Gawd Bless Her

I loved this

An actress who didn't send a flunkie or a theatre manager to sort out her gripes

She got off her arse and did it all herself

Atta gal Helen

" Who Would Have Thought It?"

Meg.Enjoying the sun...Duster is in the distance

" cor...lummy....it's a warm, nay HOT bank holiday"

A totally unbelievable event in recent Uk history.

I have wasted half of the day in bed after night shift.....

And woke up under the eaves of the cottage, sweating like a pig. 

Bwthyn-y-Llan is south facing, so warms up magnificently when the sun is out.

The heat gets you up and going much quicker than any alarm clock

The badgers removed poor Bogbrush's corpse over night, leaving a couple of white tufty bits in way of a guilt trip for me.....Duster, Bogbrush's brother is now king of the field.....he should be safe from tin bowl weilding ,sciatica suffering nurses.........he's a benign fellow,

Anyhow ..we are off to Jacksons ( a market garden and cafe just outside the village) for a sticky bun........I wanted a scotch egg..... But there is no call for them .....heathens

Chris talking to Albert on top of the blind Rooster Cogburn's run.

With Meg looking on

" f*ck......I've Just Killed Bogbrush!"

Sometimes you just don't think when faced with a " difficult" situation

You just react.

And that does not always work out the way you would wish.

This evening, just as I was encouraging the tiny Useless little buggers into their coop

Bogbrush the aggressive silkie cockerel

Hurtled forward and started to kick the shit out of the tiny male bantam right in front of me.

Without a thought I swung the tin feed bowl I was holding and clacked Bogbrush smartly on the head with it to teach him a lesson in manners

And unfortunately this was the result

RIP Bogbrush

Life is hard sometimes

When you are a bully

There is always someone bigger than you

A Trelawnyd Spring Wedding

There was a wedding in the village this afternoon

The Barnsley's daughter from the rectory

Auntie Glad and several of the village "ladies"were there to see the bride

And I watched the proceedings with Bingley from the comfort of Bosoms, which I have just fenced off in preparation for planting.

Enjoy

Like most things that are YOUTUBE , this clip sort of fell on my lap by accident...I was up at four am with buttock pain, and so went to lie down on the hard sofa with the duvet so that my tossing and turning would not wake Chris and the dogs. Before I eventually fell asleep, I caught this brief video of a group of random commuters on a train........and absolutely fell in love with it.
Nothing is said.......we are totally in the dark of any precipitating factors for the laughter, but the simple infectious nature of silly giggling is, for me a great panacea to all of the bad things we are forced to hear about on a daily basis.
Enjoy

A Birthday Duck

Nine ducks ( with cockerels Bogbrush & duster)

When I looked 

I had eight ducks this morning

When I returned after taking Chris out for his birthday lunch

I suddenly had nine

...and it's another f*cking hysterical runner duck that has arrived

Out of the blue without so much as a kiss-me-arse

Hey bleeding ho

Happy Birthday Prof x

It's the professor's birthday tomorrow

And we will be doing little birthday "treat" things all day
He never works on the anniversary of his birth
It's a tradition

And so I will warm him some chocolate hot cross buns for breakfast
I will line up his cards and pressies in bed ( for the " official opening")
And I will keep my everyday chicken husbandry and dog Clingon removal to a minimum today
He will come first... Which is a rarity when the usual competition is  group of needy animals.
He's a big kid when birthdays are involved

 I have  to say that we are a good team, the prof and ,I and we have been so  for over 13 years now........
He gives me grounding, objectivity, security and love

I give him warmth, humour, a home reminiscent of Miss Marple's cottage  and a constant headache.........it's a good partnership.......
it works........
.....and so ...... Today.......all ..I will say......is " Happy birthday my old doll"
You don't look 44...................
...........
.............much
J x

Emotonal Romps ( with Friends and On Trains)

The Peace Gardens in Sheffield.......site of my Scotch Egg tea picnic

Last Night I met up with five old friends.

Our histories have intertwined for two decades, through thick and thin....at work and leisure...and through much laughter and occasionally quite a bit of pain. I have passed through my thirties and forties and now have crept into my fifties and still they are there...a little greyer, a little older but still constants in my life, albeit now more intermittent contacts than they were when I lived in the old steel city.

I miss them. 

I miss my neighbour and friend John swishing his arms like a demented Bette Davis in my back garden.

I miss Jane's warmth and ability to laugh at anything, I miss Mike's sensible geniality, Sarah's unflappable nature and I miss Ruth's machine gun "Frankie Howard" repartee. 

Life and distance can get in the way of friendships if you let them so

it was good to touch base...........a year was far too long to be apart.

We chatted and laughed, like we have always done and like we will undoubtedly do again in a few months time when I get my arse into gear again to make the short trip across from Wales..........

and I went to bed at midnight happy in the fact that somethings in life dont really change

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Have you ever cried on a train?
I have...well just a little that is......I have just watched the Israeli film "Yossi" which is a surprisingly unsentimental yet incredibly moving portrayal of the long tern grief suffered by the 34 year old closeted gay cardiologist Yossi after the death of his soldier lover during their army service in the Lebanon a decade previously.
Yossi is an over weight, workaholic loner who spends his life in a quiet, emotionally flat sort of desperation, a sad, lonely existence that is challenged quite unexpectedly by a chance meeting with four young soldiers to whom he gives a lift to.

Eytan Fox has produced a little gem of a movie a decade after his breakthrough first feature Yossie and Jagger( 2002) , ( which is the story of the original doomed love affair between the two twenty somethings boy soldiers.) for Yossi is a quiet and measured study of depression and loneliness without the usual Hollywood histrionics and emotional romping

Ohad Knoller reprises his original title role quite magnificently. In hushed tones and with sad whipped puppy eyes he portrays Yossi as a character who is not only still grieving for a past life and love but who is an emotionally flat, unconfident lump of a man reminiscent, a little, of Ernest Borgnine's Marty.
It's an incredibly restrained performance in a rather understated, moving film.
9/10