Red Shirts in Atlanta

It must be a real bummer being a character on a show like THE WALKING DEAD

one minute you think your career is on the up

Then BAMMO....you are cannon fodder..

Poor Axel ( Lew Temple)

The only apocalypse survivor with an obvious sense of humour

Out without anyone knowing his second name,

it's the zombie equivalent of wearing a red shirt on Star Trek

The King Is Almost Dead......Long Live The Badger

The oldest patriarch on the field is Stanley.

He is at least seven years old and could be as old as eight, we have no way of knowing, as he arrived back in 2007 unwanted, from a farm way up in the hills.

During his time in Trelawnyd, he has been a hard working and dedicated alpha male. He has watched over his hens with a dedication that bordered on obsession, and has proved his worth time and time again in the maintainance of a bitchslapping free population.

Cockerels are instrumental in keeping the peace amongst bullying and argumentative hens

But the ravages of time have taken their toll and slowly and surely the old guy has turned into Jaques from AS YOU LIKE IT...." Sans taste, sans eyes, sans teeth (albeit it hens' teeth).....sans everything"

He is now the old fading retainer who spends his days resting and napping by the fence and it is only a matter of time until his son Badger,the junior cockerel,takes over responsibility for the hens.

I have only realised all this today...

Luckily Badger is as good natured as his father, so no blood has been shed between the boys as yet. but I am sure it will happen when Badger realises that the old king no longer has the physical strength and motivation he used to possess.

In the meantime old Stanley continues to fade.....

and I think that after all of his hard work over the years

he deserves a few more days of peace with his face in the sun.

Touching Base

London as it was yesterday, cold, snowy and mighty fine

I always enjoy my London visits.

Of course the chance to be neat and tidy, the opportunity to 'see the sights', ' do the shows' and eat the eats are all part of a wonderful break away from the humdrum and the ordinary, but for me, the main enjoyment has to be touching base with Nuala.

For over 23 years she has been my best friend and all of those 23 years she has lost non of her lust for enjoying everything that comes her way.

It is an enviable, infectious  and laudable ability .....to enjoy new experiences, new people and new things with optimism and genuine pleasure and it is an ability that Nu manages to carry out effortlessly but never demurely.

I am lucky to have her around.........

Anyhow I am on the train back home now.

This morning I bought a mixing bowl from John Lewis for me and some tea 

 from Fortnum & Mason for Chris

I enjoyed a sneaky scotch egg while out walking along the South Bank and surprisingly have spilled nothing as yet on my second best jumper of the trip.

It's been a nice break

Shard Feelings

Nearly two days and a trip to the theatre,cinema,coffee shop,Borough Market,Brazilian eatery,fish restaurant later..I thought things couldn't get any better but they did.....Nuala remembering my fetish for skyscrapers treated me to a wonderful trip up the London Shard.....
My boyhood TOWERING INFERNO obsession was well and truly relived....hey ho.

" I'M ON THE TRAIN!"

Ok, I think most of you will know me  and my slightly dyspraxic ways by now

So the choice of a custard yellow pullover 

Perhaps was not the wisest of choices given my propensity for dribbling

But as you can see, with the judicious positioning of a trendy scarf , I am in fact,

blemish free so to speak...

I have , however lost all street cred with my executive businessman neighbour, for he has just given my IPad a quick once over as I was looking at Tom Stephenson's photo of a rude vegetable.....

Hey ho

My one attempt at looking urbane and sophisticated foiled by a carrot's vagina

Bollocks

X

Beam Me Up Scottie

When I was a boy, pet shops were strange, slightly alien places with large open sacks of smelly dried this and that lying next door to aquariums full of neon tetras and buckets full of millet strings .
They were totally utilitarian places, that often smelt of leather.....and when you took a second look, there was always some sort of depressed feathered creature asleep on the counter.

That was then.
Now it's all very high tech .....it's gone all Star Trek
Last night Chris and I attended a 'friends and family' open day at a newly opened pet superstore.
We were invited by my twin Janet, who has, after 30 years in the same job, has just moved  careers into the modern day petshop retail sector and given the fact that our combined age is well over 100, the night still felt as though I was going to a school open day.

The pet superstore was a surprise to be sure!
The whole place was totally space age! With rows upon rows of gleaming pet food, a pet grooming centre ,more medications
that you would see in your average hospital pharmacy and squeaky clean miniature hamsters climbing across their rope swings within futuristic aseptic containers, the place looked more like Waitrose than the pet shops I knew from old.

It was nice to be there to support my Sister on her first official opening day... But we needn't have worried....working along side kids just out of their teens , and faced with handling snakes, rats and bearded lizards and a computerised till more complicated than in ITU ventilator  ...she looked as though she had been working there for years.

Off to London later tonight.......meeting up with Nuala..my touchstone

A Chance To Win

I don't know if it's the big hair,

The slutty twins,

Or the lobster claws

But it gives me a lift every time I see it

When I was young I always wanted to be a waiter
however my FIRST ever job was as
A peddle boat supervisor on Prestatyn Beach
I lasted a week and left after I was thrown into the pool by three foul mouthed  13 year old girls from Liverpool!
 NOW
WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST JOB.?
I WILL GIVE A PRIZE TO THE BEST ONE

Old People And Pets

Yesterday was Bright and warm, unlike today which is cold and damp, and I was glad of having the berlingo as I called over to the RFWF's farm with some flowers for his family. The funeral service will be held on Tuesday at the large marble church in nearby Bodelwyddan ( go on pronounce that one) I suspect a large number of fellow red faced Welsh Farmers will be attending and our tiny church here in Trelawnyd just cannot cater for a large congregation.....especially if the weather is somewhat "difficult"

Another funeral to attend...it's the way of the world when you have older friends I suppose....I am reminded of what one of the youngest  and shall we say, less sensitive of my colleagues said to me yesterday morning... She said "Knowing Old people is a bit like keeping pets...you don't have them for very long"
Out of the mouth of babes.

Later this week I am off to London to see best friend Nuala. it has been a long standing arrangement which could not have come at a better time. It will be therapeutic to have a change of scene for a day or so.

Anyway, this morning, I let the new birds out of their run in order to join the main flock. I am not a lover of ' fluffy hens' I prefer a more bog standard sort of bird. but the silkies, I must admit are striking looking birds.....

The RFWF would have disliked these frou-frou characters too....

Perhaps some of his no nonsense approach to life has rubbed off on me after all