Stormy days

There are nine flood warnings in force in Wales this morning and nineteen flood watches in place....and the still the weather remains dreadfully wet and stormy. 2000 homes have had their electricity cut off and scores of roads up the Conwy Valley have been closed by the flooding.
Today I have been out and about in the awful weather for most of the day
Took a few photos in between taking my blood pressure! (which is down today!- must be the fresh air)

William and I braving the rain on Prestatyn beach

Maddie and George trotting into the wind on the sand dune defences

A wet Prestatyn taken from the beach

The River Elwy bursting its banks at St Asaph

Grey skies at the Beach

On the way back to Trelawnyd (a mile South)- Prestatyn from the Hillside

Storm clouds at dusk over Trelawnyd Church

Health day

Another funny old day! Torrential rain and gale force winds have meant that poor Hughie has spent another stressful night hanging onto the upper branches of the Churchyard Elm for grim death. I do so wish that he would follow Rogo into the safety of the ark but alas he has again decided to brave the terrible elements.
I have just nipped out to check on him in the awful weather and there he was hanging on like Steve Mc Queen in the climax of the Towering Inferno!..Bless..

Today I have been reviewed by a rather poe faced GP, who organised a few blood tests before sending me up to the Eye hospital for a full eye scan and workout! ( to double check if my blurred vision was not just a product of high blood pressure)
Now I have never experienced ocular pressure studies before, and I must say the whole experience was rather stomach churning to say the least. Having probes actually touching my eye, despite anaesthetic eye drops is perhaps the worst thing I have ever experienced ( with the exception of accidentally splashing pig poo into my mouth!!!-don't ask!) and I bounced around the examination chair like one of my guinea fowl chicks at the feeling of it all......
A wonderfully jolly nurse put some atropine drops into my eyes to dilate them before the scan, which gave me a bit of a look of Mr Magoo, and I had all the tests which turned out to be ok......Thank God for my friends and neighbours, that's all I can say as Geoff did all the driving as my eyeballs had effective stopped working and Carol took the dogs for their afternoon exercise.

As for my blood pressure.....I now have a week to monitor it three times a day......lets hope that Boris doesn't attack me again or that the guinea fowl chicks continue to bombard me in the shed!.....that would make any one's blood pressure soar through the roof.

Tonight I have taken a rain check from the cinema with Hazel, and am sat in front of a nice warming fire with the dogs. Chris is in London at a posh reception at Kensington Palace (no less) so it's an early night.......blood pressure just re checked (I have to check it myself 4 times daily for 1 week)...and it's down a little this evening
Hey ho

165/107

Well I didn't finish my shift tonight! As, when I was sitting comfortably at the computer terminal collecting blood results, I experienced a sudden mild headache and some blurred vision. I thought it strange and worrying enough to check my blood pressure and found it to be suddenly and dramatically elevated to 165/107.
One of the staff nurses came in my cubicle when I was taking off the blood pressure cuff and immediately took me down to A&E where I spent an interesting time waiting for the somewhat harassed senior house officer to review me.
Being on the receiving end of the heath service is an interesting experience for one who is usually the heath giver, and in the two and a half hours I was in the emergency department, I became just one of the many patients that turn up at this Godforsaken hour. On one side of me was the obligatory psychiatric self harming patient who wailed like a banshee, and on the other a sweet old lady with a fractured humerus. The usual collection of belligerent drunks burped and farted in opposite trolleys.
Over the waiting time, my blood pressure reduced a bit, and a polite young staff nurse performed an ECG.....which looked ok. The medics gave me a general examination, prodded and poked my nether regions (I had on my worst pair of underpants on!) then informed me that they will be writing to my own GP to initiate further investigations, but I was to return to the hospital immediately if I have the sight problems again!
Hey ho........yes a little sobering, but perhaps another product of being 47.....time to eat and drink healthier me thinks and lose some weight.......

Neurosis & animals

Can animals be neurotic?....humm it is an interesting question, especially given the fact that I try (albeit unsuccessfully not to attribute human traits to the animals under my care).....on reflection I think the answer is a definite yes!......The rapidly growing half dozen guinea fowl chicks spend their very young lives in a state of potential hysteria. Standing in frozen awareness, they watch every tiny thing that you do for them before one bird explodes into a fit of screaming panic which causes a chain reaction with the rest of them. My nerves are shot to pieces, with the constant upheaval of feathers and shrill bird calls.....after ten minutes in the shed, I could quite happily strangle the lot of them
Maddie, has a definite neurotic fear of staircases, which can be traced back to when she was two when she fell down our previous cottage staircase dragging a dyson vacuum cleaner on top of her. Ever since then she can quite happily walk up a staircase, but cannot face the downward journey on her own!.. Both Chris and I , now think it is perfectly normal to respond to her frantic barks for help on the upstairs landing by trudging up the stairs to carry her down.....

Albert on the other hand is perhaps the most perfectly balanced animal we own. In actual fact following his second accident and subsequent operation, I think it is me and not him, that overly worries about his condition and lifestyle dangers on the lane outside the cottage.

Today I thought it prudent to actually let him out again, despite still having a limp, and within 10 minutes he had caught and killed his first mouse which he paraded in front of the dogs with that snarling pride cats exhibit when they have a mouthful of rodent....

The Church wall is a good six feet high, and with his poorly leg, he still managed to scale it like a kitten on speed.With my heart in my mouth I watched his antics....until I could not watch anymore......I have said this before...these animals will be the bloody death of me...

on night shift tonight.....

Miranda Episode 1

I caught this old fashioned sit com this evening, and although this tale of a thirty something Bridget Jones has been done to death...the lumpy Miranda Hart brings something new and rather funny to the genre.....Tom Ellis is lovely to look at as well.....
very funny

Maddie Lurve

My Father-in-law, Richard left for home in Kent this morning, and seemed to have enjoyed his visit with us (he even found 2012 entertaining!)

He is an easy visitor to "look after" and will be missed especially by his shadow Maddie, who completely bonded with him, when he looked after her in the spring.

For an non cuddly dog, it is amazing that she spends every available moment clambering up onto his knee for some "quality time"..........mind you I think she is the only "person" that can actually cope with Richard's god awful bad joke telling.......I can see where Chris gets it from....

It was nice to catch up with him

Titter

I recieved this email on Sunday night from my sister....which did make me laugh


Bro,
One of the reasons I called this afternoon was to ask for yours and Chris's Christmas List, but I was distracted.I know you need the usual batteries and coffee and poultry feeder, would you like a jumper like a normal man.

much love ann xx

what do you say???

2012

Grandmother Sonam (Lisa Lu) with all American survivor a typically bland Amanda Peet)

The problem with CGI, is that the more, you are faced with "unreal computer" imagery, the less your emotions engage with the narrative and 2012 is crammed to the gunnel's with the most exciting, impressive yet ultimately vacuous scenes of disaster ever seen on film since the awful The day after tomorrow!
Los Angeles is crumpled like tissue paper and slides into the ocean, St Peter's in Rome collapses on thousands of fleeing nuns and the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio loses his outstretched arms in an earthquake that echoes around the world....add to the mix ,20 thousand feet tidal waves washing over the Himalayas, the White House being flattened by an American Navy aircraft carrier and Las Vegas being sucked literally into the ground and you will get the film's gist........namely MORE s definitely MORE!!!
Unfortunately Roland Emmerich who loves his disaster movies from the 1970s)....has thrown every effect known to computer Geekdom into this film, which is a shame, as the more you see the less you feel......He should have realised what the first rule of the disaster film is ....... and that is to make the audience care about the characters!!!!!!
Having said all that, I kind of enjoyed this three hour romp, (once I had disengaged my brain) and despite the rubbishy script, cardboard characters and end of the world platitudes...it actually worked as a piece of entertainment.
African American President (Danny Glover) his art lover daughter (Thandie Newton) and wonderfully righteous scientist (Chiwetel Ejiofor) make for likable passengers in the new high tech arks developed for the salvation of humankind (and are all black which makes a change for major disaster film characters!)....meanwhile the ordinary people- ( John Cusack) and his ex wife (with her boyfriend and two kids) travel from the US to China to join in the exodus with a motley group of survivors that comprises of a handsome Tibetan monk, his grandparents and a Russian bimbo with a small dog! -like you do!!!

2012 is pure rubbish.......but it does entertain in that typical disaster movie sort of way. Characters die, but they do sort of cleanly ( dont blink but passenger liner lounge singer George Segal drowns when in a homage to The Poseidon Adventure,( and a finger up to the movie Poseidon) his ship is capsized!)....but in the end most of your favourite characters make it to give it a go in the "brave new world"
I wanted to hate this movie but in the end I had to give it a begrudging and enjoyable 7.5 out of 10.....

Ps. I was thinking this morning about some of the not-so-subtle messages Roland Emmerich wanted to share in 2012, and I think that the single message seems to be centred around the concept of fatherhood! Historically Women have never really featured favourably in disaster films and this is especially true in all of Emmerich's movies. In 2012 the three women portrayed ( bland mom, bland president's daughter and bland Russian trophy wife) hardly get a look into the action and drama, and the main narrative drive is dominated by the father (and son) relationships of the piece...No less than 7 characters John Cusack,Thomas McCarthy,Danny Glover,Zlatko Buric,George Segal,Blu Mankuma and Jimi Mistry all have issues of resolution and love with their children (interestingly all but one sibling is male!)....I would love to be able to discuss this with the director himself to see where his motivations came from...Gawd I feel am back in my film degree assignment days.....where I could discuss the smallest motivation of a director for the whole assignment quota of 3,000 words!..... I am such a geek