that

The silent war is over

idiopathic vestibular disease

 

Albert looked drunk last night. He staggered and slipped on the back of the trendy blue sofa, so much so that the dogs jumped up in panicked attack mode. 

It’s a hard fact of life that when an animal acts outside it’s normal behaviour it is ganged up upon and often attacked by its peers. 

I have seen such behaviour in hens and ducks and turkeys and dogs .

I scooped Albert up and he sat quietly on my knee for a while, before I placed him in a dark corner of the living room where he settled and slept

Today he looks his normal self 

I cleaned the carpet in the living room this morning too

And before I could put away the cleaner Roger had chewed the plug off it. 

The weather is atrocious today

Wild 

Soup and Rom Coms

 

I didn’t need to be in work today

I didn’t want to be there. 

My manager is a good one and I took time owing and left early.

I was sat in the cinema in llandudno minutes later watching the mindless Ticket To Paradise which is a rom com of sorts. 

Cinema has always provided me with a safe place to go through my childhood and adult life. 

It’s a place to get lost in 

And it’s a place to mislay your feelings

I came home and made Italian bean and Ham soup thickened with gnocchi instead of potato 

And ate a hearty bowl of it whilst listening to The Archers

Am I shallow? 

GEORGE CLOONEY’s big OLD MAN EARLOBES HAVE REALLY PUT ME OFF HIM ? 

Discuss……

This Too Shall Pass

I slept until 6 pm  

I slept heavily still with my crocs and hoodie on.

I slept with Dorothy watching me carefully as she does before I eventually opened my eyes at dusk 

It’s a habit she got into not long after she arrived

It’s not been a particularly nice day, so I made it a bit better by having a shower, walking the dogs in twilight and by eating  a nostalgic supper of chicken and mushroom pot noodle straight from the pot

Comfort food from the Spar in Dyserth. 

As I walked to the till with my pot noodle and tin of whiskers a boy of around seven asked me if I knew where the cheese was. I showed him and there followed  a rather sweet conversation between us of where the mild cheddar was. He had obviously been sent out by his mother to get something for tea . 

I pointed out a large block which cost over three pounds and the boy told me he hadn’t got enough money 

We searched the shelves together until  I found a smaller non branded block which still he couldn’t afford so I gave him a pound which gave him the extra and smiled to myself when he told the cashier to keep the change when he was 9 pence in credit.

I watched The Repair Shop and had a good cry at the table renovation.

And we are all going to bed feeling just a little bit better.

I’m not going to bang on about the lows of being single.

We all know what they are, and we singletons live with the negatives by generally celebrating the positives when we can . 

The negatives can just creep up behind you when you are unawares , like rainy clouds do in Autumn.

And I hate it when those negatives slap your face hard when you really don’t want them to.

At least I have a nervous bulldog who watches over me carefully when I sleep

Who can ever say that ……? Eh ?

Getting Going

Some days I feel brave and positive and full of bounce.

Like one of those girls of roller skates you see on transatlantic tampon adverts

I can do this life thing and grab it by the balls.

I am that assertive twat that asked the neighbours to keep their yappy dogs quiet

And I almost brought in the cheap shoe gag when coping with a strangely irate woman in Jackson’s Nurseries who belittled the cashier over the price of cushion. 

Today I don’t really feel brave and positive and bouncy.

I feel lumpy and old and I can’t get my head around Google classroom as quick as I’d like.

I want someone to make me soup and rub my hair with cold fingers

And I want to be told it will be alright

Which of course , it will be.

I’m a bit tired, me thinks …and my bladder is playing up today

Dorothy and I are going to sneak under the eiderdown shortly and have 40 winks 

Hey ho

The Five Of Us

Tonight it is cool, almost cold with a brisk wind

The five of us settled in the living room together.

The fire is lit, and I have a blanket come homemade pashmina on

Chic Eleanor would be proud.

Mary is on the little grey arm chair in the corner

Roger is in front of the fire 

Dorothy is in her usual position next to me 

And Albert is perched on the back of the trendy blue Sofa next to my shoulder.

We sit in the dark , with only me watching Bake off.

The chubby Polish guy is sweet

Roger took himself to bed in his crate in the kitchen a few minutes ago 

Finally, he’s comfortable enough to make his own decisions 

 and he is truly home

Young Dog New Tricks

 I got up early and after walking the dogs, Roger and I drove to Llandudno. I had to take my DBS paperwork in to HR and needed to complete my online mandatory training, something I cannot access on nights or at weekends as I needed the aid of their help desk. 

Roger proved to be a wow with the secretarial and managerial staff and after some initial nerves 

Slowly got used to the adulation, closing his eyes to the mew mews of the ladies .

I took him to the bedside of one patient who I had discussed his progress with.

Much is said regrading disclosing your private life to patients , but in the hospice some idle banter about ordinary things can often be a great leveller to patients undergoing stress towards their end of life.

I shared stories of Roger’s small adventures after coming to the cottage and she had offered me some sage advice of how to deal with a dog not blessed with a huge brain.

Like most of my Welsh who visited patients, Roger was gentle and inquisitive with my patient. 

He lay next to her, with his paws either side of her elbow and he let her pat his head gently with a boney hand without playing with the tie on her nightdress sleeve  which dangled before him

She coo cooed at him quietly, telling him how smart he looked and she didn’t turn her head away when a single tear ran down the side of her face beside her ear. 

Roger sniffed her face gently as she called out “ My sweet, sweet boy “ 

…and it was me who turned away and pretended I hadn’t noticed.

The Famous Five

 

Gorgeous Dave and I have a sort of pact together. We not only book theatre for productions that we know we may like but we have agreed we would try things off our own radar so to speak.

It was the World premier of The Famous Five - a new musical by Elinor Cook at Theatr Clwyd and although I scarcely thought that Enid Blyton was our cup of tea, we went.

It’s not a great musical 

Apart from just one song, where Aunt Fanny( Laura Denning) bemoans being an overlooked housewife , the songs are a bit bland and at times very shouty. 

A sense of 1930s whimsy is almost lost in present day ideals  of saving the planet and modern language and the cast of characters as written by Blyton, just don’t have the light and shade and depth the characters in a musical need to have in order to make it interesting, even when Cook brings in the potentially difficult elements of bad parenting , unhappy marriages and sibling rivalry 

Which was a shame.

The puppetry of Timmy was a highlight of the musical

When Things Go Quiet

 It’s a while since I had a puppy.

It’s probably like parents with grown up children.

You quickly can forget the rules of ownership 

And the first one is?

When everything is quiet

Something is afoot.

20 minutes unsupervised after a walk and two pot plants were disemboweled and scattered around the living room and one pile of vomit  left thoughtfully on the trendy blue sofa seat.

Roger has had his first telling off and is quiet and contrite in his cage.

Im sure Dorothy is actually smiling from her arm chair at his disgrace.

The Randa girls stopped yesterday. I say girls loosely as they are now very much young women but I’m happy to say that their need to cuddle the dogs have not diminished since they were little girls. Mary clambered into Eve’s lap and happily closed her eyes and Liv held Roger as though he was a baby, and although he sat stiffly at first, unsure of this new “ friend” he relaxed soon enough and closed his eyes too, as Welsh terriers have a want to do.

I reminded both girls of the time I babysat them years ago when I caught them back combing William ‘s red fur so much though that he happily resembled Tina Turner in her Mad Max period

Things suddenly went quiet then…..

What am I doing today? 

I refer to the filofax list after making a few litres of sugar free lemonade.

I drink nothing else during the day.

In the filofax is scribbled Shona

…..this means Lunch with an old colleague from my Intensive Care Days 

Reading……means Some reading for college tomorrow.

Theatre with Gorgeous Dave . A premier of The Famous Five musical at Theatre Clwyd.

It may be shite , but because it’s just bedding in and the tickets are cheap.

The weather changed last night and at 2 am I walked around the cottage closing the small windows which had been open for much of the summer . Both Mary and Dorothy cuddled up to me in bed, and even Albert sneaked in to the periphery to share some warmth. 

Roger has yet to be able to negotiate  the stairs so is not allowed on the bed as yet.

The winter duvet is airing over the thermal store

I don’t feel very inspired to write this morning 

Hey ho

Car Reliance

 

I’m going into work late today. Bluebell is playing up and I’m waiting for a man with the van to get her going again. 

I’m hoping it’s something simple. 

I have some time owed to me and there are enough trained staff to cover my absence until things can be sorted.

I’m lucky today, that this is the case.

Relying on a car is given to country people. 

It’s also a pain when things go wrong. 

I work 23 miles away from Trelawnyd which doesn’t sound far, but depending on traffic it’s a 40 - 45 minute commute one way on a bad day

Twice last week I caught pub quiz Claire walking to Dyserth to catch a bus to Rhyl. The walk on grass verges with long grass and no pavements next to a busy A road is difficult and potentially dangerous. She was waiting for her new car to be delivered and as there is no public transport available until later morning she just had to walk to work….I was happy to give her a lift, even though Dorothy never stopped barking.

I remember just a few years ago now when Aunty Gladys was in her late nineties and starting to get a bit confused she once set out on a dark winters morning to walk to the doctor’s surgery on the same road. 

Luckily two “ delightful “ policemen picked her up and took her home before disaster occurred 

Bluebell has her main service and Mot next week. 

She has served me well for the past few years 

And I hope she will last me a few more