Normality

Fine Weather!

No rain!

No wind....

Bugger me...I can't quite believe it.!!!!!

The village seemed awash with walkers sweating under their woolly hats this morning... and even  octogenarian Olwenna Hughes, who is extremely shaky on her old pins was out strolling in the sun.

It tickled me that even though she had been effectively marooned inside her bungalow for weeks because of the bad weather, she still knew exactly what had been happening in the village...

"It was nice that you went to Church on Christmas Eve " she called out in her sing song way.."

I reminded her that I only went for the carols!

For the first time in weeks, I had the opportunity to check over the animals on what has turned out to be an unseasonably warm day. The Crackhead Whores with their Alpha female, Vinegar tits, now smart in their newly grown feathers, have blossomed under  some intensive "feeding up". Settled in to their part of the field, they have relaxed somewhat and have stopped their bully-girl activities with the older hens....

I will reluctantly admit that I really should change their collective name seeing that they have all undergone a sort of "pretty woman-like" transformation over the past two months.......but I shall resist the urge......I really think I should be true to their drug taking and loose knickered past!

The Crackhead whores all looking rather splendid (Vinegar tits is on the right)

And so, all afternoon, I have cleaned away the rain soaked damage inflicted in November and early December...and it has been therapeutic as it was necessary....I have just been seeing to the basics for a while now......

Boris....happy at surviving another Christmas

,

One of the Crackheads blooming

The Indian runners still, fit and healthy and hysterical  around their pond

As I dredged the pond at the back of the field, I noticed an old couple in the graveyard. They were leaning against the fence, watching the geese "arguing" with the indian runners over a bowl of corn and called me over in order to buy some eggs.

The graveyard is always busy at Christmas with people dropping off wreaths and flowers .....and I always try to be respectful of people's  feelings, especially if they look like they need some quiet and reflective time by the graves of their loved ones. (The geese in particular, can be bloody invasive with their honking!)

Hummm...respectful eh? Look what T shirt I had chosen to put on today

whoops

Even Mabel was not impressed

Boxing Day Big Up!!

As I walked around a gale lashed Trelawnyd this morning, the rather dishevelled woman in a towelling dressing gown who I spied washing up the dishes, summed up all of the festive stressors of the past few days as she puffed out her cheeks with that "I 'm soddin' well knackered" kind of look.

I tried to send her my best "I've paddled that canoe" sort of look right back....but she was already fishing around her cleavage for a dropped piece of hot ash from her cigarette so couldn't see me!..

Boxing day...... it's all the same.

Yesterday was a game in two halves really..... a restful day together with the dogs

(yes below if my "official" New Christmas hat photo)

and then a complete bunfight of cooking when the family came around for dinner.

It all went well..... the food was ok........Chris won the Downton Abbey general knowledge Quiz and after too many small sherries we all raised a glass to Andrew in a coordinated iphone toast with my sister in law,

And so it's over....

Boxing day is here with it's obligatory long walk....crap tv and cold meat. 

I managed to sneak a few cold roast potatoes out for the pigs this morning who sucked them up with exquisite piggy pleasure....but there was little else to share with the hens, who have all disappeared into the hedgerows due to the bad winds.

To keep out the cold... I have treated them to a huge bowl of festive spaghetti......they are easily pleased....

Chris has just gone to B&Q to buy some picture pins to hang up his pressie from me...which is a small French miniature of a "lady"......he liked it...and it is rather sweet, even if I do say so myself.......

Perhaps Tom....you could tell us something about it?......It's all French to me!

The Red faced Welsh farmer has just driven past the cottage.....he sounds as though he's doing a Long John Silver impersonation.......the wind is getting up and the thought of braving the elements to fight over a cheap tv at comet seems vaguely disgusting.........

So that's our Boxing day......I will leave you all with my best wishes......and a BIG up for fellow blogger ELIZABETH STANFORTH-SHARPE( see her blog entry:-

a-dip-in-the-ocean

http://www.justgiving.com/Elizabeth-Stanforth-Sharpe1

After reading about my sister's Herculaneum efforts to raise money for Motor Neurone Research and of the sad death of Andrew only a few weeks ago, Bette ( and I hope you don't mind me calling you Bette!) has got off her arse so to speak and has organised herself into a one woman, money raising swimming champion...... and all in aid of MND......

My family have been moved, so very much by her sincere and generous offer of help ( she must be mad as a box of frogs too as she is braving Scarborough's Icy waters in the height of winter) so I wanted to "big up" her plan here...so that if any of you would like to sponsor the plucky old gal......please follow the links and do so..................she and indeed  WE would be VERY grateful if you did.....

Bette Stanforth Sharpe in slightly earlier days

Christmas Eve

Finlay, our first Welsh terrier loved Christmas

Like I said Yesterday....Have a lovely Christmas x

Merry Christmas fa---la----la-la-la..lalalala

Well I have  woken up from a fireside slumber ( complete with Welsh Terrier attached to my face) and have just realised that my last post was far too depressive

So I will leave you with my much lauded festive Christmas photograph (taken last year) and some heartfelt good wishes to everyone who actually reads  this ....my "diary of a middle aged nobody" pile of shit

Let us all have a peaceful Christmas eh? 

Please take my advice!!!!!!!!!!!!
Catch up with family, with friends or just your significant other

Sit through 2 hours of Downton Abbey with a whole chocolate Orange in your mouth

and whatever you do DON'T  watch the news

xxxxxxxxxxx

pps

watch this from 23 seconds onwards..... I dare you not to give me a little Christmas smile

xxxx

Blackout

Last night we were sat in Sainsburys cafe and just about to tuck into a rather tasty fish and chip supper, when all the lights went out!
The whole retail park and adjoining streets were totally in darkness, and after a moment of uncertainty  (when I couldn't quite locate my last chip) the supermarket's  dim emergency lighting kicked in and suddenly a few hundred shoppers all acted as though they had survived a terrorist attack.....
The powercut continued, but we were allowed to shop in the gloom as the tills re booted.....and as we did our shop in the muted hysteria people indulge in  when faced with a collective "threat", I had a seriously worrying "think" about just how we, as a nation would cope without the all singing , all giving God Electricity......
Not very well...I suspect.......
People today have no reserves when it comes to disaster have they? . People just don't have proper larders anymore, they have no stockpiles of food,fuel, water and other vital items. We rely on these monolithic supermarkets for food that would empty within hours if not refilled by fuel guzzling lorries and we rely on electricity  for almost everything else......electricity  that can disappear literally at the "flick of a switch"

Yes I thought about all this as we filled our basket with tasty stuffing and Christmas baubles..........
and before we left.... I made sure several packets of store cupboard candles were placed into the trolley.

....as I wait......

I am sat at the kitchen table waiting for a delivery man to drop off some vital computer equipment for Chris....of course no time can be specified, given the Christmas deadlines....so I have to be around, and available all day....

There is an upside to all this....for as  I  wait here...I have been making lists for the "Christmas dinner" shop we are embarking on this evening......In between the planning of the sherry trifle and the reviewing of a recipe for Braised Red Cabbage ( thanks Pat), I have had time to notice

those grubby little marks around the kitchen that have always been previous neglected.....namely the dog snot on the back door ,the dribbles of kittikat down the side of the fridge and that lump of something unmentionable under the sofa.....

Not being content just to look at these little badges of pet ownership, I have got off my arse and scrubbed the offending areas clean.......so much so....that the kitchen is actually starting to look......er.....well....... habitable......

A first for me, I can tell you.

 

Most of the dogs have stalked off for a sleep, all that is except Mabel who feigning slumbers is now keeping one eye open to see what  I would start scrubbing next......she closed both eyes firmly when I found myself muttering in true Joan Crawford style 

"Its not you I'm mad at...I'm mad at the dirt"

Being a typical bulldog, she cannot cope with any bad feeling!

Anyway, it's 1.10pm and still there is no sign of Mr Delivery Man.....all visible signs of dog snot have now been removed from the kitchen and I have completed at least three " to do" lists on the back of three envelopes.........I am confident that most Christmas day boxes have now been ticked...

My two sisters and their husbands are all coming for Christmas dinner here.....Non of us really feel like celebrating but the effort has to be made to mark the day .....tomorrow I am going down to B& Q to buy some cheap as chips Christmas lights....with the aim of transforming something like this

into something like THIS

This being......Nigella's twinkling Kitchen....

Hopefully the effect with raise a few , well needed smiles!!!!!!

Hello?

Message Left on the Answerphone this afternoon

This is a transcription in it's entirety

"I have a little something ready for you!" rasped the breathless voice.......".I will be in alllllllll day!...pop round if you're free!!!!"

That was it!

A secret admirer...organising a bit of rural extramarital rumpy pumpy perhaps?

Naw....... Auntie Glad has just baked me a load of mince pies!

Sherlock Holmes- A Game Of Shadows

A tough, sexy Watson and a vulnerable Holmes

Now first let me say that I am a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes.....Basil Rathbone....Benedick Cumberbatch.....Jeremy Brett........I have enjoyed every one of the sleuth's reincarnations both on the big screen and on tv....and even though Guy Richie's first foray into the genre (The slightly zany

Sherlock Holmes 2009) was somewhat superhero-ish, I must admit, it was a most enjoyable romp of a movie.

Richie's sequel is very much more of the same.........overly stylised , and cinematically complicated...the movie uses GCI and slow motion visual tricks to highlight Holmes' lightning intellect....so much so, that the audience is whisked away from the "normality" of Baker Street and Victorian London literally within seconds of the opening credits being rolled......

This film is a totally different take on the Conan Doyle's hero...

Robert Downey Jr. makes for a charismatic and rather dangerous Holmes...He is not the asburger loner portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch (my personal favourite Holmes) nor is he a calculating Jeremy Brett, posh toff......he is, in fact, a drug addled,brittle, hyperactive child genius...who relies more on his cool as a cucumber best friend Dr Watson (Jude Law) than ever he did in the original novels

Both actors make the characters their own.... Downey is likable and just vulnerable enough to be always sympathetic....and Law oozes a smart sexiness and toughness which keeps him on level pegging status with Downey on screen.....

Their partnership works beautifully.....

Having said all this, both lead performances are almost eclipsed by Jarred Harris's menacing performance as Professor Moriarty....he makes for a cracking baddie........a necessary foil for Holme's seemingly invincible hero..

Stephen Fry does a nice comic turn as Sherlock's brother Mycroft and Noomi Replace ( the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) even turns up as a Gypsy fortune teller...... it's all very silly, it's all very showy.... and it's all great fun.....

A new Sherlock Holmes franchise continues

Stephen Fry as Mycroft