I could get used to this part time lark!

Saturday! and I have not really worked this week! am working tomorrow though, but at least the back garden has generally been finished and sorted. It is a beautiful day today, so got most of my spring bulbs in and titivated here and there. I need to start the front garden, but am going to have a long cup of tea,a blog and classic fm for an hour before a long dog walk on the beach. We are off to Theatre Clwyd tonight to see The squid and the whale, which tells the touching story of two young boys dealing with their parents divorce in Brooklyn in the 1980's.

Path finished and Buzzards

Ok, Ok, its the last photo of the finished path and border! , and I am in great need of a bath. Took the dogs for a long run on the beach as all the kids have started school and the place was deserted. Then flattened the left bed ready for the coop delivery tomorrow.

Saw 7 buzzards over the village today all flying together (at least they are not circling!). They were all crying like cats, wondered why they were calling like that- couldn't find the reason in my bird book! We are going out for a meal later to the Blue Lion, which will be nice.

My Top ten cont......

Number 6: who else ? Russell Crowe, the Robert Mitchum of 2000





Number 7: Mark Ruffalo (You can count on me, In The cut,) Humm usually wears a beard!
very talented





Number 8 : Josh Lucas (Poseidon,Sweet Home Alabama) more charisma and self depreciating humour





Number 9 : Well we had to have a Welshman, Anthony Hopkins at the start of his career in the thriller Magic 1978.





number ten: "Mr Darcy your breeches are magnificent!" A broody Mathew Macfadyen

Not another photo of the path

Well I was just about to put yet another picture of the new garden on the blog and stopped
myself at the last minute........so I decieded to be frivolous!! and list my top five attractive actors!!!


Number one : Peter Sarsgaard, (Kinsey, Skeleton Key, Jarhead, Flightplan) sweet!





Number Two : Mathieu Kassovitz (Amelie ) Cute AND French!



Number Three: A vintage stunner, and maverick Robert Mitchum





Number Four: a very funny actor and presenter Alexander Armstrong,



Number Five: a popular choice Jake Gyllenhaal!! (Brokeback Mountain) The youngest of my choices (I dont care)

My next 5 choices will be up next!!!!

Film 4

I am so happy we are able to get film 4 now!!! watched a couple of films tonight which I really did enjoy! Notting Hill (1999) is I think Richard Curtis' best film. Frothy and light, certainly, and with that awful view of the Brits as upper class twits, The film is saved in my mind by some nice peformances from Julia Roberts and the usual Brit supporting cast!( I loved Gina McKee too).

The other film was You Can Count On Me (2000) and is a very different story ----Split from their parents at an early age, Sammy and Terry, the older and younger, respectively, are forced to rely on one another throughout their youths until Terry vanishes, traveling across the nation for a long time.When he finally returns, Terry finds that Sammy has built a somewhat stable life for herself in their beautifully provincial Appalachian hometown with her single-mom life and her son, Rudy.

Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo play sister and brother, and I have seldom seen a more moving portrayal of sibling love and shared growing up secrets. It was a lovely moving and painfull film.

Work on the chain gang, being single and sex and the city

Well I have shifted exactly one ton of hardcore today and have laid the foundation for the new gravel path. Tomorrow I will pound it within an inch of its life and then edge it! Humm having second thoughts on the gravel though as Maddie still finds weeing on small stones very exciting.

The extension for the chicken run is being delivered on Friday and then Robina and Sarah will be moved to the bottom left hand corner of the new back garden!

Watched a rerun of Sex and the City last night and It was interesting as the subject of the episode was the need for people to be part of a couple! whether it be in a gay or straight relationships! The programme mirrored a conversation I had with Nigel , in almost every sense, and I had to laugh when Sarah Jessica Parker met a gay friend of hers in the street. He was arm in arm with his "life partner", and the first thing they asked the generally single and tired of it Parker, was could she donate an egg to them!! The character Carrie Bradshaw just stood in the New York street and cried "Now I am single, invisible and just seen as an egg donor!" It is more common to be single now-a-days, but certainly society still seems to frown on the singleton , gay or straight.

Nigel hates what he says in the heterosexualization of gay relationships, and I wonder if I have fallen into that trap a little? okok we do have three dogs (instead of children) and I would like to get married ( me and Nuala have decieded we do indeed have bride envy) but I don't think we are cloying in showing everyone our wonderfull, just as good as a straight relationship, as was portrayed by the characters in Sex and the City! God I hope not !!!

Snakes,Copper mines and a British dinner party

After a busy couple of night shifts on Wednesday and Thursday got up on Friday and cleaned and tidied the house before Nigel came to visit. Went to the pictures and sat through two hours of bad (but entertaining) cinema, ie, Snakes on a plane! The film gave what it said on the front of the tin, we had lots of poisonous snakes on a 747! Nuff said! We had an excellent laugh, especially when Samuel L Jackson said (tongue firmly in his cheek) "Lets get these Motherfucking snakes off this mother fucking plane" Nice to see former ER actress Julianna Margulies , looking her age, but looking mighty fine playing the chief stewardess!


Saturday we went to Llandudno prehistoric coppermines, and the amazing history and feeling of the place was truly impressive. The mine was only "found" in 1987 and is said to be the largest in Europe! Strange given the fact that the Great Orme ( the peninsula that Llandudno nestles around) was in fact in prehistoric times an island.



After the mines, we went to Conway for a plate of welsh rabit, then back for a short snooze before going to Ann and Tims for a meal, with Janet and Ned which was lovely. we sat outside talking after the meal with lots of blankets and umbrellas, and feeling like a trio of fat bastards got back home for midnight.

As always it was great to catch up with Nige. Even though he actually photographed the state of the inside of our car to show on his blog site......oh the shame!!!

Am on night shift Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, and then I go part time in readiness for University..............b l i s s !

Hypericum and the best laid plans of mice and men

My plans got rained out today! It has pissed down!...managed to get out to Jacksons and have bought several cottagey/old fashioned plants for the new garden. Bought honeysuckle, loosestrife, lavender, formosa,buddleia, and another rambling rose for the arch!. Pleased to get a hypericum (left) as it one of my favourite garden shrubs! its smell reminds me of vintage gardens in surburbian Prestatyn when I was a child.

Managed to put in some of the structural plants in between the showers, but couldn't dig the path out! However I did get to the builders' merchant and ordered the hardcore.

Last night we watched the romantic comedy One Fine Day, with George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer. It is an excellent 1940 ish style old fashioned New York movie, and I must admit George Clooney is a talented comedian! and actor, and rather better than Cary Grant who dominated similar roles in the 1940's and 1950's.

Just lit the cottage fire tonight, so autumn is here ! and a lacklustre summer is over