I have turned into my Grandfather.........well just a little

Ned came over this afternoon and we managed to erect the cheap-as-chips bargain basement garden shed, Chris ordered a few weeks ago. It took us three hours of huffing and puffing before it looked the part and I am glad it has a small window, out of which I can see the garden view, as I am tending the chicks.
I have been toying with the idea of some Kath Kitson curtains..............what do you think?
At 46, I suspect I have reached the ideal age for my own shed.
I remember my grandfather's shed very clearly. The smell of creosote, the ancient tins full of unused screws and nails. old tins of paint, that would come in handy someday;rows of vintage garden implements and the home adapted wooden vice. It was all very masculine, rather dusty and in a strange sort of way, totally him.It was also always very warm (like your memories of childhood always are!)
My shed will be very ME. Obviously chicken and duck orientated, but I think I will get some curtains to give the place my own personal twist as well as some nice shelves with Homes and Gardens style gardenalia objects carefully arranged on them with relaxed style.
It was late when Ned went home, and I realised that I had no tea only at 8.45pm after I had rushed around feeding chickens and dogs, and watered the allotment.
After walking the dogs later I have got the Laura Linney film The Savages (2007) to settle down to.
Chris rang......he is full of cold and looking forward in coming home.....he has bought me a cowboy hat in Banff.....

Nell,Racism and Red Valerian

Poor Nell has been suffering the over romantic attentions (!!) of Walter and Harold over the last few weeks and now has a nasty sore on the back of her head (that is the area drakes "hold" their females when mating)as well as a clear infection in her left eye. So I caught her this morning and took her to the vets to get some treatment.
Now ducks are like hens for they remain still and calm if you hold them firmly, so I wrapped Nell up in a baby blue hand towel and sat her on my knee in the vet's waiting room. The waiting room filled up fairly quickly as only one vet was on duty, and by 10 am there was seven people in there with cat baskets on their knees, an elderly man with a collie and me with Nell sat stock still in her towel.
One woman opposite from me asked which vet was working and another women told her the "foreign" vet was holding clinic. Regular readers to this blog may remember that I have always been amused by the Polish vet tendency to yell when taking a history, so I was terribly shocked to hear a rather personal tirade of racist comments from the first women against this vet.
With eight perfect strangers listening, she admitted that she didn't like these "crappy foreign vets" who give poor care and couldn't be understood by anyone.Rather proudly she added that she would never see anyone but the lovely "English" senior partner . The waiting room was silent at this speech (but I did notice the second woman nodding) and I sat there speechless at this blatant nasty behaviour.
I couldn't quite believe that someone could be so open in their racist comments and had to say SOMETHING in view of the silence in the room .As coldly as I could I said loudly "The "foreign" vet is actually Polish and is a VERY competent professional She deals with all my animals and has done so wonderfully for two years".
Now the moral high ground I felt I had, was somewhat diluted by the fact I had a bald duck on my knee wrapped in a baby blue bath towel, but I hope this woman felt a tiny bit ashamed by her words. I guess that sort of creature does not take challenging too well( she just shrugged at my words), but at least the other people in the waiting room may have felt a bit embarrassed by their own silent complicity.
Anyhow Nell was treated by the senior "English" partner who had come back on duty (pity) and she had cream anointed on her head and some I M antibiotics.I have to bathe her head and eye daily with cold tea ( a first for me) which will be fun, and I put her back into her run with Maude after removing Walter and Harold.
The drakes literally went hysterical at being separated from the females and have constantly broken out of the hens enclosure to get back with their girls. After the fifth escape I left them all together again,I will wait and see if Nell's injuries improve.

Caught up with garden clearing this afternoon. The red valerian in the lane looks wonderfull, Thia weed covers all the walls in the village.

Ann's Allotment open

Ann's co-operative allotment held its first open evening tonight, with all proceeds going to a local Hospice.The small group of invited guests had a good chance to wander around the beds, ask questions and have coffee and cake and everyone seemed friendly , good natured and appreciative of what was on show. A local retired policeman Mr Cook seemed very interested in my allotment and poultry and asked if he could arrange a similar "visit" to my field in Trelawnyd, Mind you my allotment is not a patch on Ann's huge walled garden but I would be happy in showing it all off.

The chicks seem to be doing fine. Quiet, and still rather "depressed" looking, they totter around like little balls of cotton wool on pipe cleaners and don't actually look like they do anything else at all. Joan unlike the dogs, doesn't even notice that they are in the kitchen, mind you she is not looking too well today and has spent the afternoon on the couch, not moving even when William and George joined her for a while.

Judy and her sister Bridget called in for coffee and a fuss from the dogs which was a nice surprise, and I have spent the rest of the day gardening and clearing weeds from the back garden.

Chris rang from Canada and says Banff is beautiful. I am sure the views of the Rockies is lovely, I have seen the Mountain ranges around Seattle from the air, and I remember just how BIG everything looks.

He seems happy enough being over there, and not at all depressed as he usually is. I have told him to buy me a nice pressie .

VIVA! – Buenos Aires 1977

Crónica de una fuga (2006) showing at Theatre Clwyd is not a film I would have automatically chosen to see on a rainy Wednesday evening. But Hazel wanted to see this nightmarish tale of a goalkeeper for a minor team abducted and held for months by the ruling junta of Argentina in the late seventies. The film is based on testimony from the trials of members of the junta and Claudio Tamburrini's autobiographical book . Even with the quality of the makeup effects, the sight of the cast emaciated, shaven-headed, heavily bruised, blindfolded, hand-cuffed and naked on frame beds in an empty house is all the more powerful because it is true and throughout it all, you just can't help despairing for humankind's infinite ability to be cruel.
The final half hour, where the four prisoners actually escape their captors is unbearably tense.............I felt quite wrung out by the end of it all

Lily

The final chick, Lily, hatched this morning,and I have found it interesting that they differ greatly from the screaming ducklings. The chicks all have the hunched look of serious little men with mobility problems., and for most of the day they have tottered around William's crate on huge clumsy feet.

Sorrel, Clover,VIolet and Poppy

four Chicks this morning, and another potentially hatching as we speak. Hen chicks are cleaner than the dirty little ducklings and I think we can cope with 4 chicks until I put up the shed at the weekend.

Chris was up at the crack of dawn, panicking about his trip to Canada..........it's snowing in Banff

In the valley of Elah

In the Valley of Elah (2007) is a good (not great but good) murder mystery set against the trauma faced by servicemen returning from the Iraq war. The movie's rather heavy handed message that war makes monsters out of ordinary men has been seen before time and time again, so I guess it is up to the actors to raise this drama a little above the average. Tommy Lee Jones plays retired career officer Hank Deerfield, a man that was married to the army of old,Whilst investigating the brutal murder of his soldier son (an Iraq veteran) alongside a downtrodden police detective (the excellent Charlize Theron), Deerfield learns that the rules of war are very different to the ones he was used to in his more idealistic early days.

I think that this film plays the "traumas of war" a little naively.It almost implies that modern war is bad and "traditional" war has in some way a dignity, almost as if torture and unsupervised random acts of violence are only the preserve of this evil middle east conflict and never happened in World War 2. .But having said that, it is only a minor complaint of a competent and adult thriller.8/10

Baby Sorell

This evening the 5 out of the 6 buff orpingtons have started to hatch. I bought these delicate eggs from ebay literally for pennies, so I was delighted to see that they have the potential to become another big blowsey Shelley Winters or an Elizabeth Spriggs, especially good as Buffs cost up to 30 quid each!!!!!!!!!!
I have named my first chick Sorrel. I think that original Sorrel is quite pleased.

Tomorrow Chris is off to Banff in Canada for a 3 day conference.