At last a PROPER cafe!!!

This morning I had a little respite from duckling watch (the 6th final duckling hatched this afternoon). I went to St Asaph to put the Belingo through its MOT. St Asaph is the small town where I was born, and is a historic, but rather empty place, that sports a magnificent Cathedral (above) and the Scenic river Elwy (below).

Unfortunately the Market town centre of St Asaph, with its pretty Regency High Street is quiet and devoid of the usual shops and businesses, However I did manage to find a small, shabby chic fair trade cafe that sells PROPER COFFEE (a rare thing in North Wales I can tell you), so when I was waiting for the car to be sorted, I had a relaxing and indulgent time with my Americano and the daily papers.You cannot believe how such a simple pleasure can be so appreciated.,,,,,,,,,Wales generally does cafe culture VERY POORLY!
This evening I contacted Chris' dad, Richard, who has been conscripted in as Small Holding manager when we are away in San Fransisco. Luckily he has not got cold feet with all the work that will be involved. I hope Boris will be ok with him.....Yesterday he attacked, Gary the guy who runs the neighbouring Village Pond. Gary was looking at the Indian Runners and Boris went wild at him!.....beating violently with his wings and feet.........I was proud as punch at his first show of masculinity!

Il y a longtemps que je t'aime

Finally I have managed to watch Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (I've Loved you so long)....and it was well worth the wait. An epic family drama and history has been condensed by director Philippe Claudel into a beautifully paced and crafted study of a woman (Kristin Scott Thomas) who is hiding a huge dark secret. Ever so slowly, the audience comes to realise the nature of the beast and finally the elephant in the living room whose shadow has fallen over all of her family's lives, is explained finally in a quiet and incredibly powerful end scene.
Scott Thomas is amazing as the chain smoking, cardigan wearing,complicated and ghost-like Juliette. She grabs your attention from the melancholy opening scene in an airport lounge and never lets you go. She has the presence of all the best silent movie stars rolled into one. It is a stunning truly Oscar winning performance.
The film' message seems clear.......it is family bonds and friendships that provide refuge and rehabilitation to the damaged and guilty...and despite the dreadful subject matter, the sense of hope and positivity within the complicated and clever narrative is compelling
9/10

A million miles from the G20

So far 5 ducklings have arrived. Three are already under the heat lamp in the shed, two are still in the incubator "drying off". The last egg looks as though it is going to hatch too, but we will wait and see. They are, as always, incredibly cute.
Today I have been working outside as the weather has been lovely. As I planted lettuce (below) and surrounded one of the vegetable plots with rabbit proof wire, I listened with interest to LBC's report on the G20 demonstrations.
The more I learn about the protesters activities, the more I think of how unfocused and pointless the whole stupid thing actually is. It seems to me that the right to show anger of Government policy is perfectly justifiable but the "riots " at the G20 seem to be a happy slappy fun day out for the great unwashed that stink of Patchouli oil and who have dogs on bits of string.
It seems to be less a rant about capitalism and more an excuse to fight the police.
I would have liked to have shouted from the top of the tallest building of the Square mile
"GET...A....JOB!!!"

This afternoon after planting lettuce, I cleared the vegetable patch I had fenced, and dug over the damage the rabbits had caused (below). I re planted cabbage seedlings, and broad beans, before returning to the cottage knackered and a little sore.

The first duckling of 2009

I can never quite get a clear photo close up with my cheap digital camera, but you can just make out the first of Connie's ducklings lying exhausted inside the incubator. If all of her eggs are hatched then I will only have 6 babies to watch over, which is so much more manageable than the 14 we had stinking the kitchen out last year.
I have worked the entire day outside and have planted early potatoes,asparagus, broad beans, onions,spinach and parsnips.

The power of cheap white bread

The weather has been wet and windy for most of the day. It has precluded me planting my seed potatoes and asparagus, which was a real shame. It was so wet, I felt it wise to stay indoors, so I did some baking and made a chocolate cake and a large flan.
At midday I noticed that George was perched on the back of the sofa gazing out on the field, having a look at what he was watching, I saw several chickens running up towards the graveyard followed by a rather excitable squealing pig! Nora had somehow escaped her pen and if she escaped further amongst the graves, then bang would go my year's lease!
Grabbing a piece of white loaf, I galloped over to the allotment to find Nora chasing off Boris and Gloria from their feed bowls. Waving the bread madly (Like Jenny Agutter in The Railway Children) I called her, and even though little piggy eyes cannot see very much they certainly recognised a slice of white from 400 feet!
She stopped dead, squinted to make sure what she was seeing was in fact food and sprinted after me at remarkable speed! (scattering hens and spit all over the place as she came) and with me jogging ahead, she chased me back into the pig enclosure where she scoffed the bread with huge rapture!
I checked the fencing and found a small broken area where she had escaped and fixed it with some spare wire.

The duck eggs in the incubator have started their pre hatch "pipping" and the kitchen once again is filled with the tiny cheeps of ducklings not yet "born". I expect them to start hatching tomorrow night!
Not much else to report today......oh Albert fell in next door's pond this evening and raced into the house soaked to the skin. He is curled up with Maddie on one of the sofas as I type this. steaming gently to himself.
The above photo is the view of the East side of the village from the Llanasa Road

Geek Alert!

Now I do rather like PRIMEVAL, the ITV science fiction series which is a cross between Jurassic Park, Star Trek and Fame (the tv series). The whole thing is glossy,knee deep in CGI dinosaurs, has a very pretty cast and is , camp as Christmas! (well as camp as any dinosaur chasing caper can be).
Pimeval chronicles Strange window-like "anomalies" which keep popping up all over the UK. Through these portals keep leaping an unhealthy collection of dinosaurs, which cause a bit of havoc before being disposed of by the obligatory secret Government team headed by grumpy "daddy" Professor Nick Cutter (Douglas Henshall). Also in this maverick group is Busty home office clothes horse Claudia Brown(Lucy Brown), peroxide haired Zookeeper (?) Abby Maitland (Hannah Spearritt), cute student Connor Temple (Andrew-Lee Potts) who is a hat wearing genius and gorgeous soldier Captain Becker (Ben Mansfield). More eye candy is provided by a raven haired Egyptologist (huh????)Sarah Page (Laila Rouass)... Her job appears to be to investigate ancient myths and legends involving creatures to see whether any of them can be explained by anomalies......like you do.......
Yep the whole thing is a huge pile of tosh! but it is a rather entertaining one; apart from enjoying the schoolboy thrill of monsters that chase pretty people I absolutely love watching the baddie of the piece Helen Cutter (Juliet Aubrey pic) flashing her phenomenal cleavage (squeezed unbelievingly into a size 10 leather creation) to all that cares to take a peek . If Aubrey had a moustache, she would twirl it with gay abandon!, I have never seen such overacting since Faye Dunaway ran amok in Mommie Dearest!...She is wonderfully bizarre!

Allotment fever, a footballing pig & almost spring

I have become friendly with Sandra on the other side of the village. She has the only "official" allotment in the village apart from mine, and has today started the long hard job of bed preparation and composting. Sandra used to have hens and ducks in her large village garden but sadly lost them to a fox one evening, A bubbly and lively personality, I have conscripted her onto the Flower Show Committee, (The above photo is Sandra and her family on their alloment in one of the gardens of the oddly named "Bonk terrace" behind the village High Street. The house in the background was a small school in bygone days. Auntie Gladys now lives there.

Nora has been rather hyper today, no more hormonal absences but plenty of football playfulness.She is certainly more robust and confident than the diffident little Gladys.

I have spent most of the day around the field and typically there has been no more cockerel fighting. The young buff cockerel that had been so battered by Stanley yesterday, still looks pretty ropey today. I have cleaned his comb wounds again this morning

The clocks go forward at midnight, and I am working tomorrow morning, which is a bit of a bummer. It is only a short 6 hour shift, so Chris will be on Cockerel watch. Tomorrow is the start of British "Summertime" which is a laugh. The view from the cold hill above the Village (above) reinforces just how miserable and "unspring-like" the weather is at the moment.

Hello to Pippa too , my latest Blog reader, and one of my few Trelawnyd readers, nice to have you on board

Disaster

Probably the best train crash since THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH..........