Going Gently

12.42.am

I can't sleep
Albert has brought in a live mouse and the whole household (1 cat and 4 dogs) are trying to catch the poor thing somewhere in the bedroom..... I have shut the door on them and am now having a cup of tea in the living room. Upstairs the noise is more frightening than the soundtrack of any horror film! and outside the guinea fowl have started to scream for the second time.....I have bolted out to the field with the torch twice now and have seen nothing
hey ho
Thank Goodness that Chris is still away

Avatar 3D

Janet and I were 3D virgins until this evening and although it was an interesting experience I won't be galloping like a wild thing to go and see my second "amazing multi dimensional experience".
What I didn't understand about 3D before tonight, is that it is only used at its fullest extent sporadically throughout the film. Certain sequences, such as Jake's walk through the forest at night and the 9/11-like destruction of the home tree are admittedly impressive, but generally I think that the slightly blurred and distracting 3D effects do not in fact enhance the experience of Avatar; in actual fact they make the whole experience, just that little bit unsatisfactory.
Avatar 3D 7/10
Well it least we kept the glasses!

Thanks to Kathy

This morning I have braved the icy wind and have manured the main vegetable patch. I have still got four more to weed,turn and fertilize but at least I have made the effort and have started the often back breaking ground work before spring.
I have unearthed the Jerusalem artichokes I planted last year (above left) and thanks to fellow blogger Kathy at The Cottage Garden Farmer-see (Kathy's blog ) I now know what to do with the little buggers (http://the-cottage-gardener.blogspot.com/2010/01/jerusalem-artichokes.html)
I have set out my potatoes for chiting and now have a ton of strawberry plants from my fellow villager Sandra, to plant out after the frosts in a huge strawberry bed of their own.

As I was humping the manure into place, the ducks, forgetting their usual reserve, jumped into action to sieve out the worms and grubs from the ground. Halleh (the only drake second from left) has been courting the runner females but has not as yet worked out how to mate with them, preferring the more "attractive" hens....hopefully it will be only a matter of time before he works out what exactly should go where. I do hope so, I am tired of chasing him off the hybrids on a daily basis.

The grave digger did a great job clearing the rubbish from the field stream, and although it looks rather muddy now, come spring the banks should be lovely and green. I will dam up part of it to make a proper small pond when I have some time, but the first thing I need to do is to re build the Church wall. Thank goodness the days are getting longer.

With Chris still away I am off to Llandudno later with my sister to see AVATAR in 3D.....

Dogs on the Beach

Cassie wanted me to post a video of the dogs, so apologies for the lazy post. As I type this, it has started to snow gently!

The Alarm - Knockin' On Heavens Door - The Gathering 30-01-2010

My brother Andrew is playing the guitar second from the right (in the white t shirt) Chris and I missed his gig with the Alarm ( I was working nights) but my sisters went (and can be heard shouting from the audience!)

A small victory

With the fire lit and the dogs in their usual place on my lap, it has been a relaxing and quiet day. Chris made a tasty chicken stew AND a syrup sponge pudding, so the order of the afternoon was having a doze and that was it!
Half way through the gloriously camp tv programme 60 Minute Makeover , Albert could be heard banging around the kitchen, and on checking he was battering a small beautiful blue tit between his paws and the remains of our chicken dinners!
The tiny bird looked quite dead when I found it covered in chicken gravy, but as I prised it off a growling Albert, it gave a shallow gasp.
Blue tits are amazingly pretty things, but like all wild birds that have been attacked, they die so easily through a combination of rough handling and shock, so I hid the bird in my palm and sat in the living room in the hope that the warmth of my hand would revive it.
The dogs all clambered on top of me, in the full realisation that something was afoot, but I managed to keep them away from the blue tit until I could feel a little more movement from the tiny animal and after another 20 minutes I sneaked out of the house to set the bird down on the wall before it flew unsteadily away still covered with big blobs of bisto.
I told you nothing much has happened today.. but this "little" victory was rather satisfying

Mockingbird Review

Gwyn Vaughan Jones as Atticus Finch
To Kill A Mockingbird, is one of those novels that most (!) people remember with great affection from their schooldays. Harper Lee's warm and affectionate story of the coming of age of "Scout" Finch, the daughter of a small town lawyer, amid the racism of the American deep south, has a resonance with most people, even though they may not have read or reread the novel for years, and I really feel that this nostalgia for Lee's novel sometimes camouflages the brutality within the story....such as child abuse,the abysmal treatment of the mentally ill, alcohol addiction, and of course the horrendous racial divide within a rural community.
This stage version is beautifully set by Mark Bailey on a simple dirt road square of stage. Silhouette's of the tired folk of Maycomb are placed against a "Gone with the Wind" sky before Scout (an excellent Amy Morgan) starts her narration through the eyes of the eight year old tomboy.
The racial and economic tensions of 1935 Alabama grow steadily, until the cracking courtroom scene ( played cleverly still on the dirt road) bats to and fro between the dirt poor white trash Ewells and Atticus Finch who is defending defendant Tom Robinson. This scene is the best thing in the play , and Rhian Blyth ( as the abused Myella Ewell) is a standout, but having said all that, not everything works as well in this stage play as it does in the 1962 movie version.
The climax where the Finch Children are pursued by the abusive Bob Ewell is rather rushed and trivialised, and is absolutely lacking in the nail biting tension we witnessed as James Anderson stalked the terrified Mary Badham in the movie, but I guess it is a small complaint in a generally superior and enjoyable stage production .
8/10

Off to bed.... working an early shift tomorrow