I don't like tea, I like .........
David Cameron has just banged on about the cost to the nhs of alcohol abuse.....
"Lesbians in Dyserth"
I was up early this morning taking Chris for the 7am train to Bangor. As I drove back home,somewhat blurry eyed, I recognised a man I know exiting the paper shop and he waved as I went past
I won't say more about just how I know this guy as it would, I am sure give his identity away to village readers, suffice to say he is a man in his seventies.
Anyhow I remember this morning a conversation I had with him a few years ago now which was excruciatingly embarrassing for him and exquisitely funny for me... it went roughly as follows
"Does your wife work at the hospital too?"
"I live with Chris , he works at Bangor University"
"oh"
"He's a research fellow"
"oh,....... that's good, "
Slight awkward silence
"We used to have a gay lesbian couple living next to us, they were nice big Jolly girls"
"Really?"
"Yes both worked for Flintshire County Council as I recall
"..........had a lot of rabbits...."
No News Day
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| Last year I split some snowdrops from the garden and planted them in the old Churchyard |
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| It was lovely to see them making the effort to appear |
No amusing story today, I am afraid, as it has been a day for outside jobs. Paths have been cleaned, the accumulated detritus against the cottage wall has been removed and the front garden stripped of dead wood and the debris of winter.
I have even made that extra effort and have made a start of the largest of the allotment beds.
The only thing of note to report is that George has now taught Mabel how to steal and eat chicken coop eggs......Between them they have polished off five from the Tribe of the North's houseThey'll both have the shits later!
Valentines
Forgive me if I have blogged about this before.. but seeing that tomorrow is Valentine's Day.. I thought it was perhaps appropriate to repeat it!
My very first date with Chris was in the Sheffield City Centre wine bar ALL BAR ONE.
I was trying to impress ( so actually looked clean and tidy for a change) and because he didn't at that time live in the city.. the night was my treat!
We drank a bottle of wine
We chatted and laughed
We ate and drank some more
and we flirted outrageously
OKOK we got all a bit silly and just a little drunk... but it was fun!
When It was time to go, the waiter ( who I knew) glided up to our table so I could pay the fairly substantial bill and trying to look cool, urbane, in charge and witty I took my debit card out of my pocket and slid it coolly across the table at him
He took it, smiled gently then slid it back to me
I missed the real point of his actions and slid it right back at him
He repeated his actions and slid the card back at me
I turned my head with a quizzical expression
as he said quietly right into my ear
"We don't take Sainsbury's saver cards in here sir"
I could have died
Chris had to pay for everything!
A couple of months later he moved in!
hey ho* for those that don't know Sainsburys is a supermarket
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!
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| 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
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| Sit down for what you believe in |
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
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| 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.
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| 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!!!
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