Local Characters and turkey lurve......

Trelawnyd from the North West

Strimming the field and clearing the vegetable beds has been the order of the day. Huge lumps of pig manure have been schlopped up from the midden to start the back breaking job of fertilizing the allotment beds and by midday I was hot sweaty and fairly knackered.

The red faced welsh farmer called round with several large sacks of sawdust and stopped for a chat. When I first met him, I found his loud brusque manner rather off putting but now I find him a genuinely interesting, forthright and decent character who will call a spade a f*cking spade and who will go out of his way to do you a favour. In his seventies, he has an interesting story about every local event and piece of history, and gives his take on things with a zest and irreverence which is wonderfully refreshing. I know it sounds a little weak but I am made up he now refers to me by my christian name..

I took the dogs over to the Marian for a walk (The marian is a collection of houses a mile or so out of the village) and took the opportunity to catch up with friend Eirlys and her two baby turkeys. Eirlys, is another straight talking and genuine farmer's wife who is as goggled eyed about her poults as I am about mine, so we now make a rather sad fan club of two. If my babies survive, I think we will do a bit of swapping so that both parties end up with a viable breeding "group".....I knew she couldn't resist the thought of my chicks, and I wasn't surprised that she called in later that day to coo coo over them....

Both of us will be a little nervous as Christmas is looming on the horizon....turkeys and Christmas don't mix, especially as our area always seems to have a few unprincipled poachers lurking around....at least Boris is a little too OLD and tough to be eaten with relish!!!

The Glass Menagerie

As it turned out Theatre Clwyd's Production of THE GLASS MENAGERIE was one of the best things I have seen on stage for a long time. As I recall from sixth form studies Tennessee Williams' character Amanda Wingfield was the mother from Hell who totally dominated her crippled daughter, Laura...but in this Kate Wasserberg production the lonely unfulfilled and tragically rejected characters of Mother and daughter aren't monsters and victim but are portrayed as sadly self centred and fragile people trapped in rather sad lonely lives,
Teresa Banham brings life to the role of Amanda and reins in her precise performance to make it feel totally real and surprisingly sympathetic and the elfin looking Lisa Diveney shows Laura to be crippled not just by physical disability but more by a debilitating shyness that is quite painful to watch.
It was a small but wonderfully moving production.
(pic Hywel John as Tom and Teresa Banham as Laura)

Geek alert

( Click to enlarge)
I have been planning the field for autumn.....how geeky is that!
key below

1. Feed Store
2. Duck Pool
3. Extra Hen House (empty)
4. New Hen enclosure
5. Spare Run for the new Turkey chicks
6. "A" frame ark (Rogo and his 5 hens)
7. Manure heap
8. Gate
9. duck pool in stream
10 herb bed
11.Chicken run for original hens (now retired) and the 8 new girls
12. Blanche and her chick's run
13. Kate Winslett and 6 older chicks
14. Hughie's resting place in trees

I am off to Theatre Clwyd tonight to see The Glass Menagerie...review later

Rant

I am due for a rant over something......and today I had a lovely hummdinger of a rant!!!...This morning we had two Welsh Terriers and two Scotties....this afternoon we have one Welsh terrier, two Scotties and a bloody shitzu!
Meg went for her usual trim and no one at the dog groomers told me that they had changed hands. Expecting her usual terrier cut, I was faced with a dog that's all head and no body! No beard, no eyebrows....and no soddin terrier!

The girl first tried to say that it was my fault I had not been clear enough at what I wanted, that is until I asked her to describe a standard Welsh terrier look..........then the owner then made a fairly big mistake by stating Meg had been cut like an Irish terrier! which I thought was laughable statement, and by the time the owner had rung me up later in the day to contest the issue further, I was ready for a somewhat flowery debate! which I gave her with hearty abandon!

Suffice to say none of the dogs will be returning......
(Thanks to neighbour Carole who corrected the damage done with her own clippers pic before she started!)

Danger Zone

My love affair with turkey chicks has continued. This morning they greeted me (well greeted the small bowl of chopped egg I had with me more like ) with a quiet "whooop, whooop" which is totally irresistible. Each one bolted down great mouthfuls of the yellow goo, whilst at the same time looking rather sombre...I think it is this slightly "depressed" look which I find so sweet
They were hatched on Saturday, so are four days old now, and hopefully are past those initial eating and drinking problems turkeys are so well known for.

Haeundae

This Korean disaster film may be better than 2012!

Airport '77 Trailer

with the huge disaster flick 2012 just about to hit our screens.....I sometimes miss those creaky 70's flicks...enjoy

Maddie......,Evening stroll and new plans

Chris is working in London today, and won't be home until late, so seeing it was a nice night, Maddie and I took some cooked pizza and went for a walk. I always think that Maddie is often regarded as the poor relation of our dog pack. She is the eldest, the most moody and the least "cuddly" of our four. She is quick to bark at strangers, hates being stroked by ANYONE and is quite happy sitting on the periphery of any event, whist George, William and Meg bounce along happily in the centre of it. At seven the tell tale signs of late middle age have started to show, she has the faint rings of white hair around her eyes, she is always the last one out of the car on the way to our walks and is definitely the last dog to return breathless and panting afterwards. She is often heavy footed, grumbles when approached by anyone wanting her place on the couch and more often than not becomes constipated at the drop of a hat.
So, a walk with me, alone, is a rarity and a real treat for Maddie. We walked to the village Pond in the sunshine (below) and there shared our pizza by the fence overlooking the small green. Afterwards she sat at my feet, the position she usually adopts and gently touched my shoe with her chin,
There was no performance in her behaviour, no juvenile demanding as William would show, none of the comic howling that George would employ to gain attention...just the quiet old fashioned loyalty of an quiet old fashioned breed, and I know it may sound a bit foolish, but I was almost moved to tears by this tiny moment of closeness.

We ambled together around the village and bumped into a couple of people pottering about , after the usual hellos, the conversation centred onto the lacklustre performance from the Community council at last night's open meeting....news of the event seems to have spread!

As dusk approached we ambled home to set the animals up for bed. I have cleared a strip of land adjacent to the pig pen, and later this week I will start to set up the extra fence posts for a new pig enclosure. I have an idea to buy a couple of weaner piglets and fatten them up for the freezer, several people around the village are now doing so and the possible idea of sharing slaughter costs may be an excellent way of saving money.

Aunt Judy ,her sister and animal mad Niece and boyfriend called in earlier for a guided tour of the field.....I didn't bother telling them about my new pig plans! or perhaps I did.......gawd....I am more middled aged than Maddie me thinks