For Chris

With Chris away, the normal cottage routine has changed albeit  subtly.

Meg, the most nervous of the animals has felt this change and has been more clingy than she normally is, and has followed my every move like the proverbial shadow.

This morning I took her outside with me for breakfast and we shared a bagel and watched the field together.

It was not raining, which made a nice change.

I am typing this as we sit there together to remind Chris of home.... I think he is feeling the distance between Australia and Trelawnyd....despite his job, he never really likes being away from home

Since George had a bout of salmonella, I have kept all of the dogs well away from the field, so it was the first time the ewes have had the opportunity to meet any of the house dogs.

Both walked up to their usual 5 feet away and gave Meg the once over, stamping their hooves sharply in the grass as they did so.

I have noticed this behaviour when Albert stalks the field, and hope that if a fox does indeed turns up during the day, the sheep will face it off in a similar fashion.

We sat there and watched the geese who with the turkey stag Bingley had gone over to the gate to challenge Pippa and her dogs as they passed by. The geese bowed their heads noisily and Bingley rattled his feathers. They never tire of doing this, and must repeat the behaviour a thousand times a day.

The "Black Eyed Peas" slink away from the main flock and disappear into the long grass. I have noticed that all new hens do this when they first arrive. They spend time of the peripheries of field, out of harm's way, like bullied schoolboys hiding in the playground. In a week or so's time they will pluck up enough confidence to join in the feeding time scrums, and will fight for the titbits with the rest of them.

The blind Cogburn crows lustily from his sunny spot in his enclosure and the field cockerels answer him as the Aylesbury ducks bicker together nearby. One of the Aylesbury ducks is indeed a large drake, and is a huge bugger. I am contemplating having him for Christmas dinner, which may please Chris.

He loves eating duck.

We Will see.

I need to utilise the dryness of the morning really.

Eight coops need cleaning and I am overdue with collecting the last of the raspberries

But as Meg seems to be enjoying herself

I think we shall sit here a little longer and watch the world go by

The Case For The Prosecution Rests........

Now I have posted this comment, that featured in the next post, in way of supporting the somewhat self depreciating reality of my own personalised style

just in case you, dear reader, ever think that I exaggerate my stories...read on

Jason, I thank you

jason10:31 AM

"little tale about John for you....about two weeks ago, we had about 4 days of incessant rain and he was out and about dressed as an Alaskan Crab fisherman in the Berings straits.......he was waterproofed from head to er...well ankle.....because despite all his weather gear and obvious deep rooted awareness not to get his clothes wet in any way shape or form, he had ventured out in the same damn crocs !! he had socks on underneath as well !! what did ZZTOP say ? "Every girls crazy about a sharped dressed man..."....thats not John....he looks like a bag lady always carrying a small bag of dog poo !! - he is has become the Trelawnyd equivalent of the weird cat lady or that lady who sits on a bench in town feeding the disgusting street pigeons and letting them sit on her shoulders ! .....he will go down in history as one of the oddballs of Trelawnyd !!people will be blogging about him in about 50 years.....thats what makes him interesting !!"

What a Catch!

It's bloody well only 5 am -ish and I have just taken Chris up to the A55 to catch his lift to the airport,

I have waked the dogs, and am now wide awake at least two hours before dawn.

It is cold and very wet and I am lauging at myself.

The reason for such humour is testosterone,

For I have just suffered from a small bout of  male "my dick is bigger than your dick!"

We parked at the service station waiting for Chris' colleague to turn up in her husband's four wheel drive.

They are lovely people,I know them both well, but both are really the mirror opposite of Chris and I , as they are complete healthy outdoor bods!

My buried male competition hormones started to surface when his huge, gleaming monster of the truck glided next to the crumpled side of the old berlingo ( right next to the passenger window that has been stuck in the slightly "down" position for 2 years!)

Hubby who is older than me and looks 30, bounded out of the vehicle in his lovely designer climbing gear and trendy boots. He has a  32 waist, teeth that Donny Osmond would kill for and two dogs in the truck that follow every command as if they had been trained by the police force.
In short he looks like a young Charlton Heston without the guns

I clambered out of the Berlingo (farting quietly as I did so)

I am 50 and look 60.

There is coffee splashed on the front of my hoodie and my woolly hat is inside out.

One trouser leg is somehow tucked into my socks .

I am wearing crocs.

and six months of dog snot is smeared all over the car windows behind me.

I look like Harvey Fierstein when he was in Independence Day

As he effortlessly lifted Chris' bags into the back of the monster van, he looked chipper and healthy and all "man"

I stood in a puddle looking all knackered, untidy and wrecked.

And as usual I resorted to humour when faced with unbeatable competition

"I am not being nice to you all" I said with a little wave and a sigh "I don't do mornings!"

and I let Chris get off  to sunny Australia with a kiss

The Black Eyed Pea "Screamers"

The Black Eyed Pea "screamers"

 Ok we shift a gear from Scotch Eggs to unnaturally loud poultry

I have been out in my wellies and raincoat four times now in an effort to pay one of the local farm boys who has trimmed the over grown hawthorn hedge which surrounds the field.

On the second fruitless trip I heard an amazing din coming from the field and galloped around to find out just what was going on.

The din could only really be described as animals in distress, and birds really only  scream like this when they are being attacked by a predator, so I gabbed a nearby hoe and galloped into the field to search for the fox.

The screaming came from the bottom of the field, and when I finally reached the spot, all I could locate was the three black eyed peas, which were all sat quietly in a row facing off badger the young cockerel, who was watching them with some interest.

I crouched down in the wet grass to watch was going on and I was joined by the ever curious Irene who stamped her feet in frustration at not getting a tit bit of corn out of me. We only had to wait a few seconds, for as Badger approached the three hens again, all three opened their beaks and screamed at him like three miniature Opera singers .

I have never quite seen the like of it before.

Can any other poultry keeper help me out here? 

Hens always squawk a little when cockerels try it on, but I have never seen hens scream in the face of a "threat" before and do so in unison.....they actually sounded like three rooks with Louis Armstrong tendencies

Ok, it's perhaps not as interesting as I previous hinted it was.... but I guess it interested me

Irene getting tamer!

Emergency Scotch Eggs

Last night I received some upsetting news.

It was one of those phone conversations that you never really want to have and at times it left me feeling a little helpless and incredibly sad.

It is not for me to elaborate anymore about this, 

it is how I dealt with it all that I found interesting

I don't know about anyone one else but in difficult times I do reach for the carbohydrates.

We all have a glass of wine too many when life throws a curved ball,

but sometimes there is more comfort in a tasty morsel than anything a crisp pinot can provide.

Last night I trundled up to the spar garage feeling incredibly fed up

and in true Golden Girls/emergency cheesecake fashion

I brought back 2 large Scotch Eggs, which I ate with some relish in front of the fire, watched by three trembling terriers  all hopeful for a few crumbs of their own.

I didn't share them.

I didn't want to.

Food does provide comfort, does it not?

For me it is a savoury fix that gives me a lift. 

Chocolate or Emergency cheesecakes, although wonderful, don't quite float my boat as much as they did with Dorothy , Rose and Blanche.

As a child, I remember sitting at the table with grandparents who knew all too well, what hardship was. They came from a generation that pawned a best coat on Monday so that they could eat until Friday, so even in their 80s they never , ever wasted food once it was lovingly prepared.

My Gran would invariably comment after a meal that

"that was tasty" or "I enjoyed that"

and as a child it was a valuable lesson to learn that food could be a pleasure and was Something that shouldn't be taken for granted

The flip side of that , is food can be a "fall back" when things are tough.

It's an immediate fix is it not.....? but don't worry folks

I'll draw the line at those two emergency scotch eggs last night................
You don't need to employ "tough love" and say sternly
"put the scotch eggs down..... and walk slowly away from the scotch eggs"

Later I will blog about the three new Black hens ( The Black Eyed peas) who have suddenly caused some interesting ructions on the field in some surprising ways............

Ermmmm?

I missed locking up the coop on the right last night.

Fifteen hens and old Stanley, the cockerel roost there every evening

and fifteen hens and one cockerel survived the wee small hours of night, when badgers and foxes criss cross the field with the regularity of a ticking clock.

They and I have been incredibly lucky....and I cannot quite believe my lax stupidity!

I am becoming increasing forgetful, I have noticed that

It's not a product of being overly stressed and over worked 

and it's not part of some degenerative brain disease

No, It's just the fact that I am over 50

and I am beginning to forget things!

Over coffee this morning, I have been thinking of other symptoms I have perhaps noticed recently, which could be viewed as normal signs of ageing"....They are just a little sobering

• I  increasingly rely on my 5£ from Ebay magnifying glasses to read anything from food packets to personal correspondence. This is when I actually can remember where I put the bloody things in the first place
• I repeat myself all of the time
• I have arthritis in my right big toe
• It now takes me two "rolls" ( you know the sort- legs in the air and rocking from side to side kind of movements) to leap out of bed in the morning.
• I am up twice in the night for a pee
• I wear my woolly hat inside the cottage when I am watching tv
• I have an unhealthy relationship with my comfy armchair
• I say things like "she's a nice girl" when I comment upon someone I like
• I realise with horror that I am old enough to be Jake Gyllenhaal's father
• I repeat myself all of the time

Mind you on a more positive note, being over 50 has meant

• Increasingly I am realising that I don't give a flying f*ck what people think about me
• I do not bite my tongue when I think things need saying
• I no longer get overly embarrassed when I fart as I bend over
• I feel as though I could handle most situations
• I know myself as well as I am ever going to

Right, I am off to do some jobs on the field,

But I have just forgotten what jobs need doing............

I am so sorry but I hate Brendan (sorry!)

Old Queen Brendan

Apologies to non UK readers but this post will be a  bit of a pure British television rant!

It was the semi finals of BBC2's Great British Bake off tonight and poor Danny ( the ITU consultant from Sheffield) was voted out because her custard filling just didn't set!

Despite this I thought she was  a delightful character!

Poor Danny- everything flopped

I know it sounds silly but I am beginning to hate contestant Brendan

He comes across as a pompous old queen (is the BBC making him into a villain?) and he is unfortunate enough to hint that he should be the winner of the bake off contest.......( a bit of a no no in cake making circlesI suspect)

Mind you he IS the best baker in the whole contest but, I must say that he is not a winning personality...........

........ he know nothing about winning over the general public...... which is a shame

anyhow my money is on the Scottish Geek James

who has a winning smile and a sweet, SWEET  personality

James

but stress-head John is a close second even though his petit fours were a pile of shite!

John

Tuesdays are more stressful than a shift in ITU
I apologise again but I just don't like Brendan

Tuesday Morning Blues

"Kill, KILL, KILL THEM ALL!!!!"

It's here!

After a waterlogged bastard soddin summer

Cold, icy mornings have now bloody well arrived in Trelawnyd

It's a depressing thought

which leads me to the black feelings of murder which always surface during those freezing early morning moments between waking and that first life saving cup of coffee of the day.

That coffee has just been downed

(it only tastes "good" when it is in my American coffee cup)

"Out with anger.......in with love"
I am feeling much better now...
compared with others I know...what do I have to be sad about?

Later this week Chris flies to Melbourne for a conference. He will be away just over a week.

I have a huge list of jobs to complete when he is away , but at least I can be as grumpy as I like first thing in the morning. The dogs don't insist on conversation at 6.45 am even when I am sifting through their poo ( btw. more brown plastic bunting has been passed this morning!)

One job that I cannot complete is the cutting down of the vast honeysuckle which has draped itself above the front door. Quite unexpectedly the whole troupe of house sparrows that used to roost within the field hawthorns have upped sticks and moved into it's complication of branches.and the din as they roost around 6pm every night is absolutely unbelievable!

This daily influx of two dozen bickering birds inches from the living room sends Albert into a complete state of nervous exhaustion, for each little bird knows exactly just how far to push him and to keep safe.

While I am cooking supper, all I can hear is his low growling  which I translate into 

" those pesky little bastards!!!!!!" and their screaming chorus of chirping which more or less says 

"COME ON!!!!!!!!!!!! if you think you're hard enough!"

The honeysuckle leaves will be falling soon and the sparrows will I am sure more on....for the mean time, I will complete other jobs when Chris is in OZ land

Dawn this morning, Albert and Willaim sharing my armchair