"Oh F*ck...it's that Mr Gray again!"

After several months of searching, the threat of being "outed" on my blog site, and several "colourful" encounters with "service "staff, Boots the Chemist has finally found the slides and photographs they lost.
It has been an irritating, "jobs worth"  experience all round , and one that has not helped the monitoring of my blood pressure, which I am doing four or five times a day ( I have a clinic appointment on Monday!)

Having said this, there is a wicked part of me ( yeap you have to remember that I am NOT Rebecca of SunnyBrook Farm all of the time) that kind of enjoys torturing those responsible for bad service. I cannot abide it, and boy to do I get on my high horse when I know I am in the right.
So every week I either phoned or (god forbid) personally popped in to the Prestatyn branch to see whether or not my lost photos had been found.
I pointedly refused to deal with one shop assistant who could not curb her tendency to babble, and when the manager informed me that my photos had been sent to their branch in the internal post three weeks  previously, I took some solace by loudly stating that if they had been sent by passenger pigeon they would have reached me earlier.
Of course my bad humour remains somewhat of a game......but bad service is endemic in this country and I have to say that this unnecessary stress is NOT good for my elevated blood pressure (which I suspect is a legacy from my father and grandfather)
Yesterday the manager of Boots rang me and left a somewhat disappointed  message on our answerphone
I say disappointed ,as I am sure she wanted to speak to me personally to give me the victorious news that the photos had been located (originally they had been sent to Oldham of all places)...
God knows where they ended up this time probably some poor old duffer from Bath was surprised to find a few old photos of a knackered Trelawnyd cottage among his holiday snaps ....
tee hee

Postscript

That post was written around 8am
It is now 11.31am
Boots have just called
They have my photos but have mislaid the original slides....
I told them I would be down to " see" them today
They are all shitting themselves

P.A.

Today I have been playing at being Melanie Griffith in Working Girl
Ok I don't have the big hair, the whispering voice and I have never said breathlessly
" I have a head for business and a bod for sin. "
But I have been putting digit to netbook in an effort to act a little like a personal assistant

In order to publicize the village Flower Show, which is under a bit of a threat from dwindling entry numbers, we have brought the big guns into play
Our Big Gun is Auntie Gladys
Single handed she sells over 300 hundred raffle tickets every year and when every household in the village has been cajoled into buying a one pound book, she just pulls up her stockings and marches around the neighbouring villages of Llanasa and Gwaenysgor..
For over 60 years she has worked consistently hard to provide support for the Trelawnyd Welfare committee and then for the Flower Show,,
The simple fact is that she ticks every news worthy/cinematic box:-

ie
she's a sweet old lady
who has bags of chutzpah
she sports a string of pearls 
and some Woody Allen spectacles

Think of Helen Hayes from Airport with a Welsh accent!

So I emailed every local paper, newsroom and even the BBC website, to inform them of Auntie Glad's  66 years of village work and today the first of the reporters (a businesslike young lady with a cracking shorthand) turned up to document Gladys' contribution to Trelawnyd and publicize our Flower Show.

Gladys was an old pro at all the fuss....while I farted around like a flunky, she enjoyed the chance to chat about her days "in service" before coming to the village just before the war...

I could listen to her stories all day....after half an hour I forgot the reporter was there........

The "official" photographer turns up on Tuesday.........already we have been discussing "outfits"

The Last Ghost Hen

Some of the village children come down to the field to collect eggs. Today they came late which was lucky as I had failed to check the coops because I had been up to my brother's house for most of the day.
I dished out the obligatory enamel bowls and ten minutes later the kids darted back to the cottage to inform me that one of the hens was ill.
"I think you have a hen with asthma" the little boy informed me seriously
and he took me over to the pond to show me the breathless hen.

It was Ruth, the final ghost hen , who was gasping for breath.
The children squatted down on their haunches with interest and asked a whole load of questions as I sat down next to the hen.
"Why was she gasping? ....why was her head a dark colour?......why was her eyes shut?"
Initially I was not sure of just what to say to a couple of seven year olds, but I guessed that it was pretty much ok to tell them the truth gently and without any fuss.
So carefully I explained that the hen's heart was giving out and that she was not in any pain but she was dying, and that was why she was a strange colour and she was making an odd noise.
I also told them that she was an old hen and had lived over a year past the date. she was expected to die
The children nodded somberly and we watched the hen together for a while before they informed me that they were off home.
"will you bury her when she dies?" the boy asked before he went
"Yes I said" (I didn't have the heart to tell them that I would leave the body by the badger set in the next field)
"That's good!" he said.standing up.
By the time the kids had gone. I sat down next to Ruth and let her rest her straining head on my foot .
I didn't quite have the heart to pull her neck, and I am glad I didn't as moments later she died.

The ghost hens taught me a great deal about doing the right thing.
They taught me just how six genetically buggered up broiler hens with a life expectancy of just 10 weeks, can enjoy a semblance of a normal life for months with a bit of ingenuity and a daily dose of TLC.

This photo made me feel just a little proud at my soft decision not to kill these runt hens for eating, and you know what?..... they repaid my decision with the odd gifted egg and a great deal of vicarious pleasure.
For months they enjoyed a field full of grass and many days bathing in the sun
Not a bad life really.......... eh?

Bring Back British Rail

One of the down sides in living in rural North Wales is the crappy local rail service we have along the coast.
Arriva trains always seem to have old rail stock and dirty carrages which always seem to over filled to the gunnells and I generally keep my train going experiences to the occassional virgin long haul services that provide excellent service and rather nice coffee.
A certain proportion of passengers that  frequent the arriva service are what I call ( and I won't apologise for this) the "great unwashed" They seem to be the lager swilling, track suit wearing, baseball cap wearing dispossessed that criss cross the coast between the inner city areas of the North West and the deprived ex holiday towns in Wales.
There always seems a kind of lawlessness about them, a kind of anger and lack of respect which can be rather intimidating, and I wonder why I notice their presence as much as I do, given the fact I once lived within a great Northern city that had it's own share of the "anti social" (which strangely I never really felt intimidated by)
I do not think I am wrong in my assessment...my friend Nigel who lives in Manchester and who is as objective as King Solomon always comments just how the coast trains resemble a scene out of a cheap Western.......if you don't believe me readers...just catch the 11.05 between Shotton and Rhyl.....you'll see!

Anyhow I digress....... before I pop up to my brother's for the day I will leave you with a Welsh  train story!

Yes it is a guy trying to take his pony on the coastal train!
Now I know I have been banging on about the yobbish underclass that frequent the system......many of which seem to hop on and hop off the trains without paying..... but at least this guy bought the bloody pony a ticket from the vending machine!!!

Blowing away the cobwebs

There is only so much I can write about planting broccoli and artichokes, so I just can't be arsed. Nor can I be arsed banging on about how old I feel in light of a potentially dickey ticker
so I will concentrate on what I do best.....
....abject rubbish
Its been a blustery, fairly cold day, so I have had to content myself with veg sowing and planting, clearing my pea frames and mowing the grass.
I took the dogs up the Gop to blow away the cobwebs, then its back to the mundane;
sweetcorn needs planting and there  is a big pile of sick that Constance thoughtfully managed to "throw up" under the fridge to clean up..........at least it seems that she is now out of season........her sluttish behaviour seems for the most part  to have stopped!

Constance watching the traffic from the top of the Gop



Constance and George

William smiling into the wind

Meg, as usual, looking pensive

Dorothy......You're not 28 anymore

In my mind I am 28 years old.
I think I have always been 28...even when I was around 12.
28 is a nice age ............you are generally past the silliness of youth (humm is that really true?) and you have not yet reached the potential cynicism  that early middle age possesses........it is, for the most part a happy carefree time.....
and so, in my mind, and when I am asked...I say I feel 28........

Today I feel like a man who has almost reached 50, no I am not depressed, nor am I swallow diving into a rather late mid life crisis..no......I have just been reminded that I have almost been on this planet now for five whole decades and am now experiencing the normal wear and tear of a man, "almost past his prime!" !

My doctor rang today with the results of my xray. He was thorough , professional and precise and suggested that I needed a few more tests including a referral to a cardiologist......of course it is all a "matter of routine" but as he explained his ideas, all I could really think of is the starting fact that I wasn't that invincible 28 year old anymore.

The skin on my hands now resemble what can be found on an average rhino's arse and the bald spot hidden away on my crown is just that little more noticable to those standing behind me in a queue. Reading small print involves much squinting and moaning nowadays.....and I am always in search of a bright light source in order to work out what is exactly written on the back of a cornfake packet.
Hey ho.......and I will stop right there before I start to venture down the "peeing in the middle of the night" story and/or waxing too lyrically about the start of that painful bunion on my right foot

Oh to be 28 again!

anyhow, like I said....... enough already.... will end with a couple of examples of modern day tapestry. In the Prestatyn Scala art gallery I noticed a small group of childrens' tapestries hung colourfully in the foyer.
two of them, I recognised as being interpertations of Trelawnyd landmarks

The Ebenezer Chapel

The Memorial Hall

fuck me.....I am getting old.....I am getting excited over needlework........

Kitty 5 - With Patricia Routledge

Some women ( and I will use the example of Victoria Wood's "Kitty" here)..are just naturally funny!
Of course they don't know it, they are always of a type....but funny they are....

Today I have been working day shift. I looked after a recovering 78 year old lady who instantly recognised me from when she "knew " me as a boy

Like Kitty, she was a natural Queen of the one liner when I asked her if an Orthopaedic registrar had seen the infection in a wound on her leg she said without smiling
"An somewhat untidy youth came to see me yesterday if that's what you mean;
he was wearing plimsolls and an ill fitting cardigan that gaped at the sleeves.......but I suppose all this informality is a populist University system for you!!"

Priceless

Giselle

The rather weedy looking Leonid Sarafanov as Albrecht and the stunning Natalia Osipova in the title role

Giselle is not a ballet that requires a gimmick, and certainly not if the gimmick is a filmed 3D performance of a notable Marlinksy Theatre production.
But after a shaky start  where the action seems all a little blurred (the first act is somewhat shaky anyway with it's slightly pantomime feel), the moonlit action where the Corps de ballet acting as the ghostly Wilis filter back and forth across the stage with the precision of a military exercise is quite stunning to watch under the spotlight of the extra dimension .
I wouldn't rush to do the whole glasses thing again..( at £15 a ticket, it is all a little excessive) but it was an interesting experience.

At least we got to keep the 3D glasses

I have been rostered to work tomorrow ( even though I have a work profile which states "no weekdays!")
Thank goodness for good neighbours who will be baby sitting the dogs for us.
I had a nice phone call from Thomas' owner too,who informed me that he had been returned twice before by different owners.....his athletic ability to scale great heights was obviously NOT a new skill...

hey ho