Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life..trala,trala...trala

It was a long night
I wont go on about the Olympic Closing Ceremony. Suffice to say I did enjoy Eric Idle performing "Always look on the bright side of life" complete with roller-skating nuns, high kicking Roman centurions and large rugby type men dressed as traditional Welsh women.
The crowd loved this piece of British lunacy too and after three hours of singing and dancing around the Damian Hurst's iconic Union Jack the whole thing was finally ( and thankfully) all over!
I went to bed late and didn't sleep.
I was waiting for Alf the guinea fowl to be dispatched by a passing badger or foraging fox as I lay in bed....and true to form one predator did exactly that at 2.30am when a brief guinea fowl scream echoed around the graveyard in the quiet night
He refused to fly up into his roosting tree last night after I noticed that he had been injured in a joust with fellow male Hughie, and even though I had tried to catch him, he had just enough energy to keep out of my way.
Such is life (and death) on a  0.7 acre field in Welsh Wales

By 3am I noticed that George was restless and unwell, and I was still listening out for him at 4.30am before I eventually managed to fall asleep.This morning I am toying with idea of taking him to the vets later today. It looks like a stomach upset, but I will reassess it all later if he settles after his breakfast

When it comes to dogs and illness, I know I get far too worried far too quickly..... 
I am a product of losing 2 adored bulldogs in quick succession.
Perhaps when dogs and illnesses are concerned

I don't always "look on the bright side of life"

A Strange Little Tale

A couple of months ago I received an email from a chap called Andrew Moore.He had contacted the clerk of our community council for some advice, and the clerk, knowing of my interest in Trelawnyd History had passed my name to him.

Andrew told me that two volumes of an old personal diary had come into his possession. The diary had been originally bought in 1970 at a car boot sale in Nottingham, and told of the adventures of a mysterious chap with the initials JHD as he joined the SS Manipur at Birkenhead on a return voyage to Calcutta a hundred years ago. 

Andrew through some very detailed research which could have put the sleuthing of Miss Marple to shame, eventually found that the Captain of the SS Manipur had an executor with the initials JHD, and through more obsessive digging he eventually found out that the author of the exotic and fascinating far eastern diaries he had been reading for so long was indeed a chap called John Hilton Davies.

John Davies  and his life seems to have captured the imagination of Andrew Moore, who eventually found out that he lived in a village called Newmarket just before his death in 1956. Newmarket became Trelawnyd in 1954.and his email to me, was a sort of last ditched effort to put some flesh on the bones of this unknown Liverpudlian, who had spent his early days in the India of the Raj.

All I had to go on was a name (Davies is, as you can appreciate a bloody common name in Wales) and a house name of "John's" which I thought, seemed somewhat odd.

I immediately went to see Auntie Glad, who instantly recognised the house name...."Uncle John" used to live there, she said without hesitation, " It was a name of a cottage just underneath the Gop"

Seven of the older residents of the village also remembered John well. All referred to him as  "Uncle John" a "kindly old guy who would give you anything if you needed it" One lady recalled him lending  her a bowler hat for a play at the memorial hall when another remembered him always "with a open bottle of wine ready for visitors"....

It was lovely for me to be able to put , just a hint of flesh on the bones of this larger than life character who had become somewhat of an obsession of a guy who had found some dusty old diaries that no one had wanted.

Small world eh?

John Hilton Davies....ready to shoot elephants and Tigers!

I wonder if anyone will "find" my blog diaries as fascinating long after I am dead and gone......?

So Proud

I feel proud
I am proud of London
I am proud of Britain
and I am proud of "our" Olympics
We have produced a relaxed,well run, self effacing, and good natured games
Our team have produced a mixed, comprehensive and eclectic set of champions,
and our population has supported them and all of the other athletes  with some gusto and affection
Well done Team GB
And Well done GB

ps.....I am loving the pink!!!!!!!!!

Being Naughty

Now don't get me wrong...by tomorrow I will be missing Chris' indomitable presence in the cottage quite markedly but in the meantime I can be quite......quite...quite....naughty!

I have watched series 2  in my underpants!

 I have gone back to bed after morning jobs

 I have converted the kitchen table into the nerve centre for external Flower Show exhibits 

(Thank you blog readers, Pat, Sharon,Nana,Kath, linda  for all of your wonderful entries!)

 I have cleaned the cottage WITHOUT having to re tidy it 20 minutes later

 I have enjoyed my Olympic Porn without interruption and sighing

 I have started to bake for the show

 I have caught up with long lazy telephone calls with friends

I have eaten chocolate Ice cream the remains of which  is still in the freezer!

I have cried at sad stories
dying old dog story

Musical Coops

The downside of red mite, is that when it gets a hold inside a badly designed hen house ( and I am talking about those cheaply made ones from pet superstores here) the only thing to do is to torch the whole thing.
I have a donated hen house which 16 hens ( and one guinea fowl) absolutely adore. It looks the business but is, in fact cheaply designed and badly constructed. Yesterday I dismantled the double panelled roof and found lurking inside millions of blood sucking fat bastard parasitic red mites and so, without a moment's more procrastination, I took a hammer to the whole thing and made a bonfire.
Job done I hear you all say.....well yes AND no, for the problem that now reared it's ugly head was..... where exactly do 16 suddenly displaced birds roost for the night?
I moved several of the other hen houses slightly nearer to the site of the destroyed house in the hope that they could take a bit of the overspill, then waited for dusk to hit that "night is here" switch so that I could watch the reaction of the "homeless" and hopefully help as needed.
Collectively the hens all milled around looking somewhat bemused at first, and as the light gave that subtle change into dusk panic broke out amongst the ranks
This video captures the scene quite beautifully

The whole thing looked like a rush for the lifeboats from Titanic, with fat old buffs  kicking their way into the duck house with  that frozen "frigging Hell Frigging Hell!!!" kind of expressions on their faces.
Only the old cockerel Stanley took somewhat of a calm lead by finding a space in my largest hen house and with all the experience of his 8 years of being in charge loudly clucked at his girls to follow him home.

By dark, I had rounded up all of the stragglers and pushed each one into less over crowded hen houses alongside Felicity Shagwell and the remaining crackhead Whores........and peace reigned only around quarter to ten when the last hen clucked her last hysterical cluck before sleep
 yeap never a dull moment

ps

Congratulations to local girl  Jade Jones from Flint who won an incredible Olympic Gold medal in the Taekwondo finals.....nice one!

Happy Birthday

Mike and Boris in June

I almost forgot to blog this but I found a note to myself on the kitchen table just before I went to bed which said

"dont forget to big up  Mike's birthday!"

so to my old Sheffield Mucker

"Happy Birthday!"

The dvd of some obscure male orientated geek shit is winging itself to you very soon!

xxxx

Broadstairs New

Chris left for Broadstairs today. He is spending six days with his family, hopefully spending a relaxing time in the family beach hut which overlooks the picturesque bay of the town.
He deserves the break as he has been flexing his academic brain ( which IS the size of an average planet), far too much recently
I shall miss him, but at least the cottage will be tidy for a few days
I have made the most of the beautiful weather  by scrubbing 13 hen houses free of red mite...which is a necessary but awfully dirty job to do, especially after only having 3/4 of an hours sleep after night shift....

I have only just finished ( hence the late blog) so me and the dogs have been just that little bit naughty and have just returned from sneaking to KFC for a shared 2 pieces of chicken and a large "chips" in the car park which overlooks the small industrial estate!
( who says I'm not cosmopolitan?)
Answers on a post card........

Platitudes Can Work

When you have an intensive care patient that is sedated and ventilated to care for, the constant "BING BONG" alarm sounds of the many pumps,drips,syringe drivers, ventilator and monitor can be nerve shattering to an already anxious and highly charged set of relatives and friends,
Couple this fact with the ingrained anxiety of monitor watching ( how many tv dramas have we all sat through when the hero's cardiac tracing suddenly "flatlines" with a sickening eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee) and there is no wonder that most visitors often look like rabbits caught in a tractor's headlights.

Before I take any family members in to see their critically sick relative, I always give them the old "air hostess" pep talk. 
In very general terms I liken a trip to intensive care to flying for the first time
New flyers will jump and panic at every new noise and bump on their first flight  and will generally look to the stewardess' for reassurance and guidance.

"If the stewardess looks unconcerned and calm, there is nothing to worry about on board
If the nurse looks unconcerned when the monitor or pumps alarm, the same rules apply
Look at your nurse!"

Reducing anxiety with clear information before you face a potential trauma isn't rocket science.... in fact it was the first "research based" intervention I learnt as a a student nurse some thirty years ago....and the reason I have posted about it this morning is because of a chance meeting with a woman at the traffic lights in Prestatyn at 7am this morning!

I had just dropped Chris off at the station when I pulled up at the lights and I caught the eye of a woman in a car opposite who smiled and waved. She wound down the window  and mouthed "hello" and because I looked fairly confused at who she was, she added !" I am Harry Jenkins'* daughter" 
I still must have looked a little confused as although I vaguely recognised her I still could not place her
so she added just before she drove off with a hand point and a smile 
"AIR HOSTESS!!! BING BONG!!! BING BONG!"
Ah one of "my relatives" I realised as I drove off.

*not his real name