Requested pics

One of my favourite art deco ceramics a Denby terrier

Maura and Iris asked me to post a few more photos of the cottage interior and our paintings. I couldn't quite manage to photo the watercolours adequately with my crappy camera so have snapped a couple of the "neater" areas!

The Old Lady Bedroom



The "Miss Marple" bookcase and chair

The Tiny arts and Crafts desk by the front door

The spare bedroom and office ( it's never this neat usually!)



I have to allow myself a short chuckle......as I have made sure you have not seen the "adventure playground" which is the kitchen complete with tons of wet washing, smelly dog blankets and muddy paw prints
Right off to walk the dogs and then off to the hospital to see my brother..thanks again for your many best wishes

Burlesque Therapy

I knew I was more upset about Andrew than I would care to admit, when I decided to take myself down to Prestatyn for a scala cinema special film club showing of the French movie On Tour.
Movies , for me have always provided a sort of security blanket , a panacea to all ills as it were, and for 40 years they have cushioned me from those real life upsets that rear their ugly heads from time to time, and as we know real life can sometimes be somewhat .....well too real, to be coped with.

So tonight I needed that fantasy two hour fix.....and I could have not chosen a better film to take me out of myself. On Tour is a kind of loose,often vibrant and rather compelling road movie, where a faded theatre producer Joachim Zand (Mathieu Amalric ) leads a rag tag group of American Burlesque artists around the more seedier theatres of the French Harbour Towns. He is a volatile divorcee that craves for former successes; they are voluptuous, resilient, full figured women who possess clear self worth and a historic pride in the artistic merit of  real American Burlesque and the film chronicles a few days in the life of their comback tour. 

The women laugh their way through hotel after hotel with valiant good humour whilst Zand has to cope with realisation of their situation, his estranged children, and a potential relationship with the blowzy lead artist Mimi Le Meaux (the statuesque  Miranda Colclasure )......Amalric, is quite hypnotic as the contradiction that is Zand. As actor and director he gives us tiny but vital scenes that underline just how charismatic Zand was in his former career ( the best example is were he flirts with a petrol station attendant and is suddenly transformed into a romantic and sexy leading man)...and the audience warms to this sometime abrasive character who wants to live his dream all over again.

The film is incredibly funny at times and always celebrates ( but never pokes fun at) the women performers who despite their cellulite, advancing years and overly rounded figures prove themselves to be rather impressive and talented artists! ( I especially loved the rotund lady who pulled several yards of American ribbon out of her bum hole!!!- which she spun around her like an Olympic gymnast!)

The therapy helped
8/10

My brother was transferred to a ward this afternoon. I will go and see him tomorrow. Thank you for your supportive comments here on the blog. Much appreciated
x

We Walk The Same Line

The needlepoint on the cottage wall

I am writing this entry at 01.40 in the morning but wont post this entry until later. I have downed too many cups of coffee over the past few hours and I am sure I won't sleep until a significant amount of caffeine has been peed out of my system!...so it is time to pass the time typing this whilst watching "Road Wars" on Sky


I have been sat in my own Intensive care unit with my sister in law for the last hour or so. My brother suffered a particularity nasty stridor attack last night and after being admitted to A&E  was taken straight to theatre to have a surgical tracheostomy. Everything went routinely and when we left him, he was stable, sedated and ventilated surrounded by a group of nurses and doctors I know, trust and respect.


I know the procedure was necessary, and I am glad it was finally carried out.....I was also glad I could be there to support my sister in law who has shown remarkable strength of character over this entire nightmare period, as my brother's Motor Neurone disease tightens some of its nastier symptoms.   


It was weird seeing him lying in a bed space that I often work in, but I thank god that I was in a position to do it. I scanned the monitors and the ventilator screen, mentally ticking off the satisfactory readings, and by doing so I felt immediately better. How awfully frightening it must be if you are the next of kin of someone in intensive care and you HAVEN'T got a clue what is actually going on.....

I am on holiday this week which is for the best and as sod's law would have it my best friend Hazel is looking after Andrew this morning which is a load off my mind...he hopefully should be transferred out of intensive care today 

Psychological Sun

After what seems like weeks of rain, we have just had the first fine day of the new Year! The village has literally come to life, with men repairing walls, painting chimneys and fixing the frost damaged gardens of winter.
Auntie Glad in her big woollen coat made the most of the sunny afternoon and went to see her sister on the periphery of the village, and dog walkers Pippa, Val and Peter passed the cottage to the bellows and woofs of  our dogs who had stationed themselves in the sunny window seat of our bedroom.
The animals love the sunshine in winter. The last two remaining ghost hens (above) dragged their heavy bodies from their usual hiding place of their coop door ( where they have spent the majority of the winter sheltering from the rain and snow) and set themselves up in a sunny spot to sun bathe. Only these two made it into their second year, but make it they have, and it was nice to see them content and warm for a change.

Making the most of the weather I opened up the cottage windows and let the countryside air in to freshen the place and then spring cleaned the living room free of dog smells and the slight coldness only stone cottages possess when it is damp outside!

Clean for a change, the living room



You can't quite feel the warmth of the sun, but it was there believe me

It's funny but give me a bright DRY day and tons of things get done...........

You can do it.....if you _ and _ it!

Buying a washing machine is usually a fairly innocuous pastime I would have thought.You go into the store....you pick your machine....you pay and you leave....simple!
Hummmm.......not quite!
Today we went to the superstore, loaded our machine on a spare flat trolley, took it through the self service tills, (past two chattering female sales girls) and then preceded to leave the store.
One of the female managers dashed forward as we slid through the automatic doors and suddenly asked to see our receipt, something that Chris took great exception to! Bless him, I think he thinks that we still live in an age when customers were wined and dined by attentive and slightly obsequious sales staff that wore carnations in their lapels and the prospect of a woman dressing all in orange basically challenging his honesty was all a bit much!
"Did you think I was stealing this washing machine?" he asked her shortly
The woman reddened and said "no!"
"Then why did you want to see my receipt?"
The woman babbled on for a second about only wanting to check on something but Chris was incensed and with great aplomb told the saleswoman that he had never been thought of as a thief in his 40  years on this planet, How upset he was at the inference that he had done so, and would not be returning to her store,! He turned on his heel, leaving her speechless and me smiling weakly at no one in particular...
This altercation was not even amusing unless you read on about what happened when we got the said washing machine home.
After a great deal of muttering and arguing we manhandled it into the kitchen where I plumbed it in and with a flourish, switched it on!
Immediately water burst out of the top of the machine, soaking the floor and a line of watching dogs, and amid a great deal of shouting and hysteria we managed to stem the flow somewhat with a half dozen pet blankets and 6 rolls of kitchen tissue.
I rang the store and told them I would bring back the faulty machine and swap it for another and after dragging it through the kitchen yet again ( this time ripping the lino) then back up the garden ( arguing as we did so) we were back to square one!
This time Chris left me to do the honours with the store staff ( he stayed in the car) and I might have known that the female manager that he had been so indignant to, met me at the door!
"I didn't expect to see you BACK so soon" she victoriously crooned with smile.......so I offered her my best Yorkshire terrier grimace again and resorted to my usual and rather ineffectual "hey ho"
In these situations it is best to plan dumb and smile a lot 

Ok nothing to do with the washing machine fiasco but it made me smile

gladys

Now you have heard me mention the 90 year old power house that is known locally to all as "auntie Gladys". Well during a particularly stormy dog walk I was ushered over to her front door to collect a surreptitious parcel of scones which she baked herself this morning.
I just so happened to have the trusty camera in my pocket, so snapped a quick video of her before the weather drove her back inside.
I had to laugh at myself, as I can almost hear me talking in a bloody strange Welsh accent!
A little piece of social history me thinks
The storm, at least woke me up somewhat after an hours sleep

Spaghetti Frenzy

I enjoyed writing yesterday's blog entry. It brought back a lot of nice memories and , of course, one or two bad ones. I seldom re read some of my older posts, but I know they are there, waiting in the wings so to speak, to be dug up and experienced when needed.....little snapshots of memories.

My blog about Finlay's death still hurt a little when I re read it last night, but that's the down side of owning dogs, they are never with you for very long.....and  Kipling  got it right when he wrote in his poem Power of the Dog.......that "you give your heart to a dog to tear!"

Chris was working away last night and is away until late tonight...I am working tonight, so today feels like a bit of a non day.

Egg production has now picked up after the cold snap. The ten St Trinians are all laying quite nicely which is a testament to the power of layers pellets and a bit of TLC. And all of the young hens that arrived late last year are producing small baby sized eggs.

A good tip to help with egg production , especially in the winter months, is to give hens pasta. Cheap spaghetti is their favourite, and they and the runner ducks go absolutely bonkers when they see the old enamel pan of pasta , tucked underneath my arm.

Yesterday I bought six packets of spaghetti from one of the "common" bargain shops in town and the cashier "quipped" "I bet you love your spaghetti bolognese don't you?"

"Not really" I replied " but my hens go hysterical over it"

She laughed weakly

How it all started

A couple of days ago I received a chatty email from Jessica down in the West Country. She said that she had looked through the blog archives to my very first post hoping to find a sort of "how it all began" entry!
Unfortunately all she found was a rather underwhelming entry about a walk on the beach.

So today I will tell Jess and you,  just how and why we got here!

At forty I was enjoying the bittersweet challenges of ward management in a busy Sheffield teaching hospital where as Chris was consolidating his career at the city's University. We had a busy city life. We worked hard ( too hard!) played too hard (Oh how I remember those boozy Saturday  wine bottled afternoons in All Bar One) and we didn't stop once to question a city lifestyle that kept us burning the candle at both ends.

Chris had always maintained a fantasy of us living in the country at some "future" stage; a wish that I poo pooed at every discussion. Why would I possibly want to live in the sticks? , I would say ,when after all I had everything I wanted in Sheffield.
But things changed.
and they changed subtly

I could waffle on about how increased managerial pressures from a pushed health care system made a career nurse like myself , a disillusioned burnt out middle aged old fart, and that is why a new life in the country was so important but I must say that just didn't happen. Ok, the daily pull of managerial duties versus patient contact did have a part to play in my wish to leave The Spinal Injury Unit, but I think that basically I had "seen it and worn the T shirt" and the time was right to move on to something new.

When I was forty, Chris bought me the best Birthday gift I ever received. He bought me a spoilt,emotionally needy, lovable and demanding Welsh terrier puppy called Finlay and he totally changed my life

Finlay in normal "Christmas" pose

I had never had a dog of my own before. and so was hardly prepared for just how much a "baby" of my own ( and in retrospect I realised that he WAS my baby) would change my life.
In a matter of a year Maddie joined our family and my focus continued to change from a workaholic lifestyle towards a doggy lifestyle, where something else than me and Chris needed priority.....Over a period of months, more and more time was spent up at the green and isolated Redmires and Rivelin, walking the dogs and enjoying the countryside.and less and less time was spent around the table in All Bar One!

Weekends for us changed. We spent more and more time at our tiny "weekend" cottage in Meliden ( a cottage that my sister used to live in) and less time city slicking........The pace of the weekend slowed us down, and relaxed us, until for me, the pull of  adrenaline from being a Charge Nurse was lost altogether.

And so we moved.
Two dogs increased to four and two chickens were housed in a tiny run in the garden and that was the start of a lifestyle I never believed we would ever have or indeed originally wanted
I would have laughed if you would have told me I would be the Chairman of a village Flower Show Committee...and I would have scoffed if you would have told me that the life of a single  rescue Ghost hen, or bad tempered turkey would literally take over my life.....
But take over they indeed did


How things do change