Keeping Things Going

Last night the Flower Show Committee met at Auntie Glads for our post show post- mortem

Gladys had gone to The Harvest Thanksgiving in Church but had left the large kitchen kettle boiling on the aga for our break and had organised thickly buttered scones to be distributed with the strong tea, which was to be set out in wafer thin china cups on the sideboard.

We had more or less sorted out next year's schedule, by the time Gladys returned, and as she sat down in the armchair next to the fire ,she wryly commented that there was more people grouped around her old kitchen table than there was sat in Church; but as usual there was only amusement in her voice and no hint of criticism.

With the congregation falling at the Church and the two tiny Trelawnyd chapels holding on by their fingertips, the village social groups, like those in all villages, seem to be fading as the population ages.

Bucking this trend has been the village Friendship group ( a social group ran by and for the village OAPS) and of course the Flower Show, which has been going (albeit gently) from strength to strength with the injection of new committee "blood" and a late rush of new exhibitors in recent years.

I am proud of our little band of valiant volunteers from the Flower Show.

Good humour, hard work, and just a little effort by  ten  people always seems to produce something rather special year after year after year.......

After a review of the dates, it would seem that in 2012..the flower show has been running a self congratulatory, 40 years

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible..and The Willow Manor Ball

Ok, I can be swayed by peer group pressure.
Here IS the new "Kathy Burke" look. Don't get used to it, because it won't be here long.
Normal Grey goatee will be resumed as soon as the testosterone can grow it.
Chris will be pleased...I think he thinks I'm having an affair
Fat chance...he's got me for good
x

Ps I am off to the Willow Manor Ball in a mo (fashionably late as per!)....sporting my new "bald" look......escorting me will be the slightly-more-scruffy-than-a-bag-of potatoes Matt Cardle... but seeing that I am spoken for, I have told Matt there is not to be any shenanigans in the limo........I don't want to get any grubby finger marks on my white tux!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Self Awareness

Yesterday I shaved off my goatee...
I am not quite sure why I did it
Perhaps it is another middle aged crisis kind of thing......
But I actually suspect that my sister Janet is responsible, as when we all met up for a family meal at the weekend, she told me that I might look a little younger without one!


I shaved it off yesterday morning and when I walked through the village at 4pm with the dogs not one person I spoke to (Sylvia from the flower show committee, Ann on her horse, the red faced Welsh Farmer, Sandra with the allotment, Bob and Olwen the retired chicken farmers and Peter with his black Labrador) noticed that it had gone!
Only Jason, who called down to swap a loaf for eggs, noticed and had the politeness to say I  LOOKED 20 YEARS YOUNGER
I have just taken a photo of myself sans beard and I now KNOW just who I look like.......

yeap it's ..........Kathy Burke

Turkey Cuddling (winter 2009)

Proof , if proof was needed that I cuddle my turkey
see previous post

A Classic Case Of Transference

We've all experienced it.
The boss at work gives you a bollocking
You come home and kick the cat.
Transference in the animal world can be just as cut and dried

Junior turkey Bingley makes it his mission to bully old retainer Boris.
Boris gets pissed off
I get "battered" by Boris
It's as simple as that.

Bingley (all talk and no action)

Bingley is a stunning turkey stag. He is all testosterone and bluster when it comes to me and after a brief altercation ( when he got swiped with a plastic bucket), he now has a healthy respect for my alpha male position. Bingley understands the pecking order clearly and does not over step the "rules" of the field.something that Boris unfortunately has done.recently, as he, being upset with being now the subordinate turkey, has transferred his aggression towards me.

Boris, claws at the ready

For those that don't know turkey stags generally attack with their feet and not their beaks. They "trill" a warning call before hand , glide quickly up  with all feathers rattling then in a lightening type attack will leap forward at you with razor sharp claws.
An attack can easily knock a man off his feet.
Boris generally is a big sweetie with me, after all he was hand reared and is well used to be handled, lifted and cuddled ( and YES, I have cuddled my turkey... what's wrong with that?) Having him now stalking me with murderous intent 24/7 is becoming rather tiresome.
This morning I set him up with the new geese, away from Bingley and out of my hair. Hopefully this "time out" will cool his hormones down just a little......and this afternoon I will go and sit with him with a tempting bagel in my hand.....here's hoping that cupboard love will win back his affection

A Little Tinker

Gary Oldman and John Hurt...men in beige

I was around 17 when the much Lauded tv series Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was around., so was really too young to appreciate this complicated John le Carré tale of the sad and the obsolete in 1973 MI6.
The Tomas Alfredson remake is now obviously a period piece set against the beige filled early seventies, when everyone drank scotch out of their filing cabinets, hid their sexuality preferences and mourned the glory days of post war espionage.
It is a complicated, slow burn of a movie, which is well worth watching, a fact that surprised me, as I tend to hate similar drab "Ipcress File" type dramas.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy also has a cast to die for. Gary Oldman (remarkably good as the melancholy George Smiley) takes the lead role from the likes of Tom Hardy,Toby Jones,John Hurt,Mark Strong,Benedict Cumberbatch (also very good) and Colin Firth and even a rather lumpy Kathy Burke Shows her face as a retired agent who misses the camaraderie of the "old Cold
war days"(mind you if this was a Hollywood movie her role would have been played by Meryl Streep!)

It is a carefully paced and if you stick with it, a satisfying watch, especially if you are like me, a
a complete ignoramus on Le Carre novels.

8/10

LOL

Few Blog entries make me laugh out loud.
Most of the ones I follow give me a smile on a daily basis.
One or two others provoke me like a child prods a cat with a stick,
while others can occasionally move me to tears
But few give me a real belly laugh.


Take a look at Chris' latest over at Grow Fish Eat
Cracking! 

Micklegate Run Drunks

Micklegate Bar in York a historic Street lined with pubs
The "Micklegate Run" is an old York tradition for partygoers
Have a drink in each pub from Wall to River
I never managed it

On Friday I didn't go for a break until 4.30 am ( a long time to wait as I started work at 7.30pm the previous night) I was tired but couldn't prepare myself for a quick doze in the staff sitting room as I had been busy throughout the night with my patient who had died and undergone organ donation, a complicated proceedure which is a real challenge to be a part of.
Anyhow instead of gabbing a few zzzz s I found myself reading a medical magazine article on chronic alcoholism which had been  co authored by a nurse I had worked with in York decades ago!


I lived in the picturesque city of York for three years in the 1980s. and remember my salad days at Bootham Park , the flag ship psychiatric Hospital , with much affection. Not only did I gain invaluable experience working on an acute admission ward and "mother and baby" unit; I had the fantastic opportunity of working  on a placement with the city's community alcohol and drug dependency specialist nurse.


Her name was Lu and she was one of those impressively quiet professional nurses that spoke little, but said a great deal (if you see what I mean?) A small , almost frail woman, she possessed a steely strength which allowed her to deal with a phenomenal case load of patients from a city which was renowned for it's158 pubs!

York is a tiny city, so wherever we went, we would always bump into previous patients who had fallen off the wagon, so to speak....and I never forgot just how dignified Lu was, when she had to deal with these inebriated and often emotional characters.


An overly guilty drunk can be difficult to handle, running away can illicit some embarrassing shouting in the street, while stopping to indulge, is patently a terrible waste of time for a trained counsellor to embark on.....


Lu, as I remember, always kept her voice low, firm and calm at these times. She would often use a touch of the arm to capture the blurred gaze, or to hush a garrulous mouth then she would always say the same thing
"Call me when you are sober, I will be waiting for your call" 


If she was pushed into a confrontation, she would always smile a non patronising smile at the former patient and would say with conviction
"Forgive me, I always make it a rule, NEVER to discuss work with someone who has  had a drink" Her words, strangely enough, were seldom disregarded


She taught me a great deal about respect......respecting people that have often lost respect in themselves


.....and she taught me never to argue with a piss head