The sad death of Christmas Cards, Strictly Night and Albert update

I am catching up with blog time rather late today as I have worked the whole day away on intensive care. Chris has ferreted away with home chores all day and is now laying down on the couch like a wan Blanche DuBois, exhausted and somewhat jaded.
I got to thinking on the way home, just how sad it would be if the Royal Mail was finally pushed and dragged into the 21st Century and oblivion. The post worker strikes planned for the next few weeks, I think will tip the

balance against the traditional "Snail Mail's" monopoly in the frenetic Christmas Card market and in the not-so-distant future, other forms of Yuletide greetings (oh God save us from the dreaded e-xmas message!!!) may become the norm.
I love sending Christmas cards!. The ritual of making the card (above is Finlay in

one of his typical couch postures on one of my first cards), the effort of writing it, adding the stamp and physically making the effort to post it, is more thoughtful than quickly bashing out an email on your laptop when watching x factor on tv. I for one will continue my tradition of sending paper cards.....even if I do write them all on the 1st of December!

Anyhow last night the family all went round to Janet and Ned's for supper, wine

and two hours of yelling at the performances and judging on Strictly Come Dancing! Now I am a snob when it comes to Pantomimes, but give me a wine, a ballroom dance competition on the television and I can boo and Hiss with the best of them...

anyway we had a nice, family night out,

..As for Albert....he is still looking rather stiff but remains as good natured as usual dispite his discomforts...... Tonight chris cooked a chicken and Albert stuffed his little fat face full of the leftovers.......as I type this he is curled up on the lounge carpet,,,,burping chicken breath all around

How I survived 1970 Sundays

I have blogged several times about how I like Sundays.

The quiet pace of the day, the Church Bell, The Archers omnibus......the day has evolved into a bit of a pleasure.

Mind you, it was never always so!

As a child I hated Sundays (and specifically Sunday afternoons!)......and only recently (as a result of a bit of family reflection) I have come to the conclusion just why it was so!.

My twin sister and I grew up in a time when the extended family played a large part in our day to day lives. Weekdays had a pace and and a routine governed of course by school, but weekends possessed their own, bipolar life of their own and provided times of great warmth coupled with the double edged experience of a slightly depressive dysfunctional set of parents

Friday afternoons were joyous. My Grand parents held open house, and their tiny one bedroom bungalow was filled with grandchildren and great grand children all talking at once. Everything was loud , chatty and animated. Copious amounts of tea was drunk, large wedges of jam sponge and nice biscuits eaten and even my Mother and her shopping friend Auntie Greta would turn up for a cuppa after their Friday afternoon "shampoo and set" at Jean's Hair Salon.

Janet and I would always stay for tea, which would always be laid out on a blue and white checked tablecloth in front of the tv in the lounge.

Being pensioners, "tea" was basic and never changing..but to us as children the food was a real treat! Cheap white bread, lightly buttered was smothered in baked beans (and eaten with 1940s bone handled cutlery) was for mains and tinned fruit cocktail with evaporated milk was served up in small floral dishes for "pud"

Saturdays were always spent at my sister's house by the beach. We played in the sandy garden with a risk filled nephew in tow for hours. Swinging incessantly on an old metal garden swing (the size of an average sofa) our aimless day was punctuated by chatty lunches, craft projects (usually involving glue and copious amounts of glitter), races around the house in a whole set of prams and trolleys and of course World of Sport tv wrestling (at 4pm).

The sun always shone and Nasturtiums always filled the garden,

Sundays on the other hand were "home days". My parents would have their "lie in" then my mother would prepare a full roast dinner for most of the morning which would have to be ready for 2pm for when my father would return all warmed from his lunchtime visit to the Conservative club.

Afternoons would be quiet and boring. Dad would be asleep in his chair, mother would knit on the couch. The tv was always on, and we would be left to ourselves until a semi formal tea would be set up in the cold dining room with the hateful Mike Samms singers on radio 2 belting out ".............Sing something simple........"

My parents didn't do anything drastically wrong with us kids...they just didn't do ANYTHING with us which was, I think, fairly typical for many 1970 families...... Sundays always became synonymous with an feeling of indifference and a slightly depressive routine which felt so cold and sad after the warmth and vitality of our Fridays and Saturdays.

I have said this before on the blog........funny what you remember isn't it?

Tywysog

With the housebound Albert being ever-so-slightly frazzled by four terriers, I loaded them into the car and spent most of the day catching up with non Trelawnyd based jobs
We collected cheap sacks of chick crumbs from the wholesaler, called down to Prestatyn to deliver eggs and collected the now neatly completed curtains for the back bedroom (Thanks to my Aunt Judy for her sterling work).
I then drove to the DIY store in Rhyl for curtain runners before jetting up to deepest Conwy to borrow my brother's industrial strength strimmer. My brother lives near the village of Henllan and the area where they live is totally rural, pretty and untouched. (above pic)
Our great grandmother Fry (nee Jones) lived in a large farm called Tywysog, which is literally only a stones throw from where Andrew lives now.....the name Tywysog means leader or Prince,in Welsh.
The dogs had a hysterical gallop around the garden when I had a cup of tea with Andrew, then it was back home for some curtain construction time (for those that don't know me...DIY is as rare an event for me as playing rugby is to Graham Norton)...but I finally managed to construct something moderately usefull, even though there was not as many screws in the curtain pole pack as advertised..............

The weather has finally turned this evening with a cold wind roaring in with some driving rain. The village looks braced for winter

Night of the Hunter

This evening Chris and I went to Theatre Clwyd (twice in one week!) to see the classic The Night of the Hunter (1955) Now I have not seen this creepy little tale for years, so it was a real treat to watch it in the cinema rather than just catch it on TCM in the wee small hours of the morning! and I had forgotten just how chilling some scenes actually were.
Night of the Hunter is a weird child's nightmare of a film journey....with menacing shadows at windows, a childs difficulty in keeping secrets, a fantasy flight to safety and a truly terrifying baddie (The Preacher serial killer Robert Mitchum). Other complex elements such as heaven and earth (or under-the-earth), male and female, light and dark, good and evil, knowingness and innocence, and other polarizations including equating the Preacher with the devil are all viewed from a child's perspective, and are presented in a stylized,inventive and unsettling cinematic style.
It is an ambitious film that doesn't always "work" but certain sequences (the childrens' flight to safety down the river and the final climatic duel between bogus Preacher and the God fearing widow Lillian Gish linger long in your mind......
I wanted to discuss all this with Chris as we left.... but all he said was that he enjoyed it!
when I asked why.... He said simply "it was short"

Finding Masculine Halloween Costumes For Your Effeminate Son

What next...Lorraine Kelly?
Enjoy
x

First Cup of coffee Blog

Well I have posted this photo of Boris in reply to a request from Joanna. Boris is now 18 months old and is just starting to show the signs of real manhood as he is posturing with attitude at any given perceived threat to himself, Gloria and strangely any one of the six remaining runner ducks.
He is also not limiting his intimidation to strangers and Chris (of course) but is on occasion now giving me a quick peck or one of his well aimed karate kicks.
I have found that you have to jump on any male aggression very quickly with hormone filled roosters, so I have followed suit with Boris, whenever he has "performed" immediately I have picked him up and walked around with him under my arm. Now cockerels will eventually succumb to this show of dominance and will go limp on you after a minute or so, but this morning I have found it is a little more difficult with Boris.......only for the fact that he weighs a bloody ton!
I staggered around with him in my arms for a good 5 minutes before dropping him on the grass and limping back in to the house for the first cup of coffee of the day! These animals will be the death of me.
When I got back to the kitchen I could have wept, the floor resembled a Jackson Pollock painting! as Albert had somehow stepped into the remains of the chicken korma I had thoughtfully left out on the side in the slow cooker, and had daintily tiptoed orange sauce over every surface. Not to be outdone William had added to the carnage by dragging a plastic bag of rubbish from the kitchen table and had shredded the contents in search of cat food.
Suffice to say I am now sat in the lounge with a coffee......I need a caffeine kick before I face the kitchen and indeed the rest of the day

Albert update & Frozen River

Finally Hazel and I caught up with a cracking little film at Theatre Clwyd this evening. Frozen River (2008) is a taut and finely observed story of Ray Eddy ( Melissa Leo) a trailer trash mom, who has fallen on hard times when her Indian husband runs off with the family' life savings. By several twists of fate she falls in with a disgraced Indian girl called Lila ( Misty Upham) and becomes involved in illegally trafficking immigrants over the US border before both women redeem themselves by finally "doing the right thing"

Leo is quite, quite stunning as the worn out but still battling mother and attacks her role with a braveness which is at times quite heartbreaking. Tattoo covered ,saggy chested and with nicotine stained skin, Melissa Leo's unlikely hero is every bit as tough as cinematic fighting mothers such as Gena Rowlands' famous tough cookie in Gloria (1980) or Sigourney Weaver's Ripley in Aliens (1986),

she brings a dignity and a spirit to the role which gives this gritty and at times depressing film, real heart. She is bound to be oscar nominated, I am sure of it.

8.5 out of 10!

When I got home, Poor Albert was waiting to go out of the now barricaded kitchen cat flap. With his back leg stiffly held out, I doubt anyway he could actually fit through it, but I am not about to give the little chap freedom of the lane at night. Being jet black, running on three legs, and unable to jump, means that he could lose all 7 of his remaining lives in one night, so he has been grounded.........and he is not happy!!!

Churchill in the Churchyard

Sometimes I come into contact with visitors to the New Graveyard.
More often than not, the contact is confined to a brief wave or hello, but occasionally a conversation develops, more often than not as a result of some animal performing something interesting.
Today an elderly chap limped over to where I was dismantling some more of the Church wall. He was fascinated in the relationship between Rogo and the nervous Hughie (pic) and wanted to know all about the pair.

I haven't seen him before, and asked him if he was from the village. He said he used to be , but had moved in with his daughter in nearby Rhuddlan when his wife died a few years ago. We chatted about this and that, and I couldn't help noticing that he was awfully sad even melancholic and almost in answer to my thoughts he said that he missed living in Trelawnyd as he found life in the bigger village isolating and lonely.

"Being alone is hell...." he stated sadly....."But do you know what Churchill said about being in hell don't you?"

I shook my head...

"He said if you are going through hell all you can do is keep on going!!!.....and that's what I do...I just keep on going", and with that he gave me a little wave and ambled off...