Chatsworth House and the movies

Chatsworth House, the ancestral home of the Duke of Devonshire, is perhaps one of the most famous of all of the English stately homes. Located a stone's throw from Sheffield, Chris and I spent many Sunday afternoons there, wandering around the grounds, gardens and house, so much so, that it actually became one of our most favourite places to visit.
I follow the Chatsworth House blog (http://www.chatsworthblog.org/) which is a kind of behind-the-scenes blog of the house and estate written by the staff of the big house themselves. Occasionally a little dry and polite, this diary of daily works is a fascinating account of something which is so English it actually hurts.....
The blog, does not go back far enough, to cover the funeral of the last Duke of Devonshire in 2004. I remember seeing the funeral procession on tv, when all the staff from the estate, from cooks in their starched white uniforms to the grooms in the stables, lined the grand driveway as the coffin was driven past. Amazingly moving!
Now I have blogged about this today as I spotted the house in a preview of the movie The Wolfman, the remake of the 1941 film. Shrouded with weeds and smoke the house still was unmistakable and impressive, and I wonder just how much will be shown of it in the Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, and Emily Blunt Gothic romp. I hope a little more than was shown in Pride and Prejudice where it acted as Darcy's "Pemberly".
Anyhow talking of previews, I saw the new Robin Hood trailer yesterday and was completely flummoxed by it!
Is it me. but is the whole thing a rehash of Gladiator? Same kind of music, same galloping horses and the same very deep manly growling, from a Maximus looking Russell Crowe!
Now I am not complaining here...... as Russ as a sex-on-legs Roman general floated my boat several times in the year 2000 so his rebirth in Robin Hood will be most welcome. Having said that, I suspect the film will be a pile of Sh*t.

Anyhow Chris is away yet again, this time in London. However we did have a nice lunch out today before he went.
A villager stopped me at dusk to complain that she had not seen the Chickens in the Churchyard for a while. She was so upset when I told her that the usual bunch she was used to seeing was the junior hens that had been killed last Saturday.....at least the guinea fowl with Rogo, remain loyal in their ambles amid the graves.

Avatar

Sam Worthington

I was feeling ok until I read all of the previous post comments this morning, and now I think I must have sounded a border line depressive!
The rain is lashing down, so I completed jobs, counted the poultry (all present), walked the dogs and drove to Prestatyn to the cinema , taking some heed of all of the advice to "have a break"!

I know there was a pensioner showing of AVATAR at the scala this morning, so at 10 am (yes AM) I lined up with a few adventurous silver hairs who were clutching their pension books, and asked if I could go in.
Now although I am a youthful looking 47 year old, the manageress waved me through quite cheerfully ( and a little too quickly for my liking) and feeling a tad guilty at bunking off, I sat down in the warmth and dry, intent in watching some mindless rubbish.......tee hee
Cinema is a wonderful diversion from the mundane for me. It is a treat, it is a ritual and it always feels as though I have "come home" in a strange sort of way as I make myself comfortable in the usual pull down cinema seat!
Like many geeky teenagers (I was an expert in 1970 disaster films, terrapins and tropical fish at 15!!!) I was a lonely kid.
There was no internet,computer games and the like to divert me from the misery of puberty, so for me it was cinema that was able to transport me to somewhere a little more exciting......All during the 1970s, burning skyscrapers, overturned passenger liners, Roger Moore's acting eyebrows and a whole series of 747 near misses, kept me amused and obsessed.

Anyhow back to Avatar, which was an inspired choice for a rainy and depressing day!

James Cameron's voyage into movie history is basically an adequate Christmas present of an adventure movie which has been wrapped up in some exquisitely beautiful wrapping paper. To look at, it is quite, quite amazing, and I was entertained with this boys-own actioneer from the very start.

In Avatar, Cameron pays homage to Aliens his 1986, public and critically acclaimed blockbuster, with gut wrenching battle sequences and a reintroduction to some of his most famous characters.

So we have Dr Grace (Sigourney Weaver) who is an older and wiser Ellen Ripley, tom boy Hispanic marine Trudy (Michelle Rodriguez) is a ringer for Pvt. Vasquez and mean bastard corporate manager (Giovanni Ribisi) is definitely based on the reptilian Carter Burke.

Having said all this, Avatar is an adventure film which pays further homages to the likes of A Man Called Horse (1970) and Dances with Wolves (1990) and by doing so, it will please everyone. as the basically simple story of a man finding his true "home" is a universal fairytale of sorts.

Sam Worthington makes for a measured and quite charismatic hero (he is very easy on the eye too!) and Zoe Saldana (who is never really seen except in her CGI form) is also very good as his alien love interest.

But this film's strength lies with what you see AND experience rather than the originality of the plot or the performances of the leading actors (good as they are)........and what you see IS quite beautiful and impressive.

I gave it a spirit lifting 9/10

Perspectives

I didn't sleep well at all last night. Every hour or so I was awake listening for the chatter of the guinea fowl, but of course there was no early warnings and of course the fox was kept safely out of the little knot of coops on the field. I found another uneaten corpse yesterday afternoon, hidden under the snow, so the death toll officially was 8 birds dead with only one survivor, Rose.who got away without a scratch.
Early this morning as I was returning to the cottage I saw a neighbour, Joanne walking by with her large dogs, before I waved I was stopped by her expression, and I just knew that her father,(another close neighbour of ours who had been unwell for quite some time) had died.
There is something quite distinctive that passes over someones face when they are suffering from grief. I had witnessed it time and time again at work and indeed personally, and I can only describe the physical manifestation as a sort of "crumpling" of the features, when the face kind of disappears in on itself.
It is aways an expression that pulls a person up short!
I had a few words with Joanne and said sincere but usual platitudes of support, but as always at these times, there is very little one can actually do to be of any help.
Later I would drop off some flowers and a card to Joanne and her mother Pat, a gesture that would be mirrored tenfold, I am sure, by other neighbours from the village over the next day or so.
Today I have popped into Prestatyn to do some banking, then I collected more feed before walking the dogs on the gop. As I returned home I spotted a man at nearby bungalow, which is situated a couple of fields away from my field. I know the chap has hens so I called in to introduce myself and to warn him that a fox was around.
He was friendly and chatty and thanked me for the warning but informed me that the fox already had snatched several of his hens and a cockerel over the past few days.
Seeing that he had lost his cockerel, I immediately offered him Jesus, the smart male that had been abandoned with us on Boxing day and pleased as punch he agreed to pick him up next week...which was a nice result and conclusion to a miserable day or so.

Chris is working away tonight in Manchester
I am due an early night me thinks

Stupidity

The biggest threat to poultry is a stupid and careless keeper.
Last night I broke the golden rule of hen keeping. I overlooked the shutting of one of the poultry coop doors.
This morning,after I fed the pigs in the newly settled snow, I turned to see my largest coop's door open to the elements. I couldn't quite believe it, as I am fastidious in my routine of shutting the stock up for the night, but there it was , an open door and an empty coop.
I looked around; there was no blood, feathers or any signs of trauma, but all 8 hens had gone.
It didn't take long to find them, well I found five dead birds and one living hen ( a hybrid called Rose). She was cold , but unhurt under one of the coops further up the field, the five others were decapitated and scattered in the snow by the perimeter fencing.
The situation was clear, a fox had taken the opportunity I had stupidly given it, and had killed the lot.
I am so angry and upset with myself.When it comes to my animals I am not at all slap dash, but I and I alone had put the hens in direct danger from a predator who would do the most damage.
The hens killed included Jessop and her sister, the two young buffs, Bill the handsome black rock cockerel and four other young birds who I raised from chicks last year. All of the hens had only started laying properly since our last fall of snow.
First the badger kills the guinea fowl, now a fox with my assistance, kills my hens.
I feel as though I have let the field population and myself down.

ITU

I am writing this blog entry on my break..intensive care is quiet (at the moment) with all the patients sedated and ventilated, so all you can hear is the faint "hiss" of suction and oxygen and the gentle "push push" of the ventilators breathing for their charges.

The sound can be rather soothing, especially when the alarms of the fukuda monitors don't go off, and the peace of this evening is rare and appreciated...

generally the unit is fraught and noisy, and after an 11 hour shift all I crave is the quietness of the field and the howling of the wind in the trees.......

lets hope the rest of the night remains as silent as it is now......

Work day

I have not had a great deal of time to do very much today. Just enough time to complete the supermarket shop, spend another 60£ at the vets for flea treatments for the dogs and Albert as well antibiotics for William and supervise a brief but welcomed visit by cousin Carol and her hubby Ken, who brought a huge pile of treats up for the animals.
Working tonight, here's hoping for a quiet night on intensive care....yeah right!

ps

had to laugh at my friend Geoff's turn of phrase in his blog relating to a condensation problem on our chimney breast (see http://onceinalifetimeinwales.blogspot.com/2010/01/that-friday-feelin.html)

I love this photo!

I love this photo.....
Working for 17 years on a Spinal Injuries unit, I was always reminded that nothing is impossible to be attempted after paralysis has initially devastated peoples' lives...
This photograph embodies that living spirit, I observed in patients time and time and time again....
On reflection ( and you will need to read the previous post) it is this strength of ordinary people that I do miss from my Sheffield work days.

How we got here!

The first of my huge allotment beds has been dug over and manured today, and I feel as though I have turned the corner in starting to clear up the damage, and untidiness of winter.
As I have worked I have thought about something that blog reader Jim wrote on yesterday's blog; he stated:

"I must say John, I am jealous of how you live. Though not glamorous, it seems to
have a charm, and be charmed"

In many ways I agree with what Jim said, but I must admit the change from living in a Yorkshire City with a charm and personality all of its own to entering a small and in someways closed village community was not always the easy one that I may hint to in my sometimes overly fluffy bunny blog.

Believe it or not, I never really had an overwhelming urge to live in the country. Chris did, and was always quite vociferous about it, but I was always happy living and working in Sheffield. I had reached my objectives career-wise, and had experienced the highs (and lows) of running my own ward, and our social life was busy, varied and supportive....so when and why did it all change?
Well I got to thinking about this today, as I indulged myself in the repetitive dig-turn, dig-turn of the allotment clearing, and, as so often is the case with large life changing decisions, it was a series of "small" events that precipitated my change of mind.
As a ward manager, I witnessed changes within the Hospital trust that I had difficulty "selling" to my staff. Corporate loyalty was stretched to the limit sometimes, and quality of care was always demanded but sometimes was difficult to attain with job freezes, audit needs, and the "hands tied" rules of job's worth policy, HR demands and clinical protocols.
Colleagues that had been friends for years left the service through one reason and another, and this left managers like myself more and more isolated, as our "touchstones" and like minded professionals disappeared.
I left the Spinal Injury unit, still loving my job, but being realistic enough to understand that things would not always be the same, an event that I think is not unique in middle aged men who are questioning their lives. Chris' wish to live in the country, gave me the springboard to try something new after 17 years, and I thought "why the hell not!"...without giving the reality of rural Welsh life a proper in depth thought

At first my energy of the move went into the two cottages that we bought. Our first cottage and weekend holiday home had to be sold and a new property sought and sorted!
During our first year here, building work needed organising,decorating needed to be done and a whole garden needed to be built and designed. I was happy at doing all this, as it gave me a focus and a goal, which took over from my old work responsibilities, but after the initial adrenaline rush of hiring and firing, I was left with a slight "dip" of "what now?"
And so the animals started to arrive!
In drips and drabs, more dogs galloped into our lives, a couple of pure breed hens lived in the garden which was only the start of things to come, and the excitement of feeling responsible for a group of little beings instead of 50 staff members started to fill all of the gaps for me.
The animals and the accompanying allotments opened up relationships within the village community and I learnt to socialize more with the locals and with village groups which was a new thing for me. Friends were made, and roots laid down in community events and in a space of another year Trelawnyd became "home" in the truest sense of the word.....sounds easy eh? ....not always.......to be sure.....and I so still miss Sheffield and my friends there ( but strangely not my previous manager's position)..yet, on reflection,blogger Jim was right, I know I lead a charmed (though not glamorous) life