The Young Victoria

Unfortunately I missed a good 20 minutes of the middle of The Young Victoria as a woman in the next row of the cinema suffered a prolonged epileptic fit. There was little I could do except reassure the lady's teenage carer (and a more nervous cinema manager) and ask for an ambulance to be called, but I did miss Queen Victoria's wedding to Prince Albert!
Britain does the costume drama quite wonderfully, and although The Young Victoria is somewhat tentative and pedestrian in its telling of the Queen's early years, the visual details in this sumptuous movie are beautifully recreated.
I also loved the chemistry between Victoria (a cracking performance by Emily Blunt) and the dashing Albert ( a very, VERY sexy Rupert Friend) but the film I think opted for a Jane Austen-style romantic romp (complete with Princess being trapped in the tower) rather than a more realistic biopic of a tough and potentially manipulated young women.
Generally I gave the film a good 7.5 out of ten

Dance Fever

Chris, Janet,Ann an Tim.....in full Strictly Com Dancing mode

Janet and Chris under the spot light

We all went to Llandudno this evening( I am writing this just after midnight hence the Saturday date) for a "one off" dance exhibition from James and Ola ( from Strictly come dancing)....The evening started in a slightly bizarre and surreal way, as before the bald headed singer and front man massacred "The lady is a tramp" he asked the audience to join him on the dance floor for some ballroom dancing!...of course no one came forward, well apart from a middle aged lady with obvious mental heath issues..and we the audience was left with the spectre of him ( with microphone and uncomfortable expression) and her, gyrating madly and alone alongside him on the dance floor.......weird or what?

When they did get onto the dance floor ,Janet and Chris danced very well indeed and had a great evening, so did Ann and Tim!...I enjoyed watching the moves and steps! in capacity of wallflower

Roger, Mary and Pirrie

The Wyandotte bantams are a real joy. All are perfectly tame, if not a touch cocky and race around the bigger hens as if they are on amphetamines! They also have a slight bubbled eyed "mad" look about them which is incredibly sweet. I have named them Roger, Pirrie (above) and Mary after characters in one of my favourite books The Death Of Grass.

Life is weird

Nuala rang today.....she has just arrived back from a brief jaunt to Marrakesh and wanted to let me know that she had booked us both tickets to see Sister Act in June! She had not read my "nun" blog...and off her own bat thought it would be a great musical birthday gift! How is that for being in sync ?
Invarably, I will be thinking about Nu and the phone will go, and I know this happens to her when I call....it is a weird best friend type of thing
(pic is of Producer Whoopie Goldberg and the the star of Sister Act Patina Miller)

The 36th Trelawnyd Annual Flower Show

After last year's disastrous cancellation, we the Trelawnyd Flower Show Committee are now happy to announce that the 2009 Trelawnyd Flower Show will be held on the 15th of August!
The schedules are printed, the Blogsite has been updated! (see below)
http://trelawnydflowershow.blogspot.com/
and we are looking forward to the biggest and best show in the 36 year history of the event!

It is official...I now have a "herd"

This morning the government letter arrived from the animal health agency informing me that I now officially own a herd!!! The herd name is an uninspiring FF2259!....I would have quite liked the "Gray girls"......but I guess that FF259 will have to do!
The pigs have demolished most of the grass already in their enclosure, but surprisingly their hut remains neat ,clean and amazingly fresh smelling. Nora waddled over to watch what I was doing when I climbed into the shed to give it the once over, then went into a sort of stupor, which seemed incredibly strange! She stood like this (above pic) for an age, her piggy eyes open but vacant. Only after I pushed past her and rattled the feed bin, did she come to her senses and gallop over for a nosh.

The Belingo didn't start this morning, so the trusty AA was called out to diagnose a desperate need for a new battery and a new set of glow bulbs (???) The AA guy, unlike the big girl's blouse that called yesterday, absolutely fell in love with Boris and insisted I take a picture of him and the turkey on his digital camera....

Putting the world to rights

I have always been a big advocate for the regular meeting up with a friend over a bottle or two of wine. For some, like my friends Mike, Jane and Jonney H in Sheffield, the ritual is way too long over due. Likewise, I need to organise similar trysts with Nige in Manchester and Nu of course, but tonight I was able to call round to friend Geoff's house, and with badgers wandering around his patio like over stuffed cuddly toys, we opened a nice bottle of white and chewed the fat for an hour or two.
It was a good evening

The windscreen repair man

The repair man arrived dead on time to fix the Beligo's broken windscreen. He was polite, informative and friendly and was happy for me to move the car onto the field so that he had space to do the repairs. He liked the Scotties (who were busy chewing on some cow bones) but seemed a little nervous of the small circle of hens that had formed to watch him work.
"I don't really like hens" he explained......and he pointed at the pigs in the distance adding "I am not a lover of pigs either!.......but the things I can't stand at all are turkeys!"
I laughed thinking he was joking, and with brilliant comic timing I pointed to a spot ten feed behind him!
He turned to see Boris (who had crept up silently to see what was going on) IN FULL ROMANTIC DISPLAY and the little chap "gobbled " away in full turkey volume.
I thought the poor man was going to faint! "Jesus !!" he shouted and literally jumped 5 feet in the air! He wasn't kidding, he was pathologically frightened of turkeys!
I had to pick Boris up and shut him into his house for the duration of the repairs.....I made the poor chap a large coffee in way of an apology