Operation Dog Snot and "pass the sick bowl"

Nigel is visiting this weekend

so I am in the process of bleaching the cottage

Even the dogs have been bathed

I ran out of dog shampoo

So all three are now all puffed up and reeking of Dove Supreme Satin Beauty

It's smells like a tart's boudoir in here

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ps

Well in between making butternut squash  soup,mince pies for the Village Christmas Fayre,  a fresh loaf of bread and banging off the occasional blog...operation "dog snot removal" is going quite well.

Mind you I have been knocked a bit sick by the antics of a tree surgeon over at the Rectory, who has been dominating my attention at the kitchen window.

No he's not an aussie hunk ( my eyesight is not THAT good) no, it's just the fact that every time he moves around the tree ( some 50 feet from the ground at least) I feel as though I am going to puke.

I cannot abide heights

Look carefully..he's way up the bloody tree

Flowers at Night

The weather last night went all a bit haywire.

Hail, rain, and a single loud clap of thunder lashed the cottage and field and at around 11pm the windows  literally rattled in their frames when huge gusts of wind came literally out of nowhere.

I debated whether or not to check on the state of the Ukrainian village, and heart won over from brains, and so with my trusty wind up torch in hand, I wandered around in the dark

I am glad I did, as the roof of one hen house had been removed completely and had sailed halfway across the field. The 8 hens inside had remained safe, and had crammed themselves into just two nest boxes for safety

It reminded me of one of those Guinness Book of records attempts where a load of bored students get crammed into a telephone box for a laugh.

Anyhow I repaired the hen house and was schelping my way back across the mud when I spied the chunky figure of a badger trotting out of the gloom from the direction of the graveyard. It had something in its mouth, and fascinated I melted back against Cogburn's tall coop to watch him.

Bizarrely the badger was carrying a small posy of  flowers with grim determination.They looked to be white blooms and could have been,in fact plastic

The Posy was probably a tribute from one of the graves in the graveyard.

I wondered if they were from Mrs Jones' grave,

the last burial in the village.

The badger eventually tottered past me and disappeared into the dark with his head held high

Funny what you see when you don't expect it

I Have A Weakness

I HAVE A WEAKNESS

No, it is not the fact I have a "thing" for Aussie Beefcakes

(which I do)

nor is it an unknown fact that I absolutely adore Christmas and  a certainTV Zombie Show
(this video did make me smile!)

But my REAL weaknesses in this frenetic, cynical modern day world are wait for it.........

I ate four yesterday FOUR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Two before I had left Sainsbury's Car Park!

Another I ate on the way back to Trelawnyd

and the last I shared with Rooster Cogburn when I got home

 Sharing your last Scotch Egg with a blind rooster does help with the guilt!

What's your weakness??????? answers on a postcard!

We Must Be jaded.....

.....Albert has just dragged in another juvenile rat

we must be tired

I was watching the excellent The Bourne Legacy with Meg all crammed into the window armchair, so we couldn't give a ****

William was asleep on the couch,

Chris is in Harrogate on a conference

and George was happily farting peacefully in his place by the front door.

Albert looked quite disappointed

as non of us moved an inch!

Me thinks he loves an audience
The Rat el Morto

Tok Tok Place

http://toktokplace.blogspot.co.uk/

Yesterday I read one of the last entries from a blog I have been dipping in and out of for some years now.

It was a chilling, upsetting and in some ways a beautiful read.

Johnno has written an honest stark and heartfelt "goodbye" . He is a pragmatic, educated elderly Aussie who lives in a small town a million miles away from the cold, wet green of Trelawnyd.His no nonsense blog is not one of those "emotional romp" affairs you get when you log into Going Gently. Nor is it one of those "lifestyle magazines" or ranting forums or clever word show offs. 

No

"Tok Tok Place" is merely one of those chatty blogs that make up the majority of blogs with a demographic that is predominately middle aged and a little ordinary.

It is a series of well researched |"chats" about this, that and the other

Johnno's latest  blog entry is the upshot of a short devastating illness

I have cut and pasted it below

It proves just how powerful these Internet diaries can be.

It also proves that , the snippets of our lives, albeit the pieces we choose to share on this odd forum, can be very real.

My thoughts are with John D and his family at this time

Take Care Johnno

"End of days .....

Hi All! Finally feeling well enough to put up a post even if it is not a pleasant one.
I am definitely unwell - Sarcoidosis effecting both lungs has resulted in complete respiratory collapse, congestive cardiac failure, pneumonia and advanced asthma. Just had 3 weeks in Calvary Hospital, Canberra, and now back home on "Home Oxygen" 24/7. Specialist says to sort out my affairs and make an appt. to see him in 3 months (nice way of giving you a 'time-line'!)

Cannot eat - have lost 15kg (over 2 stone) in 3 weeks - Rhonda and I are making 'Life adjustments with a spirit of inevitable denial - we know what is coming. Grandsons coming down Saturday to see "Pa!" - guess that'll be their last Christmas with "Pa"!

Guess you won't see many more posts on here from me but when up to it I'll try to manage a few words. When the day arrives I'll have my daughter, Kat, put up a final message.

I really don't know what else to say this afternoon - we are going to fight this 'thing' for every hour and day we can claw back from it.

Must go for now, too tired to write more today but will post again. Have arranged for our daughter, Kat, to put up the eventual final post! Pain hurting, must go!"

A sausage for The Barber

I have left a couple of sausages on the draining board to defrost

For I am off to the barbers today!

It may sound strange but it has become a little bit of a tradition to slip the barber a furtive sausage after he has saved my usual "wreck of the Hesperus" hairstyle and has wrestled it into some semblance of normality.

I blame Auntie Glad for this odd and secret food giving practise, for after every Flower Show Meeting, she will gesture quite madly  that "The package"  has been left  by the door for me to pick up without fuss and without the other Flower Show Committee Members noticing! 

(The package, of course, is a neatly wrapped bag of fresh  homebaked scones)

The secret nature of the gift has become a joyous tradition between the two of us.... a tradition I am now visiting with the barber, albeit with a bit of home made pork!

It all started when the barber noticed that I had mud all over my arse after I had sat down in his old fashioned leather chair. .

I think it had been a day I had been wrestling with animal helper Pat over  a buff Orpington's impacted crop, a fight that resulted in me falling over on the field ....anyhow the barber had noticed the muck on my pants and had commented on them ( he was probably worried about the state of his leatherette!!!)

We got to talking about the birds and then the pigs... and the barber mentioned that he adored home cured bacon, a warm memory from his youth

On my next visit I brought him a couple of number 21s sausages ,a pressie he was genuinely touched by

and the tradition of "sausages for the barber" was started!

Bless

ah bless, he doesn't know what to do with his arms

More Gays In The Village?

Yesterday was such a bloody awful shift that I couldn't quite wait getting out with the dogs into a blustery , damp and cold morning to blow the cobwebs away.

I walked up trough the village and up over the side of the Gop, then returned down High Street.

Many of the houses at the top of the hill have similar Welsh names. Pen-y-Bryn, Tan-y Bryn..they all mean roughly the same thing...ie. "Top of the Hill!", so it was with some minor interest that I spied two "ambling" types who had stopped halfway up the hill to point at the side of one of the bungalows perched on the incline.

As I passed I heard one of the women saying to the other

 "Perhaps....... it's a gay household!"

intrigued, I had to stop (pretending that the dogs were having a quick pee) to see what they were referring to...and after a minute or so scratching my head., I worked it all out with a smile

The non Welsh speaking woman had read the plaque on the side of the house

It said

Tan

Y

Craig

In an impressive Gothic script

So the Woman could almost be forgiven for mistaking the sign as reading

IAN

&

CRAIG

Tan-y-Craig more or less means "On the Rock" in Welsh ( another version of Top of the Hill!)

I kind of prefer, Ian & Craig...whoever they are!