Order

 

The Welsh are chewing their lambs ear treats with gusto and the sun is out. Bun and weaver are sunbathing by the front door, but scuttle back into the living room when anyone passes . 

The neighbours have caught Weaver trying to kill birds on their bird table and asked permission to use their water pistol .

It’s springlike and the village feels busy.

Last night affable despots Jason and Claire met me in the Crown, where we won the TCA  quiz.

I was tired after nights so I was pleased to get home just before nine. 

Nice to see the pub busy 

Village Leader Ian was there with Lorraine and The Wilson’s from the TCA , he lives down the lane from me and now has a new electric car which I’ve already nicknamed Creeping Jesus ( electric cars and country lanes don’t go together as you can’t hear them coming! ) 

Today I’ve started to spring clean the cottage. 

I haven’t done much, but it’s satisfying removing Roger’s bum itching marks from the corner, of the kitchen cabinets ( once seen never unseen) and now I have a deep drawer allocated to paperwork, filing and the like. 

I’ve even taken out a policy with The cheapo cremationo Company and all that paperwork is in a file in the drawer. I spoke to the German on video, he was impressed by my organisational skills

“ Brits are usually rather slap dash are vey not ?” he observed in slightly broken English 

Things in order and Everything in its place I told him 

I’m sort of nesting. But I’m not ….does that make any sense ? 

Olive arrives on Monday

I’ve never owned a one eyed bulldog before

The Night I Heard Caruso Sing

 The visuals from the Middle East are sobering and chilling

Truly.

Strange as it would seem, I am reminded of my favourite band, and a song from their early days in the late 1980s when war was a long way away and I was surrounded by young high spirited psychiatric nurses like Tracey Birkin who looked and acted like a young Sophia Loren with open mouthed smiles and the energy of a herd of sweet ponies.

When you are young life is immortal and fear is only a thing seen in the movies. 

Everything but the Girl , sang The Night I Heard Caruso Sing beautifully. 

The beauty hides the message and screaming dread of war, and we find ourself hurtling towards a faceless video game of war with drones and missiles and screams in the night.

I feel so sad today, listening to that beautiful song

St David’s Day- Patron Saint Of Wales

St David, apart from being the Patron Saint of Wales is an ancient historical figure associated with the phenomenon of corpse candles. Now Corpse candles or light is historically associated with the prediction of a death. The light is often blue and travels along the ground from the Churchyard to the dying person’s home then back again. It has many names JackO Lantern, Jenny Burntail and Spunkie.

I’ve read that corpse fire is also a mistaken view of a natural phenomenon of glowing fungus ( foxfire)suffice to say I’ve lived next to the sChurch of St Michael’s for 22 years and have seen nothing whatsoever lol

Spring?

There feels that there is a big sky over the village today.

The daffodils that Trendy Carol and I planted on the field wall opposite my cottage nearly twenty years ago now are flowering late this year and the sun was out this morning which remains a novelty for this time of year.

It’s St David’s day tomorrow, and the TCA has organised a St David’s Day tea in the Hall. 

There is a bowls night and Casino nite organised too as well as chair yoga….I may go to that if my tendency for flatulence has abated enough.  

I’m working tonight and tomorrow night, then have two weeks on holiday, what fun….

 

Nasty

 Sometimes you can’t help but overhear a conversation between people in the supermarket . Two sixty something couples, one man proudly saying that they had just been to a charity fundraiser for the local lifeboat. As I passed the other woman, who was facing him said something I didn’t catch then loudly added, “well I wouldn’t support them as all they seem to do is to save illegal immigrants.”

I stopped my trolley as the original guy said something else and I caught something like “well you can’t let anyone drown” before the racist woman added “ well I would “ then conceeded with  “ I would save the children though” 

I saw red

It wasn’t my conversation 

It wasn’t my business.  

But I butted in anyway and hissed at the woman “ shame, shame on you!”

All four looked shocked but I carried on,

The floodgates opened

“ Racist Scum” I called her

I wasn’t pretty

Cheap Shoes was all too gentle an insult

I’m still shaking 

The Audience

The delightful Richard McCabe

Bluebell went in for her MOT today. I pick her up tomorrow alongside a big bill no doubt. My hope is that she will last one more year , just enough time to save up for Bluebell 2

Tonight Chic Eleanor and I went out for supper followed by a re run of the NT ‘s The Audience. I saw it thirteen years ago but was more than happy to revisit it…..and I didn’t regret it . 

This is my 2013 review lol


“Finally we got to see the NT production of The Audience
It was the cinematic re run in a small Art Deco refurbished cinema in Colwyn Bay...and I must admit, I loved the much lauded production featuring Dame Helen Mirren .
Once you get passed a slight left wing bias from playwright Peter Morgan, The Audience is a wry and witty "look" at the Queen's weekly "audiences" with a selection of her Prime Ministers over a 60 year period.
As you may expect from the writer of The Queen, Helen Mirren's monarch is a sympathetic, multilayered and gloriously difficult character, who is always a match for her PMs who all come to her with a host of circular and recurrent problems of self doubt, failure and political shenanigans.

The Ministers with the possible exception of a " Royal acting" Thatcher ( a wonderful Hayden Gwynne) are given an interesting and original slant . Gordon Brown ( Nathaniel Parker) is vulnerable and obviously depressed. John Major ( Paul Ritter) tearful and out of his depth and Harold Wilson ( Richard McCabe) is more Huddersfield than "ecky thump" it is his Northern Straight talking chauvinistic character that gives the play its heart, as we find out in the last few moments that out of her leaders, it is his old fashioned chutzpah that the Queen favours most above all of the others.

I enjoyed the play. Mirren's Queen is just how most of us would like to envisage her. Dedicated, steely, naturally funny and able to kick ass when the need arises.

8/10”

More later

 

Rhino

 No breakfast on my jumper and with Chic Eleanor’s jaunty scarf giving the illusion that I am indeed a counsellor, I’m almost set for a day counselling.  I’m tired today after nights, so have topped up with McDonald.’s Coffee, but the eye bags are very evident and I know that I resemble a Disney cartoon of an old African rhino who has seen better days.

Sagrada Familia

 The problem with being an efficient and older male nurse is that there is a presumption that the death of a patient doesn’t affect you as much as it does to other, more demonstrative nurses.

I’ve just finished two nights where two deaths featured, central stage.

I know myself well, and I knew I felt a tad bruised when I watched the soaring cranes plant the huge lighted cross on the central tower of the Sagrada Familia

I sat, a little weary at the kitchen table, when I got home and ate dry eggs in the chill of the unheated cottage, as the most beautiful building on earth was crowned

Then I had a little cry before going to bed

I love You

On Valentine’s Day, the mental health charity “ Calm” shared some important research. 

In it, they found that nearly half of men never say “ I love You” to a friend.

The research,co funded by a brewery company,  didn’t make it clear that they were talking about male/male relationships exclusively ( I suspect men find it easier to tell a female friend that they love them, and visa versa) but I liked the initiative championed in The Guardian last week, to tell a friend that you love them.❤️

I’ve been reflecting on my own ability to tell my own male friends that I love them, and tonight, as I was quietly sitting with a patient in the wee small hours, I listed my closest male friends and tried to remember if I had shared this simple but vital piece of information with them

Mike, Colin, John H, Nigel, Ben, Marcus, Jim,Mick

Four I had shared my feelings for, sometimes after a drink mind you and four I hadn’t. 

But this simple exercise got me to thinking of my female friends , and family, and people who I may not love per se, but whom I think of fondly and with affection.

How many people do we properly share our feelings with?

Answers on a postcard please

 

Cinema is Home

 My old friend deserved a visit today and yesterday

I’ve missed him of late.

I fell asleep in both visits but only for a moment as I enjoyed one version more than the other.

My old friend is the cinema .

He has been my friend for sixty years.

Yesterday a friend and I went to see the caper movie Crime 101

Slow to start it was a modern day mixture of  Steve Mc Queen’s Bullet with a moody Chris Hemsworth as a psychologically damaged but redeemable thief and The Thomas Crown Affair with Halle Berry in the Faye Dunaway/ Rene Russo role. 

Looking fabulous Berry at 59. ( playing 53) is back on form as an insurance broker for the rich and her storyline of being overlooked by her male boss because of her age and sex is a clear side swipe to the producers in Hollywood. 

I enjoyed this slick and polished drama more than Is This Switched On ? A muddled and uneven drama comedy that follows the unlikely story of unhappy forty something Will Arnett who suddenly finds stand up comedy as therapy to process his marriage break down with Laura Dern

This drama was ok…not great but ok, but I was glad to be back at theatre Clwyd’s newly refurbished cinema, an arthouse cinema who kept my head above water for many a year.

My sister Janet came with me tonight, and it was lovely to see the theatre so vibrant, what with the new restaurant run by Bryn Williams centre stage in the centre of it.

Wales has culture and I’m grateful it’s only 20 minutes from home 

Bryn Williams 

The cinema 

Dancing Queen

 I’m on the way out to meet a friend for a late lunch then the cinema 

So I will leave you today with the lisping choir on its best of forms.

The energy in this piece is wonderfully catching

Its made my day

History Talk

Ma Manley gave her animated history talk to the Trelawnyd Friendship Group this afternoon. We recruited a few people to add stories to my oral history blog and a few more seemed interested in the tapestry initiative. 

In her mid eighties animal Helper Pat showed a forensic memory of who lived where in the 1930s, we are going to have a Miss Marple afternoon with her with the tithe map.

It’s terribly cold today, the ponies are steaming as they eat their haylege and not one of the friendship Group removed their coats in the hall.

 

Not my first rodeo

 

Mary and her latest Trendy Carol’s Jumper

The plans for taking on another Bulldog have elicited some debate and trolling recently, most have concerns about Mary’s welfare, but a few have worried about Weaver and Bun. 

All have a point.

I have to underline , that I am a fair expert when it comes to introducing a new dog to an existing pack of animals. So far I have owned four bulldogs, five cats, 2 Scottie’s and five Welsh terriers and with no exception have I experienced a serious integration problem with any of them. 

That doesn’t mean you don’t have to be careful, obviously you do , but you have to manage the troops with a pragmatic, dog based hand.

You certainly don’t treat dogs like little people.

Old dogs like Mary will invariably give off their own leave me alone vibes, especially to puppies who often don’t and can’t read the room when it comes to manners. Olive is four years old and already comes from her own pack with its own rules and regulations. She is not an alpha female either and has the benefit of being a bulldog . 

Bulldogs are smart too. They understand concepts missed by other mutts. 

When a lesson is learned , it remains learnt, so to speak.

Constance, Mabel, Winifred and Dorothy have all exhibited this strength of character, I doubt Olive will be any different. 

Jealously and food envy can be the biggest of irritations and both can be dealt with by common sense and reading body language . Feeding must always be done individually.

Home must be a calm place too, where all members of the pack understand that you are the alpha and the chasing of small cats is a thing just not tolerated.

Like I said, I’ve never had a problem yet

But you never know……

Skating

 I’m not a sports fan but I did enjoy Riki Miura and Rycichi Kihara’s gold medal performance in the Olympic figure skating yesterday. 

Effortless.

I met a friend and we ate ice cream and gossiped in Fortes ice cream parlour in Llandudno, even though it was only 4 degrees and lit the fire early when I got home then watched Hitchcock’s Notorious 

Soft Noses

 I’ve done self care things today and took an annual leave day from work 

I walked over to the ponies and breathed up their soft noses for an age. 

They smell of straw and oats and earth and have trusting soft brown eyes.

I’ve video messaged my German friend over coffee 

And ate Marks & Spencer tomato soup with garlic bread in front of the fire. and watched documentaries on film directors

I walked the dogs and completed housework and soaked my feel in a washing up bowl filled with incredibly hot water and Epsom salts.

And it’s been a nice day

Tapestry Cottages

 I’m cooking a roast chicken dinner today. There’s enough for two so I will plate up a dinner for a friend in the village. 

The cottage smells wonderful. 

I’ve just spent a good hour with Ma Manley. We are planning a history afternoon in the village hall, in order to spring board a couple of initiatives dear to our hearts. 

The first is to promote the sharing of information and artefacts from Trelawnyd but to also whip up some interesting in the Community Tapestry where people from the village can design their own tapestry of say their home, or part of the village, or landmark and when finished, these personal views can be cobbled together into a community piece of art.

I love this idea, so Ma Manley is going to design me a template of my cottage, and by the time the open day is organised, I will have a work in progress to show everyone 

Ps the ponies are back in their field

One Eyed Olive

 Grace fell through. Her owner started to be somewhat economical with health news and updates, and I won’t be messed around when it comes to bulldogs. Their health can be too precarious to be fucked around. This was back in December

Now Olive has been put forward, 

A healthy and robust four year old . 

She has a gentle nature , loves everyone and has only one eye

She looks and indeed acts like Dorothy.

Even the tongue thing is the same.

Oh Lord……

Charlie Cairoli

 

Every time an old relative dies, so do snippets of your past .

It’s as though a string connecting you to the past has been cut by a pair of scissors, and like a tethered balloon , the memory bounces in your psychi for a moment before flitting away.

My sister messaged me a few days ago to let me know that our Auntie Joyce had died at the age of 97 .

I hasn’t seen her for forty six years, so upset wasn’t on the agenda, but I was transported to a time my parents were party people and relatives ways looked older than they actually were.

Aunty Joyce was in fact a second cousin. She was a short, pear shaped and overly vivacious woman , with red lipstick and strangely surprised looking drawn on eyebrows. She laughed long and hard and looked as though she had just walked out of a 1940s drama movie. 

She always wore a full length fur coat

Even when I was a young man, I was always fascinated by Auntie Joyce’s eyebrows, or more importantly  the lack of them. She drew her brows with an obvious flourish, giving herself an exotic,and permanently shocked look.

Remembering Joyce brought back vignettes of house parties when the men all wore ties and drank whiskey and the woman sported lumpy dresses and drank martini and lemonade. The house stank of cigarettes and cigars, perfumes and old spice.

And as a child the extended family visits reinforced my father’s status as patriarch 

Joyce and her famous eyebrows have now gone 

And another sliver of my past has dissolved into nothing

Onwards & Upwards

 Still buoyant after the success of the talent show  a quorum of the Trelawnyd Production Team met at The Crown tonight to suggest activities for 2026

Suggestions include

• An informal, boozy debrief for all of the team looking at the December Show . Which will give an opportunity for a proper sharing discussion as well as more voices and ideas to add to plans of this years events.
• A folk night using a local feel good interactive group who have already offered their support
• Performances which may support a proposed Garden Party event 
• Involvement with the newly resurrected Youth Club to perform at the Flower Show and Christmas Show 
• More support for the yearly Flower Show 

Onwards and upwards

The magic of this small village and its people continues