Just Not Being Arsed

Tonight we had planned to drive to Llandudno to see the Colin Firth move The Kings Speech.
The weather has gotten just a little colder and as the dogs pilled up on the couch we lit the fire and decided to stay in yet again with a dvd like two old ladies.
Like most couples we just cannot agree on a film to watch for an evening in.
If Chris had his way, I could be subjected to anything from Carry on up the Khyber, Rosemary and bleeding Thyme or a re re re run of Indiana Jones and the temple of doom.
If I had my way, he would be subjected to a subtitled "arty" production, which would go down with him as fart would do in Church......so after a decade together, I have learnt to compromise
Early evening we sat through the "frothy" all-American caper film Salt ( with the non acting trout pout of Angeline Jolie) and later when Chris goes to bed I will settle down with the Korean movie mother


Constance sleeping through the movie with her head on my feet

 It's been a bit of a non day today.
We have not done anything interesting
Oh hang on...............
I have defrosted the freezer with the hair dryer,
cut a particularly nasty clingon from Meg''s bum
and spent a merry ten minutes trying to get an antibiotic tablet down a bad tempered hen's gullet!

and who says this blog can be boring

A Town Full Of Wheat

I felt a bit muzzy this morning but had no hangover!
The village was deserted and quiet so I took the dogs along London road for their first walk and it was nice to have a few moments of reflection.
Trelawnyd literally means Town of Wheat or Townful of wheat..It has an ancient history, dating back to the doomsday book, but it was the Trelawnyd born but Oxford Educated John Wynne who had a vision to develop a hamlet into something much bigger way back in the early 1700s!
He developed a school, a weekly market and minor industry in the village and had the Welsh village name changed (like you do) to the more "optimistic" Newmarket in the hope of developing the place into a market town proper. 
The village did develop but not to the extent that Wynne had envisioned. and in the 1950s the old name of Trelawnyd was reinstated.
This history has ingrained a certain identity to the place.
This morning in the mist and wet of an early New Year's Day, it was easy to recall the history of the village and to mentally reconstruct the likes of the village well (next to the pond), the Black Boy public house on High Street (apparently it had wonderful curved stone steps) and the shops and bakery along London Road.

I like living in the village. I like the fact that Mrs Hopkins gave me a pair of mittens after seeing me walk the dogs without any on. I like the fact that poultry Bob will stop and share an anecdote or 50 with me on Bron Haul and I like the fact that Auntie Glad will tie scones to the cottage door handle and that a silver foiled bara brith was left for us by Pat on the garden gate only two days ago
That's what village life is all about

My First Proper "drunk" post

This is a first in my blogging history!
I am writing this blog when perfectly PISSED (Its 1.00am)
(American readers will have to be aware that pissed means drunk and NOT angry!)- I have had around 7 very large gin and tonics and one mediocre sized glass of champagne!
We have been down to my sister's house for a quiet but relaxing New Year's Eve and got ourselves all tied up at 11.45pm when we had to light three Chinese lanterns to set off in the garden before the chimes rang out.

I love this new tradition of lantern lighting! There is something quite magical at the spectacle of dozens of miniature balloons drifting over the horizon and up over Prestatyn hillside in the cold December air
It is a sight that always (and  just almost) makes me cry!

Happy New Year.....lets all have a good one eh?

Much Love
Johnx

The Queen's list and toilet training

Now I will make no bones that I am a bit of a royalist.
I don't go to the lengths of some who collect cheap plates from the Sunday supplements which are embossed with tawdry photos of the Queen Mum, but I would wave my Union Jack with some pride if old Queeny drove past in her limo to visit William and  Kate, who actually now live down the coast a ways.

I enjoy  reading the Queen's New Year Honours list (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12090365) It's a bit like a "posh" Oscar ceremony where a dinnerlady from a comprehensive school in Barnsley can receive the same award and recognition as say the likes of Annie Lennox and God forbid even knackered old  Burt Kwouk  got something ( a fact that did throw me just a little)

Anyhow I was thinking about all this when out at dawn "toilet training".
Now my, cough...........cough...... "ablutions" are shall we say...firming up nicely...so I can concentrate on the knotty problem of Bulldog incontinence.
We are not winning the war against dollops of poo on the kitchen floor at the moment.
Constance has got the hang of leaving her cage and bed (good) but has not quite understood the finer points of elimination issues.
Every morning I take all four dogs out. And every morning when the terriers are sniffing and weeing and weeing and sniffing, Constance will find a bizarre interest in some inanimate object or other and will stand in a dreamy half consciousness type state, looking at it with her interested little piggy eyes..
This morning it was a metal sculpture of a bird sitting in the rockery of the garden which caught her attention, and as the rest of the dogs sat around like the bored yobs out of West Side Story Constance crept over to the bird grumbling quietly to herself and sat looking at it for an age!.
Now I have tried every trick in the book to divert her attention back to toilet  training...special toilet commands.....big praises when the smallest pee finally appears........I have even resorted to the odd quick pee myself (Thinking that a bit of roll play (and urine smell) may allow her to mirror my behaviour) but I have curtailed this potentially arrestable activity as I was nearly caught peeing against the hydrangea last night when neighbour Terry took his own dogs out for their final walk!
But I guess it is a case of teaching an old dog new tricks......
Like anything,it will all take some time.

So It is New Year's Eve!...Even though we are both not firing on all cylinders Chris and I are off to my sister Janet's house for drinks and nibbles tonight...I am not a fan of New Year's Eve celebrations

Shit day

How the mighty have fallen!
Yesterday I was bathed in glory after my unexpected "Internet" award.
Today I am having night sweats and what can only be described as "explosive bowels!"

I was wide awake well before dawn (I should have been asleep as I stayed up late to watch the "disaster movie" Black Rain)...so I dragged the dogs from their slumbers and took them for an early morning walk.
BAD IDEA!
As I reached the far lane, I felt some rather worrying and uncomfortable "grumblings" -down below...and then felt that awful uncontrollable gut lurch which signifies an immediate...and well shall we say uncontrollable....result?

The dogs all looked slightly confused,as desperately trying to control my growing hysteria I clenched my bum as tight as I could and minced all the way back to the cottage like an Olympic walker.......

sigh

Anyway an early morning visit to Salisbury's to buy loperimide and another "visit" to their very clean-I-must-say restrooms....and I was feeling a little more in control...........
When I got home, all Chris would say was
"It's those bloody birds!"
I got on with making his breakfast as he yelled again
"WASH YOUR HANDS!"
Hey ho

...and the envelope please!

I have just won the prestigious Laughing Horse Award for best Overall Blog 2010!

Thank you to the urbane, witty and educated judge Yorkshire Pudding for choosing my blog over a whole plethora of .interesting despot writings...........
He has a degree
so is a wise man!

In Memoriam

The following post...is a kind of "in memoriam" review of 2010!
In true Oscar style, I think there should be some moving yet uplifting music to accompany the words!
play this and read on!

Animal review 2010

In Memoriam : a review of the Year


The biggest disaster for us in 2010 was Maddie's death (see " A curved Ball")
At seven she was still a relatively young dog when through some unfortunate medical care we lost her and the cottage remains a quieter place without her irascible bad temper and maiden aunt presence.

Maddie was our first Scottie, and her personality was a blue print for the breed. Tough,loyal,mistrusting of strangers and quietly self contained, she was not a dog who enjoyed fuss or cuddling, but she was a delightful old fashioned breed who maintained order within the dog pack by stopping any bicker of fight stone dead in its tracks.
I still miss her dreadfully.

I had some minor losses within the poultry population. The odd fox snatch here and the odd badger kill there. They were all opportunistic kills, older hens not making it back to base at night or young cockerels not having the sense to move home when the need arise.......and one in particular upset me more than the others. My tame buff Lily was an old favourite hen. Benign and unafraid, she would sit on my knee or clamber up onto my stomach when I was cloud watching, where she would sit unperturbed for ages.
She was a real sweetie.

The last loss that still lingers long in my mind, was the strange and rather moving death of an elderly Indian runner duck named Nell. In  the height of a beautiful summer's day, her bittersweet end perhaps underlines just why keeping animals can be so addictive, moving and at times essentially satisfying ( Blog entry- an odd little moment)

The pigs left us earlier in the year (they are now happily pregnant in a zoo in Cambridgeshire) and whole groups of ducklings and hen chicks have moved on to new homes locally and in Huddersfield!, which is nice.

And so we acknowledge the losses and now celebrate the new arrivals of 2010.

The geese Winnie and Jo have been two of my biggest joys of 2010.
As goslings they followed me everywhere and pandered to my constant need to be needed and to be carer..and as vocal adults they provide me with noisy company throughout the day on the field.
I would not be without them now

The saga of the ghost hens has captured the imagination of many throughout the year, and the arrival of these waifs and strays has proved to be one of my biggest successes this year. Bred to last a matter of weeks, three out of the original six runts have somehow survived the limitations of their over bred bodies and have enjoyed a free range life of dirty bums and Welsh fresh air.
Looking like Nick Parks' Chicken run animations, these three porkers lead a charmed life, and have repaid me tenfold by blossoming from cowed scraps of beak and feathers into buxom girls who after six months of hard work started to act like proper hens......they lay the occasional egg for me too!

 Speaking of eggs..this morning when I let out the new charity case hens ( The Belles of St Trinians) -above) there in the hen house were three large brown eggs......! after only three weeks of intensive care, good food and a bit of TLC this maltreated motley bunch of hasbeens have now turned the corner......another minor victory me thinks

In the autumn I hatched out the six quail with Red "the miracle quail" surviving his marathon 16 hour stint in a cold incubator..all are doing well on the field now and amateur cook Ian from the village is desperately looking forward in his hopeful supply of quail eggs in the spring!.............

and last but not least, the arrival of   Constance "the flatulent" and over affectionate bulldog has kept everyone on their toes.and although at first I thought she was going to be Chris' dog....the reality of the situation has been somewhat different!

Who knows where 2011 will lead?
We will have our share of disasters where trips to the vets and emotional goodbyes will be power for the course....but I am sure the field population will grow again with many more characters and the odd charity case or two...............
watch this space
x