Bagpuss Features

Bagpuss (1974)

I am working  a back to back shift over this weekend

They are shifts I hate. Night Shift on Saturday night. (generally always a busy night) then interrupted sleep on Sunday daytime, and back to work on Sunday evening.

My face will look like bagpuss' by Monday Morning I can tell you (it's not far from that now!).

But, I know I am the lucky one.

Some of the poor sods I will be working with, will be doing night shifts over the weekend then day shifts some time in the following week.

Such is life on an Intensive Care Unit which is governed by an unfeeling computerised off duty system which couldn't give a flying stuff about circadian rhythms.

On my last shift I listened with some sympathy to one girl's story of how she had to try to balance 3 small kids, full time shifts, a husband working all the hours God sends, Christmas preparations and a rather convoluted house move.

No wonder her head looked as though it was fused directly onto her shoulders without benefit of a neck!

In a quiet moment , realising that my life is , in general, rather stress free ( apart from those bloody wardrobe doors of course!) I gave her a neck rub, which certainly pressed all of her relaxation-in-need buttons.

"why can't you be full time!" the nurse complained "I could do with one of these everyday"

"If I worked full time here I would be living inside a rubber room within 2 weeks!"I replied

and do you know what?

I BLOODY WELL would be

see you all Monday

ARGO

Argo is a class act.

Part caper thriller, part escape movie, this pacy dramatization of the 1980 joint CIA-Canadian secret operation to extract six fugitive American diplomatic personnel out of revolutionary Iran is a meticulously staged and sympathetically acted period piece which boasts a wry script and strangely several laugh out loud moments.
It's well worth going to see.
Ben Afflick ( the director and star) is on sparkling form as is the old scene stealer Alan Arkin (above) who turns up as foul mouthed has-been Hollywood producer. His performance is worthy of a best supporting actor Oscar any day.
All in all it's an intelligent , tense and  entertaining movie
8.5/10

Rants & Badgers

Badger "Runs" from the lane, up into the field

This is not going to be rant about open cupboard doors, toilet seats being left up or

landing lights being left on.......I got rid of all that emotional rubbish in yesterday's blog

no, it's just a comment about badgers.

The other night I counted eight badgers on the field. Eight! Sure they looked cute as buttons as they squabbled their noisy way in between the hen houses, but it IS a worrying fact that their numbers have rocketed noticably over the past couple of years...so much so, that in my tiny corner of rural peace and quiet,hedges have been damaged (ABOVE PHOTO),fences have been undermined and increasing amounts of the neighbours' gardens have been dug up and damaged.

It is obvious to people that live in the country that badger numbers are reaching pest levels

what isn't obvious is how the problem should be addressed, if at all.

The recent cull in parts of England was put on hold mainly because badger numbers were thought to be far too high...if that is indeed the case, I wonder just how devistating this explosion of badger numbers will have on the rural landscape.

we shall see.

btw. I have left a small silent video which was taken at dawn this morning. I was playing around with my grotty camera....which is playing up as much as blogger is this morning.

so much so, that I am having huge problems even writing this blog entry.

Is anyone else having problems?
hummm?

The Journey

ok

enough of all of my anger issues..... I aim to blog about all of my "irritations" tomorrow (well it's cheaper than going to therapy) 

and then it's ALL out of my system

( see what you have started Nigel?)

In the meantime I will post this year's best tv Christmas advert

and of course it is from John Lewis

it's sweet and rather nicely done

enjoy x

Tick The Box? kiss my ass!

I have just completed a detailed on line Morality questionaire ( after joking about it last night with my friend Nige)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/labuk/experiments/morality/

regarding the emotion of anger my scores indicated:-

"Your low sense of anger is your most prominent moral dimension. This is the area in which you differed most from the average person in our pilot study.

This suggests that you do not generally experience a strong emotional response to actions that go against your view or right and wrong. You may be more tolerant to a range of behaviour in society."

Hummmm.....could this be at all correct?

it is, in fact ..... bollocks!

The questionnaire just didn't ask me the right questions...

Now if the paperwork concentrated it's questions upon things like

• the milk lorry knocking down my field wall YET AGAIN as it negotiated the sharp lane bend
• the person who dumped the sad bruised and bloody cockerel, Buster on me 
• the man that didn't stop his car when I was about the cross the zebra crossing by the school with all of the dogs in tow
• British Telicom fucking up our broadband yet again
• Chris not shutting the fuc*ing wardrobe door  yet AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• an old friend criticizing instead of celebrating?
• me burning my arse on a bleach soaked toilet bowl

Then the powers that be could have quite easily realized that I am really a volcano of anger, who is wrapped up in a overcoat of seething putridness

Out with anger

in with love

pah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

xxxx

1950s

"Keep the Home Fires Burning,

While your hearts are yearning.

Though your lads are far away

They dream of home.

There's a silver lining

Through the dark clouds shining,

Turn the dark cloud inside out

'Til the boys come home..."

Chris' academic life  takes him all over the country. He works long hours, travels long distances and in winter leaves the house when it is pitch black, returning again when it's dark and cold outside.

I know it's pretty old fashioned and grossly stereotypical of me to say but  my job,literally is to "keep the home fires burning" so to speak.

Like a 1950's housewife, I have a meal ready when he gets home ( and no, I don't wear a pinny!) the children are all fed and watered and ready for bed (well they have emptied their dog bowls and have been walked) and there's a fire roaring in the fireplace. It may not be a typical high powered lifestyle, but it works for us.

 someone has to keep things ticking over

someone needs to write the Christmas Cards

Someone needs to side the pots

and someone needs to clean up the plastic peppered dog poo from the kitchen floor

(yes William has been chewing plastic shopping bags again!).

***********************************************************************

 

btw. 

Remember Annie the isolated Marran who is living on the field borders?

Well thanks to the website "preloved" I have found a couple of easy going characters to share her lonely days with.

A woman in Prestatyn has a spare couple of babies which will fit the bill. I will go and see them tomorrow!

Sad News

It could have been somewhat of a depressing day today as everyone I know seem to have their own woes and down times at the moment.

Things often happen like this, don't they?

I saw my elder sister who is worrying herself about a knee replacement  operation and like our grandmother before her, she prefaced every comment about the operation with the phrase "God Willing"

Eventually I tired a little of all this and felt I had to yell rather dramatically

"for god's sake the time when trauma patients died on the operating table during a knee operation Florence Nightingale was slogging her guts out at Scutari!"

Let's hope my counselling skills hit the appropriate spot !

Well it made her laugh just a little

I walked the dogs on the beach, then dropped off some flowers for my great niece who is sixteen today, and finally I took some more flowers and a card up to Pen-y-Cefn which is on the outskirts of the village. 

Mrs Jones died peacefully in hospital yesterday.

This short video of her and a slightly stern looking Olwenna Hughes was one I "took" a couple of years ago. It was in response to a request from someone in blogland to hear some conversational Welsh

"Nos da Mrs Jones"

"Nos da"

ps

I saw gentleman farmer Ralph earlier who told e that when he was a young thing he remembers the sheep shearers going back to mrs Jones' farm for their helping of home made rice pudding which she made in an old oven which was heated from the fire

nice memories

Whose The Daddy?

What is it about masculine men showing the world an occasional soft part of themselves that gets the oestrogen pumping in women of a certain age?

Photographs of my favourite redneck zombie killer Norman Reedus feeding a motherless baby have circulated the globe and a collective "ahhhhhhhh" has rung out from women everywhere, who wish he was

"their daddy-to be!"

Nature or nurture?

Perhaps we are all still just animals

and that macho protector is still order of the day?