Oceans 13

Ocean's Thirteen (2007) was the ideal antidote to the torrential rain this afternoon; frothy slick and entertaining. Ok , the story had more holes than the average slice of Swiss Cheese, and if you went to the toilet, you would have missed most of the essential parts of the plot, but as a caper movie it was fun enough. George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon, all looked as though they had fun making the movie and let old hands Elliott Gould and a very sexy Ellen Barkin steal the best performances! Not as good as the original, of course but miles better than the first sequel, it was a nice afternoon out of the rain.

Williams first day

The weather has been awful today, rain and more rain
so getting William trained on the lead has been a wet and cold experience. Male Welsh terriers seem more sociable and clingy than their female counterparts and certainly more demonstrative than the more self assured scotties, and William certainly is subscribing to that way of behaviour. He is quiet, friendly and loves to climb into a spare lap, and has taken Meg's occasional mistrusting snap, Maddie's aloofness and George's noisy banter in his stride.
Chris is working away tonight so as the rain is falling, I have stoked the fire, and have settled down with a good book.
Lost another half lb today at fatfighters, ( a bloody miracle given the amount of chips I bolted down the other night)

Mike,Jonney,William and a painful bite on the arse

Breaking my journey to collect William from Alfreton meant that I had an opportunity to meet up with Mike and Jonney Highfield (see pic left: sporting his Damian Lewis look!!) in Sheffield. Mike was bouncy and fun as always and John was on excellent, no-holds-barred,drag act ,knock 'em dead form, all night. We had a great night chatting and laughing, it was good to catch up.(even though I gobbled up a large tray of cheesy chips on the way home!)

I got to Alfreton around ten, and after a somewhat painful altercation with a very large and angry Russian terrier (more about that later) I had the difficult task of choosing one of three Welsh terriers which was available to buy.It took a good while of oooohing and arhing but I think I chose well.... William is six months old and looks rather like the adolescent he is, gangly and a little awkward. He is in need of drastic trim and is pretty crap on the lead but walked into the cottage in a friendly bouncy way and was immediately accepted by the other dogs, who I am sure recognised his kennel smell. At the time of writing they are all lying in a heap on the kitchen floor.

The four hour journey home was made worse by my aching arse!
When I got to the kennels, Susan's huge pack of dogs that frequent her courtyard, were no where to be seen. So confidently I opened the gate and foolishly walked towards the kitchen door. Suddenly there was a frightening baying from behind the house and seven dogs hurled themselves at me. Now generally I am not nervous of noisy dogs, but two of the seven were massive Russian terriers, waist tall and both rather angry. I stood my ground, and called for Susan, but both larger dogs went for me, one of them biting me twice on the buttock (see the delightful pic) .I felt such a twat as walking amid a pack of essentially strange dogs is foolish to say the least, and the outcome, albeit painful , could have been a helluve lot worse. Thank god for Susan's benign thirteen year old airedale, who quietly positioned herself between me and the most aggressive terrier, not in any heroic way, she just wanted to be friendly!

And then there was 16.

I love this photo of the village taken from the Gop. The weather today is glorious and even with two hours sleep after nights, the view from the top is always worth the effort. Yesterday Chris and I went to the Poultry farm near Frodsham and bought another three Black rock hens. We are now officially at max numbers as the two hen houses cannot house any more birds. The three new hens look rather like teens at a new school and all are being bullied terribly by the others, well until the pecking order, re-jiggles itself. The new chucks are handsome darker version of Raquel Welsh, and have been named Glen Close (pic) and the weather girls. Here's hoping they all settle down together.

Jenny Eclair & pests abound.

I absolutely love Jenny Eclair in her talk show on LBC, on Saturday mornings. When I say Saturday mornings, I actually mean THIS morning, as she has just returned after three months in Australia, but after hearing her for the first time, I am a firm fan! I have enjoyed Mz Eclair from the variety of radio 4 quiz shows, she has participated in over the years, so to have her basically performing unaided for three hours is wonderful and a real tonic. Listening to her when I went for my powerwalk meant that I walked an extra 2 miles and actually laughed outloud several times down the country lanes between Trelawnyd and Llanasa.

I haven't bothered putting yet ANOTHER photo of the allotment on the blog today, but I have put one of the climbing rose over the arch in the back garden, which has just flowered! The allotment is under attack from the air and beneath the ground at the moment, black fly on my beans and moles ripping up most of my celery, ..........messy little buggers.

The weather has been glorious today and I suspect the hens had enjoyed the warmth as another 11 eggs today. I have has a score of orders in too and can hardly keep up with demand!

A lacklustre Alan Bennett

Office Suite is not one of Alan Bennett's better plays; in fact it is two plodding one act comedies both starring the talented Patricia Routledge, and looked as though it was written and should have stayed in the 1970's. Occasionally his sharp observational wit was evident in one liners such as when one middle aged neurotic office worker threatens to staple her colleagues "tits" together, but most of the play was rather bland. The venue was however, wonderfully impressive, Manchester's Lowery Theatre is quite stunning and Hazel and I enjoyed a small wine near the canal in the sunshine before and after the performance. Best bit of the evening!

Postscript............

ER's comic Morris, (aka Scott Grimes) pic, was wonderful in tonights episode on Luca and Abby's wedding. I have gone off ER for a little while, as it seems to be getting rather flat, but tonights offering was sharp,tight and funny. Excellent tv!

Fatfighters revisited, a baby blackbird and Heir to an Execution

Reached another milestone today as I am now 12 stone 12 lbs! 37 lbs has been lost and only a few more to go. The huge psychological milestone of 13 stone has been reached and surpassed and that feels wonderful.

When I got back home Joan seemed rather excited by something in our bedroom and there sitting quite still on the bookcase was a young blackbird from the nest above the front door. Before Joan could grab the little bugger I managed to gently nab him and carefully put him back into the nest where he promptly and inexpertly flew off with the parents in hot pursuit. Hope he makes it ok.


Last night I accidentally came across a documentary on E4, which was a little gem of a film. Heir to an Execution (2004) is the reflections of Ivy Meeropol,on the trial and execution of her grandparents Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953. The Rosenbergs, a middle class Jewish couple were lambasted for being Communists who sold nuclear secrets to the Russians, and their imprisonment and execution divided America as to their guilt. The documentary concentrated on Ivy Meeropol's Father Michael and Uncle Robert, who are the orphaned sons of the Rosenbergs, and who campaigned, albeit unsuccessfully to prove their parents innocence.

These two men, who were boys of ten and seven when their parents died, provided the documentary with colour,warmth and heart, and I found the story of how they were effectively dumped by their parents extensive family because of fear of ostracism or worse, incredibly moving. The documentary explored the difficult subjects of shame,cowardice and isolation caused by family secrets and the boys now men near their sixties were shown to be balanced, loving family men who survived their ordeal through the unconditional support of each other and of their adoptive parents Abel and Ann Meeropol. I found it fascinating that Abel Meeropol (under the pen name of Lewis Allan) wrote the classic anti-lynching anthem "Strange Fruit," made famous by singer Billie Holiday. The overall and vital message that this film gives the viewer, is that family love in its most honest forms can save the most desperate and unhappy of individuals and the beautiful scenes between Michael and his filmmaker daughter Ivy underlined this idea wonderfully. A lovely and unexpected film.