Grey Hairs

In Trelawnyd I think both figures should be standing a little more upright

Before I lived in Wales, I think I viewed the "older person" with a certain disdain.
I know this sounds a little harsh, but I think it was a product of not really knowing many OAPs in my day to day Yorkshire life, save for the occasional exasperated wait behind a knackered old grey hair in the queue at the supermarket!
This morning I have moved 6 massive bags of sawdust from one part of the field to another, and nearly put my back out doing it. The RFWF* who delivered them to me is way past 70, and without any fuss or fanfare he was able to lob all six from a trailer and over a five bar gate as easily  as I could lift a bag of shopping out of the berlingto.

Stan and wife Kit ( she of the famous homemade slippers!)

Every morning when out for a two and a half mile power walk with the dogs, I meet up with Stan (above) who come rain or come shine will be completing the same route. He's in his mid eighties.
Auntie Glad, at 92 ,will be off for her weekly shop in Rhyl on the bus today, and has more energy than the slumped teenage girl in the bus queue next to her would ever possess ...and Pat, my animal helper wouldn't hesitate to wrestle my next heavy piglet to the ground in order to administer some medication....


No, living in a village with a predominantly ageing population, has given me a healthy regard for the capabilities of people who previously I would have dismissed as being frail and invisible.


Interestingly I note that the Russian entry in this year's Eurovision Song Contest comprises of six old babushkas!

and even the UK has dug out veteran crooner Engelbert Humperdinck to front our entry!

You're never too old.........
I will leave you with this thought

*Red Faced Welsh Farmer

Local News

A brief egg delivery later, a chance couple of meetings and today's previous "rant" about rudeness is blown out of the window to make room for a couple of requests for local publicity!!!

So apologies to the non Trelawnyd readers for the big up of the following forthcoming events

 The Nasareth Chapel is the red brick chapel on London Road, and as I recall I had a very nice frugal lunch there last year (should be frugal lunch be nice I wonder?)

The second Big up is for affable local despot Jason Randa from Ty Wynne (yes he who has a monster wasps nest in his attic) well in support of the Cancer Unit at Glan Clwyd Hospital, Jason and some chums will be embarking on the 3 peaks challenge on July 7th (The Three peaks being Ben Nevis, Scarfel Pike and our own Mount Snowdon)

It will be a challenge certainly as I have only seen him walk to the Spar shop and back in way of training.......

Details can be seen at

http://www.justgiving.com/Jason-Randa0

Please give it a look

And finally although the Parish Church has not asked me, and flush with local community good will, I thought I would big up their next bingo session over at the memorial Hall.....

it's all go here!

Rudeness, unhappiness or Cruelty?

Thursday's are recycle day here in Trelawnyd.

We have a whole plethora of overlarge sacks in which we have to divide our tins, plastics and what-not, and have been given strict instructions to have the whole shebang out on the road by 7 am for collection.

If we forget to separate our colours from the whites so to speak, the wrath of Flintshire County Council will be upon us... but that's another story.

No, I was thinking of our principle refuse collector this morning. He is a fairly morose man who can come across as rather rude. A couple of years ago, by way of a small bribe, I offered him a few eggs as he loaded up an extra large load from us and after looking at me briefly he just shook his head saying a somewhat brusque "no".

Now was he being rude... well yes I think he was.......Did he mean to be rude? ...well perhaps not...but immediately I had ticked the box that had him forever down as a rude old git who refused my kind offer of  box of eggs.

We are all too quick to take umbrage when we feel slighted or insulted and bloody hell I am the worst culprit of this affliction, as I can take a slight rebuff or rude comment very much to heart,  but I must admit, the older I get the more pragmatic I try to be when dealing with it all.

Instead of festering, I tend to now challenge "rude" behaviour at source. The biochemist at work with the unfortunate telephone manner was challenged with an assertive "Have I done something to upset you?" and a family acquaintance who became rather po faced at the pub was faced with a jolly but pointed "THAT sounded rather rude!"

Both reacted in a rather surprised manner, as they had no real awareness that they were being perceived as being rude.....one was having a shit morning.. the other was just a bit of an eccentric....conflict diffused!

I worked with a psychologist who was very good at doing this...... "Reflect the anger right back at them " she used to say "do NOT take it away with you!"

However, some mischievous people simply like being rude. To them, the throwing in a of a "grenade" so to speak , is sport to enjoy.Thankfully there are not many of these around, the criminal, legal and psychiatric system has hoovered many of them up and in my experience these people tend to be overly bright, overly bored and at times overly unhappy

My mother could be incredibly rude.  and her rudeness was wrapped up with depression, too much gin and a great unhappiness and bitterness about her life. This is the most terrible of all rude behaviours to deal with, I think, as the very thing that she needed ie. the warmth of relationships was the very thing her off hand nature disallowed her from experiencing....

anyhow I digress

The refuse lorry has just been past the cottage..... I went out to the back wall and gave the stony faced collector a cheerful wave.

Surprisingly........ I got one back!

Anyhow I will leave you on a positive note, here is "Kentucky" the hen that was dropped off in the bucket a few days ago. She is bright, bouncy and incredibly tame, and has joined the older hens in their coop without a problem........

             

Three Baths

scummy water in my THIRD bath of the day

Today, I started to clear the old pig enclosure of a year's pig rooting debris.

If I could have chosen a different location for it, I think I would have done as in its present location at the bottom of the field the pen has a tendency to become boggy, especially after several hundred weight of pork had been rooting about in it.

One part of the pen remains dreadfully dirty, and after the recent downpours I could still make out pools of pig urine soaking the surface of the mud....not a nice area in which to work!

I was down there not five minutes when it started to lash down with rain, and remembering that I had left the tops off the feed bins I tried an "overly fast tip toe" kind of jog over the mud and back to the field, like the old stupid fart that I am!

BIG MISTAKE

My left  short welly disappeared into the mud almost up to the knee and the momentum of my body tore my foot out of it again and I kind of toppled arm, shoulder and head first into the biggest pool of piss and shit this side of Dyserth!

The smell was dreadful! and all I could think of, as I dragged myself to the surface was the fact that my digital camera was tucked away in my pocket. My foot then came out of my other wellie shoe as I tried to get to my feet and I had lost my woolly hat somewhere....and with shit all up my nose and in my ear I struggled out of the pen.

I am such a clumsy tit, I am always falling over, but this was my biggest and best pratfall to date! 

With only one rubber shoe on, I staggered back to the cottage, praying that no one would see me and in front of an astonished group of dogs I stripped off completely in the kitchen and retrieved the shit stained digital camera from out of my pocket

The dirt AFTER my SECOND BATH!-The Camera took an AGE to clean off

I cleaned and dried the camera (and tested it when I was having my second bath!!!! amazingly it is still working) and have just finished the last of three baths in order to get rid of the stench.

My jogging bottoms have been thrown in a bin bag with my socks and underwear and I still haven't bothered trying to locate my lost shoe.... I am presently wrapped up in my dressing gown, towels and a blanket on the couch

At times like these....I fantasise about living in the clean and tidy city

The Decendants

Clooney and the luminous Shailene Woodley

I wanted a few hours away from the village today.
And a couple of hours of passable coffee, the paper and a good film seemed like a good idea
The Descendants and a trip to the scala cafe was that good idea.

In it George Clooney gives a winning performance as a middle aged man who is caught up with a whole series of emotional and family traumas which coincide with the fatal injuring of his wife in a boating accident.

Clooney plays Hawaii landowner and workaholic lawyer Matt King, a man that has become distanced from his fun loving wife Elizabeth, foul mouthed teenage daughter Alex (Shailene Woodley) and precocious ten year old daughter Scottie (Amara Miller).

As the family gather , they need to deal with Elizabeth's coma and imminent death and Matt has to forge a new relationship with his family, his daughters dim but well intentioned boyfriend, Sid, (Nick Krause) and his wife's secret life, which has just come to light.

The Descendants is not as complicated a film as it could be. It has a lightness about it ( well between some wonderfully emotional but unsentimental scenes of the reactions of grief) and this lightness is thanks primarily to Clooney and to Woodley, who is simply brilliant in the role of Alex, a girl who grows in maturity as she gets to understand and support her father,
Their scenes together shine magnificently!

Mind you, not everything in Alexander Payne's movie is as impressive as the acting. Some of the second half of the story ( where Matt confronts his wife's lover at a beautiful Hawaiian resort) does drag just a little bit. It is though the pace of the first half suddenly peters away for some obscure reason.

However this is a very small criticism of an enjoyable adult film in which Clooney is a true and likeable delight

8/10

Delete

A friend has just text-ed me (hello Jane!)
I replied but saw my Brother's telephone number in the contacts of my phone
as I did so
It  was so hard "deleting" his number

A Story Without Words

Who Needs Spielberg when 12 photos can tell a story......

A Bargain Bucket Chicken ( & Postscript)

 Monday's are a bit of catch up days, as on weekends I don't do a great deal on the field

(Chris time!) After collecting animal feed from the farm shop and delivering eggs, I was walking back towards the cottage when I noticed a brand new orange bucket covered by a small square of old carpet sitting  by the front door.

Immediately I thought that the doctor's wife Pippa had been leaving some garden greens for the birds ( a thing she does regularly) but then noticing again the piece of carpet, I thought to myself

here was another small waif or stray to be looked after

I was right.

For sitting quite calmly in the bucket was a mature looking but bright eyed white hen.

There was no note.... no message.... just a knackered old chicken in a bucket

I have named her Kentucky

POSTSCRIPT

Just found a short note pushed through the door (that's why I didn't find one with the orange bucket!)

Apparently said chicken was "found" far down the lane and was brought "back home " by a F Kenwood....It won't surprise anyone that it was not my hen!!

ps

Weight watchers weigh in 14 stone 9 lbs

Weight Gain!!!!! 1lb

shit!