Hello Wall

The last line of act one of the play Shirley Valentine always resonates with me more than any other.
Sat with her suitcase in her kitchen, our heroine anxiously waits for the taxi to take her to the airport.
Breathlessly  she says something like

"what time is my flight?....

........around half past five?"

"and what time is it now?"

she looks at her watch all stressed and sweaty

"......a quarter past eleven"

Curtains fall to great applause.

I have similar sensibilities. I cannot be late for anything.
It's a control thing.
But I am not as bad as Shirley Valentine.......well....... just yet!

It's 8.30am

The Cottage is all spick and span

The animals are all fed and watered

My clothes for the day are all ironed

and my bag is all packed

My train goes to Sheffield at noon!

Hey Ho

x

Nicely put

I have no news today, hence the rather sweet Australian tv advert


I have, however, planted out dianthus ,iris, buddleia, foxglove,sweet peas in the garden and then onions in the allotment
....sold some eggs to some elderly ramblers,
....got buttonholed by the RFWF for an hour,
....cleaned out the duck house,
....disinfected the fridge,
...."swapped" spare onion sets for a promise of a load of cabbage seedlings
....spent two hours searching in vain for Chris' lost car keys,


and, in the quiet of a very early start,
I noticed that the empty place on Mabel's old sofa was even more noticeable than it had been before.......

Treasure Hunt

It won't surprise you that Chris is not really a pub person.
His sensibilities don't run to Fosters lager and pork scratchings
(he's more a veal pie and small port kind of person!)
But this afternoon he and I drank pints of ale and ate crisps with the rest of the villagers at The Crown who supported the Carnival committee's local Treasure Hunt fund raiser
It was fun
We didn't win.. of course we didn't , but as the local country "Waen" show kicked out at the same time as the Treasure hunt finished, the pub was packed with country types and farmers, and as the beer flowed , we won a bloody awful candle set in the raffle and sat with the "King of Trelawnyd" Tommy -the-gop, who filled me with old stories of Trelawnyd past!
It has been a nice change.

Going Back to my Second home

I can't really get going blog wise today

I have not caught up with blog reading

nor have I felt like commenting

But generally I feel alight, just a little weary.

We have been clearing the back garden for a couple of days

It's looking rather sweet

The cottage Garden

I go to Sheffield for a visit on Wednesday

It will offer me some timely therapy 

It's been almost a year since I last caught up with old friends

so it's time I visit
I need to chat, to laugh and perhaps to have a bit of a cry
Megan was correct when she noted that I have experienced a lot of loss recently
my heart, indeed feels just a little ragged
she's right in what she said

I will be touching base not only with the usual suspects-( the waspish Blog commentator Bel Ami (John H) Syfy geek (Mike) and Earth Mother (Jane) but will also have time to catch up with another three old friends, Kathryn, Vince and Bev , people I usually don't have time to touch base with on my usual flying visit to the Steel City.

Old Friends ground a person.

They will do me good.

I can feel a group hug coming on
hey ho

My Immortal

What We DO have!

Welsh Terriers William and Meg "smiling" for the camera

Concentrate your life to one thing and you are in danger of neglecting all of those other things waiting in the wings.

Today has been a day to catch up with gardening

and today has been time to appreciate what we do have rather than what we have lost

Here is a brief snap shot of some of the good things

Winnie and Jo (centre and right) Russell (left) and you can just see Camilla  behind

Albert looking startled ( out rabbit hunting)

I have agreed to take another duck after the weekend
A robust Muscovy drake

Sorrel and baby are doing just fine.....well the fat bastard  hasn't stood on him yet!!!

George looking older than his years, hidden away on Mabel's sofa

Buster- the abandoned bantam (right) giving it large with the geese

Ta Muchly

Thank you all for your best wishes, here on the blog and in person

It's lovely to think that a flatulent, toothless, frequently lascivious and always affectionate old bulldog with pendulous breasts and a mouth the size of a gin trap could illicit so much good will from so many people from the four corners of this very small world
I miss her dreadfully

Normal service will resume as soon as possible
I don't feel too robust today

The Last Mabel Post

The Bluebells at Bodnant

Today has been Chris' birthday
We planned to go out for lunch and hoped to follow that with a visit to Bodnant Gardens to see the spring azaleas .
Not much to ask for your 43rd birthday
Simple pleasures.
Well, we did go out for lunch and the bluebells were out on the lovely Chapel walk at the gardens, and I played a game that I was enjoying the day and Chris kindly played the game that he didn't notice that really I wasn't.
It was good that we went out, the weather has been nice today


Mabel's condition deteriorated overnight. Her paws became oedematous and even though her breathing improved somewhat, it was obvious that she was suffering from a certain degree of heart failure.
The kind 14 year old vet scanned her again this morning and isolated masses on her liver and spleen, which indicated  to him (with all of her other symptoms) that she was indeed suffering from a probable and widespread lymphoma. A lymphoma which had certainly affected her spinal cord
The prognosis, given her physical condition was poor.


Like I said he was very sweet.
He came out with all those tried and tested kind words that I use at work every week,
and he didn't look too embarrassed when my face crumpled like newspaper as I said my goodbyes.
She died peacefully with her big fat stupid head in my hands...
and before I left, I kissed her gently on the nose as I have done most days since she arrived in Wales


Minutes later, I was driving an empty car home as if nothing had happened.
But of course , it had


I have posted before about a psychologist that I worked with, who always used to say 
"you feel what you feel", when faced with someone that questioned the validity of an emotion that they were experiencing 
Well I feel guilty and slightly ashamed
That's how I feel today.