Nurse Marimbirie

Adapted by Richard Curtis and the late Anthony Minghella from Alexander McCall Smith's bestselling novel and filmed on location in Botswana, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is feelgood television drenched in warmth and colour. After the death of her father, the “fat and fabulous” Precious Ramotswe (Jill Scott) sets up a Ladies Detective Agency . Investigating such gentle and humourous investigations such as the "the case of the dubious daddy!" Mme Ramotswe and her uptight secretary Grace Matuska (the excellent Anika Noni Rose) are big , bold characters who overflow with good humour, taking you to an innocent, sun-soaked world that like St Mary Meade and Cranford, probably never existed.

In anyone else's hands, this production could have turned into a somewhat patronising "Sunday evening tv look" at "African " culture, but Minghella develops McCall's obvious affection and respect for his characters to great effect and although frothy and at times wholesome the whole thing was I thought, quite charming.

I have mentioned this before in my blog , but I have many warm memories of working with Southern African nurses in Sheffield.and a particular favourite of mine was Zimbabwe midwife Edith Marimbirie. Watching Jill Scott's warm performance as Mma Ramotswe, it was the precise and lyrical nature of her dialogue that prompted the memories of Nurse Edith.who would light up a room with her wit and laughter.The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency captured that sing song,careful and polite way of speaking, the African people posses quite perfectly.and although lighter than a Walt Disney movie, the whole thing was great Sunday evening viewing.

no duckling as yet

a watched egg doesn't hatch....................no news as yet

Easter Sunday

We spent a lazy afternoon at Roger's Jones auction house in Colwyn Bay, then had a walk on the Promenade at Rhos on Sea before having welsh rarebit at Fortes' then home to cook dinner for Janet and Ned. Chris cooked and made a very passable meal of lamb (with minted peas,mash and carrots) and a bakewell tart (all homemade) for pud.
Jess ran riot with William for hours and over fed and watered we are now dozing in front of Indiana Jones and the temple of Doom...........................

Shout at the tv time!!!!!

I have never liked to see cruelty on tv , in fact I have never liked watching it anywhere in fact, and I was a little surprised just how much the BBC dished it out with huge relish on this evening's I'd Do Anything, tv show.
As some two dozen girls belted out "when 'e needs meeeee" during one audition, favourite tv Queen John Barrowman stalked around touching various Nancys on the shoulder to force their elimination, one after another from the competition.
The smiling Barrowman contrasted sharply with some of the sobbing girls many of who looked physically sick as they waited for the "axe to fall".
Distasteful tv

Hen village grows

This afternoon Chris, Ned, Ned's Brother (also called Chris) and I went to collect the latest poultry house in my bird empire. For 30 quid, the large hen coop was a real bargain, the only problem with it, was the fact it was originally located half way up a hillside, across yards of scrub land and behind two barb wire fences.
The ever so practical Parry brothers were pretty good in dismantling the fences and between us all, we managed to drag the whole structure (like something out of the construction of Stonehenge.) to the waiting trailer and my field just as the snow started to fall..
Being unused for so long, the hen house is in remarkable nick, however it was rather dirty inside, with old poultry poo,a ton of spiders, a dead magpie and several large and small wasp nests to remove.
We went to B & Q and bought some wood preservatives and face masks and I got stuck in. The new house will house ( and I am not counting my birds BEFORE they hatch) my new runner ducks and hopefully a couple of geese.I "candled" the new ebay batch of runner duck eggs today and it looks like several are indeed fertile. The last "survivor" of my first batch is due to hatch tomorrow....if successful I am going to name the little blighter Ripley (after Sigourney Weaver's character in Aliens) quite apt I thought..

On a lighter note

Chris is home after his red cross jaunt to Broadstairs, and home is where he loves to be. He is lying on the couch with Meg ( and a large chocolate Easter Egg which I bought him this morning) and is asleep "watching" some period Agatha Christie rubbish on Tv.

It always tickles me that he . is so easily pleased and I find his attachment to the cottage and "home" sweetly childlike. My attachment to home is always tinged with a slight martyr complex, you know secretly happy but trudging up and down,muttering under my breath whilst feeding chickens,cooking dinner and walking the dogs, whilst organising the car service and recovering the seed potatoes in the allotment.

I went to Prestatyn this morning and got a load of cheap lettuce from a lovely woman in the veg shop that is a sucker for a chicken story, got a few other bargains ( I cannot be too specific here to protect the guilty) for free from other egg customers at the same time and felt everything was good with the world when I came home.

Ned and I are off to work out how we are going to get the large new hen house onto the field ( the one I have agreed to buy from the top house on the gop) then I hope we can settle down with Michael Clayton (2007) on DVD with a fish pie..........hummmm Life in the fast lane

Abuse

We are such an angry nation us Brits. I see evidence for this every day, and participate in my own grumpy old man sort of way, to the decline of calm serenity that should be a rural middle age existence. Drivers barge past you in the queue for the petrol station. They flick you dirty looks when you wait at the zebra crossing with the dogs as if to say "how dare you disrupt my journey", and sighs abound when you are negotiating the narrow aisles of Sainbury's on a busy Thursday morning. I am as much to blame as other "irritated"members of the human race. I get irrationally angry when my beach walk is spoilt by other dog walkers (How dare they?) on the very public beach. When a car fails to stop when I am stood at the aforementioned crossing, my diastolic blood pressure is way over 200, and if you get an ambling mother with snails-paced stroller in front of me in the street, you couldn't wedge a piece of tissue paper in between my tuts of disapproval.

Generally though I think I am not overtly angry about life in general. Irritated by what I see as bad behaviour,- certainly, but I feel I have most things in some sort of perspective, a statement that most decent living people would probably agree with.

Unfortunately there seems to be a sub class in society that would not agree with this statement. People for one reason or another either cannot or will not control themselves. We as nurses experienced this rather black side of human nature on night shift

Two young men were admitted to intensive care for what was expected to be short term admissions following drug taking. During their "recovery," staff was subjected to a humiliating barrage of abuse,foul language,emotional and physical threats, not only from these patients but by a group of relatives that had accompanied them. Impotent, ill trained security staff were of no use and in the end (and two 999 calls later) two diminutive but very welcomed police women stormed onto the unit to arrest the most vocal protagonist, who was at this stage spitting at any nurse who was trying to help him.

What shocked me, wasn't the behaviour of the patients ( I am far too long in the tooth to be surprised by people suffering drugs or/and alcohol issues) but more the total lack of shame exhibited from these patients' relatives. Watching her son spit in the face of a 23 year old junior nurse, the mother was more interested in yelling about suing the trust for what she perceived as bad care, rather than apologising for her son's disgusting and unacceptable behaviour. And in that I guess lies the crux of the matter. This battling sub class actually does not see that angry exhibitions such as the ones we saw on night shift, are indeed wrong. To them, we are the enemy- Faceless and undeserving uniforms that are out to get them and therefore we get what we deserve in a "get them before they get you type- mentality".

I was glad that one nurse last night, near tears but defiant, turned round to this relative and said quite calmly "How very proud you must be of your son's behaviour". I know it didn't make a jot of difference, but for one brief moment her words stood up in support of doing and saying the right thing.

Grotty day

The weather has drawn in yet again. Windy wet and stormy, I have been limited to pottering inside the house today. Working this evening too, (oh joy)

Caught up with Hazel last night at the Ivory. She has just got back from New York so it was fun to hear everything over too many wines.

Chris finally gets back from Broadstairs later after looking Sorrel who is better after her surgery.