Christmas catch up

The above photo summed up yesterday's Christmas at my sister's house. Flashy, lively and fun. You can't quite tell from the action shot, but my brother-in-law is marching into the dining room with a flaming Christmas pudding in his hands!
The family all met up with good humour and a hundred weight of gifts, wrapping paper and good ideas. My two sisters and their husbands,my brother and his wife, Nephew Chris (below) and his partner Becca, Nephew Jon and his gran Pat and of course Chris and I made up the numbers, and of course the food, wine and company was enjoyed by all.

Below my brother Andrew ( the only musical one in the family) giving an impromptu guitar solo as some of the family (second photo below) massacred a Rolling Stone musical medley

Anyhow I had to make my apologies and leave the game playing to go to work at 9.pm ( as a family we never seem to succumb to TV watching over Christmas, as we prefer to play games and perform individualised "turns", This year a selection of quizzes. poems,magic tricks and an energetic dance game was the order of the day......)

Work was quiet, and to be honest I didn't really need to have gone in...but I showed my face and did the shift, though this morning I was shattered and just a little jaded.

This morning I moved the baby turkeys into Boris' enclosure to get them all used to each other and quite benignly the big guy ambled over to give the youngsters the once over.

Jessop- below pic- ( the hen with the prolapse!) has been put back into the field and although she is not eating too well and still has a rather grubby bum,she looks perky enough. I am guardedly hopeful that she may pull through.

Tonight My Aunt is coming around for supper, and I think we will then indulge in the typical "British" tradition of vegging out in front of the tv!

Merry Christmas

We have just done pressies ! I did very well (solar powered radio, clothes,wellie socks,lovely picture of the Rockerfeller Centre,cook books,Star Trek dvd (oh be still my beating heart- Zackary Quinto!) etc Chris was less fortunate with my gifts....but it is the thought that actually counts (thats what I keep saying and saying AND saying)
Doing jobs now then we are off to lunch with the family......then off to work later!
Tomorrow we need to sort of some proper fencing for the hens! A rather irate woman called to the cottage yesterday complaining about the hens in the Churchyard, she said their presence is "disrespectful" to the dead!.....I can understand it totally ( though I do not agree with her)....so I need to get my wildlife under control.!!
I felt like telling her "and a bloody Happy Christmas to You!!"

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!