Armistice Day storm

The Memorial to the War dead in Trelawnyd

The North Wales coast is bracing itself to storm force winds due later today. Already we have had gales all morning and I have spent the time weighting down the coops with rocks and have cleared away anything that can be blown away.One of my egg customers dropped off a load of spare wood which I also sorted through this morning ( and which I will burn in the stove this evening)
The  unpalatable job of the day was to be the culling of the excess cockerels, and with some nifty footwork, one bantam cockerel out of the three earmarked for the chop, managed to escape my clutches and make a dash to freedom. I didn't try and chase the poor chap, kismet allowed his survival and so survive he will! The other two , more substantial males were not so lucky, they are presently hanging in the outhouse awaiting dressing tomorrow. Dressing chicken is something I quite enjoy and am good at


The two unlucky cockerels



Some of the thirteen runners being "jumpy"in the bad weather



The old hens wisely sheltering in the hawthorn

Chris has flown down to Southampton this afternoon with work....I am off to batten down the hatches

ps it's 18.29 pm and I have not known the wind to have ever been as strong! I have just ventured out to check on the hen houses...all ok at the moment but my heart skipped a beat when I caught sight of the three guinea fowl hanging on for grim death to their perches in the near hysterical churchyard elm

Break ups

Some animals bond for life. Winnie  and Jo, the geese ,already show this unique waterfowl trait, as do the slightly odd ménage à trois relationship between Hughie, Alf and Ivy the guinea fowl and strangely enough I was reminded today by villager Bob of the strange lifelong "friendship" between a terrier called Peter and a lonely lion called Mowgli in the early days of nearby Chester Zoo   (see pic)
Apparently nearly every animal, wild or domestic, needs a soul mate,

Human relationships by definition are much less black and white in their make up and it is with a much sadness that I have been a kind of witness to the recent break up of a long term relationship of two of my friends. 
Being a friend to someone going through a split has its rules.
You have to be there unconditionally with emotional and practical support,
You must try to be objective,
You listen and offer unambiguous advice,
You make sure you feed and water your friend regularly (they never eat properly!!!)

When you know both parties then all the rules remain but the important thing to remember is not to take sides, especially when there is no one really to blame.

Witnessing the pain of a break up of a previously "solid" couple  is awful. It is sobering, helpless and incredibly sad experience which makes you examine your own relationship (if you have one) and all you hold dear and the more distress that you see your friends battle through, the more thanks you give that your own relationship is doing..... pretty well ok.
There is no smugness in this feeling.
There is just an acknowledgement that , unlike the simple goose couple on my field, for some, a relationship is not always for life 

"Gay Gary".

I want one for Christmas

When the Shit,hits the fan

A wry entry on http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/

Trelawnyd is bisected by an A road which at times can be rather busy. The speed limit through the village is 30 miles an hour and an advisory speed limit is indicated next to the village school of 20 miles an hour.
As you can appreciate, there are many many people that abuse the law and I have become rather "anal" about the number of times I have had close shaves with speeding motorists when negotiating the village's single zebra crossing
This morning I took all three dogs out at 8.30am to deliver some eggs. We dropped the eggs off , walked around the village then made our way back towards the school as all the children were arriving for assembly.
As we got up to the zebra crossing a mother with a little boy appeared on the other side of the road and both she and I stopped to check the traffic before we crossed.
But the approaching 4 x 4 just didn't stop, it slowed down somewhat allowing me to step forward, then bloody well carried on driving past me as I stood there out on the crossing bubbling with indignant anger.
"Bastard!" I shouted  out rather too loudly and I found myself  instinctively lobbing a substantial plastic bag full of dog poo at the truck as it carried on its way.
It was a lucky shot!
The bomb landed quite nicely in the open trailer with a satisfying "plop"
Luckily the driver carried on seemingly unawares....
As I crossed towards home the mother gave me a smile... and I giggled at myself  all the way down to the cottage...
I am such an arse!

Frankie

I have just received pics of frankie

what do you think?

A potential new lady

Chris has flown up to Scotland for a couple of days work, and so I am keeping the home fires burning, so to speak.

We have two sofas in the cottage living room. One sofa is Chris' , the other , obviously is mine. Tonight I am typing out this blog on my sofa , it is a bit of a squeeze as each dog has jammed themselves into every inch of our Cole Brothers "traditional" and I have found it amusing that Chris' sofa is neat, tidy and untouched. (above)

The pack mentality of dogs never fails to fascinate me.

Their need to constantly be a part of something, to be near each other (and to you), to act as one entity, a pack, is the stuff of a David Attenborough series and I guess it won't surprise anyone that we may be having another slobbery chop addition to out cottage pack very soon.

I happened to mention to the dogs groomer Jackie, that I was thinking of getting another dog to keep the lowest-in-the-pecking-order George company. We wanted a bitch , something benign, and something a little slower than the Welsh ( George is never able to keep up with them) and she immediately told her she had a friend who was looking for a home to "retire" a 3 year old bulldog bitch called Frankie.

I spoke to Frankie's owner this evening and after looking at a few snaps of her, we need to arrange to go over to meet her for the first time.

Watch this space...............

 The fire is lit, the night is cold.....and an early night is in order........

Pass the tissues

I worked a long day shift today and the discussion in the nurses sitting room at lunch time centred around the lovely, lovely Matt Cardle and specifically his emotional tears in last night's X Factor.
This got me to thinking about a piece I read in the newspaper in the week

It stated that a recent study from Penn State University in the US suggests that  that tears are becoming more acceptable for men and less so for women.

The study, using a sample of 284 people, found that men were judged much more positively for crying than women. This, according to the study’s authors, was because men were seen as expressing honest emotion where women were seen as out of control.
This could be to do with our stereotypical view of men and women. And, says Professor Tom Lutz, of the University of California, Riverside, it is why male politicians, at least in the US, can allow themselves the occasional tear, whereas women cannot. A man is seen as strong and unemotional, so crying hints at depth. A woman politician has to portray herself as tough to succeed. So when a woman cries it reinforces stereotypes and tells us that her toughness was just a front and she has revealed herself to be weak underneath.
This is an interesting premise, and not one I actually believe in. I personally think the important factor in all this is HOW you cry rather than IF you cry.
Men cry in  a rather hidden and slightly shy way. It is disguised emotion that does not occur very often and I think that it is this rarity of occurrence that makes "male tears" so interesting.
  
In private I can cry at the drop of a hat   

Matt Cardle "The First Time"(Ever I Saw Your Face) Live Show 5 X Factor ...

sigh
and he cried at the end...........how good is that?
Couldn't you just wrap him up and take him home?
(this video will be disabled at some stage as it is not an x factor version!!)