Going Gently

Why Do We Do It To Ourselves?

Puppy George (with Meg)

George seems a lot better this morning. He has eaten a bowl of chicken and rice, his panting has subsided (the symptom that was really bothering me) and apart from having a huge wet crap on the floor last night, he seems much better.
I know that the emotional investment I have with my animals ( especially the ones that live in the house), is vast.
and I perhaps alluded to this fact yesterday, when I hinted that my anxieties do soar somewhat when one of them becomes off colour or unwell.
Only yesterday it seemed that the dogs, all of them, were just puppies. Now, I feel somewhat melancholic when I realise that they all have a firm hold on doggy middle age.
In a year or two they will be pensioners, and I will be facing that awful time which Kipling described so well in that poem "Power of the Dog". He said "You give your heart to a dog to tear"
And it's true.

William & Meg

I still miss my lost dogs dreadfully. Finlay less so because in many ways William has sort of morphed into Finlay's place, but the likes of Constance and especially Mabel still have the ability to pull at my emotions when I remember their quirks and personalities.
When dogs are with you 24/7, they become as necessary to a person as breathing.

Some people say that they could never care for another pet again when they lose a much loved dog or cat.
I never used to fully appreciate just why they should need to protect themselves from future emotional pain and grief ,after all animals give you so much more in those oh so short years that they are with you... but now I think , I can understand just where they are coming from., especially when the pets that you keep are starting to show those little tell-tale signs of getting older.

hey
ho

The Olympic Closing Party

I have just finished a somewhat animated phone conversation with Nigel .
We picked the closing ceremony of the Olympics to pieces
and both agreed the whole thing should have been that little bit more camp with Dame Shirley shaking some of her 70 year old butt to an audience that obviously loved a bit of tongue in cheek entertainment
If Wales ever gets the Olympics.....Mr Coe please note.....my fee is a lot less than Danny Boyle's
ps. Chris Hoy ( I am reliably informed) LOVES Shirley Bassy!

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