Bunting Bank

 

The TCA phone box is up and running as a food bank, information centred book swap and whatever you want it to be, now that Sailor John has furnished it with its own shelving unit .

I popped up yesterday with a few books and some bunting.

Ok the bunting isn’t practical but it’s pretty and some deserving soul may like it 

Food banks shouldn’t  always be all about food.

I went to a barbecue last night, my brother in law was 75

I don’t see him as an older man , I see the and hear the teenage man/boy I first met in the middle sixties when I was a very small boy. 

I’ve known him 61 years, the same as both my sisters ….wow

Anyhow today looks sunny. 

And washing the cottage windows is the planned job for the day

I’ve picked hydrangea heads and put them in vases in the living room and kitchen and saw Terry sulking in the lane with his dog as I did so,

“ I woz robbed “ was all he said, smiling at the floor

This afternoon I read a counselling text book , the saddest of quotes

“ We Leave doors open for people , who’ll never knock again….how stubborn the human heart”

Oppenheimer

 I went to a morning showing of Oppenheimer today

A film so intricate, complicated and detailed it probably mirrored the remarkable life of the theoretical  physicist J Oppenheimer very well indeed . 

The film by director Christopher Nolan is complicated and nuanced. It covered three time periods in Oppenheimers development of the hydrogen bomb highlighting the intensity of the storylines with some roars of musics and sound effects.

Cillian Murphy is impressive as the charismatic yet quite unlikable Doctor, and captures the intensity of the character in a kind of almost reptilian way. Oppenheimer was a womaniser and had an Ego to boot. He knew his abilities and was conceited enough to blindly disregard his position within the government machine until that government took a dislike to his communist sympathies after the war. 

This is a male orientated film with fine performances from Murphy, Robert Downey Junior as Lewis Strauus the head of the Us Atomic Energy Commission, and Matt Damon, a General in charge of Los Alamos , the secret town in the desert where the scientist developed the A bomb.

Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer’s second wife and Florence Pugh as his communist sympathiser  psychiatrist mistress have only minor parts in the drama, which is a shame as both interesting characters could have been explored further, but I guess the narrative ( which is complicated enough ) does last for three hours.

Oppenheimer is an excellent, intelligent and overall detailed movie which weaves magnificently intricate scenes together with intense editing and skill. 

It’s worth the effort of concentration 

A new Star

 I just have to tell you that next year’s Flower Show poster will feature this young mum from the village who won second in the Jam class yesterday

It’s priceless 

A Boiled Egg

 I’m only going to share one story about the Flower Show

Ive done it to death over the last week.

But this story is about the power of feeling a part of something.

Of joining in.

Of community.

Eirlys is a friend of mine. She’s like me, not built for fashion or elegance and is at her happiest mucking our her hens in a tired old jumper.

She is the first to say this, before you reach for your keyboards.

Anyhow, it’s been a very tough year for Eirlys. Her husband died in the winter and like many, rural widows, she’s been a bit isolated and all rather flat.

Yesterday she came and chaperoned the arts and crafts judge to help me out.

She also entered the boiled egg class in the cookery section, an event slightly fraught with difficulties as she arrived a whole 24 hours too early clutching said boiled egg on a plastic plate. 

After realising her mistake , she spent yesterday early morning boiling scores of eggs before turning up at the right time but in a rainstorm, laughing but stressed

“I ve dropped me egg in the street” she shouted at everyone when she walked into the hall but with a bit of cajoling peeled it before arranging it on a plate alongside the nine other entries.

She left just before the cookery judges assessed the eggs, with all the forensic detail of a coroner, she was happy that she had played her part.

After the show, I dropped off to her farmhouse with the egg. She had entered a vase of flowers too which I returned too; flowers she had picked from alongside the hard shoulder of London Road. And before she could draw breath I showed her First Prize certificate for Best Egg!

She laughed hard and long and almost seemed suddenly overwhelmed by the happiness and fun of the whole day. 

It was never about the egg,

How could it have been?

It was all about sharing, and company, companionship 

And being a part of something, ever slightly bigger than yourself and your own worries

The Trelawnyd Flower Show

The Manleys

Cameron with his prizewinning succulent 

Me making a final speech

Jo and ian

The family who brought the Hall’s original plans were guests of honour 

Hattie, Adam and Pippa

The hall’s original plans  brought as a gift of the day

Debbie the vegetable judge

 

Enjoy

 I’m buggered and have just sat down with a very VERY large Spanish Sherry.

Dorothy is licking my feet and all is well

In just three hours, Ian and I with just two helpers set up the whole show after the day care kids had left the hall at three.

In previous years six hours was the general timescale 

True I had a mini meltdown because the classes where run anti-clockwise instead of clockwise , but I pulled myself up by my bra straps and stopped my mini strop 

With the school children’s art entries and their novelty vegetable productions mean that our entries number is heading towards 450

Enjoy the video

A little gem by ex villager kelda 

Update 2

 

I’m in between jobs and have an hour and a half window before we set the hall up for the show. There’s a children’s activity day booked in the hall today and they finish at 3pm

That means we have to set up the whole show in three hours 

The exhibits start coming in at 6pm

Yesterday we has 220 exhibits entered

By some good fortune today, we have now have just over 400 total 

How good is that?

Update

 

Well Roger is exhausted 

As I’ve been , baking, and cooking, and constructing novelty vegetable animals and making up hamper prizes, a busy line of villagers has called my name over the kitchen wall in order to drop entry forms in or to donate to the raffle hamper. 

To date we have 220 exhibits booked in!!!!!!!?and enough food to make two luxury food hampers .

Roger has got so excited at the number of visitors he’s bounced himself stupid saying hello to everyone and now is laid out on the carpet with his tongue flopped out and his legs jumping at dreams of multiple cuddles with happy strangers.

He’s the sweetest dog I’ve ever owned 

Deadline for entries is noon tomorrow 

I’m overwhelmed with the support for such a little show 

Thank you to blogger Meanqueen too for her support,  your gift was generous and gratefully received 

Building Up For The Show

It was humid and barmy last night and I sat on the patio for two hours towards dusk sipping some Spanish Sherry, a friend gave me as a gift to remember Barcelona by. 

The Sherry was decanted into what looked like a small Kilner jar and was smuggled in from Spain in hand luggage .

I felt rather pissed when I got up to receive Flower Show entries from Animal Helper Pat and Sue T from London Road.

The Chinese lanterns cheered the wet patio up between showers

Agapanthus, always a showy bloom

The dogs left me though and filled the trendy blue sofa in the living room.

Today I’m baking my “ Against Terry” items for the flower Show

Terry should be doing the same

.

Auntie Glad and her scones 

We are incredibly competitive and have been going head to head in the baking class  since 2010 

Ideally I should be making my scones fresh the morning I needed them like auntie Glad used to do… mind you she once made 70 scones in one morning before the flower show when she was in her early 90s without drawing sweat. I’m making 5 for my challenge against Terry and I’m sweating cobs! 

We are going head to head in the quiche, scones and fruit cake . 

The cut off point for entries is Friday morning and I’ve already received 140 so far including a single bloom from Bethan from Byron Street who had to be talked into sacrificing one of her beloved blue agapanthus.

Terry and I at the last flower Show four years ago

 

 

Other People’s Lives

  I don’t get a lot of rest in Flower Show week.

It’s my second night shift at work and I’ve had broken sleep.

Di from Choir dropped off two jars of jam to be entered as she is away on Friday.

I’ve always relaxed the rules for the benefit of more entries, and am happy to put exhibits in for absent supporters.

I dropped off a cake tin too.

One of the Going Gently characters had asked for it last week and I bumbled into her kitchen like a tubby teenager not initially realizing that she had been crying.

She busied herself inside the pan cupboard and wiped her eyes with her apron.

And I pretended I hadn’t noticed

We talked about the death of Mad Organist of Father Timothy’s recent death ( He was the vicar of nearby Dyserth) and of the Flower Show, of Singing in the Rain and the fact some scrote had stolen two planters of busylizzies that had been donated by the TCA from London road.

As I turned to go I asked her gently if she was alright.

And she nodded bravely through a watery smile

“I will be” she said quietly 

After The Rain (feat. Rachael Wooding & Tom Deering) (Live)

 It’s Yorkshire day today

So says Gabby Roslyn on radio 2 this morning.

I was driving home from work and she was banging on about nothing

She didn’t have much of substance to say about God,’s Own Country

I think I know parts of Yorkshire well.

I lived in York between 1986 and 1989

Then Sheffield between 1989 and 2006

I miss the counties very much 

York was my equivalent time to a young man’s university days 

But I grew up in Sheffield…..

In so many ways 

Ghosts and Bones

 

Next to the Memorial Hall and just across Chapel Street is the old Ebenezer Chapel. 

The chapel and chapel house which makes up the building total used to be a market hall and dates from 1700.

The building has been bought by a property developer in the hope of making a quick buck. We understand that he’s planning to change the whole building into seven apartments which to me seems rather excessive given the limited amount of parking space there is in the village centre.

Affable Despot Jason lives next to the proposed build and his garden will be potentially overlooked by many of these flats and I reminded him on Saturday of the Ghost of John Wynne,  a story he already knew very well.

Now John Wynne was responsible for the growth and development of Trelawnyd around 1700

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trelawnyd and it is thought that his remains were indeed buried under the floor of the Chapel itself. 

A sobering thought for any developer to deal with me thinks, especially as he was obviously unaware of such a tale before he bought the building.

The figure of a man in a long coat, who is thought to be the Ghost of John Wynne has been seen by several locals, including the Randa girls and Graham the sheep when he was a teenager. 

More Singing

 Thank you from anon , who suggested this wonderful video on my last blog 

Singing In The Rain

 

It’s 70 years since Singing In The Rain was made, and so it’s easy to forget just how buff Gene Kelly actually was as a young man.

He was very easy on the eye.

Around twenty five people turned up for film night which is probably better numbers than the professional Scala cinema in nearby Prestatyn 

And I must admit the film holds up very well despite its age.

Hazel

This is Hazel

She was my second cousin ( I think) and was a dear friend of my mother and a favourite aunt to my elder sister 

The photo has a sweetness about it

Especially as Hazel died tragically giving birth to a daughter only a few months before I was born

I just wanted to memorialise it

It’s also been a baking day today

I’m made two boiled fruit cakes for the show , one slightly bigger than the other

I may enter both

It’s singing In The Rain at the Village Cinema Club later

 

Flower Show

 

My flower show entry for the photograph class “ pet”

The Manley’s came to the kitchen wall this afternoon  with boxes of dog food for my pack.

It was a bittersweet visit as they’ve just had to put down their floppy setter Gilly but I managed to make them laugh a bit as Roger bounced madly in the background like a loon. 

I like the Manley’s, a no nonsense couple in their 50s who love their community and who can be relied upon to do what they say they will do. 

Ma Manley sported a great homemade pair of dungarees and Laurie Manley seemed enchanted by Roger’s welcome. They are entering the flower show and are looking forward to it . 

Minutes later Boffin Cameron’s mum popped around with her old flower show cup.

I have a soft spot for her, as Lorna loves to support the Flower Show and has exhibited for years.

“Is it ok that I enter 20 classes?’ She asked

“Is the Pope Catholic ?” I replied 

And she beamed and laughed sweetly

She’s a star.

Mrs Trellis waved at me at teatime too , when I was drinking a brew on the patio

“ I’m entering the vase of flowers “ she called energetically as she passed  and I suddenly felt like having a weep

The troops are starting to come up trumps 

Me thinks

Gaenor The Mad Organist

With the church now shut, I haven’t seen anything of Gaenor The Mad Organist for an age now.

Never one to hide her emotions behind a smile, she would liven up any village service with a Les Dawson face, usually pulled towards one of the Church wardens who she disliked immensely.

Sometimes I felt I was watching a panto rather than a church sermon.

I heard that she had very recently died 

In more recent times, I would bump into her in the supermarket, where I would infuriate her with the game of Fill The Basket.

Now fill the basket is a cracker of a sport.

You first pick a victim ,( ideally this is a person you already know) and you follow them around the supermarket unseen .Then you start to fill their trolley with arbitrary items from the shelves, gaining more kudos for adding the most bizarre bits and pieces.

For The Mad Organist , I once managed to add two packets of durex,a packet of tena lite incontinence pads, budgie seed and a pair of fluffy ear muffs into her trolley before she stopped dead at the checkout

Such fun

Revisited

Seventeen years ago 

I wrote this, on one of the very first blogs I shared publicly, I was reminded of it today by an odd comment, overheard 

It’s just one small reason I love my sister so much

little actions of kindness

Today I have been thinking of something that happened on a Christmas many years ago.
It was a little action of kindness that had a profound effect on me and made me believe in the humanity within man.

One sunday, I think it was around Christmas, we were having lunch at home, all of us "visiting" my parents. My twin sister and I would have been around 26, my elder sister and her husband in their forties. My mother was a not-so-secret drinker and was pretty smashed as I recall. She carried on preparing the lunch and serving it as though sober, but it was all too apparant to all how much she had indeed drunk. In typical English/family secret way we all tried ignore her slurring and clumsiness, but as she tottered off into the kitchen my father could not bare it anymore and burst into tears.
We were all mortified!, and concentrated on our lunches as though they were the only meals we had ever been presented with. Only My elder sister reacted. Immediately and gently, and withour undue fuss she lent over and cupped her hand on my father's cheek. It lasted but a moment, but in that one tiny act of kindness she gave him her support,affection and control, it quietened him and he carried on his meal as we all did.

That gesture strengthened us all, and I have never forgotton it, it was something unique and special andthese things are often surprisingly overlooked in our self absorbed lives.

Real Life

Its all been rather busy.

I was planning a blog entry yesterday and  ended up catching myself unawares from behind

Today, has been a similar day and I won be home until after 9 pm

tomorrow I'm working in the community in the Hospice @ Home team

Real Life gets in Blogging way just occasionally