Single and The City

Now I have not always been the welly wearing, animal smelling, country oik house-husband you know and (love). Years ago when I was single, I was a bona fida, card carrying member of the "keep yourself busy"  clean cut Man-about-the-city club, when I would spend my few days off from work exploring the museums and urban places of interest in the city with a spring in my step and a song in my heart!

The magnificent art deco Sheffield library and arts gallery, The Millennium Galleries (above), Weston Park Museum, The Showrooms cinema and media centre and the Winter Gardens all proved to be  valuable panaceas against a certain amount of loneliness that is inevitable when you are in your 30s and you are single in a couple dominated world.

I was always off doing something.......

Think of a fat, bearded Carrie Bradshaw without the bling!

The Winter Gardens ( pic by Diane)

So it was with great sadness that I read my Sheffield friend

Diane's account of the dire problems faced by the millennium Galleries in this awful climate of public sector austerity cuts.

Apparently the museum has lost all of it's funding from the Regional Arts Council this year and is facing dire financial problems as it struggles to maintain a World Class, modern Day service to the South Yorkshire Population...... 

This sickens me.

Museums like the "Galleries", I always think, bring a certain sparkle to the ordinariness of life.  Not only do they teach, inform, stimulate, celebrate and flagwave; they offer a free centre for escapism, for socialising and for comfort.........and when I look back on those few days off I had when I was a single career nurse, I always remember these places of sanctuary with a great deal of nostalgia and affection.

On Saturday when Chris and I ambled around the art gallery at that single beacon of "culture" which is North Wales' Theatre Clwyd, I did spare a few regrets at not having all of those Sheffield cultural places of interest "on tap" as there were when we lived in Hillsborough.

And I say to Sheffield residents.... you need to realise that these museums must not be just taken for granted.... in these days of cut... cut.... cut.... they need to be fought for and they need to be cherished.

Well done to Diane... and to all of those people that made the effort to support the Galleries by taking part in the big sit down picnic at the venue yesterday. Their  visual demonstration of dissatisfaction and support was fantastic and...... believe me...... I would have happily taken my flask and my butties down to Arundle Gate, and I would have joined in without a single hesitation

Sit down for what you believe in

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Weight Watchers Weigh-in today 14 stone 11 lbs

Weight Lost since 2nd Jan 1 stone 3lbs

Weight Loss last week 2lbs

The Best TV in the World?

We have the cheapo package from sky tv

500 channels\ 24 hours a day

Plenty to choose from

and you know what?

 I only found  one good programme over the entire week

Borgen.. the Danish version of The West Wing

The worst programme?

The vomit inducing Call The Midwives

is pretty high on the list

 

 But the winner must be the BBC  weekly  journey into rural life for the Middle Classes ONLY

The bloody patronising

" Countryfile"

Thank Goodness The Walking Dead resumes next week

I THINK I WILL GO AND READ A BOOK!

Sans Everything

Hedydd Dylan as Rosalind and Alex Felton as Orlando

Last Night we went to Theatre Clwyd to see perhaps the easiest of all Shakespeare's romps to understand...Terry Hand's production of  As You Like It.

Now Shakespeare isn't quite my cup of tea, but apart from some painful overacting from the obese actor playing Touchstone, I absolutely loved this version of the play.

My enjoyment was primarily down to the  Welsh actress, Hedydd Dylan who played Rosalind , for it was her faultless delivery and timing that most impressed me and the audience. Indeed,in the second act, when she turned on the selfish shepherdess Phoebe with the line "Sell while you can... you are not for all markets" the place was in uproar.

I was equally impressed with Philip Bretherton who played the melencholey Jaques,,,for me  it is his character that has the lion's share of the most moving lines "sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste sans everything!"

A cracking description of the seventh age of man.

It was nice to do something "adult" for a change

Phillip Bretherton (far left) with the cast

A Moan From Myfanwy

myfanwy said...

"Shameful stereotyping on your part. The fact that the pensioners were from Liverpool is irrelevant."

She was in fact unhappy at my stereotyping of the scouse grey hairs in my previous "old people fighting over the eggs blog entry" (http://disasterfilm.blogspot.com/2012/02/you-can-take-pensioners-out-of.html)

And of course she is right.... it was wrong of me to stereotype Liverpudlians as battling old gits with no manners and I am sorry if she took umbrage .....

As it happens my   mother was born and bred in Liverpool( Everton)..... having said that.. I must admit my mother was a bit of a battling old git......who in her latter years would have quite happily bitch slapped any woman who pushed ahead of her in a queue!!!

Have a nice day!

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