A toilet disagreement, Gloria gets throttled and Hughie returns home

Above the Llandudno Orme Tram

My plans for digging out the stream had to be put on hold today as Chris took me to Llandudno for some lunch at Osborns and for a spot of shopping which was lovely.
We bought some curtain material for the spare room, added to the mix a poncey cushion from Laura Ashley and then bought some teatime treats in Marks And Spencer.
Before we left the store we went to find the store loo and found a line of sheepish women waiting to go into the "ladies". As we moved passed them a man who was standing in front of the "gents" told us we couldn't go in. "My wife is in there, she couldn't be bothered waiting!" he informed us.
The other women nodded their agreement and looked as though they were just about to join this woman in her jaunt to the gents. That is until I piped up with " Well I don't think that this is quite ON"....
Now before I get lynched for my un PC behaviour, please hear me out here......It is not my fault there is a tiny female toilet in Marks and Spencers (I did point this out in the heated discussion that followed), nor is it my fault that men use public conveniences on average rather more quickly than women do. (another interesting debate here!)
My argument is that as a man, I have a designated toilet to use and I expect to be able to USE it, without it being hijacked by the opposite sex that "just couldn't be bothered to wait".
The women in the queue thought I was an true ogre but I stood my ground, basically because I was annoyed by the fact that they thought that this behaviour was perfectly acceptable.....
If a man popped into a woman's toilet (of heaven forbid a disabled toilet ) because it was an easier option, then I would suggest he would be lambasted by any women waiting in line with some gusto!........The whole thing smacked of double standards...and I hate that!..........
Anyhow the man's wife finally ambled out, without much of a by your leave, and after we had "washed our hands".....Chris couldn't resist turning to the waiting line to say "that lady made a right mess in there--disgusting!"
Getting annoyed at some middle aged woman sitting on my loo....how sad am I?
Answers on a postcard please!

We got home at 5.00pm and when I checked the field I found Gloria with her neck firmly stuck in her enclosure netting. The wire had somehow looped around her neck and initially I thought she was dead!. As I freed her from the wire she flopped onto the ground gasping and floppy and for a minute I thought she had had it!

I picked her up and placed her in front of her house with water and gave her a brusque massage in the sun ;after a minute or so she started to came around just a little, but was still gasping. I lifted her gently into the shade of her coop and put Boris in too for company with food and water. time will tell if she pulls through.

On a brighter note the male Guinea fowl is back (centre of above pic). Without his mate he has presented as a rather forlorn figure in the horse field, but his return to my field has given the little fella a new lease of life as company is definitely something that is never lacking here!

Guinea fowl are funny looking birds....they resemble rugby balls which have an unfeasibly small head super glued to them, and for such a small weird looking thing they make a phenomenal amount of noise!....I hope he stays....I have christened him Hughie after my great Uncle Hughie.

Sparrow Hawk

Now before I was sidetracked by a rather playful Nigel, I was going to add a quick P.S. by blogging about something I witnessed at tea time.
Readers may remember that the hawthorn hedgerow is populated by a troupe of perhaps 50 sparrows. They constantly bicker and chatter throughout the day, raid the hens' food at every given moment and provide a noisy never still backdrop to the allotment and field.
Anyhow as I was approaching the field gate, I heard the distinctive "growl" of warning from two of the cockerels, this means that they have spotted a bird of prey approaching, and from my advantage point I could see a blur of a small sparrow hawk skimming the gravestones before he barrelled into the swarm of sparrows who had been perching on my runnerbean canes.
There was a puff of feathers, and he had gone in an instant leaving the flock of sparrows swooping away to the safety of the hedges.....
Apart from Albert (who has killed numerous sparrows) this was my first sucessful witnessed bird of prey attack
ps.
The Male Guinea fowl finally turned up at 8.pm.....he was eating some fallen corn and was trying to get into hens enclosure........I wonder if he will still be around by morning?

Large mysterious fish eats a duck!

Nige...........I hate you soooo much

xxx

New Plans

Now the stream that runs on the west edge of the field is definitely on "my" side of the boundary and as the riding stables have just put up their own fencing, I feel that I am now in the position to properly reclaim it.
Following the floods of the spring and early summer, the whole ditch has been filled with mud and silt and has always been shrouded by undergrowth and nettles. The ducks have done a sterling job opening up the bank side and I think I now owe them a bit of hard graft to give them a small but clean running pool, in which they and even Halleh can utilize.
If the weather holds up tomorrow I will start to clear the bank, but I need to get stuck in with properly repairing the pig fencing too, especially as Steve has somehow spirited up a half dozen robust fence posts,which he has kindly left by the pigs' gate.
With a small freashwater pool.......I can then think of getting a couple of geese!
tee hee

Cowpats & Mad Mary

Mad Mary the Bantam (those eyes....illegal substances???)

The usual wind and rain has buffeted the cottage all morning, so I took the dogs down the sheltered Gypsy Lane for their walk. The lane is a bridlepath situated between two fields and therefore is almost covered with Oak and Hawthorn. so it remains sheltered in the most inclement of weather.

During a particularly heavy downpour an already soaked Meg came across a huge, smelly cowpat and immediately swallow dived into the centre of it. She was absolutely covered in Tish (inside AND out), and resembled a small walking turd when I got her home!

I left her outside the back door when I went upstairs to run her a bath when the wind (which has been gusting over 50 miles an hour) blew open the kitchen door!

When I finally came downstairs, Meg had merrily bounced all over the living room, and with typical terrier gay abandon had rubbed herself over every piece of carpet with every other dog in tow....the place looked and smelt like a midden!

So for most of the morning I have been shampooing carpets and scrubbing skirtingboards whilst breathing through my mouth, Meg has been dunked in a warm bath TWICE......and I have a ton of unmentionable material lodged firmly under my fingernails.....

This afternoon I have cleaned more shi*e out of the coops and pig run, and took a few fragrant minutes watching the power struggles work themselves out in the new hen enclosure. With five new hens now incorporated with the lame Bunny, Bantam Cockerel Roger and wyandotte bantam Mary, I was surprised to see the normally placid and quiet Mary assuming alpha female status. Suddenly this tiny hen is running the coop on almost military lines, dominating the new hens which are twice her size with a rather tough, assertive flourish.

Even the the "teenage" chicks in their run (below) have been put firmly in their places albeit through some stout chicken wire; ;funny how the pecking order changes with the sudden appearence of a few new faces.

Tonight Chris and Janet have hired a local village hall in which to practice their "ballroom moves"....after I lock up the hens I am off to the pub with Geoff for a pint....

Why I hate Catcher in The Rye

The rain has lashed down consistently today, so much so, that I became so sick of getting wet, I had a fit of peak and spent a dry afternoon watching a film at theatre Clwyd! Hummmm, Awaydays (2009) was not the best choice I could have made, but it it was the only film on offer

Now I have never got on with teenage angst! Even when I was a teenager in the 1970s, I couldn't quite identify with the morose Holden Caufield in the dire and dark The Catcher in the Rye,(a novel we were forced to read in 5th form English)

The reason for this was simply that I was not an unhappy angst ridden youth! Sure I was a bit of a geek and certainly I was lonely from time to time, but I always preferred living in a sunny fantasy world of film where I was always on hand to help Carol Lynley climb up the 18 foot ornamental Christmas Tree in the Poseidon Adventure or indeed tie myself down to the Promenade Room railings alongside Fred Astaire in the Towering Inferno!.......................when I wasn't watching and re watching Movies I was playing with my tropical fish......There was no time for teenage navel gazing...not if you were as interesting as I was !!!

So Awaydays proved to be a big disappointment for me! as it did echo those dismal,monochrome days of JD Salinger's novel. The film is an uneven account of the difficulties of growing up in Birkenhead in 1979. Working class lad, Carty wants to be dead hard. He gets into football violence, head buts gay shop assistants, and craves to be a part of the local youth gang. His best mate, Elvis does lots of drugs and is secretly gay. He fancies Carty and is deeply jealous of any women in his life. But as Carty moves forward in his life, Elvis starts to flounder.
Director Pat Holden obviously has a limited budget to film this rites of passage piece, and as the dirge of Joy Division belts out, the football violence scenes show this fact rather too depressingly. Sadly the whole film is a bit of a mess to be honest, but it is almost saved by the complex, magnetic core character of Elvis played with confidence and skill by Liam Boyle, he and he alone is worth the price of the cinema ticket. 4/10

The rain belted down as I drove back to Trelawnyd, and to be honest I wished I had watched something more frothy as the whole afternoon depressed me!
It was nice to get back home to some warmth, and a huge noisy doggy welcome

Rainy day kindness

My sweetcorn is the only thing that seems to be enjoying the dreadful rain we have been experiencing, in fact my corn plot resembles something that Cary Grant would gallop through in North by Northwest , and I am extremely proud of the whole shebang.
Anyhow enough of this self congratulatory mood, I have spent most of the day keeping out of the rain and making myself useful. clearing the kitchen cabinets of unwanted rubbish (5 bags worth!!) is not the most glamorous of jobs, but it needs to be done and like any physical exercise there is a sense of small achievement when it is all completed.
A lady from the other side of the village called around to kindly offer me some sort of small greenhouse she has spare. I think she had a slight American accent but couldn't be sure as she spoke so fast...I have arranged to go and see it tomorrow.
Another little act of kindness came from the red faced Welsh Farmer, who dropped off three huge bags of shavings for me in the driving rain. In his seventies, he remains robust,vital , brusque and is always willing to lend me a hand with items I need , somehow a few dozen eggs never seem enough payment for his many kindnesses.
The village can be full of little nice gestures ;sometimes these present themselves simply, such as a warm "hello", like the ones I received today from neighbours- Mandy on her way home from delivering the papers or Ian , when out jogging.

Auntie Glad, gave me another sweet gesture of her own when I bumped into her when walking the dogs....., looking like an earnest and white haired Woody Allen, she complemented me on our work with the Flower Show......"You work very hard for this village" she said sweetly......
I could not have received a better compliment

Come On

Come on you Americans.... make 1000 hits !!!!