Moving On

Last year fifteen or so of the older members of the village community kindly contributed to Going Gently's sister blog  Voices From The Past. 
My objective in writing the new blog was to document some of the more interesting stories relating to village history before the significant proportion of native Trelawnyd-ites in their late 80s and 90s started to disappear, 

I found the whole process of research a fascinating and at times a rather humbling one, and  over last summer I made some unlikely friendships with a score of octogenarians who had some lovely stories to share.


This morning, as I was delivering some eggs out of the glare of another overly hot day, I walked past the pensioner bungalows in the centre of the village.
Outside one bungalow was piled up  several sticks of furniture. A bookcase, a couple of 1940's utility chairs, a sideboard, and as I stopped to look at them, I spied a neighbour who I know well.
"she's not coming back from the care home she's not quite well enough" the neighbour called a little sadly
"It's an end of an era" she added with a wave.
And I waved back nodding.
The tenant of the bungalow was a lady who had been born in the village 87 years ago.
Her name is Olwenna 
Olwenna had never left Trelawnyd until now, having lived, worked, loved and actively been a part of village life since she was born in a tiny cottage, which was one of three tiny dwellings along London Road 
I remember her delight in telling me the story of how she sang songs in the front room of our own cottage when she was a child, taught by Brenda Smith the coal merchant's daughter.
With a cackle, she remembered playing in "my" field with her schoolgirl friend Megan Hughes and  with pride she showed me a rare piece of arcadian china that was commissioned for sale in the village shop before 1920. The tiny vase had a transfer of the Memorial Hall on the front of it.
It was gleaming and polished on top of the fireplace


87 years in one place... it's a long time.

Here is a brief video of Olwenna ( on the left) chatting to Gwyneth Jones supposedly about the belly dancer who appeared at the village friendship group meeting.. ( in fact they were chatting about someone who had suffered a fall at home)

360

It's far too nice a day to be blogging at length.

So, I have taken four photographs of our little world here in Trelawnyd, each roughly taken at 90 degrees from the other.

It perhaps gives a little flesh to the bones of where we live and how the place looks

"Bwthyn-y-Llan" perched on the corner of the lane

The honeysuckle has almost covered the front door

a further 90 degrees is the Church

Across the valley...the next 90 

And down the field

Forgive the ducks' lurid purple paddling pool

Only Angostura is in sight, the rest of the animals are hidden away out of the heat

Where there's no sense there's no feeling

Theresa and Jane

I have long thought that when an animal is injured or sick, , 
the dumber it is, the more likely a prognosis will be good.
This is especially true of animals that have experienced catastrophic injuries or infections.
Theresa is a case in point.
Weeks ago I found a festering infected injury under her wing.
This was a result of some strenuous lovemaking by Boris and Bingley, who unfortunately could not rein in their sharp dinosaur claws at the the apex of passion.
The injury looked necrotic to me and smelled dreadful.
I cleaned it with a strong antiseptic,then sprayed the whole area with purple antibacterial spray and left her in her own run with the slate female Jane for company.
Now Theresa has all the brains of an average rice pudding.
She eats, she sleeps and she walks.
That's it! 
She does very little else....oh apart from getting mildly excited once in a blue moon over a few spoonfuls of dog food and even then her excitement only manifests itself with a ever so slight quickening of her usual plodding amble.
If she were human.... she would be  Miss Scofield in Alan Bennett's play A Woman Of No Importance


Yet, I do have a soft spot for the old girl. She was a charity case several years ago and arrived in the field sat vacantly in the boot of a farmer's car, she was thick as mince then and is thick as mince now.... but there is always something quite sweet about an animal who merely "plods along " in life.........and  so yesterday I decided to check on the state of the wound and if it was no better, I would arrange, with my brother in law, to have her culled.
She sat blinking stupidly in my arms when I cornered her and with a heavy heart I raised her wing to have a look at the infected wound.
But there was nothing there....absolutely NOTHING.A few purple feathers and some pink skin that was all.....the wound had vanished.
Not a huge deal in the great scheme of things I know..... but it's nice to have a little victory just once in a while.............

Postscript

The weather has been so kind today, so we got the "queeny"tea cups out and had a rather spiffing lunch in full view of our amused neighbours!

working tonight!

Keep with it

Adduct or Abduct?

As a nurse I should remember the difference between adduction and abduction
One is the ability to bring a part of your anatomy towards your body's midline, the other is the ability to move it away.....whatever the word, this morning I am having a little trouble "spreading my legs" so to speak.


This inability dovetails quite neatly next to yesterday's blog about feeling "old" and somewhat worn out....sometimes a person just forgets that they are indeed a creaking gate rather than a buxom young thing!


Yesterday afternoon I was standing in the lane talking to Della from Pen-y-cefn Isa farm. The weather was glorious , so it was one of those days that villagers stopped to chat over the garden wall and through the field gate.
As we chatted I heard a call for help and up the lane I sped a neighbour calling frantically from his back garden. I knew his wife had been ill recently and thinking I was every inch the Intensive care nurse, I sprinted up the lane and launched myself up and over the chest high wall which led up a steep bank up behind their house, leaving Della and Chris who had just arrived home from work, standing there somewhat open mouthed


Now I am not known for my physical prowess!
I was always picked second from last for games at school......
Indeed in 1990, when I took part in a charity assault course with a team of nurses, the whole team ( which included a lady of pensionable age) all had to stop to "help " me over the 6 foot wall!
But that's another story
Anyhow, like I said, I am not the body beautiful, but the combination of adrenaline, a strong coffee and foolhardiness gave me a "spurt on" so to speak and I cleared the wall like an Olympic athlete, and rolled somewhat theatrically in the dust in a "Starsky and Hutch" way before bouncing into the garden.


My neighbour's wife had, as it had turned out, taken a bit of a minor tumble and was absolutely fine once I had got her into the house, more than could be said for my 50 year old groins who couldn't quite believe that they had been stretched way beyond their usual limitations so to speak.


This morning I am walking a little like a constipated and delicate old mincing queen...


Has anyone got a remedy for an over stretched gusset?
answers on a postcard please........

Just To Get On Tom's Tits

* I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.

I will be turning 50 in one weeks time.
and I have said this all before
Suddenly I feel middle aged 
I felt even older this morning when I was handing my patient over to a new staff nurse on the unit.
Over half my age and with a shit load more chutzpah than I ever possessed at that age, the staff nurse with his over confident air, even tan and perfect teeth, was just that little too bouncy and youthful at 8.00am for my liking.
Even at 23, I was never like him.
I was the shy guy with no dress sense and a bad haircut.
I was the one with bits of my dinner splashed over the front of my jumper!


This morning,as I was giving report, I could see him excitedly planning his work for the day, and with plenty of exuberance, he launched himself into his clinical work like a Labrador puppy mouthing a bone.
With my sagging jowls feeling even more "saggy", and my eyes looking like piss holes in the snow I left him to it and walked to a colleague in her side room on the way out . 
Gently I leaned my weary head on her shoulder and said tiredly "I wish I have perfect teeth and energy to die for!"
My co worker who is  a motherly welsh woman, knocked heads with me,
almost bumping my £5.99 reading glasses off my head


"..at least you can make me laugh" she said.......


" I bet Woody Allen is always being told the same thing" I replied

* The title is one of Woody's more thoughtful quotes

Bitter & Twisted

Monday it was all about a spunky Irish Staff Nurse,
Yesterday it was a piece about modern art
Today, we are back to normal,
It's a blog about a bitter and twisted white guinea fowl called Angostura

Angostura merrily ripping the arse feathers from a clueless Boris

In this world  mean animals are just as common as mean people.

Often there is no reason for it, as it is fairly rare that an animal has experienced an abusive and dysfunctional upbringing that could be blamed for ingrained antisocial behaviour.

Some animals are just bad tempered bastards, plain and simple!

I have once such animal, and her name is Angostura.

Angostura is a white female guinea fowl.

She is around two years old, and was brought to me by a poultry keeper from Prestatyn who asked if I could take her because she was just  too noisy to keep in a built up residential area.

The real reason for him re homing her , I suspect was a somewhat different story

Anyway, for those that don't know, guinea fowl can be incredibly noisy.

Males and females have distinctly different calls, but both can fire off warning calls with the intensity of an average machine gun when the mood takes them. In a town, this ability is an obvious no-no. In the country, however, these calls can be a vital alarm, warning me and everyone else within the village envelope that a fox is lurking somewhere out in the long grass.

My resident guinea fowl, Hughie, little Ivy and Alf are cracking watchdogs.

They will chatter angrily amongst themselves if they see so much as a cat that they don't recognise, and will scream a warning to anyone that is happy to listen if the animal farts in the wrong direction.....Angostura,however, is a somewhat different kettle of fish.

Most of her day is spent plotting murder and mayhem rather than watching and warning the field population. She is a bitch and is not a happy bunny.

The recipients of her bad temper, are the slower, weaker and more gentle of the field birds and in this respect, Angostura is no different than the average school yard bully.

50 times a day, and with her little black flinty eyes burning with uncontrolled anger, she will suddenly zoom in on a victim,  gallop up to it,  and then will grab a gobful of feathers before ripping them out with a somewhat theatrical flourish.before running away.

It's not a nice personality trait.

This morning I had had just about enough of her, for not only had she happily removed most of Boris' bum feathers as soon as his back was turned she had started to notice Sorrel's tiny single baby who had been hidden away in the allotment nursery cage with a worrying intensity..so it was effectively one spat too far when I spied her tugging at the tail feathers of a passing Indian Runner Duck at feeding time

Picking up a couple of tin feeding bowls and hissing a somewhat undignified "YOU ROTTEN LITTLE MISERABLE BASTARD!",I proceeded to chase the tiny nine inch bird around the field flinging the bowls at Angostura as I did so.

The chase carried on until I lost all my puff, and as I stood in the centre of the field all red faced and breathless, Angostura  retreated quite unscathed to the top of the Churchyard wall, where she watched me silently with her black, hard little eyes.

My neighbour Mandy who was pottering about her front lawn when all this was going on,

didn't batter an eyelid

She's well used to me after 6 years of such behaviour

Angostura 1

John 0