Faye Dunaway RIP

I woke up this morning, not to the promised "thaw" that we were all wishing for,, but to a new moderate fall of snow. The view from the cottage (above) remains white, icy and quite beautiful, but I am afraid the beauty of the snow has long since left me, literally quite cold .
I am tired of posting about the weather, but what can I do when it dominates the lives of out little band of characters at home?
Faye Dunaway died today.....Not the Faye Dunaway of course (though to be fair the real actress does resemble a corpse in most of her more recent films) I am referring to one of my old hybrids, a skinny old amber rock that I found quite flat and frozen in her hen house this morning. Halleh the sex starved duck may well have been responsible for her death (the flat nature of the corpse my indicate that he had given her a good seeing to) but I am hoping (and I really believe) that the cold, coupled with the fact she was well past her prime, was the real cause of death.

Old Stanley watching me clean out his coop this morning with my oldest hen, Beatrice

Nora keeping the cold at bay with some bananas donated from Joanne, one of my egg customers

Lizzy,Jane and Kitty

The four turkey poults seem to be doing ok in the adverse weather, and all six turkeys have survived their brush with the dreaded "Blackhead" which is something of a miracle. Boris is accepting all of the youngsters including the one slate poult stag who remains rather shy, and I am hoping that the three brown females will provide him with a good natured breeding group.
The girls are robust, friendly and well used to being handled, and with the deep dark eyes so typical of the adult, they are, to me,quite beautiful. I have named them Lizzy,Jane and Kitty.
The young male will be "swapped" for a garden shed, by a guy from the village who has a lone female!
The sky is pale and almost translucent today, and already this afternoon it has started to snow, albeit very gently. We are all getting sick of the snow here, one neighbour, Ann, fell in the lane the day before yesterday and badly broke her arm. I took some eggs up to her yesterday...thought It was more useful than a get well card!
Off now to feed the pigs and to put the turkeys in, I have left Chris sitting on the couch wearing his scarf watching Went the Day Well? (1942)

Isn't everyone just a little bizarre?

I have a theory that when were are alone, all of us can be, well, just a little odd!
Now I am not speaking "serial killer" here, I am actually referring to those private little moments of "madness" we all indulge in from time to time.
Today was a case in point.
I took all four dogs out for their walk this morning and for a change I walked them down the snow filled bridlepath called Gypsy lane. The sides of the path are screened by trees and hedges and I had walked well over a mile before I had to stop in order for George to get his head out of a large rabbit hole.
As I stood waiting I looked into the hedge and there balanced neatly in the Ivy on a tree was a glowing ten pence piece!..
Weird? well yes it was, because in actual fact I was me that placed the coin in the tree way back in 2006.
Gawd knows just why I had done it. I remember finding a coin in my pocket, and I remember thinking It would be a grand Idea to secrete it on a tree but on reflection I cannot, for the life of me, remember my actual motivation for doing so!
I mean, why on earth,does a middle aged man, go out of his way to jam a ten pence piece in a tree?
Does anyone else do similar bizarre things?
answers on a postcard....

Tattoo

My Brother is on holiday in Florida and has done the indulgent thing and got himself a long awaited tattoo¬! He's looking more brave about it all than I would be
They have just sent me this photo (as it happens) by phone....isn't technology great?..

It's Complicated

.............well actually Nancy Meyers new comedy isn't complicated in any shape or form despite having a fairly "unconventional" storyline.
Jane (Meryl Streep) has been amicably divorced from her husband Jake (Alec Baldwin) for ten years. During their son's graduation, the pair start a secret affair, despite Jake having a new wife and Jane starting a tentative relationship with shy architect Adam (a weirdly airbrushed Steve Martin).
Hummm......,do hilarious situations abound?...well no they don't........not at all, but on the whole this film does have a few interesting things to say on the closure of long term relationships and dating in middle age, and it is mildly amusing thanks primarily to Streep and Baldwin's polished and rather winning performances.(But that is about it~)
Streep acts her socks off with the very smallest of gestures, and I always find her a mesmerising actor to watch. She is also quite beautiful and physically untouched by Hollywood standards which makes her all the more attractive and appealing to an audience. You can almost feel the waves of admiration people have for Streep, as you are sat there and that is impressive!
Meryl made me give this film an averagely good 7/10
ps. Hazel has her fourth date wth new beau Alan tomorrow......as her GAYBEST FRIEND..I get the first look at him ! I will be on best behaviour

Hard Work

Now as readers of this blog will know, I will never complain about the work I choose to do on the allotment and field, but I must admit this morning has been a bit of a slog. After night duty and -11 degrees of real frost, every water container on the field was frozen solid,like cement.
Each coop water feeder had to have warm water bucketed over from the cottage to fill it, and it took an absolute age to complete all the work effectively.
The younger hens are not doing well in the icy weather. At roosting time, they often seem disorientated by the snow and ice, and I have had to check the churchyard and field borders, where they have been found sat forlornly in the shelter of wall and gravestone. not making the effort to walk back to their huts across the cold snow.
Last night I found eight hens in this state and managed the ferry them all to a coop safely before nightfall. The buff girls are especially prone to this sort of apathy, but at least allow themselves to be caught and carried without murmur or protest.
Anyhow enough of the snow and enough of hens.... Off to the cinema with Hazel later, think we are going to rough it with the new Streep film It's Complicated

Thanks Cassie

Now I do not suffer from black moods and despondency.Sure I have down day like everyone else, but generally I am spared the artistic mood swings that Chris sometimes suffers from when he is at full stretch with his academic work.
I did, however feel a bit flat today. It is the time of year that money is tight. The Berlingto is due its MOT, and its car tax; the vet's bills keep on coming; William is due his next haircut and the credit cards need paying!
So, I was thrilled to receive a package from a rather irate new postman this afternoon. I should have re phrased that, the package was actually from Cassie (and not the postman!) and was filled with a selection of little Christmas gifts!
Thank you Cassie and Patrick, it was such a thoughtful and kind thing to do, and I am most grateful to receive them all (especially the Geeky rooster t shirt!)

Skyscraper Thoughts

In 1974, I was totally overawed by the skyscraper technology in the Movie The Towering Inferno. Having a building that stood 138 stories from the ground, seemed totally fantastic and almost unbelievable to a 12 year old geek like me, and ever since then, I have always harboured a boyish fascination in the beauty and scale of the skyscraper.(which may sound a little odd given the fact that I am terrified of heights!)
Over the years I have made secret Towering Inferno pilgrimages to the likes of The World Trade Centre, The Empire State, The Chrysler Building, The Rockefeller Centre, The Hyatt Regency in San Francisco and even the Space Needle in Seattle, and at each one, I have experienced the white knuckle, shaky anxiety-filled excitement at the sense of being literally "trapped" thousands of feet above the ground
Now that the huge Burj Khalifa has been topped out at an amazing 168 stories in the city of Dubai, where do we stop in our amazing technological race for bigger and better?
In 1974, I could hardly comprehend a building over 100 stories, let alone understand the modern day norms such as the Internet. Gawd, If you told me as a boy that every person on earth would have their own tiny mobile phone by the year 2000, I would have laughed until I cried..... Anyhow enough of this urban dreaming, am off to work tonight. The weather remains terribly cold