A lost duckling and Village news

Chris has gone down to Broadstairs to support a somewhat sore and worried Sorrel during some minor shoulder surgery, so I am left to man the cottage and allotment.

Slightly upset this evening as when I was turning the 8 runner duck eggs in the incubator, William, who was play fighting with Meg, knocked into me and caused me to drop one of my own eggs.(we only have two of our original four eggs left from the first clutch)

I was convinced that our own embryos were not growing properly, so I was upset to see that there was a tiny black ducking dying in the broken yoke. The poor little thing didn't live long, but at least I now know that the little chap nearly made it. The last remaining chick will be due to hatch on Sunday, with the "new" bought clutch due 2 weeks later. I hope they all do a little better than this poor duckling did today.

I worked nights last night, so took the dogs to the beach late with the hyperactive Jess in tow. I dropped some eggs off for Auntie Glad and took a minute to see the work completed on the New Memorial Hall's boundary wall (right)

The day was glorious, as was the view from the lane (below) The field seemed to burst into a bit of a wildlife zone as a large male pheasant with two females stalked around the coops (much to the irritation of Duncan who shadowed their movement with a large group of hens in tow) I tried to get a pic of the fun but the photo below doesn't quite show the wild birds clearly.
I know there is a lot of badger activity in and around the field at night, but we also have one hare and several rabbits living in the hawthorn hedges just behind the duck house that can be seen during the day.The hare is constantly being "flushed" out into the open ground when I am clearing the weeds and dead grass, and makes a rapid, slightly hysterical circuit around the field boundary.

It was warm and sunny today, so warm in fact that most of the girls were sunbathing for long periods this afternoon. Mind you,I was dismayed to find out that the weather reports from the BBC indicated that we are due a severe frost tonight ( the five day report omitted this fact when I checked on Thursday- and on the strength of this I planted all of my first early potatoes!!!)



Spuds cannot suffer frost and I had gone and planted 6 bloody long rows of them!!!!!!!!!! What a bloody waste.......Village Elder Steve, (as usual) has come to the rescue by loaning me all of his tarpaulins from his his grave digging job, and although it looks untidy and slap dash, the seed potatoes have all been protected somewhat from the -3 temperatures expected tonight.

Planning a murder!!

I am lucky I have siblings I am close to and it always surprises me that many people, just, well don't experience that closeness! Many friends of mine certainly love their own brothers and sisters, several of them are certainly not close and a few actively dislike their closest relatives, so I do feel (with a risk of sounding like one of the soddin Waltons) pretty lucky.

Watching the play last night, I realised that one of the reasons why there is a bond between us all, was the fact we all received a "shared", sometimes dysfunctional upbringing. David Benson in his play, explained that his family would plot to kill his destructive and aggressive mentally ill mother, but was very quick to reinforce that this "plotting" was only a supportive,fantasy which enabled them all to deal with the oppression and hurt of every day life.

When Benson joked that "even the dog hated her", I caught my sister laughing heartily at the line, and I remembered how we as a family mirrored the play's theme.

My mother was often bitter with her lot , and towards the end of her life could become rather "difficult" to say the least.( In actual fact she could be bloody dreadful) and coping with this erratic and constant drip-drip misery was hard. Like Benson's family, I remember us all sat with wine and nibbles one night, plotting how to get rid of her. Trip wires at the top of the stairs was one unimaginative idea (as was slippy pet toys strategically placed mid step), and although it sounds dreadful when the words are actually written down remembering it , the guilty laughter and silly fantasy of it all was such a vital and important cathartic release at the time.

Sharing such silliness (even if the root of the problem was VERY real) is the cement that binds a family. Those painful times collectively coped with by humour and irritation mean that there are several members frequenting the same club not one person shouldering the burden quite alone. I guess it is a case of swings and roundabouts.....if we as siblings had not had experienced family lows then our strength as brothers and sisters perhaps would not be as close and as supportive as it now is........who knows.

(pic) Agatha Christie circa 1956

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Think No Evil Of Us, & Spuds

I have always liked Kenneth Williams. Well I suppose "like" is the perhaps the wrong word to use when describing my feelings towards the waspish comic. I always "enjoyed" his one man show. Flaring nostrils,bitchy comments and a flair for wicked and self indulgent speeches, I always suspected he was a better performer than a stable friend(or even an enjoyable dinner guest) .The Kenneth Williams Diaries and The Kenneth Williams Letters supported this insight and tonight we were entertained with similar themed one man show Think No Evil Of Us – My Life with Kenneth Williams by writer and performer David Benson. The likable Benson linked his own dysfunctional family life,( with a mentally ill mother ), with stories of William's rather unlikable self loathing personality, and in doing so humanised both characters.I thought the whole production was rather clever and at times very, very funny.


We rather enjoyed the evening.

This morning I planted six large rows of early spuds, I remember reading last year that to gauge when it is right to plant potatos, old country folk used to "dip" their bums into the dirt.....if it wasn't too cold for them to do so, apparantly it was the right time to plant out....... think I will skip that........

Ebay finds

The incubator is crying out for a bit more usage, so I have actually bought some buff orphington eggs ( the fat hen on the left) and some black Indian runner duck eggs on ( of all places) E BAY!! The eggs are all set up with my two originals, so we will give it 4 weeks and will see if chicks and ducklings are the order of the day.

Worked last night, slept an hour then took the dogs AND Jess to the beach..very tired today....planting potatos tomorrow

David Shilling

Me,me,me,me! I guess that's what blogging is all about, being somewhat self indulgent,Got to thinking about my hat wearing today,Before coming to Wales I was never known to wear one! Ok perhaps I would don a woolly hat at snowy times but generally I would never think of wearing one let alone buying one.

On a basic practical way, working outside often means that something like my Russian fur hat is a godsend (even though I do look like a tit in it) but generally I prefer wearing Nu's striped wool hat as I often forget it is actually on my head.My chav deer stalker is I know a case of mutton dressed as lamb, perhaps the whole "hat" thing is a middle age man's effort to feel young? ................memo to self.......it's not working......tee hee

Feed The Birds Sing

god knows why I was thinking of this on my way home, but it was Jane Darwell's last film ( she's the bird lady)
very moving

I spoke too soon

I have never known the weather so windy. Last night both of us were wide awake at 3am listening to the wind shriek around the cottage walls. I was convinced that the slates would be whipped away in the storm and kept getting up to check on the village of hen houses in the field. The boulders I had placed on each coop seemed to have worked wall as when I went out at 7am, everything seemed intact., The cottage is over three hundred years old,, so I had to remind myself that it has probably survived alot worse

Once

The trouble with musicals is that they live or die on the quality of their musical numbers. The naturistically shot modern musical Once is a case in point, it has just won an academy award for best song ("Falling Slowly"), and has had rave reviews for its musical score, but for me personally, I just didn't enjoy the style of songs sung, and that I guess is pretty important when you are trying so very hard to enjoy a musical.
The film itself reminds me of a sweet version of Lost in Translation (2003) Heart Broken Busker Glen Hansard meets a young Czech big issue seller Markéta Irglová in a Dublin street. The two of them write,rehearse and record several songs together before returning to their original partners but not before they embark on a gentle and platonic love affair.
The leads are likable, the narrative quirky and innovative but the music, for me was not the icing on the cake.
A nice 7/10