....you know you're middle aged when......

..you fall asleep on the couch at 7pm with a dog on your knee

..you get excited over a homemade sherry trifle

..you prefer sitting by the fire instead of going out in the cold to the pictures.

..you leave your woolly hat on in the house cos it keeps your head warm.

..you enjoy watching the 1968 film Oliver! rather than the latest celebrity Big Brother

...the doctor who ,you actually remember the most is Jon Pertwee

Sorrel and Chris have spent another day shopping (this time in Chester) I knew they would be too tired to go to the cinema this evening so we will go and see Australia tomorrow night. Nuala went to see it yesterday in an effort to divert herself from her sad mood.......she gave it an 8 out of 10! She also saw the much lauded The Reader (which she gave 9/10)....I hope to see that next week.

So this evening we have had a somewhat relaxed time. Oliver on the tv, Chris on his computer and the dogs on Sorrel.......yeap middle aged we definitely are.....

How clean is your cottage?

Now I usually drag the rows of Christmas cards and tastefully placed sprigs of holly down on Boxing day, as for me Christmas is totally over by then.Seeing that Sorrel was visiting us late I have had to leave the decs up, which is an extremely stressful thing to do when you are a border line compulsive obsessive as I am. Chris and Sorrel have spent the day shopping, so I have enjoyed a few hours cleaning and bagging up all the tinsel!
I know it is not terribly interesting but for me a good clean is a terribly therapeutic pastime. It's a good job too, with William's disguesting bowel habits still reeking havoc on the cottage shagpile! and Albert's constant need to tap dance in his cat litter. Sometimes it is like living in a large,large petri dish!

Siberia

The cold snap here in Wales continues! and everyone is saying that the sub zero temperature seem to be the lowest in recent memory! Sorrel and Chris have set up camp next to the fire this morning and are curled up with a dvd of Mamma Mia. I have just taken the dogs up the Gop, which is stiff,icy and quite beautiful in the thick, thick frost.The birds cope with the frost well, but I have had to break the ice on their water feeders twice this morning already!

William was getting rather impatient with me on our walk as I paused to send my New Year texts to friends!, the network seems to be down at the moment, so "Happy New Year" to Jane,Geoff,Nige,Hazel,Jonney H,Mike & Bev,Nia,Nu and Jim etc etc etc

Nigella lives

Ann did her hostess with the mostess performance last night, as we all got together for a a New Year's Eve dinner.Below she was giving it the old "Nigella lips" whist slicing the Cheesecake.
Below Chris and I in "evening wear" How camp do I look? Well I was dressed as Craig Revel Horwood

Janet (looking very glam) Ned (in full kilt dress suit) and Sorrel

Carol (Tim's sister) Brother Andrew and Jayne

We finished a lovely meal just before Midnight, and went outside to call in the New Year as the fireworks exploded over Prestatyn.

Happy New Year

2008 has been a rather mixed bag. For Chris it has meant success at work and the development of oodles of research projects and contacts over the country, and for me it has meant the development of the 6 allotments, a doubling of my own breeding hen and duck numbers and the initiation of a fairly unhealthy love affair with a rather ugly male turkey!
The allotment "open" has cemented our standing and relationships within the village community and the arrival of 14 little ducklings and a score of chicks has proved somewhat magical.
We lost old Joan and gained the over confident Albert. We almost lost William too, but generally the animal population has gone from strength to strength.
Several Old friends have suffered terrible life challenges and have needed our support while we have celebrated marriages and births with others.who have returned to us after long absences.Old colleagues and mentors have sadly died and new members of the family have been welcomed into the fold,but as always my Sheffield friends,as well as Nu and Nia have always been there, always constants and always supportive
The year has flown by,....at our age they always seem to do so.......but we have been lucky.Lets hope we all have a good, healthy and happy 2009

Catch up

Today has been a bit of a "non" day. Sorrel is arriving later from Kent, I am working on night shift, and the weather remains icy cold but bright. The sun has that slightly milky, weak look and everything is bathed in an almost "sunset" type hue. George came over with me to feed the birds this afternoon and spent most of the time squaring up to Rogo.
I caught up with Nu this afternoon; she sounded exhausted and overwhelmed, Una's funeral will be next Wednesday over in Liverpool. It seems as though her family has lived its life at one Church service or another over the past year, at least I can make the service, for what little help that will be.
Tomorrow night we are all invited to Ann and Tim's for a "strictly come dancing" evening.....

Memories

We bought a scanner/printer this afternoon, it was in the sales and cost 30 quid, so it was a bit of a bargain. As I got on with feeding the birds (I gave them the carcass of the turkey which they devoured within seconds!), Chris got to practicing his downloads and I think it's great that two of Ian Parry's (http://www.ianparry.org/main.php) original photographs that we have on our kitchen wall, could be scanned and replicated!.
To those that do not know, Ian was an old friend who soon outgrew his quiet Prestatyn roots. Always a talented and dedicated photographer, he moved to London in the late 80's as a freelance, and worked for The Times in the Uk as well as in war torn Romania, where he lost his life nineteen years ago in a mysterious and tragic plane crash .
Nuala bought me a copy of the winners of the Ian Parry scholarship award for Christmas this year, so it seemed inevitable that my thoughts be concentrated on some of those early photographs Ian took here in Wales, so far back when we still enjoyed a geeky life on the CB radio.
The top photo is one Ian took of my maternal Grandmother during a family picnic on the Denbigh Moors shortly before her death, She had been widowed months before, and even though the death of my grandfather had literally shattered her, this photograph certainly captured her warmth and zest for life.
The bottom picture is one of my family's all time favourites. It was taken just as I was sharing a joke with my sister Janet at a friend's wedding (something about my patient leather shoes I seem to remember).You can almost hear the cackling laughter can't you? God I look around 15!!!

Christmas gifts

as usual I have been very lucky with my Christmas gifts......this year I have recieved:-

a pair of wellington boot socks (cracking!!)
a 9 kilo hen feeder,
a torch,
Patricia Cornwell's latest novel,
a selection of allotment seeds,
Mamma Mia dvd,
The Mist dvd,
Alan Carr's autobiography,
pair of wellies,
Christmas Jumper,
a small shaker-style bag full of AA batteries,
Christmas Coffee,
A book by the winners of the Ian Parry Scholarship "Eyes wide open",(From Nu)
an alarm clock,
some Kath Kidson tea towels,
a set of bath towels!,
a wooden duck caller (????!)
several Body shop pots of moisturiser,
a pet hamper,
socks,
Snow patrol cd,
a miniature garden set (secret santa from work),
Australian style Christmas decorations,
bottle of port,