I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue

R.I.P Humph
you will be missed

Life .......resembling.........art

Blanche now resembles her namesake in Tenko. She is practically skin and bone and again did not eat yesterday, Stubbornly fixed on her eggs,eyes fixed straight ahead , she refuses to so any of the basic activities of daily living. I am told that this can happen, so this morning I decided to become slightly more "firm" with her.

She growled at me as per, when I picked her up off the nest, and continued to "chunner" when I put her in the run with food and water. This time however, I treated her like a hysterical women an some Barbara Stanwick film and threw a small bit of water into her face.

It seemed to do the trick somewhat, as she stood there open mouthed at the indignity for a moment, then bent down and took a big gobfull of sunflower seeds. Ok Ok she didn't drink or poo anything, but it was a start. Only a week or so before the eggs are due to hatch. I will candle them again this afternoon and then float them in a bowl of warm water to see if the little bugger s are alive.

I am working later in the week so want to cram a lot in my remaining time off. Have to post the old incubator off this morning( I sold it on e bay!), and no doubt have a long chat with postmistress Jenny about the village gossip. More peas and cabbage has to be planted too, and I still have a ton of weeding to catch up on.

Tomorrow we are off to the pictures and Wednesday I am catching up with Katherine for a night in Dronfield. (long long overdue) then to Sheffield on Thursday for a catch up with some old work people for lunch, a mooch around Coles and then a supportive few pints with Jane and Mike, Mike is still having a rough time with a very poorly mum, and soldiers on in a benign and cheerful manner but looks as though he is feeling the strain. A few pints and a chat maybe what the doctor ordered.

Chris and I are off to new Italian in Prestatyn on Saturday ( Three nice eating places?.....! the town has gone all cosmopolitan) as it is his Birthday...then work.....That's the only down side of the week. I found meeting Chris' colleague yesterday, quite interesting, she is obviously a workaholic and totally focused in her goals and achievements.....and she just could not understand that work means nothing to me whatsoever......she just didn't get it......tee hee.

Ynys Môn

I never knew that actress Naomi Watts lived on Anglesey.....strange what you find out on Wikipedia isn't it? Anyhow we drove over to the Island this afternoon to have lunch with Chris' Professor colleague Jane and partner Peter. They live on a 17th Farmhouse on the East Coast of the Island a stone's throw from the sea, so you can imagine lunch consisted of lovely local seafood- prawns,scallops and lashings of pasta.

I can't quite make my mind up about Anglesey. The beaches are quite breathtaking, indeed they are famous for being so, but I always feel that the countryside inland is a little too severe for my liking. Anyhow we don't get over there very often. so I guess it doesn't matter.

Got back to see Keisha being kicked out of I'd Do Anything and Sir Andrew having a so called hissy-fit about it all........Foxes seen around the coops this morning, so all the electric fencing has been recharged in readiness.

Dara O'Briain

There is something very likable about comedian Dara Ó Briain. We are used to seeing him on TV comparing Mock the Week and Have I got News For You, but the the cuddly Irishman, although very Sharpe and quick in comedy show banter, I don't think has ever been seen at his true muscle flexing improvisation best. Tonight at Manchester's Lowery Theatre he performed his one man show quite brilliantly. See-sawing between rehearsed stand up and lightening quick audience involved improvised comedy, that became more complicated and funnier as the two hour show shot by, he seemed to genuinely enjoy himself as people in the stalls threw up diverse and sometimes bizarre ideas for discussion and exploration.

It has been a while since I have smiled so much at one performance

Clearing out the house

Radio 4 does have some little gems amid its middle aged and middle class programming. Today was a case in point, Clearing Out The House,was a moving half hour of interviews with the adult children of the recently deceased. It covered the trials and tribulations encountered when children have to sort through parents' belongings at a time of mourning, and most of the stories recounted, I could relate to.
Sorting out a lifetime of memories is often a rather sad experience, yet I cannot remember being that melancholy when I had to empty my mother's home. I never lived in her small town house in Prestatyn, so I guess that fact gave me some emotional distance from the task in hand, but I do remember finding simple every day objects that brought some sweet childhood memories flooding back.
A well used dairy cookery book, some vintage cake tins and and a large enamel jam pan, all reminded me of cooking days in the sixties, a time when mums didn't all go out to work, and "pinnies" were worn when you did the baking. Cakes and pies were banged out as routine, and it suddenly dawned on me , just why my memories were so positive.I was not just remembering my Mother, but I was refreshing old snapshots of my Grandmother, who always helped out with the chores when we were growing up.
Food, cooking and baking was as necessary to Gran as breathing.She used food to reinforce her affection for people.You were loved and you were fed......it is a simple and very effective way of behaving and it gives children a life long love of food and eating.
I still have AND USE these kitchenalia items and with the one addition of a decorative wall plate, they were the only things I kept from my parents' home.
Funny what you find important.........

Picture ( New tulips in the front garden.......funny I don't remember planting them)

Tilly Screams

Found a hilarious blog site today, the very very bitchy and very funny Tilly Screams blog site http://tillyscreams.blogspot.com/
if you have a minute and want a giggle, check it out

Barter and cocktail chatter.....

Being on holiday this week means that I have a few extra eggs knocking about ( I sold 5 boxes to a set of amblers yesterday which did reduce my ITU excess). So today was an exercise in trade.

I met a nice woman walking up the Gop the other day who offered me use of her manure heap ( it's funny what you can end up talking about with strangers), so today I found myself knee deep in smelly sh*t, throwing bag after bag into the back of the Belingo. Two boxes of eggs cemented a good deal, as did another box or so for old friend Sue, who also offered me use of "her" poo heap in another nearby field. Sylvia, from the Flower show committee has offered me all of her spare foxgloves from her garden, so another box will be winging its way to her tomorrow and the final two boxes went to a class of Prestatyn school children who are doing some project or other. (Ann will be organising a visit for them to "experience" the hens and ducks as they have recently enjoyed a "lesson" of vegetable husbandry at her allotment.

Chris is back tonight after his jaunt to South Wales. We have been invited to his professor's house for drinks and nibbles on Sunday, which will be interesting. (!?) as I am not good at Cocktail party chatter, I just don't understand the "rules" that seem to go along with "work socializing".when it is performed by academics. It all seems rather dry and a little too polite to me. I know, I have experience of far too many nurse nights out, many of which are so far from polite it can be frightening, so, I guess, my heart lies in a more "relaxed" chatty-ish night out.

I thought I was reining myself in, on Chris' last work do, but I suspect Chris would beg to differ...........hey ho......they all seemed to enjoy my company, even though I held court with a particularly disgusting tale of dipping a broody hen's bum in a bucket of water......sometimes I like feeling like Judy Walters in Educating Rita........... ( or so I would like to think)

My own company

I have had a nice day today. Took a day off from the allotment, and drove to Llandudno to collect my wallet (which I had left in Osborn's last night) Seaside towns always look their best when the sun shines, and Llandudno looked quite lovely today. I spent a leisurely lunch time mooching around book shops and stores, searching for a Birthday pressie for Chris then had a proper coffee and a long read of a newspaper, before getting back to the animals.
I have always been comfortable with my own company, I guess that is a product of being single for a decade in my twenties,Living in Wales and working part time, has meant that I spend longer periods in my own company and I can honestly say that I never get bored. Today was a case in point.
Anyhow feel a bit better about the martyr that is Blanche after seeking some advice from the aptly named Practical Poultry forum (http://kelseyinfo.co.uk/yabb/YaBB.pl) Some kind soul told me to go out and buy some sunflower heads to tempt the self harming hen, and bingo it worked. This afternoon she had a quick stuff of seeds 8 long drinks of water , then staggered off back to her eggs.....job done.....
Chris is working away in South Wales tonight, so I am settling down with an Asda Cheap (8£) DVD of I Am Legend,