Having an adaptable Christmas

We are having an "adaptable" Christmas....
I am working Christmas Eve on nights and have given the family an open invitation to come to us for Christmas lunch.....with my elder Brother being ill, he and my sister in law do not really know what they can do on the day..so my eldest sister Ann had the idea of a sort of peripatetic Christmas dinner kind of plan......if my brother is up to it we will still host lunch here.....if there is other sudden materialising guests then Ann ( who has more space and no dogs!) will do the honours....if Andrew wants....we can also bring Christmas to him up at his farmhouse in the country!.....in any case the whole meal has been organised!!!
Chris and I will "do" the turkey and a pudding....twin sister Janet is sorting out all the veg and other bits and Ann will be sorting out starters,and nibbles and the like....between us every box has been ticked and agreed upon.
My brother and his wife have been through an emotional roller coaster since he was diagnosed with progressive Bulbar Palsy over a year ago now  ( Bulbar palsy is a version of motor neurone disease)....I know only too well that the constant contact with a health care system which is often frustrating and repetitive in its nature can be as exhausting and as hard work as dealing with the disease itself, so both of them need not to worry themselves with any of the unnecessary stress that Christmas can inflict.......
It is our job to do this 

The Motor Neurone Association Christmas Card

 Anyhow, it has been a day for Christmas card sending and delivering!
I called down to Prestatyn and dropped off a load of family cards and collected some from both sisters!
I had to smile as Janet, Ann and I all had sent each other EXACTLY the same Christmas card without knowing it. ....we had, each of us sent away for the Motor Neurone disease Association Charity cards......and apparently the MNDA has completely run out of this cat-in-the-snow design!
The power of good taste and a cheque book eh?

This afternoon Constance and I delivered the village cards.( the extra exercise has increased her flatulence ten fold by the way!)-so we cut quite a dash....me an my wellies and woolly hat.and .her with a machine gun set of farts! 
..The Village Memorial Hall has set up a Christmas tree in the centre of the village.,.....making Trelawnyd look rather sweet and festive..........for the first time this December, I am feeling just a little Christmasy

The Belles of St. Trinian's

 

This afternoon I recieved a phone call from a guy who said he had 10 hens he wanted to rehome. He made some generalised excuses about his dog being a threat to his birds and sounded so in need of "getting rid" that I agreed to drive over to his village immediately to see what I could do.

As it turned out, the young bog standard hybrids were a gift to a child, who had all but lost interest in them, and I very nearly lost my temper when I crept into a "converted "wendy house" that had doubled as a make shift hen house. Inside  ten skinny birds crowded around me like tame puppies. They were tame because they were starving and wanted food, and not because they had been hand reared..and I was quick to note that the house had no water or food laid out for them. There were no perches, straw filled nest boxes or even any sawdust in the shed...and the floor was three inches deep in wet , shit impregnated shavings which looked remarkably like porridge.   The whole place was disgusting.

The  man noticed my face and thinking that I was not impressed with the birds rather than their surroundings he asked if I would take the hens off his hands.........looking at the scruffy bunch, I decided to not to get angry and simply said " yes, I will take the lot!"

It took 30 seconds to catch the hens and put them into Constance's cage in the back of the car. Within half an hour I had fed them properly ( 4 bowls of corn and pellets!!!! I couldn't literally pour the feed quick enough) then bedded them down snugly- 6 in the runner duck house ( the three remaining ducks will be housed with the older ducks) and the remaining 4 in the large hen house with the gentle young purebreeds ..........

I have nicknamed the new girls The Belles of St. Trinian's as their scruffy appearance reminds me of the the 1954 unkempt schoolgirls (above) I think they will do fine...........

I am now up to 100 animals!!!

Monday, Monday!!!!

Angostura, the last bird standing

The clouds of starlings are back and so, indeed am I!
It sounds strange but after a weekend of nursing within the insulated and aseptic bubble of Intensive care, it was lovely to be back out on the field this morning,
As usual I did my customary roll call, and was relieved to see that all the animals were present and correct. I did have a slight wobble as Angostura (the donated guinea hen) was not in her usual hen house at opening up time but I did find the bad tempered bird sat comfortably in one of the nesting boxes, sat in unseasonal stillness upon a single egg!
Fair dos to Chris, who has looked after everyone very well for the past 48 hours......it is not an easy job, slopping out the water feeders in freezing weather when your heart really isn't in it...especially when you are being stalked by a somewhat psychotic stag turkey.

The intense hatred Boris has for Chris is long standing and somewhat baffling! Every time Chris is around , Boris' black little eyes seem to darken just that little bit more and quietly and with purpose he will glide into a position where an ambush attack is possible like a galleon in full sail.
Usually Chris can now preempt these challenges with a bit of fancy footwork , but over three years this dislike of everyone that is NOT ME, has continued and flourished.
Islwyn (the guy that taught me to dry stone wall) is another local that Boris has a "thing" for, and even I get the occasional peck when the old turkey is an a particularly bad mood or indeed when he mistakes me for Chris.

This morning, despite the wet grass, I sat cross legged in the turkey enclosure and shared my bagel with him, as he stood rattling his feather to impress me......it was  something I have not done for an age......
In the "quietness" of the village field.....it was lovely to force the intensive care monitor alarms of the last two days,right out of my head.......

Matt Cardle....... well done my son

Today's shift was slightly better.
Still as front line nurses we see the vulnerable and the sick and with them are all of their relatives and friends,. battling the demons and the fears all of their own.....so after a weekend of it...it was nice to come home to a rather nice beef bourguignon and the sweet frivolity of the x factor final.
Mind you , I hate results shows...
They stress me out.....
I took the dogs out for their evening "pee" in an effort to miss the final countdown and got my timing all wrong and arrived back in the living room just in time for the "reading of the envelope"
Bugger me....
He Won...!..........and .It was all very Hollywood!!!!!!!! lots of tears (his not mine) and a worthy other finalist in the graceful Rebecca!....I am finally happy that the whole shebang is now over with!
Its been exhausting!!!!!

Sad Soup

It's been a long shift
At tea time, I did a favour for one of my fellow nurses and helped her patient, an elderly gentleman I did not know, to eat his soup.
In my experience , it is at these little "intimate" times that people often impart the biggest and most important snippets of themselves and after battling with his lunch the obviously wearied  man,turned his head into his pillow with closed eyes and said "I just want to go to sleep and not wake up again"
He wanted no real platitude to this statement, I think he just wanted to share what he was thinking and all I could really do was to reply
"That is an awfully sad thing to say" 
...and it was.......
......another 13 hour shift tomorrow

"You look like Eric Morecambe!"

Me........auditioning for the Dr Chris look-a-like competition

I have been breaking in my new glasses today..and asked Helen up at the feed shop how I looked!!! After a moment she laughed and said with a smile "You are a ringer for Eric Morecambe!" Hey ho
The snow has  gone and finally I can now take stock of the damage and chaos caused by the freezing weather. We have had three casualties, so far this winter. The Ghost hen with cardiac failure, the errant cockerel who didn't come home and after a full "counting of heads", I am now short a feathered footed Cochin......with the dark nights and blizzards we have experienced, I have no idea when and how she disappeared....suffice to say that there has been plenty of badger prints in the icy snow over the last few weeks but strangely not one fox print....
This morning I joyfully filled the water butts with neighbour Mandy's now defrosted outdoor water tap, and have started to clear mounds of starling shit from around the feeders.....with the thaw arriving the starlings have strangely all but disappeared from the field borders, which is a wonderful piece of news.


I ate my weight watchers breakfast in front of the newly decorated mantle piece and felt rather smug and festive until Constance thoughtfully opened her bowels on the hearth rug!

I had just administered her eye drops ( she has an infected right eye) and the "accident" I am sure was a sort of sulky retribution for the much hated procedure.



Remember little "Red" The miracle quail

So this morning, I could spend some quality time on the field. I cleaned out the quail and moved them all to fresh ground. Little Red is now a cracking little fella, as are all of the other five birds. I have had no experience of quail, so if anyone can give me some pointers of how to sex them I would be grateful for the help!

After sorting the quail, I took the opportunity to check out the deformed hybrid "Bunny" who I set up in her own private run in the autumn. Bunny had been over "covered" by the cockerels and literally had been stripped totally bald. Her  dog-damaged hip ( for long term readers you may well remember her being one of the few chick survivors from the Alsatian attack of a few years

ago) Dog attack Blog 2008

prevented this sweet natured hen from escaping any passing amorous attention, so I have had to separate her for her own good.

Today , after I had given her a brief dusting for lice, I took the opportunity to check her out and she looked brilliant...another little victory for farmer John!

Bunny Now back to full feathered health

Right I had better get going again! I need to go to the feed shop, walk the dogs on the beach and deliver some eggs. I am working all day tomorrow and all day Sunday on ITU (covering the Christmas night out weekend requests) so there is plenty to do before hand



Winnie and Jo ( and the ever present Harry Secombe) challenge the Postman

Hamlet....

Message to self.......don't go to see a long, Shakespearean tragedy when over tired and hungry (Chris) and when not really in the mood for the complicated old world language of the Bard (me)....we sneaked off in the interval after 2 hours of angst, madness, grief and anger, and even though I would happily admit that many of the scenes either confused me or lost me completely (I studied Catcher in the Rye in my English o levels)....I generally kept up with the story thanks primarily to the sheer brilliance of leading man Rory Kinnear (son of the late comic Roy) whose bright, intelligent and intensely captivating performance kept a Shakespearean dunce like me, watching ...well at least to the interval that is.  

Rory Kinnear.........

I doubt I will ever appreciate Shakespeare properly.....it is just not my cup of tea... Oh sure I loved Emma Thompson's warm turn as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, but that's' about it for me......hey ho...I am just a lightweight radio 4 listener I guess.......

My name IS Tippi, , Bulldog psychology and"Fly my pretties fly...fly"



Hundreds of Starlings wait for their breakfast



I have been blaming the alarming lack of bird feed on the increased need of the domestic animals on the field due to the freezing weather! But yesterday one of the villagers pointed out that what seems like the whole population of village wild birds have now set up residence in the trees surrounding the hen houses on the field.

Now, every morning, hundreds of starlings wait patiently for an opportunity to stuff their fat beaks with anything edible along side the resident  population of collared doves and the troupe of 60 or so field sparrows.

I cannot do much about all of this. When I am pottering around the field, the wild birds of course keep their distance, but when I am in the cottage, down they sweep as though in the Hitchcock movie to gorge themselves like common people do on an all exclusive holiday.....When I finally notice the flocks descending then out I run,waving my arms hysterically like a somewhat fat and old Tippi Hendren, to drive the little buggers off; albeit for only a ten minute respite



Constance sulking post eye ointment administration!



When I am not frightening starlings, I have been working hard in encouraging Constance to start acting more like a "normal" dog. Bulldogs by nature are lazy characters, they prefer a warm bed rather than the great cold outdoors and this trait in Constance has been exaggerated by a long term "fear" of  traffic and unfamiliar surroundings.

Animals cannot be pushed into anything stressful. They need to be "encouraged" gently and with much patience.  so every day I have spent some time sitting next to the main road through the village with Constance sitting on my feet ( she needing physical contact with me as reassurance from the noisy traffic)..This daily dose of noise seems to be working.......when I was a psychiatric nurse, we used to work with agoraphobic patients in a similar vein

As for the dogs' usual four walks a day, I have left it up to her if she wants to join in.

After two weeks, I think the terriers' natural exuberance has had it's effect on her somewhat laissez-faire personality and when I call them all for their first and last walk of the day, Constance has now joined in the excitement and has lined up with the others by the door before we all go out.

Last night I took Constance to the vets for a check up and some eye ointment ( 35 quid for a 2 inch tube!!!!) and realised that car journeys have become a bit of a passion for her. With her little piggy eyes wide open and interested in the scenery, she seems to love the whole car experience ( especially if the car heater is on full blast) and I will use a daily trip out to build up her somewhat fragile confidence out in the community! 



Dan's new runners  see http://allthatcomeswithit.com/archives/2983

And finally.....I read with interest how Dan is coping with his new runners......My "mad as a box of frog" warning , I can see has not gone unheeded......he writes a good blog and I am flattered that he thought that I was a "good egg".........it's nice to see that some of my babies have now "flown" the coop and are happy in pastures new

Off to see a live production showing of the National Theatre's Hamlet tonight at the scala, which is a bit of a treat! I am not a lover of Shakespeare, but hey.....you grab culture when you can get it here in North Wales!