I hate myself

Against my better judgment I watched the awful I'd do anything, this evening, I wasn't surprised to see the most talented actress and singer (the slightly lumpy but personality filled Francesca) get booted off the show amid a tearful gaggle of teenage Nancy girls..........Andrew Lloyd Webber is such an arse.....

Gardens Open & Dinner out

The dragon sculpture outside the Welsh college of Horticulture

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Having an amble around someone else's garden is the perfect solution to a slight hangover on a Sunday morning. We have visiting various private gardens taking part in the National Gardens scheme(http://www.ngs.org.uk/gen/default.aspx?) for a couple of years now and some of them have been truly lovely. Today we visited The Welsh College of Horticulture in nearby Northop. The grounds were pretty enough but I do prefer visiting the private homes in the scheme as you get a chance to glimpse how the other half live (these houses are often large,stylish and very expensive).

Last night we had a lovely huge nosh out at Anna and Tim's. Too much good food, too many gin and tonics and relaxed conversation that ranged from immigration,the setting up of a village community group ( Chris is thinking of setting up a reading group),Scottish ancestry (Ned is a "Welsh" Macdonald), family gossip and the banalities of everyday life.We had an enjoyable night.

Weather remains cold but a tiny bit more spring-like. Wild flowers are starting to bloom along the field borders.

Little to report

Weather is cold and blustery today. Chris is suffering from academic writers' block so is watching The Spy Who Loved Me on TV with a blanket, and It's halfway through my holiday and I still have loads to do.

The white indian runner ducks eggs from a breeder in Dorset arrived safely today and have been installed into the Brindisi, I have potted up more sweetcorn and runner beans ( the back bedroom looks like a bloody nursery) and have planted out French Tarragon into the garden; it is far too cold to do anything else in the allotment except to clean out the hens and feed them.

Off to Ann and Tim's this evening for dinner (off diet specially)........

Theatre Clwyd, Golf course embarrassment and Blanche remains a star

Caught up with Hazel this morning and accompanied her to Theatre Clwyd to see an exhibition by Welsh artist Helen Booth. Most of the abstract pieces are for sale, and Hazel being a bit of a new art buff, was hoping to buy a large painting for her front room. The art is certainly not my cup of tea, but is striking (left) and I was glad that she found a couple of canvas' she actually liked.
Thank god for Theatre Clwyd!. It remains a small beacon of cultural sanity for me along the entire North Wales coast....sometimes I do miss places such as Sheffield's Millennium Galleries, Weston Park Museum,Showroom Cinema and Lyceum Theatre, but at least I can shoot down the A55 and be sipping proper coffee at Theatre Clwyd's cafe in 20 minutes thus re charging my culture batteries.
In between art watching, and collecting horse shit from a local farm (oh how very Sex and The City!) I took the dogs and Jess for a walk along Bishop's Wood. I was late so all 5 dogs were pretty hyped, so I wasn't at all surprised when walking across Meliden golf course, a very angry passing Labrador started a fight between Jess and Meg. The two bitches had got to a bit of an "understanding", but like two slutty slags from the wrong side of the tracks it only took a tiny spark ( in this case a bark of a passing dog- instead of a ton of vodka and red bull) to ignite a bit of hair pulling.
Jess bit Meg ,Meg clamped onto Jess. William and George jumped in thinking this was all great fun, and all this in front of an elderly woman holding the aforementioned Labrador and four golfers waiting to tee off.
Meg bit harder on Jess, Jess bit hard on Meg. I pulled Meg off, and Jess jumped up and dragged her down again. William jumped in again, bouncing up and down on both of them whilst George ( seizing his chances) sneaked into the fight and bit Jess several times in quick sucession.
After a couple of minutes the whole thing was attracting a small crowd, with various people "tut tutting" and pointing at how badly behaved this bloke's dogs were. Red faced and rather pissed off I finally stalked off with one thrashing bitch under one arm , the other firmly clamped under the other and three dogs dragging behind on their leads.. Minutes later the whole thing had been forgotton, with a rather benign Jess licking the blood off a knackered Meg's face in the boot of the Belingo

No such bad behaviour from Blanche when I finally got home late afternoon. Still sat on her large clutch of duck eggs, she hardly moves all day. Water and feed is not touched at all, so we have to go through the daily ritual of dragging the irate hen off her nest, throwing her outside the hen house, for a brief pee,poo and snack, before she stalks back to the job in hand...muttering quietly to herself...

The Brindisi

The new incubator arrived today, the grand sounding Brinsea octagon DS 20! For some reason I have found myself referring to it as the "Brindisi" ( wasn't that the drinking song in La Traviata ?) and after half an hour of construction it hit the desired temperature, was bang on with the humidification and automatically turns the eggs without any bother or fuss. I love it! 12 runner duck eggs (pure white birds) and a further 6 runner (apricot coloured birds) should arrive tomorrow and we are off into incubation world again.

Lots done today, I have cleared and weeded the entire back garden, cleaned along the cottage walls and have sown beetroot in the allotment.

Son Of Rambow

I really wanted to like Son of Rambow (2007):-it's a quirky British comedy about how important heroes are to children growing up in those hot summers (long past I am afraid) which always seemed to consist of fantasy films of the day and simple day dreaming. Director and writer,Garth Jennings obviously loved his decade of the coming-of-age film, such as The Lost Boys, The Goonies, Stand by Me and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial , so much so in fact, that I thought that Son Of Ranbow felt totally like an 1980 American production. The Britishness of this piece, which could of made for a much funnier,individual and moving film was lost somewhat in a US homage, which was at best innovative and sweet, but at worse also a bit of a mess.
Pity.....

Bloody hell

Bastard, bloody, bastard, frost..........sneaked up on my potatoes last night and there we have it............bugger, bugger, bugger!!!!!!!!!

Not sure of how much damage has been done as some of my earlies have already been earthed up,, but this morning when I was letting out the chickens a local know all did comment that my planting had been somewhat premature.....

Oh how I needed the unwanted and unnecessary advice .............

Hunting Squirrels

George Loves squirrel hunting, and will spend many happy hours bouncing around after the hairy little buggers in the woods up the Gop. This afternoon I took time out from the allotment to take the Scotties ( without the more demanding Welsh terriers and Jess the hysterical patterdale) for their own walk in the woods. George and Maddie are easily pleased. They follow their leader, demand nothing and seem to take pleasure in everything they do, so for a sunny hour or so I enjoyed giving them my entire attention ..