The first casualty of Winter



The Ghost hen's borrowed time was finally up this afternoon

The Front Garden

 One of the ghost hens is looking a little worse for wear. The freezing weather, I am sure, has not helped at all.,but  with her comb now a deep congested red, it is obvious that something cardiac is going on with her.
I know the ghost hens have already out lived their allotted time; to be honest they should not have really survived into Autumn, but survive they have, and I am still hopeful that three of the girls out of the original six will live to see 2011.
The sick ghost is now holed up into a nesting box with water and feed. Her three sisters have refused to leave the warmth of the house and are presently eating a load of white bread which has been thoughtfully donated to me by neighbour Joanne
I am slightly saddened by the hen's deterioration.....I have so much affection for these fat old girls

Bingley feeling the cold

The rest of the birds with the exception of the Bourbon turkeys are coping well.
The old hens, who are old hands at this snow lark, migrate daily to one particular field border where they manage to stand in the weak sun for all of the daylight hours, but the turkeys being thick as mince have not learnt that trick as yet. Both females Lizzy and Jane are moulting too, which is unfortunate, as the poor girls have huge bald patches on their chests and necks. After a bit of bribing (with apple) I have encouraged them to shelter in the duck house for the morning

The weather here remains cold but at least we have no more snow. I  will hopefully  get over to Sheffield tomorrow by train, yet need to fill the water butts today, in readiness for Chris to look after the stock, tomorrow.....The exterior water tap is still frozen...so , I have the a mammoth job of bucket carrying from  kitchen tap to field!
hey ho

Black eyed piss head

If you have not read the previous post then this one won't make too much sense!

Apparently I should have been wearing specs when I was a child!
Or so said the nice, Father Christmas -ish ophthalmologist who tested my eyes this afternoon.
He was so sweet and full of positive reinforcement statements (every time I read out the correct letters from a line he murmured a reassuring and heartfelt " well done!!" I found myself rather enjoying the whole experience...and so eager I was to please I actually forgot about the invasive lurking with the eye torch and the peppermint breath on my cheek.

When I lived in Sheffield ( yes THE Sheffield which is now under a two foot blanket of snow) I used to wear glasses for reading..they were awful Harry Potter monstrosities which were almost destroyed by an over indulgence of fine white wine at All Bar One ( as I was reminded in the last post by the elephantine memory abilities of Mr Bel-Ami)

The toilets of All Bar One are thoughtfully situated in the basement...and to get to them Joe Public has to negotiate a wooden ( YES wooden) staircase which resembles a ladder!

 Many MANY moons ago Bel and I were putting the world to rights over several bottles of white and Red!
I vaguely remember being urbane and witty (with a big fat red face) and Bel was being all mysterious and Diva-ish when flirting with (what we later realised) was a psychopathic bar man!

Towards the end of the evening I tried to answer the call of nature and literally took flight halfway down the staircase!
My specs went for a burton (the barman found them later and mysteriously kept them!!!!) and all I remember was that I headbutted the door at the bottom of the staircase with my left eye! before bouncing back to my feet ( like drunks do)  as if nothing had happened......

I must have looked a right lush when I returned to the table as though I had slipped out for a brief chat .........for I sported  a HUGE black and rapidly closing eye!!!!........ and I can't believe that we continued our evening like two old ladies enjoyed a cream tea!
oh the silliness of youth

Personal Space

This afternoon I am going to have an eye test!
It is about time.
The Laptop screen has been blurring on occasion, reading drug labels at work is suddenly rather hard work  and driving at night has become a little bit of a nightmare!
So I will give myself a good wash, brush my teeth three times and give myself a couple of small squirts of "clinique Happy" in readiness for the invasive eye exam....
Is it me? But does anyone else feel that eye tests are totally embarrassing and a challenge to one's  personal boundaries?

The last time I had such a test, I burst into a fit of uncontrollable giggles when the examiner peered so closely into my eyes I  could see the sweat stain on the inside of his shirt collar and smell that he had been sucking on "tunes" cough sweets before meeting me.

As a nurse I am constantly touching patients in an intimate yet perfectly acceptable and consensual way. This physical closeness is of course extended to relatives and visitors that often are stressed and traumatised and are in need of comfort and human contact, yet in everyday life, I have  realised that there are very few moments that physical intimacy with a stranger actually occurs!
Having an eye test is perhaps one....... having a haircut or even a massage are others......But we as a race ( and a Northern European repressed race at that) live so much in our little bubbles of isolation that even the old fashioned contact customs such as hand shaking seems to have all but disappeared.
I have blogged about this before, but we Brits could all take a lesson from the peoples from  more demonstrative climates...............and break this non touch "keep off me" taboo.
Bring back hand shaking as the norm that's what I say..... Yes that's it....break the ice with a firm grab and shake, that will solve the Nation's woes!
.....mind you...having said this......I still will be giggling with embarrassment when that eye examiner approaches me with his ophthalmoscope  poised!!!!!!

Hey Ho

Bored, Bored , Bored

The valiant little group of hen houses face the snow

I am getting bored of this snow lark now. I am still effectively snowed in as the Berlingo still is having problems negotiating the lane up into the village (right)
The farm tractors have compacted the snow into sheet ice and this coupled with  incline of the lane has meant that only 4 x4 s and farm traffic have managed to get through!
Having said this  I was gob smacked yesterday when Della from pen-y-cefn-isa shot right up the lane in her tiny nissan Micra, without stopping once!!!
That certainly knocked my masculinity!

So armed with a spade and my fisherman's socks, I am just about to try another lane run to escape the village for an hour or so.Earlier the dogs followed Constance's example and all peed on the back patio (she looked at me sternly this morning as if to say "you've got to be f*cking kidding") when I took them all for a walk at 7.30...and then promptly opened her bladder like a horse two inches outside the back door!
Yellow snow is not a pretty sight.

I am due to go to Sheffield on Saturday to attend a wedding do! ( the daughter of the famous Bel Ami!!!) I just hope I can get there!!! I need to shed my wellies for an evening in the city at least once this year!!!

English Bulldog watching TV

No , not Constance...but I think you get the gist of the breed!

Just before 5am

Chris is flying up to Glasgow this morning and got picked up by his taxi from a snow strewn main road hours before dawn.
The dogs remained firmly asleep. The three terriers all hiding under the bed eiderdown and Constance in her crate bed in the kitchen but I couldn't get back to sleep, so am presently drinking coffee in the living room whilst watching the snow fall in worrying amounts on the lane

 I don't want to be be snowed in today! I am almost out of poultry feed and desperately need to go to the feed shop....and although the snow is only 3-4 inches deep so far , the steepness of the lane just before it joins the main road, means that cars will remain effectively stranded until the lane is cleared!

Anyhow the only good point of dragging myself out of bed at 4.45 is that I saved a young cockerel from freezing to death. As I  tried to take Constance out for a pee (she was having none of it) I heard a cockerel call from the field, the call was louder than the usual more muffled ( inside) calls, so I went to investigate and found the youngest of the cockerels ( the one that escaped the cull of last month) crouched forlornly in the snow next to his closed coop. The poor bastard had obviously been late to roost and had been locked out all night.
I picked him up and tucked him head first under my armpit inside my coat to perk him up a little before sliding him into the middle of the ghost hens.....fat hens give off more heat!He should be ok!.............that bloody cockerel is living on borrowed time

I hate bloody snow 

Terry at the flower show

ps

Just have to give a big up to Terry, our neighbour and fellow Flower Show committee member, who went out of his way this morning to take me up to the feed shop to stock up on corn and pellets.
A former police driving instructor, he was the ideal person to navigate the minor roads here, which can be treacherous!
A few eggs seemed a small price to pay, for the peace of mind knowing that the animals are now all well fed and insulated against the cold

Bulldog snogs

William (sans eyes) Constance and I, getting warm after being out in the garden

 Bulldogs are quite unique. Unlike the boisterous terriers they seem to hate exercise, dislike walks out and are almost pathologically connected to their beds next to the fire. In essence Constance resembles a somewhat lethargic scatter cushion who has a pair of piggy eyes and a huge talent for flatulence.
She only seems to come alive when she thinks you are about to treat her with some nice titbit, or ( and more importantly) you are about to cuddle her or kiss her huge foolish fat face!

Constance loves to kiss you back.
It isn't one of those wet sloppy kisses, hounds have a tendency to give humans, no Constance will heave her massive face within  a millimetre of your own then slowly and deliberately squash her face against yours as she wheezes like an asthmatic without ventolin.
She seems to  take great delight in this oddest of practices
I have mentioned before that her advances feel a little like getting sexually molested by a furry Buster Keaton....but what I didn't say, is that these "kisses" are rather fun and completely pleasurable!
Having her literally "in your face" does have the feeling of being totally enveloped...and is reminiscent of the feeling you used to get when you are cuddled by a parent when you were  a child....

Still of the Night

Coincidence is a funny old thing
Last night , when I was locking up the birds I found myself humming a tune that I just knew was from an old Meryl Streep movie from way back in the 1980s. I just couldn't for the life of me remember the movie title, but I kind of recalled the film was a Hickcockian piece about psychiatrists and their patients...
Blow me, when I was having a quick flit into TCM this afternoon...there the movie was the all but forgotten movie Still of the Night!!!
I couldn't find the title theme on its own, but here is the first few minutes of the movie.... enjoy the first minute and a half , the music by John kander, is rather sweet