so Ronery?

I am having a moment to dry myself off.......

I don't know exactly where is wetter..... INside the cottage or OUTside in the rain?

All I do know, it that I needed to employ the "spirit that won the war" kind of mentality and stop bellyaching and start cleaning and drying.

Apart from the now post industrial looking concrete floor, the kitchen now looks almost human again. A neighbour Arfon, hearing about our misfortune brought around a dehumidifier this morning, and with the help of a few mobile heaters, the place is habitable once again.

Pat B, my unofficial animal helper called around too, with a festive cake (complete with bow) and Carys, who is one of my egg customers also battled the rain to deliver a small Christmas gift.... it is these little tokens of kindness that really lifts the spirits..........Even Mrs "Pen-y-cefn" Jones, who is well into her eighties and who always insists on referring to me as "Mr Gray" sent a generous donation for the Motor Neurone Disease association after she heard about my brother.......

Anyhow I need to go and get changed......I may even make an effort and go and have a bath.....

I need to make sure that I make more of an effort with my personal grooming....

Especially given the fact that the only person I know with worse dress sense and a more unforgiving haircut died today!

Kim Jong il

John looking ill

"Ho Ho, Bleeding Ho"

I was reminded of this old joke today

"Well, it was during the famous Johnstown flood. The dam broke and when the water hit our house it knocked it right off the foundation. Grandma got on the dining room table and floated out safely."
"How about you?"
"Me? I accompanied her on the piano!"

 

Boom Boom!

I flooded the kitchen today.

It was a case of too much on my mind and lots of jobs to do.

I started to wash up the dishes. Collected the dogs and put them into the car. Made sure I had found some Christmas Cards to deliver and went off blissfully unaware I had left the kitchen sink tap running full pelt.

I returned home an hour later, to find an apoplectic Chris standing in two inches of water amid the wreckage of the kitchen...he was late for Church and was surrounded by a collection of sodden towels and the strangely odd spectacle of the lino floating gently on top of a small lake...like a low . flat water bed.

I had promised to go with Chris to the Church Christmas Lunch, after the morning service, so had to  work like a Trojan  to rip up the lino and remove 26 loads of water with the carpet cleaner!.Luckily the water had only infiltrated 2 to 3 inches into the lounge (originally Chris had bellowed that the flood had covered half of the living room!!!)..so apart from the kitchen looking remarkably like the floor of the pig hut.....we were fairly lucky.......

Oh I could have done without all this today.

As it turned out, the Christmas lunch at the village pub was rather a jolly affair...A couple of large Pinot's, a nice meal and the rector and organist being  on "good form" helped a great deal...... and for the first time since my brother died, I actually found myself  enjoying our one and only Christmas "do".

Having said that........the kitchen still looked like a cess pit when we returned home

The Ghost Of Christmas Past

I think I have only ever had one naff Christmas

It was in 1990 when I was a student nurse working on an acute medical ward.

I completed the early shift on Christmas day with a miserable hangover ( and with a menopausal Dutch staff nurse in charge).......then went home, fed my cats...piled up all of the family gifts into my car and set off from Sheffield to drive the two hours back to wales.....full of Happy Christmas feelings and good will to most men!

Only my car wouldn't start!

It was cold

It was miserable

It was dark

I was alone...

and to cap it all..... I had no food in the house

Christmas dinner, as it turned out, was two individual pork pies and a mars bar bought from the 24 hour garage

and when I turned on my battered old portable tv (in my luxurious student pad living room complete with deckchair seating)........fuck all happened.........

I remember crying  in my deckchair , whilst drinking the dregs from a bottle of gin and listening to radio 4

Thank goodness things before and after 1990 have been generally more festive, even though I have often worked!!

So come on everyone.... give me your best (WORST) Christmas Stories...........

Share it with the group!

I Think It's Going To Rain Today

Shit!

Well it had to come.

The first blizzard of the winter caught the field totally unawares this morning, and in just a few minutes has deposited ( and is depositing) tons of wet, cold,unwelcome snow.

The old hens, led by veteran Stanley all disappeared undercover leaving the new girls and the crackhead whores forlornly hunched at the field borders......already I have endeavoured to bring in the stragglers, especially the bald hens who have no reserves when it comes to being cold AND wet....but faced with this sudden downpour of cold stuff...some of them seem transfixed to the spot

....hens can be so stupid sometimes.

Already I have given the pigs extra feed.......and now I am off to check on the turkeys.....being more dense than a block of concrete, god knows where they will end up in this weather!

Sleeping Beauty

With Chris working away..I thought a night out would be in order.

I managed to get a couple of tickets for Sleeping Beauty ( the live performance from the Royal Opera House) and Janet said that she would like to go, so we both thought that a bit of culture was just the thing to lighten the week a little.

WRONG

I didn't really get into this revival of the 1946 production and was almost relieved when

Janet was taken ill just as the second act started, and we had to go home...

I

Andrew's Eulogy

Ann and Janet's floral tribute ( a drum kit)

Eulogy at http://supportingandrew.blogspot.com/

Postie Big Up

Don't you just love the Post Office sometimes..

Today I received a lovely Christmas Card from a person who reads the blog. I am sure they won't mind me sharing the rather original way they addressed the envelope

It said

Mr John Gray (John-the-dogs-Gray)

Organiser, Trelawnyd Flower Show + allotment day

Caretaker of pigs,fowl,dogs and Albert the cat

Trelawnyd

Flintshire

It made my day!