Man Flu

me.....ever the cheerful and sweet natured nurse! yeah right!

Chris has the flu.
He has been confined to bed with William and George
and I am on full nursing duties.
Despite his high temperature and rigors, he has  managed  to eat a whole bowl of Moroccan soup, a plate of Chinese sesame prawn toast and has watched most of his Christmas pressie dvd box set of the tv series  Foyle's War....so I am hoping he may be pulling back from the brink just a tad!
The day is grey, windy and wet. The thaw has arrived and I am waiting for the field to become waterlogged once again. Leaving Chris to sleep, I took the dogs onto the beach for a run, Constance now enjoys her walks with the other dogs and I took the chance to walk her publicly today even though she is in season.
The beach was deserted when I got there but within a minute of letting the dogs free.a large, testosterone filled sheepdog suddenly appeared over the sand dunes and made a beeline for Constance, who wagged her back end into his face  like a provocative  and sluttier Jessica Rabbit.

Constance and Meg keep me company whilst Chris battles with flu 

Funnily enough it was George who broke up this potential disastrous sexual liaison, and he chased off the huge sheepdog baying like a miniature banshee!
The dog's owner, a mousy middle aged lady, then started to shout at me, demanding that I stop George from being aggressive !
I laughed and  pointed at him "He's only 9  inches soddin high!!!" I said...."what  bloody harm can he do?"
Hummm, I had to eat my words slightly as the sheepdog yelped past with George clamped firmly to his tail........I am not too good at apologising
Owners and their dogs eh?
Right....I am off to make the invalid a cup of tea ( he told me that his breakfast tea was not stirred properly)....then its more spaghetti for the birds......despite the thaw....winter is still with us...and I am starting to feel a bit snuffly

The object of affection

We all I think go for a certain type!
For me, it is the slightly scruffy, twinkly Matt Cardle type ( really I hear you say? I would never have guessed?)
Chris (believe it or not) likes a floppy haired , well dressed toff
(I am such a disappointment)  and I guess animals are no different in ways of a lusty heart.
As the thaw started, perhaps the faraway thoughts of spring  have galvanised testosterone levels within the meagre male population of the field and Halleh has once again started to stalk any brown hen that crosses his path!
Before the 10  brown rescue hens arrived a couple of weeks ago, I only had two brown chickens, and every spring their life would be made a complete misery by the unwanted sexual advances of the drake that has a "thing" for dusky poultry!
Now he has 12 brown hens to choose from, so with blood-a-pumping , and that slightly "wild" look in his eye, Halleh resembles that slight "kid in a sweetshop" type of character as he first would grab one hen by the tail or wing then another as she ran past him squawking loudly.
When this happens I have found that a smart whack with a tin feeding bowl is usually just enough for him to come to his senses, but today I need not have worried too much as one of the new rescue hens literally saw her arse with his unwanted libido and whopped him within an inch of his life  
The circle of life continues
Christmas is over!
and.............Constance is still rubbing her fanny on the living room carpet
Hey ho

Don Juan

Christmas

Christmas day, as it worked out, was a very nice day.
I got home after  work at 8.30am.
Did an incredibly cold hour feeding and watering then after a rather nice breakfast of salmon and scrambled eggs , Chris and I swapped gifts.
He treated me to some clothes ( "DON'T wear them on the field" he instructed) and my gift of a couple of tickets to the Royal Ballet's SWAN LAKE at Covent Garden seemed to go down a storm.
We spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon pottering around before my brother-in-law picked us up ( and a cooked 15lb turkey all wrapped in miles of silver foil)  to drive the 10 miles up into the Welsh hills to have a very late lunch with my brother and his family and rest of my siblings
It was a lovely afternoon. We all chipped in to provide a stress free lunch and the lunch was fine.
My brother's health obviously remains fragile at times, but as a family we resorted to those historic Christmas family meet ups of old and enjoyed the meal and usual family games with alacrity and nostalgia.
In my position on a pulled up arm chair behind the rest of the family in the living room...it was rather moving to realise that there was alot of unsaid love and affection being bandied around.....
We got home at 11.00 and my resolve after just one hours sleep started to fail some what!...
I will finish this quick blog....then I will have one gin and tonic and go to bed!....
I have been lucky in my life,,,I have only had one "bad " Christmas day
It was in Sheffield some years ago when I my car broke down minutes before I wanted to drive home and I spent a lonely day in a cold terraced house eating individual pork pies from a local 24 hour garage
I will catch up with your Christmas blogs over the next few days!
as Ruth over at Life Through The Cracks always says
"Peace"
x

2am and Beauty in the Ordinary

New York by fairylight on our mantle

Last night we did the round Robin of last minute card deliveries and present giving. Chris drove, and I had a few wines and a gin and tonic at various houses...........subsequently I had an very early night (almost unknown for me)...and now am wide awake in a still and dark cottage in the wee small hours of the morning! ( I cannot say silent as Constance is snoring her head off in the kitchen)

Yesterday I received a profound and much appreciated early Christmas pressie!
Leaving the cottage with the dogs I spied several large , beautifully wrapped gifts, all piled up by the gate!
I unwrapped a block of shavings, layers pellets and a huge bag of poultry corn and on the gifts was a card that read  "with love from Victoria and Jacqueline -Beauty in the Ordinary)

As it turned out V and J from Beauty in the Ordinary had tracked down my feed wholesaler Helen ( very enterprising I must say) and had arranged this very kind and much welcomed gift!
Thank you ladies
Your kind gesture really made my day!
It really did! x

Anyhow I will finish my soup and will soon try and negotiate a dog strewn bed and grab some more sleep.
I am working tonight.....Christmas Eve on Intensive Care......hummm ....not a bag of laughs! so this will be my last blog before the 25th
I know it sounds a little saccharine, but I would like to wish everyone out there a peaceful, restful and Happy Christmas....over the last year I have met a rather eclectic, bunch of blogging despots....... its been a real blast.....!
Take care
Hey ho!

Another Day.....Another challenge

Last night I was sat in front of the fairy lights minding my own business with a gin and tonic,

when Constance ambled over, straddled my outstretched leg with the grace of a somewhat rotund lap dancer and proceeded to rub her....(coughs loudly.....errrmmmm.........coughs again) well ..."toilet parts" all over my shins

This sexual molestation continued until Chris pointed out that large streaks of bloody mucus were being deposited up and down the entire length of my pant leg and within a millisecond I had managed to free myself from Constance who had a look of pure sleepy rapture on her face! ( if she could have smoked a cigarette at this point I think she would have done)

Our bulldog is in season! and me thinks that I am the "object of her affections!".....for days now I have caught her hiding coquettishly within a nest of cushions on the couch or secretly rubbing her bum on the frozen concrete of the patio...but I was hoping that she was just cold or suffering from an "odd" itch!
(time for an airing of the carpet cleaner I suspect...oh the joys of a rampant sex starved, genital wagging  bulldog! )

HEY(BLEEDING) HO!

I will leave you with an amusing Christmas list from the great web site

http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/.......

Sandra has not been a good sister me thinks

What i want for christmas -

I was going to blog about a menstruating bulldog! but this sweet Christmas song kind of took over
I love it!......tomorrow I will blog about a sex starved bulldog!

Christmas Greetings from Trelawnyd

More snow last night.......more ice this morning........more Health & Safety restrictions to the post no doubt............and yet ANOTHER snow orientated post!.......I boring myself now!!!

With the build up to Christmas I know everyone is busy! but I just wanted to share my best wishes to all readers of this blog ...."Nadolig Llawen"..........

No water, Dirty Dog phone calls and Christmas treats

We are only a stones throw from living back in the middle ages.
All it would take is the removal of a few essential utilities
and wallop!
Back we go!
This morning our cold water pipes had frozen completely
and there was nothing more pathetic than the spectacle of two middle aged gay men in slightly muted hysteria worrying about having a hot bath before work ( Chris) or having their first cup of coffee of the day (me)
How the hell would we cope in a real disaster?
God knows?
Personally I always thought that if I was ever caught in a capsized passenger liner or a burning skyscraper on its inaugural opening..I would have the gumption and forethought to climb that 18 foot Christmas tree or to abseil down a shattered staircase with a child on my back!
hummm
The reality , me thinks would be a little different!

It all reminds me of a poem I read in school!

When in fear
and when in doubt.....
Run in circles............
Scream and shout!

hey ho

Anyhow, we jury rigged a hairdryer on an extension lead in the outhouse to thaw out the offending pipes and I dropped Chris off for his train just on time. He is working away overnight ( In Sheffield)...and is hoping to get back home tomorrow before the national transport infrastructure grinds to a total standstill because of the ice and snow.
The village has been without any post since Thursday due to the weather....Missing our village post office I rang another local post office to find out just why this is occurring....Apparently MR HEALTH AND SAFETY has reared its ugly head again and senior managers stated that it was too unsafe for posties to negotiate icy paths!...the clerk stated that I could drive the 10 mile round trip to collect my post in person and offered to give me the depot's telephone number to check on this.....
as I was searching for a pen, I put the phone down next to a snoring Constance and when I picked the receiver up again I hear the lady laughing
"what the hell was that?" she asked
"That is my bulldog....she has a breathing disorder" I explained!
"That's a shame " the lady quipped " I thought I was having my first dirty phone call!"
 The post got through today by the way, the postmen themselves forced the issue and brought our cards on their own initiatives!

Ivy, Hughie and Alf feeling the cold on top of Jesus' run
(for those that don't know, Jesus was the cockerel that was abandoned on the field last Christmas)

This afternoon, I cooked cheap spaghetti and hand fed the birds this warming treat....the ducks and geese needed this boost much more than the more robust hens, but all the birds including the guinea fowl benefited from the carbohydrate

One of the ghost hens facing the day. All three have not left their hen house since last week!