and the winner is?......................

I am not going to moan about the snow, even though the animals all seem to hate the cold and wet. I have plenty to do today so will leave a quick "Merry Christmas" blog to all the people I will not see this Yule! and of course to those unseen people that follow this personal diary rubbish from time to time!
I hope everyone will have the Christmas time that they want/need and deserve. For some, it will mean a restful time being quiet and useful,; others will have the usual family bunfights and interactions that sometimes will be infuriating yet comfortably traditional.
Yes there is always pressure to "do the right thing" and "to have a good time".....but hopefully for most of us, it will a time to realise that we are cherished and loved.
So!..........to old friends in Sheffield that read this rubbish (Mike & Bev, Jonney, Jane and a handful of others) Have a grand time and remember you re missed. To Nige....(I will ring you tomorrow) and to Nia and George (you are missed too!)....to my family members that we won't catch up with.- "have a safe one" and I send my very best wishes to any locals that pop in here from time to time
Oh and big "Happy Holidays"to those people that leave me comments from time to time. So to..Ruth, Cassie, Callie, Jess, Sara, Randy, David,Alex,Joanna,Kim,Steve,Tracey,Bel-ami, Kathy,Geoff and a score of others..........Happy Hanukkah!!!!

Snowed in

The snow started at 8pm and hasn't stopped since

The cottage looks like something out of Cranford.....mind you I could not help worrying about poor Hughie roosting up in his bare Elm in the Churchyard

Christmas Shopping and Animal Bonds

The only decent shopping centre in the whole of North Wales is Llandudno, which is a thirty odd mile round trip for us. Dwarfed by the Great Orme which looms over the town, Llandudno looked the picture perfect Christmas set, and as I marched around the shops today, I was amused to see the tiny figures of the famous kashmiri goats grazing on the slopes overlooking the bay.
In just three quarters of an hour I purchased all of Chris' pressies, had a coffee and succumbed to some Christmas guilt and bought a "big issue" from a guy in front of the library who had the obligatory dog stuffed inside of a laura Ashley blanket.of all things.
I dropped into work to sort out my secret santa, then sorted the animals out before walking the dogs, injecting Jessop with her final antibiotic injection (she still has not eaten as yet) and dropping into a local art gallery (yes we do have them in Wales!) to buy Chris his final gift.
I have 30 minutes now free before picking Chris up at the station. We then have to face the yearly trial of the Supermarket Christmas trolley dash before we can come home and wrap pressies and make mince pies for tomorrow.

At dusk tonight I spied two small characters huddled together out of the cold behind the duck house and snapped this photo before the light changed completely. These two hens have amused and moved me greatly over the past couple of weeks. Both are very young, and were hatched weeks from each other in the late summer. The black rock is the only hen from a batch of six (the cockerels were taken in by a woman at the animal sanctuary) and the little red was the only hatchling from one of my hybrids. I have named them Ripley and Newt.
Both of these gentle souls have been bullied by the more robust hens, and have lived somewhat lonely lives on the periphery of the field,Over the weeks.It kind of broke my heart to watch them eek out their quiet isolated existence and I decided, then to do something about it.. . A week ago I caught Newt and placed her in Ripley's little hen house for the night. In the morning both hens went their own separate ways, so each night for part of the week after this I repeated the process, until now they are inseparable and a supportive little team.
Perhaps it is the silly and infectious because of Christmas,perhaps I am just a soft old pudding but it was greatly satisfying to see the pair of them tootling around together this afternoon.

Thought for the day

LIVE!!! FROM PARIS..........TO PRESTATYN

As it turned out the live ballet production from the National Opera House in Paris was four productions from the Diaghilev days of the Les Ballet Russes.
I very much enjoyed two of the four!
Le Tricorne (The Three Cornered hat-1919) is a lively and colourful ballet with a totally Spanish flavour and Le Spectre de la Rose (The Spector of the Rose 1911) a brief but quite beautiful duet between a girl and a rose "ghost", they were amazing to watch, but I didn't quite enjoy the controversial L'apres midi d'un faune (Afternoon of a Faun-1912) (humm a man dressed as a deer gets his sexual kicks by rubbing himself on a nymph's clothing!- not quite my cup of tea there I can tell you) and I found the famous Petrouchka (below), rather unsettling and uncomfortably racist
We had a gin and tonic in the interval as did the smattering of people in the audience.... sad there wasn't more people there

Jessop

I have been putting off dealing with the unnamed buff's prolapse all day, so when I spied a couple from the village out for a walk, I was galvanised into action. Asking them to hold the suture remover and the hypodermic needle with anti biotics in it. I took the buff out of the shed, gently cleaned around her vent and removed the sutures. (The couple seemed fascinated to be helping !) Then with a bit of difficulty I gave the antibiotics in the fleshy part of the bird between the wings and we all had a good squint at her bottom region to see if the prolapse did not rear its ugly head again, which was not the nicest of things to do given her condition

So far, so good.....so I replaced the hen into her cage where she stood uncomfortably in the corner, feeling very sorry for herself.

She hasn't been eating today, so I have put some cheap pasta on to cook, in order to tempt her.

If she survives, I will name her Jessop, after the gynecological Hospital for Women in Sheffield...(I experienced a very interesting placement at the labour ward there when I was on a High Dependency course )

Chris and I are off to the Scala later to see a live production of Les Ballets Russes from Paris...review later!

No Internet! hen's toilet parts and shopping

I am writing this blog entry on my netbook's notepad, as our Internet connection is down at the present time.......which is a bit of a worry.....can I cope without my daily blog "fix"?...perhaps not, which is more worrying, I think I am more addicted to my daily diary than I would ever admit
.....Yesterday was dominated by one of the buff Orphinton's gynaecological type of problems....by luck I noticed that she was a little quiet and on impulse as I walked past her I reached out and lifted her up. on inspection I saw that she had prolapsed her vent and was dragging a medium sized egg around with her. To explain this to any "non hen" owners. The immature hen had tried to lay her first egg and it had got suck in her"tuppence!", after straining, she had managed to expel the egg but had prolapsed her "bits" as it were with it!......are you still with me readers???? anyhow very gently I removed the egg and cleaned her bottom with antiseptic and tea tree oil. The prolapse was more than I could deal with at home ( I am baffled with any female nether regions) so I sat her carefully on the passenger seat of the Berlingo and took her up to the vets.Luckily hen expert Zoe was on duty and deftly she sewed the prolapse back in place (with me acting as scrub nurse) and then dusted the ripped membranes with antibiotic powder.She gave the poor girl an injection of antibiotic with instructions for me to give her a further 2 injections at home and then to remove the sutures in 24 hours. I placed her into the spare cage in the shed with the guinea fowl and left her to settle in the dark.Time will tell if she pulls through, but I suspect a peritonitis may claim her in the end.
Today everything is "stable", Chris was up at 6am, having a lively conversation with the BT internet technical team, as the broadband still was not working!, whilst I hid under the duvet with the dogs desperate for some more sleep. I took him to the station at 8am, returned home, checked all the phone plugs and hey presto! broadband working!!!!
I am so excited, I treated myself to a blog and an extra strong cup of coffee!
I think I may need the caffeine! Taking sutures out of a chicken's bum, is something I have never done before, and I think I may need some fortification. Please forgive me if I don't photograph the "operation" for the blog!
As for Christmas! I only have Chris' main gifts to get, which will be the job for tomorrow. Of course there are a couple of smaller gifts I have forgotten.....the "secret santa" gift at work; a small "thank you" pressie for the sister that has allowed me to come in work late on Christmas Night and a couple of others.
Today is cold and frosty.......it is starting to feel like Christmas

Jennifer Jones 1919-2009

It was with some sadness that I read today of the death of the actress Jennifer Jones at the age of 90.
A nervous and mentally fragile performer, she gave some memorable performances in films over four decades, but of course to me , she would always be best remembered as the widow that fell out of the scenic elevator in The Towering Inferno