My New Best Friend and Winter's bone

People that know me, will know that the latest gadgets leave me somewhat cold...I have my laptop and my battered solar powered radio and thats about it.............even our tv is a supermarket buy with a 12" screen!, so I was quite intrigued when Chris presented me with his old ipod yesterday!

He has a new , all singing, all dancing, even-makes-the-tea, ipad thingummy, of which he is extremely proud,so I have taken another step towards the 21st Century and have bought my first itune download......ok it doesn't take much guessing which single I bought? yep Mr Cardle.......but I put the whole experience down to experience!

My new ipod will be a constant new friend me thinks.....especially as my two main friends in North Wales have disappeared somewhat off the radar for very different reasons!

Anyhow, today, my first lesson ( after switching the bloody thing on) was to learn how to download! ( or is it upload?) anyway....after organising Mr. Cardle I ventured into the free podcast service from the BBC! FANTASTIC! ...so on a rather wet and uninteresting walk I listened to the sweet tones of Kirsty Young interviewing Jonney Vagas in Desert Island Discs followed by a compilation of Woman's Hour and The Archers......

It was lovely.......

and Nige, don't worry I will make an effort and keep the little scrap of miracles clean and dry!!!

I heard through the Internet grapevine that the movie Winter's Bone was well worth the price of a pint of lager...so tonight I braved the elements and popped down to the Scala to join eight other hardy souls in watching this slice of "Ozark dirt poor realism".
It's an depressing tale....but is an interesting one. Poverty stricken Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence ) is just seventeen but single handedly is looking after her two younger siblings and her mentally ill mother. Her father has disappeared before a court appearance and has put the family shack up as a bail bond, so in order to save the family home, Ree has to face the local criminal underclass in an effort to find out what has actually happened.
Yes it sounds all very Deliverance doesn't it?,the sense of dread, oppression and uneasy menace does in fact remind me of the 1972 Boorman film, and Winter's Bone on occasion crawls towards every stereotype we know about Hillbillies in the cinema........the rubbish strewn farms, the happy slappy menfolk and the women showing that Silence of the Lambs " shortness of bone".......but thankfully director Debra Granik focuses the films gaze upon the teenage Ree, and her hard-as-nails, unwavering sense of what is right for her family. Ree, unlike the drug riddled and oppressed mountain men she faces, is a mother tiger, frightened but fiercely passionate about saving her kin. With the reluctant help of her violent and frightening uncle "Teardrop" ( the chilling John Hawkes ) she eventually finds out the truth about her father in an awfully tense and almost unwatchable climax and it is Lawrence's amazing performance that is key to Winter's Bone's success. Without her, the film could have teetered down the uncomfortable road of  a hic thriller , but with her powerfully centred Ree, we see a character that is both strong and moral, warm and intelligent. She is a mother personified and is never anything less than real. Lawrence never softens her characterization too much, she keeps the audience directly behind her at all times and I suspect she will be nominated for an Oscar ( still hot on the heels of the cracking performance of Melissa Leo in the similar Frozen River

8/10
I would be fascinated to hear what my American Bloggers think about this movie

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/