Update Monday

It is a case of the calm before the storm. Today looks as though it is going to be a beautiful day. The weather is set to change tomorrow for the entire week (surprise fu*cking surprise!), so I have had to get cracking with essential dry day jobs. Between 8am and 2pm I have cleaned out the majority of the hen houses, the shed, the quail cage and the outside store room. The dogs have had a four mile walk (they didn't have a proper walk yesterday due to all the Sainsbury's shenanigans) and I have just sat down with my first (yes first!) coffee of the day

I remember I promised to give you all an update on the characters of the field (charity work, weather moaning and lyrical blogging about Matt "be still my beating heart" Cardle seem to have taken centre stage somewhat, so with coffee up in hand here is a brief run down of the news.

Red (bottom left) and his five quail hatchlings have now all feathered up nicely in the shed., a few more weeks before they are set up in their own miniature enclosure on the field, the youngsters are growing beautifully and strangely for tiny birds are the most chilled out and calm animals I have ever looked after ( with the exception of Boris)

The runner ducklings (below) are quite another story..it took me an absolute age to creep up on the seven nutcases when they were sunbathing this afternoon....and still the photograph is not too clear. Although I can hear quacking, I still cannot ascertain exactly where the noise is coming from amid the chaos, so sexing the little buggers is difficult .....I need to get going on this as Dan in Huddersfield is ready for his babies to be set up in his garden........"patience grasshopper....patience" 

I photographed Gloria when she was half asleep in the sun this morning. For most of the year she has been moulting, and has resembled a somewhat shopworn old tart, but now just before winter, she has feathered up and looks quite beautiful in her virginal white.

 The ghost hens are the girls that have changed the most in the few months I have had them . They are huge bumbling birds that remind me of the maid from Tom and Jerry, what with their ham sized drumsticks barely able to keep their over bred meaty bodies upright and in motion, but their life on the field remains calm, unhurried and I won't apologise for making their short lives as stress free as I can.
One girl is already showing the signs of cardiac failure ( breathless with an exercise tolerance of say ten steps!) but they have survived longer that I have expected given their genetic make up, and that fact gives me so much pleasure, I couldn't tell you. Hopefully they will make it through their first winter.

And finally Boris!..... after his sexual over exertion and collapse of the summer, he has bounced back slowly after more TLC than I care to admit . I have made sure that he has corn every night when he is put to bed and the extra rations have allowed the old boy to pile on the weight he lost so quickly when he was ill.

This morning he sat with me for a few minutes when I tried to photograph him and Gloria, and snorted loudly in my ear like a randy horse.....he's a real sweetie!  

Bag Packing

Packing other people's shopping in an interesting experience
Some people find the offer somewhat surprising, almost as if it is a personal intrusion into a private pastime whilst others accept any offer of help with alacrity and immense grace.
I kind of enjoyed the whole experience!
One lady, slightly wide eyed, grabbed her own neatly folded bags and breathlessly informed me
"I will do my own packing! " and in way of an explanation stated "I'm sorry, I am dreadfully anal!" but for the most part the motley group of volunteers marshaled with care and skill by my sister had a clear playing field by hundreds of good natured and generous shoppers to collect a considerable amount of money the for Motor Neurone disease association

I will let my sister tell you the details! . http://supportingandrew.blogspot.com/

Matt Cardle sings Baby One More Time - The X Factor Live show 3 - itv.co...

Well it was a fairly busy night at work....I was so tired when I got home I felt sick, so after feeding and watering the animals I had a sit down and Chris made me a bacon bagel! I chomped my way through it while watching the l o v el y Matt Cardle from last night's x factor doing his stuff.......now I don't do Britney Spears ( IN ANY SHAPE OR FORM) so the song left me a little cold..... He remains a real sweetie though.

I am off for a sleep now, then we are off to the supermarket by midday! Janet has organised a Charity bag pack for the family to do, in support of Motor Neurone disease........

"pack you bags madam?"

BUGGER the rain

Sometimes I do hate the country.

This irritation only happens if it has been consistently wet for days and the ground gets so saturated that walking, even the few hundred yards around the field becomes a real chore (especially when there is a hole in your wellies.
Rain in the countryside means :-

• muddy paw prints on EVERYTHING including tablecloths,duvet,clothes and god forbid my best Laura Ashley floral print cushions
• slugs through the cat flap
• at least two or three embarrassing slips a week especially when cocking my leg over the Boris' fencing (doing the splits whilst holding a couple of buckets of water is no joke at nearly 50 
• Cleaning out the Ghost hens daily as their huge feet drag in the mud to their hen house like shovels and wet shavings mean only one thing......sore bottoms

Take no notice of those romantic photographs in Homes and Gardens, where the wet dogs are steaming nicely in front of the cottage fire and the muddy boots are all lined up neatly in the utility room......wet dogs mean only two things..........MUSTY DOG SMELL and A BLOODY FILTHY HOME!
After half an hour of scrubbing the kitchen floor YET AGAIN, its time to "fabrese" the cottage from top to bottom, then the dettol has to be dug out yet again so that the kitchen tops can be disinfected free of cat prints (one or two can even be seen on top of the oranges pilled up on the kitchen table) 


George steaming nicely in the living room

No! rain in the country is Bloody shitty!!!!!
Rainy days when we lived in the city always meant hiding away in the warmth and the dry. It meant a trip to  Weston Park Museum or the shiny Millennium Galleries.and if the weather was atrocious you could always lose yourself in the aseptic Meadowhall shopping centre or John Lewis' in town.(their cafe staff were always lovely)
Even when it was bucketing down....you could always keep dry and clean and cossetted away from the elements......whereas here........constant bad weather means trenchfoot, damp underpants and chilblains.

see everything in the county isn't always like watching Little House on the Prairie!
Blah!
Working nights again tonight so will miss my weekly fix of Mr Cardle on x factor............bugger!

Vets again

I didn't get much sleep last night. Some local teens organised a party in one of the fields way down the lane, which banged on until the wee small hours of the morning. I stayed up watching the TCM movie Separate Tables and caught a couple of drunken boys running about the front garden. Suffice to say they ran off with a flea well and truly rammed into their ears and I was left wide awake "harrrumping" angrily to myself.

This morning I took William to our new vets for a check up. He woke the house up a few days ago with a bit of a coughing fit, which has now disappeared, but I wanted to be sure if things were ok. I also wanted to give our new vet the once over, so the visit was also a bit of a test for him and an opportunity for me to start to trust him .
Since Maddie's death, I know I have become a bit of a "modern parent" where the animals are concerned. I have fretted over minor ailments and symptoms. I am aware of my insecurities ( I bumped into our old vet in the animal feed wholesalers and had to walk straight out!), so I made sure I told the vet pointedly that this was William's first check up since Maddie's death.
He picked up on my cue , smiled and said  "I guess you have a need to check me out a little" and carefully gave  William a physical from head to toe.
William obviously enjoyed the attention, he has always loved visiting the vets, and he closed his eyes in a kind of rapture when the vet checked his heart, breathing, mouth , teeth and bits. When I introduce William to people he doesn't know, even to vets that may well hurt or worry him, he will always remain good natured, polite and a credit to me....his sweetness is one of his biggest virtues.
 The consultation fee was 15£ and a relationship of sorts was forged, which was positive. The vet also stated he would be happy to supply me with some antibiotics If I felt I needed some for the poultry.( even though he admitted his expertise does not extend to bolshy turkeys)

A note of Support for Prestatyn Scala

BBC Wales has flagged up the local government's pre austerity cuts by covering the fact that my local "beacon of normality" (the newly revamped Scala Cinema) has had to pull in it's belt drastically and has to cut its expenditure  by a whopping 40 thousand pounds.
Local fans of the cinema got wind of something was afoot and worried that closure or  god forbid a change of function could be on the cards, they marshaled the troops and waved their placards in support of the only "cultural" venue the town has access to! (Top pic)
Although the local council has stated that they have no plans to close the cinema, (only a year or so after it opened) I have a sneaking worry that things are not looking too good for this flagship picture house!


To get more "bums of seats" I suspect the small "arthouse" films will be dropped for more populist mainstream movies which would be a shame ( for me and ex bookshop owner Victor Hallet- the two regular arthouse movie watchers along the coast)..but I will support any initiative that keeps a cinema going just a mile and a half from Trelawnyd!


Tonight, we made the effort to support the Scala in the only real effective way I can think of, we put our arses well and truly on their cinema seats and went to see the Brit Com Made in Dagenham.
The movie was ok...no big shakes but a pleasant enough "dramatization" of the 1968 strike at the Ford Dagenham car plant, where female workers walked out in protest against sexual discrimination......Filled to the gunnell with a horde of nice Brit thesps (Geraldine James, Bob Hoskins,Rosamund Pike,) this film is worth seeing just for them AND the bravura performance by Miranda Richardson who plays a somewhat feisty Barbara Castle the Government Employment Minister
7/10

Janet's fund raising

My sister is running herself ragged with fund raising for Motor Neurone disease!

This video is her way of thanking people for their donations and support ( look closely and you can see MND in the sand)

The characters filmed on Prestatyn beach are cousins Tina, Ian and Karen, Aunt Judy ( I am overdue inviting u to dinner!) sisters Ann, Janet and brother in law Tim ( oh and the dogs of course)

can everyone visit her blog and make a comment?

http://supportingandrew.blogspot.com/

Leaving (Partir) and Ducklings



Lopez-sigh



Hazel and I went to Theatre Clwyd tonight to see a kind of French/Spanish version of Lady Chatterley's Lover starring the wonderful Kristin Scott Thomas  as the posh totty and the very sexy Sergi López as the Spanish hired help.   Catherine Corsini's movie, entitled Leaving (Partir) not only tells the story of the florid love affair between bored housewife and sweaty builder but adds to the mix a husband's (

Yvan Attal ) obsession with getting his wife to return and chronicles the lengths he goes to, to financially cripple the new couple.( An interesting angle in revenge)

Scott Thomas, with her big bambi eyes is cracking in the role of Suzanne,  you can literally feel, her passion and pain for a man , she has suddenly realises that she is in love with and as an actress she is wonderfully magnetic and brave in her role (  and at 50 she gets her kit off better than Helen Mirren any day)

Lopez (remember him as the psychopathic soldier in Pans Labyrinth?) has the smaller and less satisfying role of Ivan, but has a winning smile and warmth that counteracts Thomas' glacial beauty, and I found him rather a dish ( not as much as my x factor muse Matt Cardle though!!)

7/10

Anyhow, earlier today I briefly videoed the new runners for Dan to witness their progress.

Below is the briefest of videos showing them free of their run for the first time.

Winnie and Jo, found them fascinating , and chased them half heartedly around the field ( but didn't hurt them)

If the weather is nice tomorrow I will let them out for a few hours