Albert's rehabilitation and my Chicken Padawan

Albert is almost ready to be let outside after his lengthy rehabilitation and leg fracture. Mind you his leg (as you can see from the photograph) remains a tad stiff and awkward and with farm traffic still high on the lane, I feel as though a couple more weeks indoors may be the order of the day. I know, I should bite the bullet and let the little chap take his chances with the neighbourhood cats , but after the suffering he has been through, It doesn't feel quite right .

This afternoon I was approached by a brother of an old friend, who has a son who wants to raise chickens. The little boy, who is around 10, wanted to look at an established flock, so I was happy to give him a guided tour alongside his parents.
The boy was delightful; polite, excited and eager to learn. He wandered around the enclosures picking out his favourite looking birds and asked loads of questions,finally I agreed with him that I will incubate enough eggs for him to hopefully have one buff, three hybrids (like Belle below) and two of the new grey bantams. I also offered to teach him the basics if he would like to come over for an afternoon. I gave him Pirrie to hold and it was nice to be able to go through wing clipping and vent checking with him!
As a little boy I was never encouraged to have and keep hobbies, my parents didn't possess the skills or knowledge to actively develop confidence in their children by celebrating individual passions. It made for a very shy and quiet childhood

"A homosexual with power...that's scary!"

So says Sean Penn in the title role of gay rights politician Harvey Milk.. and it is so easy to forget that in the non too distant past...gay men and women literally had no rights at all. That alone is a sobering and frightening thought in our supposedly enlightened post millennium times.
Anyhow I am not usually a fan of the Hollywood biographical film, I find them full of speeches and short on personality and character details, so it is with a tiny bit of regret, I say that Milk very slightly disappointed me. I must stress that it only slightly disappointed me, as worthy and as interesting as it is, we the audience never really get a full sense of what Harvey Milk was all about , we don't quite glimpse the real man, which is a shame.
Mind you Sean Penn gives a wonderfully bravura performance as Milk, and is quite captivating and charismatic in every scene of the film, he clearly deserved his oscar The San Fransisco setting looked lovely and I cannot believe we are off to the city in 4 weeks!!! .All in all I gave the film 8/10.
It was nice catching up with Hazel, as I have not seen her in a while. Before the film we shared a bottle of wine had a gossip and got free tickets to the movie as the Manager of the scala remembered that I was the one that helped him with the sick lady on Saturday night!
We were the only ones in the entire cinema!

Gloria is now a WOMAN!

I spent too long on errands in Colwyn Bay this morning. I drove there to sort out some paperwork for the nurse bank, and the whole process dragged on a little too long for my liking. I took the Scotties with me so after the signitures were finished with, we all had a long walk along the promenade to Rhos-on-sea. (above)

The weather is still incredibly cold, so I bought a cup of coffee from one of the beach huts. There is nothing more depressing than a seaside town in the middle of winter, I always think

I got home around 1pm only to find Boris excitable and very vocal. Gloria was nowhere to be seen, and Boris has obviously panicked when he realised he was alone with the hysterical runners. After a quick scout around, I found her crammed into the small duck house, where she had fashioned for herself a large deep nest!. As she tiptoed out (looking a little guilty) she left behind a large white single egg! Bless!....I was so excited, I collected up the little gem and put it into the incubator in the kitchen with Connie's 7 eggs ( the only white runner duck). I do hope the egg is as fertile as Connie's.....I candled them all yesterday and all are showing tiny spider like embryos suspended in the thickening albumin

Allotment Plans and the nervous Miss P

Yes, a large cast iron bath which has suddenly appeared on the allotment does seem like an unlikely addition to the field, but I am now in the habit of not refusing any gift when it is offered.
The neighbours looked at this white monstrosity with somewhat narrowed eyes, but seemed a little more relaxed when I explained that it will be disguised by a large selection of household herbs

The above patch of land is the only bit of the field not grazed,cropped or inhabited. Today I have cleared some of the grass so that a selection of hardy meadow wild flowers can be seeded. I tried to sow them here last year without success, so fingers crossed for this summer. I have bought a load of American flower seeds from the net.

Like any village, Trelawnyd does have its fair share of characters, and none of them amuse me more than Miss P!.

I see Miss P most days when I am walking the dogs up the Gop. She is a slight,polite and vital women in her early seventies and is always accompanied by a large unruly black and white Farm collie . The two of them make a remarkably unlikely couple, especially as Miss P has absolutely no control over her dog! If you turn a corner and the two of them are there, Miss P goes into what only can be described as quiet hysterics as she tries to calm the collie down who is excited at the prospect of a confrontation with the Welsh and Scottish terriers (but probably is more wound up by his owner's blatently supercharged anxiety levels!). With her flat shoes sliding and tapdancing on the pavement, and her face white with fear,Miss P then will try to remove herself and her animal from the horror of face to face conflict by dragging it into any handy house drive, shop or lane whist yelling "Stop it ! calm down,whoa, steady....steadddddddyyyyyyy steaddddddddddyyyyyyyyyyy....."

I have often stood stock still (with an open mouth) as the white faced Miss P, shoots away into the distance resembling a tiny Ben hur in his chariot race! Walking her dog never looks like it is a real joy for her.

Yawn

It has been a long but fruitful day at work as I have had a spinal Injury patient and his family to care for. I don't usually work all day on Sundays, and I have missed the animals today. The dogs seemed to have missed me too, as when I sat down, all four (with Albert gamely pushing his way in too) climbed on top of me in way of welcome.
I am tired and need a good night's sleep

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.