No News

Chris returned from Newcastle at lunchtime and I dragged him up the Gop with the dogs in an effort to relax him. The weather seems to be turning for the better and the general talk around the village is of the push now to get the delicate vegetables into the warming soil to make the most of the growing season.
The gorse on the Gop is bright and vibrant, and the view across the vale now lush and green. Spring might have started properly!

When we got back, Chris went to bed for a sleep and I finished planting out the second vegetable plot. Broad beans, Chinese cabbage and beetroot have gone in, so that leaves one large and final plot ( around thirty feet by fifteen) to finish off. This final plot will be planted out with sweetcorn and pumpkin (Apparently it is an American way of utilizing space:- the pumpkin snakes in and out of the sweetcorn mulching the ground in hotter weather)- is that right American blog readers???

I am working tomorrow night, which is nice as it leaves me free to enjoy the weekend with Chris.....I think we will be going to see Robin Hood (Mr Crowe at his gruff best!!!)

Next time...it's a comedy

I don't think that the cinematography in a film has ever made me feel sick before. Today was a first.

In the Italian saga I am Love. the steadicam roars around the vast millionaire mansion villa of the Recchi family in a nausea inducing homage to the museum scene in Brian de Palma's Dressed to Kill....so much so in fact that I literally had the urge to vomit, which I am sure is not quite the effect that director Luca Guadagnino was looking for.

Having said this, Guadagnino has crafted a stylish, almost Hitchcockian family saga which centres around a doomed love affair of the rather controlled matriarch, Russian ex pat Emma, (Tilda Swinton)....the camera swoons around her sketchily drawn family like a swallow around a field, and I found the cinematic themes of passion and food (the scene where Swinton eats a prawn has to be seen to be believed!) interesting but all rather cold and with characters devoid of any warmth.

I gave it 7/10

Our second film of the day, as it turned out, was not a bag-of-laughs either!

The Headless Woman (La Mujer sin Cabeza) is an odd unsettling little film about denial, guilt and I suspect concussion!

In it , a wealthy middle aged dentist Veronica (Maria Onetto) runs "something" over on an Argentinian back dirt road. In the accident she strikes her head on the windscreen, and enters a slightly opaque, ever-so-quiet-senseless world where nothing may be what it seems.

Veronica may or may not have killed a child (a ghostly handprint on her car's window is left chillingly just in view) but any concrete clue of what indeed did happen is quietly camoflagued by subtle confusion which mirrors that hard smile paranoia exhibited by those with a head injury.

It is not an easy film to sit through and for me it is far too long, but it is a film that provokes thought and discussion........Having said that, I don't think it is the masterpiece that some in the artistic press would have us believe....it is just not that clever

7/10

Hazel and I felt a little wrung out after our movie double bill....... we agreed next time we would see something a little more uplifting next time......two challenging, slightly depressing movies in one day is a little too much!!!

Guilty pleasures

The chicks in the shed are going stir crazy. They are five weeks old this week, so will be coming off the heat early next week......note the third from the right...the araucana tuft is just showing

I am catching up with Hazel today. Chris has been working in London then Newcastle, so won't be home until tomorrow night, so today will be movie day!
Hazel suggested that we go and see the Tilda Swinton Italian saga I am love at the Scala, then changed her mind when she realised that the much lauded Argentinian movie The Headless Woman was playing at Theatre Clwyd.......(below pic)
so we are being reckless crazy bitches and ARE GOING TO SEE BOTH!!.

The Flower Show donations and a Goose house

Today I have been strimming the field borders and have planted broad beans and more potatoes. I have also sorted out the raffle tickets for the flower show and have helped organise the payments the flower show wanted to donate to local good causes.

The Flower Show has paid the transport costs for the village friendship group to go on one of their many trips this year. (The friendship group is a large jolly group of local pensioners). It has also paid for gardening equipment and plants for the village school and will be purchasing a new kitchen water heater for the village hall, so between the three good causes the Flower Show has spent over a thousand pounds and has also been seen to be fair.
We are always looking for other local good causes to donate funds to, so if there are any local readers of this blog that may have any ideas please email me!

Anyhow I have decided on what I would like as a birthday gift (June 1st)....I would like a goose house! (above) Chris sighed loudly when I started to drop hints, I know he would prefer buying me a new (and clean) pair of pants and a smart shirt as my half of the wardrobe looks like Cinderella's closet, but he now knows me so well, and understands a goose house would be a bloody great gift!
tee hee
Now all I need are the geese!

sometimes.......

.........it's wonderful just being honest......

Helping hand

I don't really blog about my brother's illness. Part of me feels that it is an inappropriate forum to do so but today after I called up to check on him, I felt a compulsion to mention it
He has been diagnosed in suffering from a neurological condition called progressive bulbar palsy for around a year now, and he has been on an emotional and physical roller coaster relating to it ever since.
As with any disease and syndrome that has no real clinical treatments, there seems to be an unwritten rule that people just "get on with things" despite everything that the condition throws at them. It is a benign statement for what is sometimes an impossible task, and to be honest if anyone resorted to this kind of platitude when I was in the middle of pharyngeal spasm attack, I would ram a length of oxygen tubing where the sun doesn't shine!
Yet my brother is coping with his condition in a normal, variable and very self directed way. He has recently acted as a guitar tech on an exhausting 17 date national tour of a rock band, started my sisters' obsession with false tattoos and has dealt with a spasmodically supportive health service without much chest beating or complaint to us, his family.
Today I could do one tiny thing for him....I called up to utilise some of my Intensive care skills to briefly check on the condition of his chest before he and my sister-in-law go on holiday.
In the great scheme of things, it was nothing but a ten second job, but boy did it make me feel as though I had at least done SOMETHING concrete to be a support as he " gets on with stuff"....
I just wish ( as I know my sisters' do) that we can do more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_bulbar_palsy

Leaving a mark and Sunday Photos

Yesterday I took the dogs down gypsy lane and noticed a strange mark on a tree halfway down the bridlepath. I stopped and cleared away the ivy and found this old carved set of initials. "GWYN REG"

I got to thinking that as a species, all of us want to leave our mark on this world in some shape and form...don't we?

Some people leave a legacy through their children........other people have work sucessess, whilst others have plaques and statues (I would love a statue of me somewhere or other!!)

But I guess the only best way of being "remembered" is by being remembered fondly by those you have left behind.......if we are missed and loved....that's what really matters doesn't it?

Hummm.......I wonder just how long this blog survives in the vacuum that is the internet...long after I am gone?...and how many comments will be present on that final blog entry?

who knows

This is my favourite view of our lane....our cottage is where Carol can be seen (she is gossiping with a slightly hungover Chris who is sitting in the front garden.) He had a work night out at Osborn House last night and I went to pick him up after I finished work.

William and Maddie watching from the cottage window

Last night there was a bloody frost that burnt off most of my runner bean seedlings. I have not got enough fleece to cover all of my "delicates", so gardening is a little like Russian Roulette at the moment...( ok NOT as exciting but hey, we do live in the country)

Above the potatoes are showing their heads

........I have weeded the whole of the pea beds and planted out neat rows of peas and mange tout

Belle is the most determined hen I have, and has been contemplating a raiding party into the Church Yard for many days now. So far the chicken wire barrier atop the stone wall has stopped her short, but as God loves a trier, she has maintained this daily vigil in the vain hope of ascertaining just where any weak points may be

With Rogo gone, the old cockerel Stanley has now taken full charge of the field population. The bigger but more junior Jesus and the bantam cockerels Roger and Pirrie have deferred to his senior position and effectively "let him get on with things". Here he seemed facinated with the omnibus version of The Archers! (Nigel will Lillian get together with Matt's brother Paul?>???)

Daddy's Girl

My best friend Mike has Maisie....and as daft as it sounds.....I have Meg....
surrogate kids........yeap........I have around 74! including the turkeys!

We were watching "chopper coppers" on tv last night