Moel Hiraddug

Our friend Nigel has just made a flying trip to Trelawnyd which has been lovely.
I always enjoy his visits because being a history geek, he does drag us around local points of ancient interest by the scruff of our necks; jaunts that I must say that we ultimately rather enjoy even though I remember one rather unfortunate and painful expedition up the slope of an Iron Age hill fort near Conway dressed in a rather flimsy pair of flip flops.
Today he took us up Moel Hiraddug, a hill fort that more or less over looks Trelawnyd a little way to the South West.
It was fascinating, muddy, very skippy and all a bit of a laugh. especially as Nige and Chris had just a little trouble climbing to the top of the Hill Fort due to the conditions ( fortunately I was pulled up to the summit by the dogs) -

Nigel and Chris ( in his Australian hat---he told me it was Australia day!)

I am lucky knowing Nigel for he is blessed with the same somewhat tasteless sense of humour as I.
This afternoon was a case in point
On our return from Ancient hill fort explorations, Nigel decided to make some tea and as the dogs crowded around to watch he searched through his bags and gave each one a small treat.
" What did you give them?" I asked in passing
" warfarin tablets" Nige replied sardonically.

BitchWars

Jess and Meg in happier times

For most of January I will be popping into my sister\'s house on a daily basis to walk her patterdale terrier, Jess.
Jess and our Meg have hated each other ever since they met some five years ago and all it needs is a look in the wrong direction and the two of them can be found noisily locked together biting the f@*k out of any anatomy part that manages to come to hand.
Bitches are like the females of most species, for they never forget a slight and they NEVER forget a nasty bite up the arse.
Unfortunately Meg and Jess are both terriers (and terriers for those that don\'t know never EVER back down)
Having said all this, things have seemed to have settled down somewhat over the last year , so when I called down to Prestatyn to walk Jess on Monday,I thought I would take the chance to give her a further break by allowing her to come on a bit of a drive in the car.
Things went well all week. Jess was tied into the back seat with the ever calm William and George and Meg was given alpha female status in the front seat next to me. Everyone looked happy..and everyone got along. We have been out together all week long now and have visited the beach, the animal wholesalers and even been on a jaunt to my friend Eirlys\' farm, everything has been fine... That was until I made the mistake of taking my eye off the ball by putting a scotch egg into my mouth as I started to drive out of Sainsbury\'s car park.
I think it was the delightful aroma of egg and sausage meat that finally did for me, for as I took my first heavenly chew, all hell let loose.
OUT OF NOWHERE Jess started to manfully drag a barking Meg into the back of the berlingo by her face fur.
I slammed to a halt ( blocking the road as I did so) and spattering scotch egg everywhere tried desperately to separate the two as a small crowd started to form to watch. William was happy enough to each the shrapnel as it fell and I could hardly yell at any of them as it is almost impossible to utter anything bit a faint squeak when you have a mouthful of boiled egg.
For god\'s sake I could have choked to death but after a minute or two I did manage to separate the bitches and re tie them to their respective seats after vacating the car and clambering manically into the back .

during all of this palava, I have to note that George being the opportunist that he is, clambered into the front seat and managed to steal my last remaining scotch egg from its resting place on the dashboard.

Ettie Steinberg

This series is one of my favourites EVER.........

Handy Hints

I adore the handy hint section in all of those down-at-heel ladies magazines. Of course I only read them at work and in the doctor's waiting room...but as they give me so much unintended pleasure, I am contemplating subscribing to the likes of "take a break" to make sure I have my fix so to speak.
My very favourite handy hint comes from Viz which offers the following:-
Keep you loved ones alive...when you lose an elderly relative, always keep their false teeth.....when washed they make ideal pastry cutters!

Dog food ambrosia

I do have a useful handy hint of my own..and it's a little advice about keeping your animals ticking over when the elements are against you.
Always make sure that you give your girls some protein occasionally.The cheapest way is to buy some of those dreadful smelling bargain basement cans of dog food from the supermarkets that cater for the more budget clientele .
THEY GO ABSOLUTELY friggin nuts over it.

Tears Before Bedtime

Tom Holland as Lucas

I have not read any other reviews of the film THE IMPOSSIBLE, but I have heard that the story of how one English family of five got caught up in the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 has been criticised for its portrayal of the disaster from the tiny perspective of just one foreign family.
This is an unfair criticism. The story is what it is, and although the movie captures perfectly the astonishing destructive force and sheer scale of the disaster, it wisely never really wavers from the physical and psychological journey of the Bennett family and particularly the experiences of the oldest son Lucas, who rises in statue as the whole emergency unfolds.
The whole film is a sob fest from start to finish thanks primarily to an amazingly mature performance by Tom holland as Lucas and a heartbreaking supportive turn by Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor as his distraught parents.
From the get-go the audience cares deeply and with passion for this family and their survival and so the roller coaster ride of their life after the wave is made even more exhausting.
Having said all this the Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona, peppers the drama time and time again with tear jerking tiny moments of real humanity,where the chance interventions of strangers have an astonishing effect on the family after the tsunami has struck.
And so we see elderly native women gently and silently tending the severely injured Maria (Watts) after she is found..while an injured and bereaved German tourist ( Sönke Möhring) insists a distraught Henry (McGregor) uses his precious phone to contact home.
Elderly Brit (Geraldine Chapman) briefly teams up with middle son Thomas (Samuel Joslin) for a haunting moment of human contact and support made even more moving as she is reminded by the boy that she is seventy four and he is a mere seven and a half  at the same time as Lucas makes it his mission to try and reunite the lost and separated in one of the overrun and crowded community hospitals.
It is these scenes that literally break your heart.
This is a powerful,intensely moving and visually stunning drama of an almost unfilmable event...I have not cried as much since Mabel died
9/10

Impossible

My best friend Nuala went to see THE IMPOSSIBLE the other day and said she blubed through it like a spinster at a wedding.
We are off to see it later, and looking at the trailer I can almost see just why she found it so moving, for it seems to celebrate that almost undefinable thing termed  so simply as "the human spirit"
In this modern world where technology, money and success is king, our relationships and contact with others often take a back seat in the hierarchy of needs of everyday life.
We sweat the small stuff......and boy...can I sweat the small stuff!

When the unfortunate souls atop the World Trade Centre waited for the end on that bright September morning, all many wanted to do was to hear their loved ones voices on the other end of a mobile phone one last time.
Survivors from the Boxing Day tsunami have reported great acts of bravery and kindness between perfect strangers...where an innate need to give support and succour to a fellow human being seemed more important than anything else in the world.
I am a firm believer of the goodness of people.
I don't think that this is a 'fluffy bunny' or saccharine view of life...
 (believe me as a nurse I have seen my fair share of what the cynical human race has to offer)... No....I really do believe that what makes us good, generally , are those innate, unthinking moments that bind us to each other and which only really surface when the chips are well and truly down.

I am Addison DeWitt...I am nobody's fool, least of all yours.

I am just that bit pompous enough not to ever allow myself to put up with rudeness.
If I decide to be polite when I challenge a snotty remark, I usually resort to the tried and tested
"I beg your pardon?"
But I have been known to jump quite magnificently into a verbal joust worthy of something out of ALL ABOUT EVE when the need arises and the wind is blowing in the right direction.
Generally I am not shy when it comes to confrontation.

Having said this..Ihave just had a consultation with my GP which was not the most pleasant of experiences.
In my mind he was brusque, offhand and insensitive, and after( what I thought was an overly rushed consultation) I was left feeling I had been talked over and not listened to.
And yet I walked away from the situation without saying anything.
And that annoyed me, because for that brief moment I was not the assertive, knowledgable practitioner....I was one of Joe public who was expected to do what he's told.
Of course I will say something to him the next time we meet. I shall feel strong enough, pert enough and justified enough to do so, but I shall approach it all in a ,measured, fatherly and icy calm way.
In that respect I am just like old Meg
middle aged gays are just like old bitches everywhere
We NEVER FORGET

Home Fires Burning

I left work a few hours early because I wasn't feeling too sparking.Hopefully it's not the novo virus ,(it looks as though a girl I worked with on Saturday had it)-suffice to say in the middle of a somewhat strenuous moving and handling moment I was belching like Barry Humphries' Sir Les Patterson---lovely
I do feel somewhat better now and have eaten some dry Toast ( my first food since yesterday's  lunch) after having had a few hours deep sleep.The snow has come down again, and the mini drama of life on the field has taken yet another cold turn, some of me would like to spend a few more hours under the duvet, but even in the limiting snow, there is always some small little being that needs feeding, watering and protecting

Buster and Melissa McBride safe from the snow in the shed

A lone runner braving the snow

Winnie screaming at the cold

Sorrel pissed off and cold

Irene asking for corn (below Angostrura the lone guinea fowl)