Can a fat deer be called bariatric?

Had a mixed day today ! went to Abergele Hospital for the annual moving and handling training, and was immediately transported back to my Sheffield Lodge Moor days. Abergele is an old fashioned sanatorium set in lovely grounds, at coffee break I was amazed to be able to walk a mere 10 yards from the car park and actually saw a large deer walking calmly in the woods!

As study days go, the day was fairly uninteresting, but I was intrigued at a new politically correct term being coined by the moving and handling trainers. Apparently patients over 25 stone are now being termed bariatric!!

http://www.independentliving.co.uk/bariatric.html

The timing was interesting as Doris Karloff aka Ann Widdecombe was debating the government efforts to combat obesity on radio 4 this morning, but various statistics discussed by the trainers today was indeed frightening. They stated that GPs in our catchment areas have literally scores of patients over 35 stone!
They are expecting a bariatric "surge" in days to come.................hummmmmmm!

Met a very interesting lady today, a rather butch mission nursing sister from Zimbabwe. She was visiting her mother in Prestatyn and was doing some bank work over here to update her nursing practice. We had a nice chat about Hyenas eating her rubbish and ground pigs scoffing her potatoes! and she confided that she couldn't believe how rude people are over here! It made me think of the Zimbabwen nurses I worked with in Sheffield. They had a stillness about them, which made them appear calm and rather benign, yet had a formal courtesy in the way they interacted with everyone. I still miss working with Edith Marimbirie, a middle aged former midwife, who laughed at everything and who held your hand as she spoke to you. She provided my spinal ward staff with a certain balance.

Dug over the new garden when I got home! then we had bangers and mash for tea ( with onion gravy), which was lovely. Chris is curled up on one couch and me and the kids (Finlay, Maddie and Meg) are crammed onto the other ( thats nice!)

Am sort of watching my new dvd of Poseidon on my computer, as I am typing this ! and am surprised of just how potentially good it is! pity it was ruined by bad editing! Josh Lucas is lovely to look at too!!!

"Snakes on a plane....What's that all about?"

Sounds like an urban myth, but one of the sisters that I worked with last night actually asked "Snakes on a plane.....What IS that all about?".........Some of the younger staff replied collectively "duh!"..........And that got me thinking of the 1950 cleverness and marketing of this 2006 B movie.

The publicity machine at New Line Cinema productions will be hugging themselves! , as they astutely picked a cool black actor, a vintage cheesy title and wisely made sure that no previews were aired of this potentially routine but scary comedy thriller. Word of mouth, bouncing around the internet has made it the exciting cinema phenomenon of 2006, and has insured its box office success where blockbusters such as Poseidon have failed, even before the film is actually released.

Historically a movie's money making ability has often relied on its ability to catch the public's imagination. Word-of-mouth catapulted The Blair Witch Project, to fame , well before it was released. Video rentals made The Shawshank Redemption trendy, and the original Poseidon Adventure burst forth to fame as 1972 audiences were hungry for a glossy old fashioned epic rather than dour "real life" dramas.

Will I go and see it? you are darn right I will?...and I will probably enjoy 30% of it....hey but all that really matters is that I have paid £ 5.95 for the ticket!

Beach Photographs

Took this photograph on the beach , can you see what it is yet?

Ann sweeps the board at Trelawnyd flower show!!

The flower show was held at the village hall

The Trelawnyd flower show was a very different experience to Ann's Prestatyn Flower show. Very Welsh and VERY 1950's but fun nevertheless. Disaster of the day was my boiled egg (right), as you can see it turned out more like a poached egg! but at least it gave the village a bit of a laugh! No luck with my hanging baskets, photo,victoria sponge, and cut flowers but I am glad I joined in and next time will do a bit better!!! I did get a first with a fucshia ( but it WAS Ann's!)

She swept the board! 5 seconds and two firsts! mostly for veg and paintings!, but she enjoyed entering a flower show rather than just run one!!

Highlight of the raffle ( which slowed proceedings to a comatose level) was Chris winning a set of bathroom scales! when the ticket was read out, he stood up amid 150 elderly ladies, shouting "yes!!!!!!!!" Well it got everyone laughing!

Mud, Mud glorious mud

I have a garden!!! well the bare bone of a garden, but a garden nevertheless. The final load of soil finally arrived this morning and I must admit to a quiet admiration for the guy that delivered it! Not a stone out of place from our new wall and no mess on the road! I am on nights tonight so can't really get stuck in to level it all off and tomorrow is earmarked for flowershow preparation!!!

The inside of the wall has to be "aged" in someway, apparently you can either wash it with yogurt, which will age it with all manner of bugs and plants or "paint" it with horse muck and water!....got pippa's number twos , so that lovely job can be tackled next week!!!

Bishop's Wood old friends and finally soil!

Got my computer printer from LLandudno, and then had a clean bill of health from the dentist ( a very surreal experience- as receptionist, dental nurse and dentist were all excitedly and maniacally happy and welcoming!!!) I had the notion that the practice had just opened and I was their first customer.
Postscript...someone at work told me that the dentist is, shall we say, a bit odd!! (aka manic)nuff said
Took the dogs on the Bishop's Wood round robin and even at 2pm the overhanging trees made it feel more like dusk!



When I was walking in Bishop's Wood, thought about old friends that I made in Prestatyn when I was growing up , and where they were now! In small towns, friends that share a common interest and a modicum of ambition, often move away when University and work calls them , and the friends I made (embarrassingly through CB radio), were no different. I thought it ironic that the only one I really keep in touch with, is the one that moved furthest away! Nia was fourteen when we met, and as the little sister of my then best mate, Rol, she was a bouncy, confident little dynamo..... Now married, heavily pregnant and living in Sydney ,Australia,she remains dynamic and still very much a good friend.

Below is some information on Ian Parry , another friend from 1980's Prestatyn set! Who sadly died in 1989- I was delighted to find this piece about him on google!! oh the power of the internet .





IRINA WERNING - winner of the Ian Parry Scholarship 2006
IAN PARRY SCHOLARSHIP /2006/
Ian Parry was a talented photojournalist at the beginning of his career, when he was tragically killed whilst on assignment for The Sunday Times in December 1989. As the youngest of four children from Prestatyn, north Wales, Ian was determined from an early age to pursue a serious career in newspaper photojournalism and joined the local Rhyl Journal as a trainee at the age of 16. After studying on Sheffield's NCTJ course, he moved to London to secure his dream and joined The Sunday Times as a staff photographer. On one of his first major assignment to cover the war in Romania, a job he was determined to undertake, the plane carrying him home crashed just after take off in bad weather. "He was one of the finest young photographers to have entered Fleet Street in recent years. He had a great deal of personal discipline, which he combined with flair, imagination and tremendous compassion", said Aidan Sullivan, who set up The Ian Parry Scholarship in his memory. Tributes to Ian have come from every picture editor he worked for. "He could turn his hand to anything and had great potential. We often sent him on long, difficult jobs and there was never a squeak of complaint," said Michael Young of The Times.

I suspect and would have hoped that Ian and I would have kept in touch , but I do wonder just how famous he would have become, and just how hard would his job would evolve into. Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Bosnia, Ian would have been in every one of the World's hot spots and you just can't help thinking what would have become of him?

oh by the way.......my soil has finally arrived!!!!!

Euphorbia, anemones and NO soil !!!

Well, it's one of those muggy wet days today, and after a couple of minutes in the garden you are soaking "damp"!!. The rubble has been taken from the car pull in and after two hours hard slog I have got it clean and tidy, which pleases me!

Been planning the new garden also! cannot do anything else as the top soil has still not appeared, so spent a while at Jackson's picking various cottage garden herbaceous plants such as Euphorbia and anemomes (bottom picture). So I have quite a nice selection of plants all ready, but NO SOIL!!!

Pleased with this picture of yellow flowers as it is one of my planters by the back door! can't remember the name of the plant but I have just bought around ten plants to screen the hen house when it is returned to its rightful place in the back garden!



I have entered my baskets and planters in the Trelawnyd flower show, so have been busy buffing everything up for when the judges amble by!! no sign of any elderly matronly types with clip boards as yet, but I would like to think I have a bit of a chance!..Later , on our tea time walk I am off to suss out the opposition!!








Tomorrow I am off to the dentist! Managed to find one in Holywell of all places that is taking new patients! I could have gone to Rhyl, but couldn't bring myself ! I am gearing myself for University at the moment , so am getting all those jobs "that cost" out of the way! Hence the wall, garden,plants and decoration!!!
Our old neighbours from Cefn-y-gryrch Glenys and Geoff are comming up soon to decorate our bathroom with a bargain wallpaper from Laura Ashley! They are a sparky retired couple that never stop talking and laughing...watch the blog for their picture soon, they're priceless!!!

neighbours

The ritual after nights is to clean the cottage from top to bottom, and during an particularly difficult time scrubbing the floor tonight, whilst listening to Eddie Mayer on Radio 4 , I did have a pang of missing my old neighbour and good friend John from Sheffield.

He always seemed to pop in with a welcome quick hello,or an interesting story .We would have a quick gossip, cup of tea,debate over a watched film or play then he would be gone, and those brief but regular contacts firmly cemented our friendship over many years!

Our neighbours here, are just that!!!.... nice neighbours!! .....I do miss my old one!