Snowed In

Things look a little rough at Bwthyn-y-llan this morning

Hey ho

The snow is drifting over a foot in places and the weather was so harsh this morning, that most of the animals were shut up in their coops with feed and water placed in each.The geese and the five runner ducks I let out leaving polenta and the new Bert and Ernie shaking in their boots inside the duck hours. The poor newbees,

first day with the potential of a bit of "green" and all they see is a white out.

I finally got the berlingo out and stocked up with coal, bird feed, cat and dog food. The village was all but deserted but I did see affable despot Jason up at the shop, collecting provisions for his neighbours. Its the worst time for this sudden shift in weather, for the vunerable spirng lambs are being dropped.....

This winter is seriously getting on my tits

A Sad Sort Of Story & A Quality Scotch Egg

As it turned out, the chap with the ducks who I thought was a farmer, wasn't a farmer.
He works as a part time taxi driver.He was not the owner of the ducks either, they were owned by his son..funny how the true story is more complicated than it had to be.
The son rang me last night about the ducks, the conversation was a difficult one as he sounded somewhat drunk,but eventually I arranged to call in to assess the birds in situ so to speak. It was no trouble, because I was almost passing his house today anyway, I had planned to go up to the vets to collect flea treatment for the animals.
The duck owner, as it turned out, was still in his teens. He looked as though he had just got out of bed when I arrived at two and had great difficulty walking to the front door.His speech was still slurred and slightly laboured so It was not hard to figure out that he was recovering from some sort of head injury.
He led me to a small enclosure in the back garden which housed two sad looking drakes sitting on a hard concrete floor.The run was sparse but clean enough and there was pellets in a bowl and clean water set up in the corner.They needed to be housed on some grass with room to run around.
" why are you getting rid of them" I asked and the boy looked incredibly sad and somewhat sheepish
"I can't look after them anymore" he slurred .... "I've had a bad car accident"
The garden was filled with runs and little enclosures, all of them quiet and empty and the boy explained rather morosely that all of his hens,budgies,quail, pigeons and ferrets had been given away to good homes.Only the two drakes were left and true to form, no one would take a couple of mucky looking drakes off his hands.
Drakes, with all of their bullying sexual ways, are something I could do without, but there was something so sad about the fact that this lad had to lose his menagerie of pets because of an arbitrary accident, I said I would take them. In the great scheme of things, it was no skin off my nose
"You wont cull them to eat will you" he asked when I eventually caught both birds and I assured him that they had found a good home.
"That's good" he slurred "I raised these two from duckings..."
"Have they got names?" I asked
"Bert and Ernie" he replied " from Sesame Street!"
"I remember them" I said
He tried to smile, but it just didnt work out.

Duck no 1 Bert

Duck no 2 Ernie

I felt somewhat melancholy when I got the ducks home, and after setting them up in the duck house with food and water , I took the dogs out for a walk.Of course all I could think of was the sad long term rehab ramifications for the lad with the head injury, His journey to some sort of normality would be a long and difficult one.
As I wandered through the centre of the village, Trelawnyd Val called out to me to come over
She had a pressie for me!
It was a QUALITY SCOTCH EGG from the posh Hawarden Estates Farm Shop.......
Another delightfully well timed and thoughtful gift.........
I managed to keep it intact, until I got home

Caro and ducks

I find Caro Emerald all rather lovely

Just on the way out... a local farmer has asked me to "take in"

2 ducks who "could be doing better" whatever that means

I will post a photo of them later.. if I agree to take them

In the meantime enjoy

Mz Caro

Calamity

The casualties, when I got them home

I dropped Chris off to catch the London train before 8am. He is working there most of the week and won't be back until Sunday. This gives me four days to totally spring clean the cottage. Winter use of a wood burning stove means that surfaces everywhere are in desperate need of a damp cloth and a bit of elbow grease.

Such is the "downside" of a real fire.

Now people that actually have to carry out the mundane and satisfying job of "clearing the decks" will tell you that you have to reward yourself with a little treat as you buff and scrub. for many the treat  is chocolate.....for me.....it is a crisp and well constructed scotch egg....and so after I had dropped the Boffin off..I drove around to Prestatyn's new Tesco and bought myself two.

I also bought an armful of cat food ( Albert will only eat gravy covered chunks) bread, milk, dog food , fruit, bleach and yogurt and not wanting to pay the extra 5 p for a carrier bag I juggled my purchases in my arms until I got to the car.

I won't explain all this wonderfully interesting routine any more, suffice to say, that , as I drove around the mini roundabout outside the supermarket, the scotch eggs and four weightwatchers citrus yogurts shot off the roof of the Berlingo and bounced across the road.

I couldn't give a stuff about the yogurts but the sight of scotch eggs careering out of sight chilled my very soul and blocking the traffic , I jumped out to retrieve what was left of them.

A casual observer could have been forgiven for thinking I had run over a cat or something, such was my horrified reaction to " the accident" but I was lucky

The plastic packaging that covers every bloody thing we buy nowadays had protected the eggs adequately enough

This obsession is getting out of hand

A Kindness

When you are over tired, anything that goes pear shaped can drag you down into a toddler-ish type tantrum worthy of any spoilt fat 18 month old brat who has just had his choccy biccy swiped from him. 

We had a bloody awful shift last night. I was over tired when I got home so I just didn't need a rather unpleasant job of trying to push back a prolapse on the back end of my female magpie duck....but I did it before walking into the kitchen to discover a wonderfully complicated pattern of shitty dog paw prints all over the carpet

I could have wept.........

I didn't though

I just had a swearing fit worthy of any Liverpudlian docker

Minutes later, as I was disinfecting the floor, with bleach  there was a gentle knock on the cottage window.

I sighed and answered the door.

It was animal helper Pat.

She handed me a wrapped up green parcel , which turned out to be a quality waterproofed jacket

And said in passing

" I have been sorting things out at home and found this... I thought it would be ideal for you on the field"

It was as simple as that.

Do you know .....when you are feeling pissed off and tired

And when life throws you one of those shitty paw kind of moments that almost heaves you over the edge

All it takes is a little act of kindness, for you to regain your perspective , your wits........

And your sense of humour.

I was and am very grateful..........

Off to bed for an hour

An Old Troublesome Shadow!

I am having more problems with blogger today

If we didn't have our blogs for nothing I would scream the place down

Here goes again

Needy and Just a little sad.....Meg the Welsh Terrier

Some people, when they get older, become more concrete in their thinking and in their behaviours....its a common phenomenon. 

Rigidity in routine can become an almost essential part of everyday life, and demanding behaviour can be a little hard work at time, especially if you are dealing with the older person 24/7

Our older welsh terrier ,Meg is such a character.

Over the years, her attachment with me has developed to something bordering on obsession.....where I go , she goes. when I sit, she sits with me, when I go to the toilet, she will stand by the door anxiously turning in slow circles waiting for the flush to go, Her neuroses are clear and at times all rather sad especially as she has become less tolerant of any dog that will dare to look at her out of the corner of their eyes

She is an old bitch,in all aspects of the word.

I think rheumatism has given her an occasional  and awkward limp and when she growls she only shows half a mouthful of baby sized teeth ( my first bulldog Constance knocked several of the others out in a fit of " you're getting on my tits" with all of this negative, needy behaviour) but there is  always something rather heartbreaking about her anxious brown eyes and her constant need for reassurance.

Yesterday she got herself into an altercation with a village dog. They were both on leads, and the fracas was unavoidable, but it did cost me a bunch of Marks and Spencer flowers, in way of an apology.

She is an old gal with a brittle psychi

Mental fragility Is not just a prerogative of us humans

Paddy's Day

It's funny but I always thought my surname derived solely  from Scotland.

It probably does seeing that my father's father hailed from over the border but over the years I have learnt than the name GRAY also has roots in Ireland and indeed also from the town of Grayes in Calvados, France.

I am First generation Welsh.

My grandparents hailed from West Calder in Scotland, and Lancashire and my great grandparents from the North West of England, Ireland, Scotland and all places Inbetween.

Therefore historically, I am a Northern Celt with touches, interestingly enough, of Jewish Gypsy from my fraternal grandmother's side who possibly originate from somewhere in Central Europe.

Like most people in the Uk, I am a product of industrial and economic migration.

Having a Irish and Scottish background of sorts, I may be forgiven for jumping upon the Celtic bandwagon of St Patrick's day, but alas, my days of drinking green Guinness with a strange green felt hat on my head went out with my student celebrations with best friend Nuala, who couldn't come from a more Irish/Liverpudlian family if she tried.

I find the cultural need of  the 'New World' Irish decendents to celebrate "Paddy's Day" so vociferously fascinating .Its not just a good excuse for a piss up , it goes deeper somehow...and is something, perhaps I will never properly understand.

perhaps someone out there could explain it to me.

ps

Thank you nana for the promise of sending me some West Calder photos

Thought you may appreciate this photo of one of your fellow Scots

In way of thanks!

The King Is Dead...Long Live The Bogbrush

Old Stanley finally gave up the ghost this afternoon, just as I was feeding his hens with extra cheap white bread. I saw him fall untidily next to an old watering can and he was dead as a door nail when I reached him.
I have commented before on just how good a protector the old guy has been over the years , so I thought it rather fitting that he was surrounded by his gals, all of which were filling their fat chicken faces with with two of tesco's best economy loaves as quickly as their greedy little beaks could muster.

Eric and Bogbrush two of the younger cockerels

And so after seven years the king of the field , like Elvis has finally left the building, and the question
remains  which male will now take over the old king's mantle?
My money is on Bogbrush ( above ) who is small but terribly aggressive
He suffers from little cockerel syndrome
Stanley's son, the impressive and gentle Badger , should by rights be the next alpha male
But I doubt he has the balls

Badger, handsome but fairly useless