The Wedding and a Welcomed Gift

The Cottage this morning

Understandably the village was deserted when I took the dogs out for their walk. Curtains and blinds have been drawn so that people can get a good view of today's event on their flat screens but I did smile when I saw Peter at Anchor house saluting me merrily in his garden under his newly planted Union Jacks!

Someone had put red,white and blue bunting around the the Memorial Hall and the Crown pub is decked out with flags, so the village has a small "touch" of  festival about it

Last night I found a long homemade thumbstick  stuck untidily in the hedge by the lane. It was a beautiful and old piece of  wood, which had been well loved and well made and was completed with an ancient metal base and layer after layer of simple clear varnish.

I fell in love with it the moment I saw it, and took the staff carefully back to the cottage in the hope that no one would claim it .

But alas, this morning I noticed the red faced Welsh farmer scouting around the lane in his red landrover and I knew he must have lost this stick when he helped me set up my new fencing earlier in the week.

A little reluctantly I showed him the lost stick and the farmer beamed  a big red face beam at its return.

"I've had this stick a long long time" he explained hooking his thumb comfortably into the "v" at the top of it

Then he reached into the back of his landrover and pulled out another similar home made staff

My thumbstick

"There have this one I made it a while ago" he said gruffly handing the staff to me before roaring away down the lane.

I am so made up with his kind gift.....



Anyhow the wedding is about to start.....so I will get off and watch it.....

I am not a style guru as you all well know but Kate looked fab!

I know I am in risk of sounding like a sycophant but she did look rather classy!

mind you Beatrice (right) did look a real twat in her "antler" hat

Sālote Tupou III

With all this ballyhoo surrounding The Wedding, I am reminded of Queen Salote of Tonga's  barnstorming introduction to the British public way back at the Queen's Coronation....now there was a lady that instinctively knew how to please a crowd! William and Kate please note!
With the world's Royalty hidden away against the driving rain under the canopy of their carriages, Queen Salote threw caution to the wind and greeted the British public with a beaming smile, a fat armed matronly wave and NO umbrella.
She was absolutely soaked to the skin, but obviously enjoyed every minute of the royal precession, and the slightly starchy, austere post war population immediately fell in love with her for her genuine show of informality and Pacific Joie de vivre.

By a simple act of exuberance Queen Salote gained a nation's respect. Ok it wasn't perhaps the English way of behaving, but for the circumstances it was the right way to behave......we can all learn a great deal from such a simple act.

Anyway....gawd knows where my thoughts about Queen Salote came from.....presently I am up at my Brother's house. I am teaching my elder sister all about his tracheal suction and tracheotomy this afternoon; I have never taught family before so the prospect of doing so , is an interesting one. I am sure she will do just fine......

It's another beautiful day up here in North Wales

St Kents

My Brother will be utilizing the support from St Kentigerns, our local hospice. I have worked there albeit it on an incredibly quiet shift, but I was profoundly impressed with the relaxed and individualised nature of the care on offer.
It never ceases to amaze me that local health boards support perhaps 18-20% of hospice funding and the rest (in St Kents case 4,000 £ a DAY) has to be beg, borrowed and donated from the general public.
How horrendous.
Hospice care should be part of the NHS...ok charitable support would always be of benefit as the specific costs within palliative care can be dreadfully high especially as in patient numbers are relatively low , but leaving hospice care"out in the cold" in this terribly fragile economic climate, tome , borders on the insane.
This worrying statement has been left on the official St Kentigern website:

Over the last 12 months we have seen our income drop by £300,000 whilst the costs of providing care is increasing by 10% annually. We are not alone in this situation but as a result of this we have had to make a number of very difficult decisions. These include reducing the number of inpatient beds from 8 to 4 and restricting our day care service. This has had a knock on effect and resulted in us having to reduce our staff numbers.


In-patient beds will be available for low complexity patients for terminal care and palliative respite.
Day Unit will provide care for up to 10 patients Mon to Thurs from 11am to 3pm and Friday will continue as appointments only to see the Advanced Nurse Practitioner.
The Social Worker and Family Support Worker will continue in their services but in a part time basis

.
My brother has some lovely district nurses. The input he has had from the medics has also been very good indeed. But the availability of hospice support in the long term, I know , will be vital.
Their respite care is second to none, but after reading the above circular...I can only hope that it and the rest of the unit's holistic care packages can be maintained.

Just say no!

For those that don't know as yet, I hope to get my first goat in a week or so. He is an over friendly castrated 18 month old chap and his name is TWM ( which is welsh for Tom).
After much thought I think I will refer to him as Tom after my friend and fellow blog sparing partner Tom Stephenson......after all Mr Bath Tom is somewhat reminiscent of an old goat!
Of course I will have to get him a friend , goats need company. But in the interim he will have to put up with me, the dogs and a field full of hens ( something he is already very used to.)

The woman I am getting him from  is well intentioned but has not really got on top of her paperwork as yet, hence the hiatus in his arrival.....but after a brief lesson in animal law, she is now sorting the required papers out quite nicely.

The neighbours I know, have all collectively gone a whiter shade of pale after hearing that a goat is on the cards...but I have spent an energetic afternoon banging in a set of new fenceposts over the wartime pig fencing that now borders the field and the red faced Welsh farmer will come down to help me tighten the barbed wire topping to it.....the place will resemble Stalag 17, but hopefully Twm will remain safely within the parameter fence.

In between being all butch with a sledgehammer
I have completed two more of the Trelawnyd villager "interviews" which was a real pleasure. Tonight I wanted to write up something shared from 86 year old Hubert Evans the village baker and  former village rector's daughter Daphne Jenkins but I am physically a bit worn out and still incredibly chesty. So a hot bath, a bit of blogging and a chill out is the order of my post 9pm sit down time......I must thank Hubert and Daphne though: their contributions were so entertaining.....and I promise to get something concrete down on the blog hopefully tomorrow!

Hubert Evans

Daphne Jenkins

But don't worry (Sharon, I know you are!), I have booked myself in to see my GP asap.............I have a thought I may be getting late onset asthma..........which could be a bit of a bummer....hey ho

Anyhow I will draw to a close with some more positive news!

I actually refused an animal today!

Yes I very proud of myself..... when I was offered five unwanted bantams from a householder who had lost most of his back garden to a set of hungry beaks...I took a deep breath in....refused to acknowledge the usual hang-dog expression of the exasperated owner and stated firmly that I would only take four of them in but drew the line at taking an extra little cockerel.......

I feel a bit like an alcoholic that has refused his first gin and tonic of the day.....

until next time my friends.............

The new bantams.....and the last........? yeah right......

Chopin: La Dame aux camélias (Paris Opera Ballet)

Only 15 of us enjoyed the magnificent Agnès Letestu as the unfortunate Marguerite Gautier in La Dame aux Camelias this afternoon.
You can't beat a consumptive strumpet who comes to a sticky end can you?

sex...sex...SEX

The small male population of the field has embraced the coming of spring with some gusto and now their only concern during the lengthening days seems to be sex,sex and more sex.
It's like watching an outside broadcast from HBO.
Of course in every male group there is always one stud and one geeky dud
The stud, of course is a Welshman! well it is actually welsh magpie drake to be precise..and what Harry Seacombe lacks in general stature, he makes up in frantic hip action and persistence.
Every morning when he leaves the confines of the goose house, his black little beady eyes will scan the grass horizon in search of any of the female runner ducks like a  German U boat commander searching for the Queen Mary. Within seconds he had found one, cornered and grabbed her ( always on the back of the neck) and in a minute or so, shagged her senseless.
I dont know just how he does it..........
This duck "orgy" literally lasts all day, and by mid afternoon I always get the urge to offer him a cup of hot sweet tea to keep his energy levels up.
Thank goodness I only have one effective drake out of a total of 8 females.

Halleh ( the duckling) hiding in Blanche's feathers soon after hatching

Halleh , the drake that was raised by Blanche the hen (above) is a rather ineffectual lover. This stems from the confusion of his upbringing and where as he has plenty of ducks to nail....the object of his affections always seem to be slim, and sexually mature hybrid hens.

 Having said this, he seems pretty good at catching a hen, but will do so by grabbing a beakful of wing feathers and holding on until the hen simply pulls away or in the case of most of the St Trinians , turns around and gives him a real pasting.

I have yet to see his shag a duck as yet although he has come close to abusing a few of the slower and older hens on several occasions, a fact which seems rather unsavory to say the least


halleh



Regular readers may remember that Boris the turkey collapsed last year after one particularly heavy bout of lovemaking, so this year I have tried to ration his "lurve time" to the occasional and rather heavy handed "session" Each day Gloria and the slightly shop worn Theresa are put out on the field to give his old ticker ( and pecker) a rest.......a fact that they are mighty grateful for as , for those that don't know, turkey sex is somewhat clumsy and painful for the female to cope with ( I suspect that turkey sex feels as though you have been smothered by a lead filled scatter cushion with big feet).

Only the adolescent gander Russell shows any finesse when it comes to the act of lurve!
He and the grey goose Jo seem now to be a bit of an item, and just occasionally I will catch them sitting side by side winding their long necks together in a rather romantic clinch. Compared to the frantic drakes and the cack-handed  Boris, the geese and their gentle and affectionate courtship behaviour is a joy to watch.

hey ho
off for a cold shower

Get on your Bus........... Welsh's a strange language.......and thumbs up for an old queen

The weather  again is unseasonably warm..... coupled with the fact it's Easter weekend, the roads have been full of sweaty families and their sweaty 'orrible kids off on  quality afternoons out.
Sixty years ago there were few privately owned cars in the village. On sunny ,dusty afternoons like the one we are having today, the village children played by the side of the road, content in the knowledge that they were not going to be mashed into spaghetti bolognese by a speeding nissan micra.....
somedays( when I don't need the car to pop over to work  or to pick up 60 kilos of chicken food)...I have the fantasy that no one has a private car and everyone is smiling and are wearing smart hats when they get on the vintage bus for their weekly jaunt to town.

My Brother-in-law's Pièce de résistance-The Prestatyn Vintage Car Show
complete with Miss Marple Bus
See my sister's informative blog entry describing the annual Car Show

Now in bygone times the public transport system here in Wales was considerably better than it is today.

Buses looped every hour  from the country villages down to the heady metropolis of Rhyl and I loved the anecdote from Pat Bagguley who giggled when she told me that her mother would always advocate a 1.30 pm bus to Rhyl as the 2.30 bus was always filthy after it had dropped off its dirty cargo of miners from the local Point of Ayr coal mine after their morning shift.



The sign states
Nid DA but gellir GWELL



Anyhow I will leave you with a bit of a conundrum

On my quest for personal histories of the village community I was given a wartime (?) photo of some Trelawnyd lovelies posing under a sign. I have been told that the photo was taken in the memorial Hall ( can anyone confirm this?)

Anyhow I was intrigued by the sign itself and after a bit of googling I worked out that a rough translation

is as follows "NOT....GOOD...BUT EVEN BETTER"

I checked this with my "Welsh advisor" Kit Hopkins this afternoon who confirmed my thoughts.....

"It sounds odd" she explained " but that's Welsh for you......It IS odd!.......the statement actually means "always strive to do better !"

Hey ho

and finally..........it makes a real change for a self obsessed old queen not to take themselves all too seriously...
Edward Reid.......manages very well don't you think? funny and rather clever

St Michael's

We went out for lunch and had a nice walk along a near deserted beach today.Chris decided to do all of the cooking this evening so I took the welcome break from the kitchen sink and went to conscript more grey hairs for the village blog. I didn't have to look far; as when I had my head in the turkey coop affable despot Dorothy bellowed over the graveyard fence at me "When are you coming to see me?"

I dutifully booked her particular slot, then added octogenarian Hubert Evans and Daphne who lived in the village rectory in the 1940s.By next week I would have interviewed ten people.

Daphne gave me a key to the Church so that I could photograph the Easter lilies, and although I am in no way religious, I do find the silence and peace of the empty Church particularly soothing .

St Michael's has a country-like simplicity about it. It is, in essence just a plain rectangle with windows on three sides. It is dark but not gloomy. The atmosphere is still, but not musty and there is a warmth about the whole place which is strangely healing.Perhaps it will help my wheezy chest? I have been coughing like an old asthmatic for weeks now

Perhaps I have seen Black Narcissus too many times....