Before Work

The village Church and chapels hold a multi denominational service at the Village War Memorial this afternoon. A wreath is laid . Words are said, and the number of villagers that attend this tribute to the dead, grows ever smaller.

Last year I went to the service with Mabel in tow. This year I again may well go and show my respects. It's not a good time, 4.30pm.

It's the time the field goes to bed, so to speak.

Last night I called into an unfamiliar hospital ward on the way to work. I wanted to see old Mrs Jones.

She remains poorly.

Unable to focus and speak, she still had a firm grip in one hand.so it was left to me to babble on about this and that with her intermittent grip sort of punctuating my conversation from time to time.

Mrs Jones, along with Auntie Glad was one of the first of the village ladies to attend my very first "Open Allotment" on a rainy Wednesday evening way back when we first came to Trelawnyd..

Her support, then, was incredibly touching.

I didn't stay too long.

The feed pumps and charts reminded me I had a job to go to, so after a few minutes, in our one sided way...............
we said our goodbyes.

The "C" Word, Sue "The Sheep" Zombie Overload and Sex in Public

Well if that title doesn't bring in the readers bugger all will!

We are hurtling towards the Christmas holidays!

There I have said it! the dratted "C " word.

I knew things had ventured into all-things tinsel once my Halloween pumpkin had started to rot down after a thousand little pecks on the field.
The poor thing is now looking decidedly zombiefied.

Christmas is coming and last night the WALKING DEAD producers killed off half of the main characters

Lori died after a make shift Cesarean went wrong, T Bone had his face ripped off and poor Carol disappeared to god knows where......it's all a bit much seeing that the festive season is only a bug fart away.

Lori RIP

My nerves were shredded after all the mayhem.

I wonder if in a post apocalypse world, do the survivors celebrate Christmas?

 Well you can buy Zombie Christmas cards!!!!!

See Lee's website

I have had to deal with "The C Word" head on today, as I needed to buy my Mother-in-law her annual Christmas decoration pressie ( a tradition I have always carried out for the past decade or so)
Every year she will get a selection of shiny, useless tinsel covered shite through the post, and every year she and I will enjoy the annual tradition of it all.
I Will bubble wrap it all ready for posting with other Christmas decs I send to loved ones in Australia and in Derbyshire!
There I have said it......I have mentioned the Christmas word at least three times already!
I am dealing with it, instead of fearing it!
I am going to make a great deal of my Christmas bits this year....so look forward to be astounded by a multitude of photographs of homemade "crap and bollocks" over the next few weeks.
hey ho
It's amazing what rubbish one middle aged old git can produce when he puts his mind to things

Irene and Sylvia getting ever closer!!

Anyhow, today I met  self confessed sheep geek and ex vet nurse Sue when I was out with the dogs.
I knew she was a "sheep geek" cos she had on her tried and trusted "ewe sweatshirt"
I was wearing my tried and tested "Walking Dead" t shirt, so of course we bonded immediately being joint saddos of the highest calibre
Sue, will prove to be a huge asset I am sure, for she is a sheep expert to outrun all sheep experts! Within a minute or so, she had told me everything I needed to know about the length of a ram's urethra ( which I am sure will come in handy one day) and gave me a mini lecture on what type of ram to get to maximise lamb meat!
She was a delight!
I left her with the assurance that I will be in touch
And I will be
.
And Finally

Do any of you remember Carol and Polenta?
Well the two ducklings from the summer and now two fat plump "fat bastard" ducks
who spend a great deal of their time shagging each other.
I have not seen a drake (Polenta) as ardent so late in the season
Perhaps more experienced duck owners could clarify this point for me?
I caught sight of a lady from the village out walking her two dogs this morning . She stopped by the gate and was confronted with some full on duck on duck action, which made her visibly balk somewhat
"Mucky buggers" she said to no one in particular before she shepherded her little dogs away
It was all a bit too much!
Off to bed now for an hour or so now., I am working tonight
Perhaps I will dream of zombies, shagging fat waterfowl, Christmas trees and a shepherdess called Sue!

Mr Crowe Can Sing!( well just a little)

Well

he Can sing! That big hunk of a bad tempered Aussie!

Love Les Mis or hate it...the stage production that has wowed audiences all over the world has almost hit the big screen.

I must admit, I was dubious when I heard of the plans to bring the musical to the big screen , but the trailer looks wonderful!

( even if the waif Eponine looks all big haired and busty!) 
Anyway I thought I would leave you all with this early morning whistle fest
I am off to shampoo the carpets!!!!!!!
William, me thinks has been eating Albert's mice again
we have fur lined shits all over the house 
"One Day More!"

E Mail

I have just recieved an email from my usual dog groomer.....

would I consider taking a 5 year old bulldog bitch in for re homing from her friend next year?

I asked what her non pedigree name was

"Martha" was the reply

oh lord!

"Table for one?"

Miss Haversham

I have a friend who refers to himself as a male spinster

Everyday he faces judgements that  underline the "collective" view that

"Couples are good- singles are bad"

It's an unfortunate and sad state of affairs
.

Yesterday I read with interest James Friel's article on the subject

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20219349

He made that interesting point that at social gatherings he has often been treated abysmally by couples who feel that they have the right to ask him just why he is single?

His struggling answer of

: "I have never found the right person... I am a sad and sorry manchild... I am incapable of love... I am a deviant, and prefer giraffes."... is painful, especially as he always seems to notice the joint eye  rolling between the "couple" doing the asking.
What's that all about?

Friel  also comments that his own reciprocal questions of

"Why have you settled for him? Why are you stuck with her? Were you so afraid of being alone? would never be tolerated in this partner-led world. 

It would be deemed far too rude.
and he's right

Unfortunately we are a species that does not tolerate the single. (And here I am reminded of Anna, the single marran hen who has been banished to the periphery of the field borders by the confident flock hens)

Some of that intolerance of course, comes from the "spinsters" themselves.We all have experienced that lunatic, crazy gal lala from work .The one that cannot quite gel with anyone human even if it is in a benign social setting, Well he or she can provide the template for all normaltons who just choose or find themselves not part of a double act.

Everyone, unfortunately gets "tarred with the same brush"

Almost weekly, I go to the small arthouse cinema in Theatre Clwyd and I usually go alone.

I have no problem with doing so, for me the enjoyment of watching a good film outweighs the effort it takes to drag my sorry arse out into the cold, but I often do get the feeling that I am being judged by people when I am sat there reading my programme and quaffing my diet coke all by myself or when I am ambling around the art gallery on the first floor without the "benefit" of someone else to "share the artists' message" with..

I get the look.... you know "THE LOOK" which says 

"I wonder what he's doing here ......alone?"

It's not a figment of my queeny imagination

It happens........It happens everywhere.

Being alone in public = sad bastard
sad, sad, sad!

There is one exception to this rule... and we all know what it is.....

Take a walk down the beach with a dog on a lead
No bugger will judge you then!

William camouflage for singletons

The Bird (L'Oiseau) and The Bird

Yesterday felt a little melancholy.

Sad news arrived about Mrs Jones, who is deteriorating in hospital. I met with her daughter-in-law and had one of those sad conversations I have had a million times before at work.

It is now the time to support relatives. 

                                                                          *

Last night I went to see the French film L'Oiseau.

It was not an easy watch.

Anna (Sandrine Kimberlain) lives a quiet, pointless and isolated  life in a grubby Bordeaux apartment. She works as a faceless kitchen porter, has frosty relationships with her co-workers and spends most of her spare time alone in a emotionally bankrupt world where she says and feels very little.

Over a lengthy and moody introduction to her somewhat sad life, we gradually find out that Anna has lost a young son, a bereavement that destroyed her marriage,and it is this faceless, unsympathetic grief that director Yves Caumon presents, in all of it's uncompromising and difficult facets.

Anna, is not the gamine little Amelie, existing  in a cute, isolated little world. As portrayed by the tall, shopworn Kimberlain, she is a bookish,difficult, prickly shell of a woman, who is not adverse in picking up drunken strangers at obscure Japanese movies and walking the dark streets of the city at night.

She is not a woman anyone could warm to.

Her salvation comes in the shape of a small pigeon who becomes trapped behind her fireplace. She frees the animal who becomes an uneasy flatmate, and in their brief time together, the bird becomes the emotional catalyst Anna needs to start to move forward.

There is no sentimentality in Anna's psychological journey, indeed Caumon peppers the whole film with a challenging ambiguity. The "bird "is not merely a indication of hope and an object of affection, it could  also be  a mirror image of Anna, an animal trapped by it's own fears and inabilities. Whatever the answer is, Anna's transformation is documented with tremendous care and with meticulous patience,

and although the film is certainly not a "Lassie Come Home" movie, the tiny moment when the pigeon makes "contact" with Anna's buried emotions is incredibly touching to watch.

8/10

.

To bookend this "review" somewhat, I will leave you with some news of the three Marrans who were "donated" to me a few weeks ago.. The chap that brought them , warned me that all were big rangers, so I guess I was not too surprised that one evening only one bird arrived back to her nesting coop.The other two, I suspect crossed the riding stables' fields and have either got lost or got picked off by a predator before they could roost.

Whatever happened, the one lone Marran is proving to be somewhat of a compelling character . Everyday she gallops away from the existing hens to live a solitary, bullied life on the peripheries of the field.

It seems a somewhat sad state of affairs.

I know it sounds somewhat indulgent, but a couple of times a day, I will seek the hen out and will  surreptitiously drop some corn nearby so she can feed without interruption and without bullying from the other hens and the ewes .

And what have I called this sad lonely little character?

Anna of course

Thank You Carnival Committee

Our Broadband has been down, as has the phone.

I have been car-less, phone-less and internet-less over the past few days, and feel, just a little, that I have been transported back to a Trelawnyd of years gone by….

When the word “blog” was a mere spelling mistake!

So please forgive the hiatus…

Yesterday an impressive looking box arrived on the doorstep. Inside were a small collection of tiny English oak saplings, a leftovers present from Trelawnyd’s Carnival committee, who had obtained a whole wood of these little trees as part of the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations.

(The Woodland Trust donated literally thousands of these saplings to ensure that scores of Golden Jubilee woodlands would be planted up all over the UK)

The Flower Show Committee, of which I am Chair, supported the re-emergence of the Carnival wholeheartedly and made a donation towards their expenses last year. Subsequently they have supported The Flower Show’s wish to plant some British saplings in the “bald spots” of the Churchyard by presenting us with some of their own saplings

It’s good natured mutual support.

That’s what community should be all about in my book.

You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.

The oak saplings are tiny and delicate so I have just planted them in my own allotment in order for them to become a little more robust.

Only when they can fend for themselves so to speak, will I transfer them to their final resting place in the old graveyard.

Shiver Me Timbers

Sometimes I think I do live in a kind of rural pantomime.

This morning the RFWF roared past the cottage in his red landrover

He was leaning out of the window with a big grin and looked remarkably like Robert Newton from Treasure Island

"I have found you a ram!" he called out

( I wouldn't have been surprised if he would have added 

"me hearties!!!" whilst waving his cutlass out of the window.

 

I would love to be a "bit of a character"

Not "mad enough to be termed an eccentric"

But mad enough to be seen as "interesting,"

  and different.

It will never happen because I think I am just too bland

But I am working on it.

Years ago, when I was a bank clerk, I recall serving  a rather unkempt lady who we the Nat West Bank staff helpfully described as "nutty as Marathon bar"

(It was renamed Snickers years later btw)

I remember her withdrawing a couple of hundred pounds from her account, which she carefully counted in front of me and then , with slow deliberation, she lifted her blouse and stuffed the 40 five pound notes around the circumference of her bra

As she finished she suddenly thought of something , then retrieving one  crumpled five pound note she asked me for one bag of mixed silver

"Do you know where I am going to put that?" she cackled

"I hesitate to ask" I remember saying

And with a smile she started to feed the coins into a Remembrance collection tin on the bank's counter

After an age, she took all of the plastic poppies out of the tray and went around the bank presenting all of the waiting customers and staff with a flower each.

Eccentric or mentally ill?

who knows..

But I recall she made for a more interesting morning on a drab Welsh morning in Rhyl in 1980