Pet hates

Well it starts today.
Media hype; an excuse to drink to excess in cheap Wetherspoon pubs, the usual disappointment when England gets kicked out of the quarter finals and white van men from all over the country indulging in some pointless male bonding.......
Yeap the bloody world cup kicks off yet again.
Already those naff plastic Flags of St George can be heard rattling noisily on top of a huge selection of tatty vans and cars and although here in Wales, I think the numbers are thankfully lower than they would be in say Sheffield. my opinion of them and the competition itself remains pretty low.
The blue collar culture of football fanaticism is something that has always baffled me. I cannot think of anything worse than being trapped in a testosterone filled pub or front room with a hoard of loud drunks and a plasma screen tv.
I just don't do tribal
I cannot see the appeal.
My best friend Mike is a big footie fan, and the environment I have just described, he adores with a passion. I did go to a football match with him once over at Leppings Lane in Hillsborough, and found the die hard fans and crowds just a little intimidating....Having said this we did used to go the Ice hockey and basket ball matches in the early late 1990s and I yelled my support with the best of them.
What is it about football that turns me into Margot Ledbetter I wonder?
Who knows?....it is a question that I dont fancy thinking about at 7.15 am after an early morning dog walk.......in a couple of weeks time the whole World cup will be over ( probably earlier for the English team if past exploits have any indication) and those bloody awful cheapo flags will be consigned to land fill

The morning news is that Kitty one of the American turkeys has met her end hidden away in a far flung nest within the hawthorn bushes.
Last night she went missing, and I suspected that she had taken herself off to a new nest in the hedgerows. Despite a long search there was no sign of her, so I was not surprised when Albert pointed out a large pile of brown feathers at the bottom of the field

we followed the feathers out through the badger run (the badgers have a clearly defined trail leading through the hedge and across the lane into the fields beyond) and what ever had taken Kitty had carried the heavy bird up and out of my field and away. Whether it was a fox or a badger who knows, but it is unfortunate that the stupid bird hid herself away.

She was not the only victim in the night. Something has dug out the baby rabbits from their shallow burrow from beneath the parsnips......

A surprise trip to the vets and mother love

It's been a funny old day.
I was due to attend a study day at work that covered health and safety issues as well as a resuscitation update, but found out when I arrived at work ( all clean and tidy I have you all know) that half the day had been cancelled.
The dogs had gone to our neighbours for the day, and as I was all smart and human looking, I decided to take a drive and complete all those outstanding jobs that I had let slide.
I went up to the feed wholesalers to buy chick crumbs.The owner, Helen, seemed to be that surprised to see me so smart that she asked me if I was going to church or as she wryly added "court!"
I then delivered some posters advertising the village Flower Show as well as handing out others publicizing the allotment open on August the first and my next proposed "Chicken keeping for beginners course"
After that, I called at the stone masons to have Maddie's gravestone engraved, then on impulse I called into a local vet surgery to see what they had to offer the dogs and Albert.
The surgery I had picked is small and run by only one vet. The practice looked clean and tidy and the practice nurse, who looked remarkably like Nicole Kidman from Dead Calm , was all pert and friendly. Rather proudly, she informed me that she was a trained dog psychologist and we chatted at length about the recent spat between William and George, Of course I felt comfortable registering the dogs and Albert with her.....after all you don't meet a movie star every day.

When I left, I literally bumped into a woman coming through the gate and would you believe it. she was carrying an elderly black Scottie that was the spit of Maddie. The suddenness of the situation took me completely unawares and as I stopped to say "hello" my eyes promptly filled with tears. The woman was very kind, clearly she could see I was upset but kept the conversation light as she described her pet's eyesight problems and personality. Her bitch was called Lassie (of all things) and she was 11 and as I reached out to touch her head, the dog ducked away exactly the same as Maddie would have done. The experience wrenched my guts out
I cried all the way back to the hospital when I left them.
I guess it had to come. Anyhow things are fine now. I completed my resuscitation study day (enrolling the course leader on my chicken course too) then came home to check on Lilly and Kate Winslet's new chicks.
Compared with the hybrid mothers I have had, the two buffs are incredibly more protective over their babies. So much so, that I only just managed to snap a couple of "distant" shots of them all before the growling got all a bit much.

Chris is still in Canada and is due back on Saturday..it's been a long week without him around

After the jobs are done and the animals are settled for the night I aim to sit down and watch the dvd HAPPY ENDINGS.

Lawrence of my labia

Humm where shall I begin?
Ok lets concentrate on the good bits:

1. Liza Minnelli's legs..which are fabulous and can still dance with the best of them (don't dare look at her mummified face though)
2. A funny and oh so non PC clip of a pair of bouncing boobies
3 A 3 minute , pithy and rather amusing interaction about motherhood between Miranda and a rapidly inebriated Charlotte.

...and that....I am afraid is it!

Sex and the City 2 centres it target neuroses away from the single girls' love and career lives and directly directs its designer attention to marriage, motherhood (avec nannies of course) and ageing.....it also unwisely centres most of the action away from New York, takes an ugly side swipe at the traditional Muslim lifestyle and embarrassingly ends up with the girls escaping the clutches of some irate Arabic men by wearing the hijab.

The movie is a bit of a mess .

Now this is a shame, for hidden away amid the dross, the sparkling fairytale that was the tv Sex and The City could just be seen lurking underneath the surface of this movie. SATC2 lacks its old charm! it also lacks Carrie's trademark squealing ( we only hear it once!), the razor sharp breakfast table banter and Miranda's hidden warmth.....and strangely enough it is left to Charlotte (Kristin Davis) to nab the best acting honours, when she has a breakdown when trying to hard to be the ideal Stepford wife.

.....at least all the girls looked their ages.....................SATC3?.......please set it back in New York, give it more pathos and pace,include steve,Magna and a pair of manola Blahniks and perhaps ( and only perhaps) I will give it one last chance
6/10
ps. this blog's title refers to Samantha's "best " line........... sigh

Pre dawn shenanigans

It was just going light when we all were woken by something screaming its head off in the kitchen. The dogs as though electrocuted, tumbled down the stairs barking and growling and by the time I got there all three had trapped a rather irate Albert on top of the cooker. He had a small baby rabbit in his mouth and the poor thing was screaming like a little girl.
When I yelled at him (above the din of howling and barking) he dropped the rabbit, who promptly leaped off the cooker onto the floor.
The dogs went wild!
I booted George away first (he is the best ratter), slapped Meg out of the way and lunged for the baby as it tried to dive under the fridge. by some miracle I caught it!,(the dogs were beside themselves at this stage) and still in a rather unflattering pair of boxer shorts I took the little thing outside and placed it inside a wicker picnic hamper in the shed (with Lilly and her THREE chicks)
I know nothing about baby rabbits so checked the trusty old google to see what to do, below was something useful


"The baby rabbits leave the nest at approximately 3-4 weeks of age. If the rabbit is as big as a tennis ball (or fully fills your hand), then it is able to survive in the wild. If it fits within your hand or is obviously tiny and small or injured, then it needs to be re-nested or given to a wildlife rehabilitator as soon as possible. At 3-4 weeks of age, their instincts to survive in the wild are fully intact. They know how to camouflage themselves, what natural foods to eat, and what a predator is and how to behave around it. They automatically know to run away from a predator in a “broken path” pattern to make it difficult for a predator to catch them"

Armed with this knowledge I picked up the baby, ( still in boxers and t shirt) and walked over to the field where I let it go in my parsnip bed (there is a baby rabbit hole next to it) off he/she went down his burrow and the hysteria of the night was over
Our poor neighbours

I'm Spartacus

It's all a bit silly but Andy Whitfield is so better looking than Kirk Douglas

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1442449/

Trelawnyd Male Voice Choir - The Rose (mpeg test 3+)

Tonight at around 9pm, I took the dogs for a walk to the Memorial Hall in the centre of the village, The Trelawnyd Male Voice Choir have their Choir practice every Tuesday evening, and it's wonderfully relaxing just standing outside the hall,listening to them singing their hearts out.

I so want to audition for the choir, but am crippled with the anxiety of not being good enough....another legacy from a pair of disinterested parents me thinks......

regrouping & more babies

I still have felt rather blue today.
Everyone has that special "something" that they can do to re centre themselves. A special treat that restores their Zen and balances the old yin and yang (!) , may be a relaxing bath, a quadruple whiskey....pneumatic sex...a long sleep......trashy food.......whatever it is, it is necessary to make sure you indulge in before you feel as though you are going slightly bonkers.
For me, it is always trip to the cinema, and because I was feeling ever so slightly maudlin today AND it was raining, I thought a trip to a movie would be appropriate.
So what was on at the scala? The Prince of soddin Persia, Sex and the cruddy city 2 and the bag of laughs Bad Lieutenant.....ie bog all good.....so I had to resort to plan B and went to Llandudno (above) for a mooch around the book shops and a proper coffee.

If I cannot get into a movie, a proper coffee, and the smell of a bookshop is usually just enough to make me feel "normal" The coffee shop in Waterstones bookshop in Llandudno is of course one of those plastic chain cafes, but the coffee is passable, the service by the verbally challenged teenage staff is just this side of ok and the books always are on hand.

I treated myself to two cups of coffee and read a few chapters of Nevil Shute's Pied Piper (Thank you to my father-in-law for the birthday book token)....hummm I know I looked all Bohemian and pretentious, sat there with my coffee and a book....but for a hour or so I could pretend I was Carrie Bradshaw and was content with my short "urban" break.

Nevil Shute, is a very readable author. His stories are simply told and organised and although they seem rather old fashioned now, they are a cracking good read. Pied Piper is a kind of adventure story in the Inn of the Sixth Happiness vein. It concerns an elderly English gentleman who is caught in France at the start of the war. Before the fall of the country he continually finds himself entrusted with a succession of children and the novel chronicles their attempt to escape to Britain.

I got home at 4pm more like my normal self and was just in time to catch a visitor to the Churchyard who pointed out some frenetic Magpie activity around the broody boxes. Lilly the buff was still firmly sat on her eggs, but was growling fiercely at the two magpies that were stood right outside her hutch door, obviously wanting to shift her from her nest. I took a quick look and there underneath her were two small black chicks. I have now moved the entire box into the shed, where mother and chicks will be safe. Kate Winslett and her single white chick, Constance seem to be doing well, safely in their closed coop.

Priscilla Ahn "Dream" (Lyrics)

I have been playing this a great deal over the past few days..........