Autumn In The Village

A Brace of Wild Ducks left on a gate

Bonc Terrace above Chapel Street

Sign Outside the Village Hall

The Church ( during Sunday Service- they were singing the hymns when I was there)

The old Chapel (which was a market Hall in 1700)

A lazy blog today.

A walk and a few photos

Rare blue skies

shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

Short post as I am ust a little jaded

Up late watching The Walking Dead (twice) my fault!

then woken up at 5am as Chris couldn't sleep and was reading the news on his ipad

I am back to work on night shift tonight after a whole month away from intensive care (I had holiday time to take)so if I don't get some quality REM sleep, my eyeballs are going to resemble two fried eggs in a bucket of blood if I am not careful.

So I have a plan

Chris kindly is going to do the shopping,

I am going to walk the dogs

Then I am going back to bed.

Don't expect a great deal from me for most of the day

Poncho

I am changing my image

A poncho on the field?

waddu think?

"Yo! Morse!"

Pittsburgh A lovely city

This blogging thing cracks me up.

I post a throwaway post outlining a somewhat nauseating segment about anal sacs and

BAM!

43 COMMENTS RIGHT OFF!

I think we have all found our level.

Anyway it may surprise you to read that I can be rather squeamish especially when eye and finger injuries are concerned.

Of course I am generally not at work.

I was taught many years ago, when you are faced with something unpalatable on the ward

SQUINT A LITTLE AND ALWAYS BREATH THROUGH YOUR MOUTH.

It works.

Try It.

Many years ago I had the opportunity to go to Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania on some work experience. As an observer I arranged to see the acute spinal injury care within several health care facilities around the city and in one slightly surreal moment I found myself in the ER of a huge teaching hospital watching the massively complicated multidisciplinary care of a guy who had sustained multiple gunshots injuries in a drive by shooting.

I have never seen so much gore in my life, and politely kept well out of the way until my guide, a doctor wanted to point out to me one of the more juiciest gunshot wounds in the minutest detail.

I declined with a smile and for some reason, in way of explanation I actually said to a hushed room

"No thank you..I'm English*!"

Yes.....I can be a real pussy!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* btw
I used to get the bus every morning from my lodgings in the old Polish quarter of Pittsburgh into the city centre and the passengers,(predominantly black service workers) got used to this slightly gauche Brit fumbling about with his dollar bills at the ready. and used to call out hellos when I got on.
They were not used to meeting many English people and used to refer to me as "Morse" which always tickled me greatly ( the tv detective was popular there in 1991)

Did I or didn't I?

Halloween is over, thank the lord.

My carved pumpkin (Our one and only tribute to Jamie Lee Curtis), has been placed on the field for the geese to "de-brain" and the cheapo sweets I bought ready to palm off on any little bugger who ventured towards chez "Bwthyn-y-llan" last night, have been left uneaten in the bowl in the kitchen.

It was bloody cold and wet last night.so no kid with half a brain would have ventured out dressed like zombie.......mind you if they did have half a brain...they would actually BE a zombie.....

never mind.

It is a day for small, jobs.

I've made butternut squash soup,prepared  a casserole, planted out bulbs and cleaned windows......oh and I have given William's anal glands a cracking good squeeze on the kitchen table, which was the high point of the day for him and a rather unpleasant low point one for me!

Incidentally I found instructions just how to do this delightful job on the net

I really should have worn gloves!

Then I went out and picked the last of the raspberries!

The Question remains.....

Did I wash my hands between Jobs?

do you know what?

I can't quite remember

It's my age

Eat Your Heart out Tony Blair

You can tell that the standing  Women's Institute speaker in the above photo is in fact me, mainly because she has a large gravy stain all down her front!

Today I know I have have "made it!"

My life is now complete!

I have given my first talk to an appreciative group of the Rhyl WI

I must admit everyone seemed to enjoy  my brief lecture, and even the lady with the hearing aid seemed to keep up with me, though I am sure I babbled on a little quickly for her.
Perhaps they were being rather polite
as the talk subject
" a history of the gay hotspots of South Yorkshire"
 could have been just a little racy for them !
anyhow
Weaver Of Grass 

you were mentioned!!!!

I left before they sang Jerusalem

It would have made me cry

ps I was joking about the "hotspots"

The Brahams Blues

.

Over the last couple of months blogger has gone out of it's way to make blogging just that little more difficult for all of us.

I don't know if it is just this,or a sort of amalgamation of other factors, but I think we have all seen various favourite "onliners"  saying goodbye to their online diaries in order to re join their real world pastimes..

As many of us have plodded on, they have, with a word or two of explanation,  hung up their webpages and left them hanging on the web, like gravestones in a graveyard

Blogging, I have always thought, has that potential for fulfilling the need of someone who embarks in a conversation with a stranger on the train.

It can be psychotherapy , where emotional, psychological and social comment can be regurgitated safely away, shared and discussed with a potential group of despots from all over the globe.

It also can be a way of relaxing  the downtime hours;of sharing a life, an interest, an enjoyment in writing or design within a medium which perhaps has that simple ability to underline the fact that "we are here!- we are not invisible!- we have something to share...we have something to say."

Brahms Symphony No 3 is just an ideal piece of music to listen to when contemplating such matters. Press play and have a muse over your morning coffee.....

Information Is Power

Gladys Jones ( Auntie Glad) rang yesterday and left an answerphone message

Could I call around sometime in the afternoon?

Of course I did, and took with me a spare pork chop from the freezer, so I could swap it for the bag of scones that had been freshly baked and wrapped for me.

I had earmarked the chop for another of the village ladies (also called Jones) , , who had made me a jar of chutney last week, but unfortunately she had suffered a sudden stroke on Sunday and is now in hospital.

True to form, Gladys knew all about the other Mrs Jones. The nerve -centre  which is her aga warmed kitchen, could put MI6 to shame, as information from every corner of the village is transmitted with lightening speed through a whole host of "operatives" back to her.

She is an elderly version of Judi Dench from SKYFALL

Omniscient and benign.

I know the other Mrs Jones and her family well.

She has visited me often on the field when the weather has been kind

and always refers to me in her sing song Welsh accent as a formal "Mr Gray"

I will take the dogs up to the family farm today to see how she is doing.

Gladys has known Mrs Jones since the 1940s and as we chatted I mentioned that only in 2009 I remember seeing Mrs Jones hanging onto the back of a tractor when she thumbed a lift from Gentleman farmer Ralph back up to her old farm

 (Mrs Jones and The Tractor)

Gladys smiled

"she was a lot younger then " she noted

and I smiled too

Mrs Jones was a youthful 83 at the time