Golden Grove and Gwaenynog

The National Garden scheme (NGS) http://www.ngs.org.uk/gen/default.aspx is a brilliant National scheme which allows the general public to visit private gardens for a charitable donation. I love it, you get a chance to poke around someone else's home, enjoy and learn from usually inspired planting and have a home made cake and cup of tea....not bad for 3 quid.
Today the village of Llanasa opened six of its best gardens,the best being the stunning Golden Grove Manor House which overlooks the Gop only a mile or so from our village. I absolutely fell in love with the Elizabethan house and gardens and strange as it seems I almost felt as though I had come "home" (I wish!!!!!!!!!!!)
We ambled through the village to the quaint village hall to have too many cakes and cups of strong tea ( Nigel was in heaven)
We dropped Nige off at the station for his trip back to Stockport, then drove up to Denbigh to see another open garden at Gwaenynog, which was the inspiration for Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit garden. Mr McGregor's potting shed (pic) is quite sweet.
I think we would have enjoyed the garden more if the weather had been a little better. 60 mile-an-hour winds have ripped branches from trees and caused havoc on the roads. Two trees in Trelawnyd Church yard have been toppled and all my runner bean canes have been tossed around like matchsticks.

Chester and a new poultry convert?

We took Nige over to Chester today so he could have a trip down the memory lane of his childhood visits. We had an amble over the 1924 footbridge,a rather damp ice cream on the river and a mooch around the shops.
By accident we fell upon a summer festival parade near the town hall, and was impressed by some of the European looking "pagan "puppets and symbols on show.

We got back around 5, just enough time to walk the dogs and sort out the hens and ducklings.Geoff the friendly chap from the other side of the village who had come to see the poultry runs with his family earlier in the week, called in and seems to have been bitten by the poultry keeping bug. He is hoping to make his own hen house soon so I have enjoyed showing off my extensive(!?) hen knowledge.It is nice to have another potential hen convert locally.

Brittle

Brief blog today. Just getting things sorted before going to work, and of course Nige is visiting later.
Had a phone call last night from a friend. It was a sad call, their partner had just admitted to having feelings for someone else. It was a sudden, out- of -the- blue- revelation, and my friend's devastation was total,profound and terrible to hear.
I guess all of us rely on other people for our meandering journey in everyday life, and the shock of realising that the bedrock of what you hold close and dear is no longer there (or more importantly wants to be there) must be catastrophic.
Sometimes life seems so very fickle doesn't it?

First Crops

Some of the radish I picked this morning are the size of small turnips! And the potatoes look pretty good, even though the crop is smaller than last years' due to the dry spell we had earlier in the year. I have 8 full rows to dig up and sell, but the first of the spuds I will be taking to work tomorrow.

The ducklings have turned the corner from babies to adolescents and I have opened up their small run now and they have full access to the larger electrified run. I saw the lady from the farm in Axton (just on the other side of the village) this morning and she warned me about a local fox which has so far taken 12 of her hens this week.

The electric fences are on all day now

The Buff girls

The Buff chicks are in their second week of life, and are starting to show a little more personality than they did. They are also a joy to look after compared to the shit flinging dirty ducklings, as they remain clean, tidy and rather sweetly "fluffy".(Mind you I had to remove some tenacious clingons from each of the chicks the other night.......lovely job)

The weather has improved today too, so my mood has improved with it.Back to work tomorrow, where I will be taking multiple orders for my new potatoes which are ready to earth.

I have taken an annual leave day on Saturday ( which has angered one member of senior staff........me thinks we will have a lively "discussion" when I next see her! which I am looking forward to), as friend Nigel is visiting this weekend, which should be fun.I need to plan another Sheffield trip too, as I am having withdrawals for a good gossip with Mike, Jonney H and Jane.

The Savages

I knew I would be impressed by The Savages (2007) I rented the dvd while Chris was in Canada, but didn't watch it as it was showing at Theatre Clwyd tonight,and I thought I would concentrate on it better in the formal setting of the cinema. I was glad I waited.
The story I think will resonate with many people approaching middle age, as it centres upon the ordinary and slightly damaged siblings of a remote and fairly unlikable father who is suffering from the early stages of dementia.Brother and sister (a shabby withdrawn unsuccessful academic- Philip Seymour Hoffman and neurotic fantasist- Laura Linney) are cornered into organising their father's institutional care ,which in turn forces them out of their defensive introspection , to take somewhat better control of their own chaotic and lonely lives.
Hoffman and Linney literally break your heart with the realism of their roles.They play the whole thing patiently and without sentimentality. The characters are flawed, and deeply so, but gently engage the audiences' sympathy time and time again, you genuinely believe the two have forged this erratic,lifelong bond and undisclosed history only siblings of dysfunctional parents can have.
Of course the subject matter echoed some of my own experiences. Some of the latter scenes where the siblings face the forced cheerfulness of nursing home life are dreadfully painful to watch, but it is the reality of the relationships between brother and sister that really linger in the mind.
A wonderfully truthful film

Listen to the words

The weather has been terrible all day , subsequently I have felt rather down and out of sorts with everything. In an effort to lift my mood I drove to Llandudno for a mooch around the bookshops and to search for some birthday cards. Had a coffee in Water stones, and a walk on the promenade, but the weather closed in somewhat and I left early for home (listening to the radio in the car).
Listen to the words was the afternoon play on Radio 4 , and although I don't usually sit and listen to drama , this chilling exploration of mental illness and obsession was a lesson in tension and menace.
The radio 4 web site explains the plot much better than I could:-

Tim has a problem with empathy and justifies tapping fellow student Sophie's phone as the only way to understand her. When it all goes horribly wrong, he books the media room of the secure unit where he is being held and creates a broadcast for his college radio station. Armed with one 1991 compilation album, several illicit recordings and a script he has redrafted 43 times, he sets about telling his story.

If any of you get a chance make sure you replay this atmospheric and absorbing story from the BBC website...........excellent