Liebster Award

Well thank you Cathy over at http://muskokariver.blogspot.com/ 

for my infamous "Leibster Blog Award"

Apparently according to the "lovable Rosie O'Donnell of Bracebridge" the Leibster blog is awarded ( and I quote)

"All this is in aid of the Liebster Blog Award, which John Wiswell honoured me with this morning. I think the rules are something like, take a photo of yourself with the sharpest object in the house and name five other bloggers who you think aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. Or maybe they ARE the sharpest knives. Sharp. Dull, wtf, I don't know. I forget and I'm way too lazy to go back to John's and find out."

And so

I have to say that strange as it would seem, I am the sharpest thing in our house!!!

I only say that because  I have just beaten Chris again in a game of Scrabble!!

Now as long term readers of this blog will suddenly realise, that this is no mean feat

basically because I am a really SHIT speller

and Chris is a PhD with little grey cells oozing out of his arse!!!!

I will give my nominations further thought!

You Can take the pensioners Out Of Liverpool but you can't Take Liverpool out of............

One of the buff orpington's has an impacted crop.

I have tried the usual instillation of oil and have tried to massage the mass away but still the obstruction remained, so I asked animal helper Pat to come around to help me try shift the blockage with some brisk physiotherapy.

She arrived dressed in her scruffs (believe me it can be a very messy job) and as I came out of the cottage to meet her around 30 professional ramblers strode into view from around the lane corner.

I am well used to ramblers.

The cottage lies on a published "walk" so come rain and come shine, long lines of walking "geeks" often march by, all dressed in their designer Berghaus clothing and sporting the obligatory  ski pole walking sticks.

Pat (right) with daughter Joanne

As it turned out this group  hailed from the city of Liverpool, and after a quick scan I had the impression that all were in their late 60s and early 70s and probably all belonged to a walking club. Before Pat and I could make a break for the field, the group crowded around and amid a flurry of questions, I was asked if I had eggs for sale.

I only had half a dozen in the kitchen, so I instructed the walkers to wait and I went into the field to collect as many as I could find.. When I returned I had around two dozen eggs in the bowl and customers for at least double that, and that was when the arguments started.

At first I just thought the bickering between the three elderly ladies was just high spirits, a bit of theatrical banter between friends, how wrong was I? In seconds the three were screaming at each other about who was next in the queue, so much so, I honestly thought that the ski sticks might have been brought into play.

"Derek! Der--ek" the most aggressive of the crumblies kept yelling to her slightly embarrassed hubby

"Derek!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! do something!!!!!!! we were first we were f i rs t!!!"

The whole situation had become rather surreal

" I don't know who was first" I said helplessly  to the sea of grey hairs, woolly hats and designer jackets

"you all look the same""

The bickering continued

I couldn't quite believe my ears, so finally I placed the eggs on the wall and said in my best patronising voice "You just have to share them between you" and I strode off to join an astonished Pat who had walked away in disgust.

"Did you hear all that?" I asked her 

"yes" she said " shaking her head, and ever the pragmatist, she added....." you should have charged them all double!"

In The Dark

I have decided that when it is dark, animals of all species enjoy order and routine more than at any other time. Well before dawn, as Chris is just thinking of getting out of bed, the house animals slumber and rest. On the kitchen sofa, Mabel will have her head jammed tightly behind her own green pillow as she snores like a train and in the living room William is stretched out on his own sofa, gently woofing in his sleep. Between us in bed, lies Meg who couldn't quite cope with not being in the direct epicentre of the house pack and at the foot of the bed is George, who is content with being just close enough to Chris--- but happy, in that inimitable Scottish Terrier, "I am ever so slightly aloof" kind of way

Only Albert and I are awake. 

He remains on sentry duty at the bedroom window, and is scanning the field and lane for interesting nocturnal activity. I know that something is around because he is still and alert and is obviously watching something moving around in the frost. I suspect it is a fox or perhaps a badger because the Guinea fowl are muttering to themselves like worried pensioners. The threat however remains at the field borders at present, I can always tell that if their grumbling is subdued.

I get up and get the sleepy dogs walked, we will all go back to bed for a short while when we return. But before we do, I take my trusty wind up torch and went to check on the coops, just in case a predator was about.

Hearing me crunch in the severe frost the geese "chunner" their own kind of warning. There is a small window in the goose house and I can just make out a couple of heads popping up to see what is going on........ the "chunners" subside as they recognise me. A similar low chatter comes from the duck house, but it is more a squabble about  best positions rather than one of anxiety and from the nearest hen house, one of the usually silent hens allows herself a brief and rather musical little "cluck" of concern  before going back to sleep.

When it is dark, hens for the most part are truly useless creatures.

It was badgers that Albert had seen from the bedroom window, In the moon light I can  just make out a large dark grey arse by the pond, shuffling homewards before first light, They won't be a threat again tonight

Even in the dark, everything has an order and a pace  of it's own.

Constants

What is that phrase about death and taxes? It's something like..what is life's constants? ..the answer being death and taxes.....well it's near enough.......

This morning I have been thinking about constants........

After what was hailed as the coldest night of the year, I walked out onto the field as I do every morning and was greeted by the guinea fowl legging it over the rock hard ground, all desperate for their breakfast of mixed corn.

The guinea fowl are just three of my constants.

Come rain, come shine, come everything, every morning Alf, Hughie and Ivy will be there chattering away like little clockwork toys as they scuttle neurotically back and forth as though they are stuck on a video player's fast forward.

And every evening, by force of habit, I will always check on their roosting positions in the Churchyard trees, counting their silhouettes...one...two....three...as they settle down against the sky . 

Apart from is twice daily contact, our paths rarely cross during the day, for these three odd little birds will be off foraging  but like anything in anyone's life that is taken for granted, if by any chance they don't turn up in the stillness of the early morning,one day, I am sure,I would be quite heartbroken.

Alf

A programme I watched on television last night gave me nightmares this morning which have probably caused these melancholy thoughts about constants and death first thing. Death Unexpected, a documentary on the BBC last night was a fascinating look at the work of London coroner Alison Thompson in a typical week that saw her and her team cope with the constant puzzle of suicide, murder and, sudden death  .

With typical British understatement , the mechanics of the coroner's job were tastefully all left "off screen" for the most part, and it was left to the articulate and rather glam Mz Thompson to explain her role to camera, which she did eloquently and with some passion.

Coroner Thompson

On reflection perhaps watching a documentary like Death Unexpected was not really a good idea,for I dreamt about death for what seemed like an absolute age overnight.

In my last dream, I found myself emptying the car of bags of layers pellets. As I looked back at the cottage I saw my brother standing on a ladder painting the gable end.

"make sure you don't fall" I called out and without saying anything he just stuck up his thumb in way of an answer

A fairly innocuous dream, you may think, but it has unsettled me somewhat...

I'm off to clean the church

200 Books

It was our Flower Show Meeting last night.

The meeting was just a short one really as  the schedule for the day and all other necessary "to dos" have already been finalised and sorted but it is always rather fun to meet up around auntie Glad's kitchen table with tea, scones and chew the fat so to speak.

This year's Flower Show will be the village's 40th. 

The proceeds of last year's show will go towards re stocking the Churchyard with native saplings (I have yet to sort this out) and last night we have agreed to help out the newly formed Village Jubilee committee this year with a donation  to support their plans for a village gala in June. 

It was lovely to be in a position to boost a new Trelawnyd venture, especially one that celebrates the ideas of people that are not the " usual suspects" in village affairs. I have promised to big up the new committee's itinerary as soon as it is made "Public"

After Auntie Glad dished out the tea and scones, Irene our Treasurer told us all about her up and coming cruise holiday then showed us the newly printed certificate for first and second place entries as well as the 600 odd raffle tickets we all need to sell before and on the day itself.

92 year old Gladys asked for her portion of tickets there and then explaining that  she wanted to get organised with her sales!"

"How many books do you want?" Sylvia the show Secretary asked

 "Oh my usual 200!" Gladys said cheerfully, scooping them all up in her arms

And you know what? she'll sell every bloody  one of them!

no not our comittee... but it could be!!!!!!!!!


For those that are interested
The 2012 Schedule for the Flower Show can be seen
here
http://trelawnydflowershow.blogspot.com/

A Baby Elephant In The Room

Love me love me

Mabel has not really ingratiated herself with Chris.

Some of this stems from the fact that he is, in fact, a terrier fan, pure and simple.

But most of the time it is Mabel's slightly neurotic and rambunctious behaviours that leaves him shaking his head with a certain amount of resignation.

Terriers are quick, light footed and needy. They demand cuddles like well intentioned babies, and have a gentleness about them which everyone seems to enjoy.

Mabel on the other hand is overactive, totally uncoordinated and incredibly clumsy....she craves physical contact but cannot quite rein in the heavy breathing hysterics that always accompanies being made a fuss of...and 25 kilos of paw waving bulldog is a lot cope with sometimes in a cottage the size of a postage stamp.

It can be a little bit like being molested by a constantly bouncing fur covered fridge freezer.

Not easy when you are not in the mood for it!

Mabel requires consistency and firm handling, to control her desperate need for affection, and she needs a calm structured approach to deal with her nervousness, which , I think it the root of her excitable behaviour........we have not quite got there as yet, but we are close, and I have to smile to myself, for as I am typing this blog entry at the kitchen table, I can see her watching my every move with her big brown sad eyes never leaving my face, just waiting for that moment she can gallop forward like a steam train for a cuddle

*********************************************************************************

Weight Watchers weigh in this morning 14 stone 13lbs

Total weight loss since 2nd Jan 1 stone 1lb

Weight loss last week 1 lb......(a surprising result given those homemade sausages!!!)

All Together Now

I have just re read my previous post

so I ask all readers to stand up! come on stand up!

and  in a theatrically girly voice everyone throw their hands out wide and   repeat after me loudly"

"out with Anger!"

Now s-l-o-w-l-y draw back your hands back to your bosoms

and say breathlessly

"In with love"

There!!! do you feel better now?

 

Thought not!

Oh don't you just love irony!

To Whom it may concern

The downside of blogging it that you always seem to be upsetting someone with something at sometime.

Now, to me, there are two things that you can do if "one is upset"......

You can have a lively and somewhat infantile debate ( like we often do c/o Tom Stephenson)

or you can just stop reading that particular blog........simples!

Last night I received a somewhat abusive post comment relating to the culling of the pigs. It was graphic, somewhat rude and threatening, and instead of embarking on any discussion with it's author I deleted the comment immediately banning any further comments from someone, who was so strangely....well....... aggressive.

Since we took the decision for the pigs to "go" I have found it interesting that I have lost five followers, perhaps it is just coincidence, after all Blogger seems to be playing up quite a bit recently, but if my deserters are a result of 85 kilos of sausage lying on our kitchen table, so be it........you can't please everyone !

The anonymity of blog land can give some bloggers a certain carte blanche to vent their spleen in ways that they couldn't possibly do (or dare to) in real life ( and before you go off on one Thomas, I am not talking about you...... I know you, in your real life can be a real stinker face to face so to speak!)..it has happened to me a few times with characters that I once thought stable (oh how wrong was I?).... That is  the problem with blogland , sometimes lunatics can slip under your well homed  nutter radar!

I remember that one affable old duffer that I follow with some loyalty- the bouncy old soul that is (Yorkshire Pudding) - well he had a awful time once, with one particularly nasty character who left a whole novel of abuse on his blog.

As a regular reader, I remember finding the whole thing unnecessary and all rather upsetting...

If you want a fun debate... great!

,If you disagree with an idea, a philosophy or an opinion....do so respectfully

and if you strongly disagree with anything you read or see...

then..........just fuck off

Life's too short!