Peas

It has been a day for weeding, which is a thankless but necessary job at the best of times. Dodging the heavy showers I almost finished three of the five allotment beds, then cleared the weeds from the pea canes (above) before planting further pea and beans in successive sowings. Chris took the car today, so I was effectively trapped at home, but I didn't worry about it too much, mind you I did have to change the radio stations on my potable radio from the constant LBC discussion on the MP expenses fiasco to a more soothing classic FM.

The only person I spoke to today was neighbour Pippa, who came down to tell me that she had seen the female pheasant with five tiny chicks in her garden. I am so pleased as I caught sight of the bird family a few days ago by the church a few days ago and wondered if they had survived the afternoon car jam by parents waiting for their children to leave the village school.
Albert has gone into overdrive today and has brought home 5 mice. Every corpse he has proudly dropped at either mine or the one of the dogs' feet...and rather nauseatingly, Maddie has chomped three of them like someone eating a snickers bar, her eyes closed in pure and happy pleasure
Tonight I am off to Theatre Clwyd with Hazel to see the French film The class. I haven't seen her in ages

The Class

Entre les murs (English title The Class) is a slow burn of a movie that cleverly chronicles a year in the classroom life of a class of tough multi ethnic school children and their French teacher within an inner city Parisian secondary school.Real life teacher and writer François Bégaudeau has been given his naturalistic reins in this documentary style drama and shines as the flawed but genuinely talented teacher François Marin, but it is the improvised looking (but apparently closely scripted) performances from the class of sparky,unruly and totally hypnotic 15 year olds that totally captivates the audience. The result on screen, is a sparkling, clever work whose ensemble cast impresses, surprises, wrong foots and disappoints you in exactly the same fashion a class might its teacher.

9/10

Different Worlds

This evening I listened to Chris giving a run though of his presentation on "evidence based practice" he is due to make tomorrow! The whole thing was polished and suitably professional and I should think that all the bigwigs from the health services from the whole of North Wales will find the whole thing informative and useful.
I found myself giggling after his run through. It was not anything he had said that started me off, I was actually laughing at myself. (a thing I do often)
Today I chased up the 7 people who had showed an interest in my hen keeping course. I aim to start the whole "programme" on the 27th of July, and spent most of the rainy morning booking the Memorial Hall and doing "hen" preparation for it.
This is where the giggling came in......There's Chris developing strategic health care workshops for the intelligentsia of Wales, and there's me in the same breath teaching a motley group of would be chicken lovers basic poultry care.......tee hee.....life in the fast lane continues eh?

Anyhow the rain has lashed down this morning, so apart from organising my PhD in Hen care. I have chased up my bank applications to the local hospice and hospital bank. Finally both have gone through ok and I am now fit for duty as it were. Once I get sorted with these areas, and get regular shifts I will finally leave ITU for good, which will be a total relief. Now I know that some people will be anxious that I have said too much on my blog about this, but don't worry I have already discussed with my manager that I eventually intended to leave..The morale within the more junior staff is noticeably poor, and like I said it will be a relief to be out of all the petty gripes and micro managing

A sense of belonging & Ducks in the garden

Dogs have the unwavering ability to sense where they belong. When the "pack" is complete, they seem to relax immediately and gel into an unified entity, it is sometimes the oddest thing to witness.
This morning was a case in point; after night shift I spend three quarters of an hour feeding and watering, then I come in for the briefest of rests. More often than not I have a lie down on the couch or bed and today I climbed onto the bed. Immediately the dogs joined me, each one almost pinning me to the duvet in an effort to remain close seconds later Albert dives into the mass of arms and legs.and with the biggest of sighs wraps his front paws around Meg's neck.and falls asleep.
As soon as I rest, so do they, and there we stay calm and still until I get up again to give them their walk.
The quietness of the early morning disappeared rather too quickly for my liking as the hen chicks had to be moved into the shed and the ducklings had to be moved outside so that the disgusting jobs of mucking out to be completed.
The postman found the tiny hysterical ducklings enchanting, unlike William who spent the entire morning giving them the evil eye from the lounge window.
The only other excitement of today was the sudden appearance of 8 blue tit fledglings in the lane. All 8 must have flown the nest all together and in the blustery wind conditions all had crash landed in the road flanked both sides by high stone walls. Four times this afternoon I had to stop the farm traffic to retrieve these tiny tiny birds and deposit them safely in the long grass of the wildflower border of the graveyard............
I think I confused one farmer type I had flagged down by shouting "tits" on the top of my voice! as I pointed to the tarmac........note to self get more sleep before you try and save the world..........

ALEXANDER RYBAK FAIRYTALE

We did not bother watching the Eurovision Song Contest last night, so I caught up with the results on you tube this morning. The whole event has turned into a sort of trailer trash version of the Olympics.....you know how it goes..........New Money.....no taste......cheap looks..........flashy and gaudy.
The Russians must have thrown millions on staging this event, and still it looked as though it had been developed for Saturday night Itv ...............hummmm on reflection perhaps that was a little unfair---mind you the suspended swimming pools with a few wrinkled-to-death artistic "swimmers" flondering around inside them made the whole place look like a wierd strip joint

The block voting by the Eastern Block now has been sorted and a cute chicken from Norway won with a traditional ,sixties style ditty....which made a welcomed change...
Back to work tonight.............

Angels and Demons

I won't wait for tomorrow to do the review for Angels & Demons (2009)....believe me it won't take me too long to complete it.
The sequel (or prequel) to The Da Vinci Code is a sprawling, occasionally exciting, and disappointingly predictable romp through Dan Brown's Vatican mystery.
At times I felt I was watching a cross between Midsommer Murders and Treasure Hunt, and although the whole thing was undeniable glossy, the film lacked a large vital heart.
Bring back Audrey Tautou that's what I say.....
7/10
(Nice to See Prestatyn's scala full to the gunnels for a change)

Deadly aim &Wellington survives his second attack

Last night the worst thing happened!. I had just finished writing my blog and put my laptop onto the floor so I could put coal onto the fire. In those few seconds William promptly walked over to the computer, sniffed at it briefly and cocked his leg to wee two short bursts of wee onto the keyboard!
The good news is that although stinking heavily of urine, I can still connect to the Internet, the bad news is that I can no longer use the letters FGHJKLBNMYUIOP and the numbers 57890 as well as @;,.?/-_=~. Thank god Chris is buying me a notebook for my birthday!!!!!

Wellington has been in the wars yet again! This morning I put the five new ducklings into the main duck enclosure for a run around and an afternoon in the sun. All seemed to be well for an hour or so until one of the two large drakes bullied him in a prolonged and sustained attack. Luckily I caught the tail end of this violent assault and hurried over to grab him when the oddest thing happened. The little chap, seeing me, ran over and literally jumped into my outstretched hand, no usual hysteria, no panicked shrieking, just a natural awareness of exactly where he would be safe.The drake had drawn blood on Wellington's head, back and rump, and had ripped many of his baby feathers about a bit, but generally apart from these painful but fairly minor injuries the little chap looked ok. The problem with birds that have been attacked, is that shock can be a huge factor in their recovery, so I quickly put him back in the darkened shed with his brood mates and food and water. Hopefully he will be alright. (Pic sister-in-law Jayne and Wellington this afternoon)

Jayne and Andrew called in to give Chris his belated Birthday gift. He was thrilled to receive a metal sculpture of a peacock for the garden. It is a cracking piece of art.

We are just off now to see Angels & Demons

Garden Flowers & Naughty Children

Finally the weather has turned just a little and we had torrential rain showers all of last night. I didn't mind too much as my vegetable seedlings were desperate for a good watering. The garden flowers and allotment plants seem to have grown and bloomed over night and everywhere has a bouncy health look about it. As it had been raining all morning, I have spent the time completing application forms for another bank job and shampooing the cottage carpets of the detritus from muddy pet paws.
The back garden has started to come into its own and I took a few minutes out to cut daffodils,white bells,aquilegia and red Valerian for the living room. I have always made sure that I have fresh flowers in the house every day, it is a small habit I got into after I bought my first house....even when I was a poor student nurse, I still indulged myself with presents of flowers. Oh the snobbery!!!

The hens have stopped most of their sorties into the Graveyard and have recently turned their attention to Mandy and John's garden next door. In small groups of three or four a couple of Black Hookers, Belle and Miss Kinsale have slipped their way surreptitiously under the field gate, they then have tip toed across the lane and into my neighbours garden. Thank goodness they bypassed a huge, well stocked vegetable patch, but I was shocked to see that all four seemed to have developed an unhealthy obsession with their long gravel path! The whole path have been untidily dug over, with gravel strewn all over the place,The mess was indescribable!

Mandy as it happened was very good natured about it all, and I think I placated her just a little by fashioning a makeshift barrier to the bottom of the gate ( I will drop her in some eggs later too!). The escapees spent most of the afternoon trying to work out how to get around the netting, but most gave up before dusk came....hens are truly fickle creatures

It has drizzled for most of the afternoon, apart from some weeding I have not done a great deal outside. The allotment is now actually looking just that little bit "greener"

This evening Chris has gone to Tai Chi at the memorial Hall, I have caught up with some telephone calls. One old friend has experienced a few love life complications recently and said without any malice that they should be raising ducks, which would keep them out of trouble......that remark made me feel just a little middle aged!