The New Girl

It is 23.17pm and this blog is for Mandy (Frankie's previous and very loving owner)
Constance (Frankie) is safely shut up into her crate in the kitchen
She has sat with Chris all night on his couch, and has snored doggy snores even when fully awake...
It has been delightful watching Chris and her interact, as both of them possess deadpan expressions ( Constance only has little piggy eyes for him!).... and I have a sneaky suspicion that Chris will really take to this new, ungainly and rather handsome lady! All through the x factor we have heard farts galore and snores abundant.........so much so, Chris remarked somewhat dryly that if I died I would be reincarnated into a British Bull dog.
day one has gone alright
( see the rest of today's blogs for the gist of the day!)

Matt Cardle sings Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - The X Factor Live show 6 -...

Now I absolutely HATE Elton John...so tonight's homage to him on the x factor left me cold as a bloody iceberg.......mind you most of the singing was drowned out by bull doggy snoring from the couch!

Matt's still a real cutie though!!!!!

Animal number 93

She came home with us this afternoon.
Amid more heavy breathing than would be expected from a stereotypical pervert, Frankie ambled into the cottage with the air of a depressed bariatric sumo wrestler.
The dogs with varying degrees of mild interest, vague disgust and friendly indifference seem to have accepted  the presence of this strange looking, nasally challenged new bitch ( so far) and could only stare (open mouthed.....well almost) when she climbed up onto the couch to sit with Chris after ambling around the cottage 

Hey ho

A change of personality

I won't bang on anymore about "the storm", bloody hell, it wasn't exactly a soddin tornado or anything, and the sympathy I received from you American readers humbled me somewhat into silence....I know, I know, I am an over dramatic Welsh queen with a flair for the Shelley Winters! Nuff said.

Anyhow,

We are just about to go and see Frankie for the first time.We are taking George with us and will take things slow. If Frankie has not really grasped her name then if we take her, I would like to rename her if I can. Frankie just does not do it for me.....of course I have picked a name with a "similar " feel to it and that would be Connie ( Sunday name Constance)......Bulldogs look such an unlikely Constance, I kind of liked the slight irony of it.

Well, I will post some pictures of "Connie" later and of course Saturday is "Matt Cardle" day, so I will be frothing at the mouth and getting all girly over him later......be prepared for another Matt video later.....

from left to right Janet, Ann and the ex soap actor Frazer Hines

I must pause slightly from my usual Matt worship to praise my sister's continual efforts to raise money for Motor Neurone Disease Association. In a matter of weeks she has fronted several initiative and has raised nearly 4000£! not bad for a somewhat shy lady from Prestatyn who before all this was quite content to remain quietly in the background of any social event.

http://supportingandrew.blogspot.com/

Now you could see her, celebrities have been buttonholed, reams of letters written and local businesses flattered, cajoled and encouraged to take part in scheme after scheme, without feeling pressurised or bullied.

Her transformation reminds me of  Tess McGill's in Working Girl

If you have a minute ,have a look at the above blog which outlines her work.

My brother ( who has a version of motor neurone) must be very proud of her 

Clean up

I won't bore you with the details but suffice to say that I have spent most of the morning cleaning up after last night's storm. Most but not all of my shed has been retrieved- one door has alluded me so far..bugger only knows where it ended up! I am shattered today, I was up four times during the night
BBC News (stormy weather)
Red and the five other quail have been released from the confines of the shed and have been set up in their own little run next to Bunny.
The geese have found these little scraps endlessly fascinating and have stood watching them for the past hour or so.

Bollocks

My shed literally exploded around 9pm

God only knows where the sides and the roof are......somewhere over at Pippa's house on the other side of the Church no doubt!

Dressed in Chris' pyjama bottoms and an anorak, I took my trusty wind up torch to survey the storm damage so far ( according to the met office , the wind is due to get worse!)

Not only had my shed sailed merrily over Trelawnyd, the duck house roof had almost peeled away and Bunny's enclosure ( for those that dont know Bunny is the hen that was crippled by the infamous dog attack of a couple of years ago)......has all but been destroyed ( Bunny was safe in her rabbit hutch which I had already weighted down with bricks)

Hughie, Ivy and Alf are still hanging on in there in the Elm tree

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