More Waifs & Mr Spock

A brand new feed bin and two brand spanking galvanised feeders, two broody boxes , the promise of two new hen houses and four laying hens. No it's not Christmas early....it's the work of an Urban fox.

This morning the phone went early. It was from a tearful poultry keeper from Prestatyn who I know. Her pet  hens had just been attacked by a town fox. A brazen predator who had trotted around her garden with all of the confidence of a domestic Labrador. The fox killed one prize hen and left the other four shocked and traumatised and the whole sorry experience had upset the owners so much ( the lady's partner was recovering from cardiac surgery btw) that they wanted to relocate the survivors to somewhere "safer"

Now what stuck in my mind, was the fact that only a few days ago, one of my hens had been squished flat on the road by an irrational 4 x 4 driver, another I had effectively battered to death with a tin bowl in a fit of anger and another had been shut out of its coop and lost by the Professor on the only night I was away from Trelawnyd........"safe" was perhaps not the wisest word that could be used to describe the field at this very moment......

Anyhow, I promised the couple that I would take the hens on the proviso that they would always be theirs and that they could have them back at any time but I suspect that the trauma of having a fox ripping the wings off a family  pet was all too much for them, and so four new, shocked and nervous girls and all of their much welcomed equipment and housing have arrived at the cottage.

I locked up the birds with the diminutive Eric and left them all to calm down in his warm coop...... We are off to see the sexy Zachary Quinto in Star Trek!

Ping Pong

I couldn't  quite find the " ping pong" scene from Priscilla

( aka my previous post)

but this scene is a memorable stand in..

I just adore Terence Stamp's final one liner

In this movie he always reminds me of my old friend carol

( who is a drug counsellor in Cambridge)

Tee hee

Glut

Not much of an interesting blog today.

Yesterday, I didn't speak to a single soul all day.
This is a rare event for someone who lives on a busy corner of a village
And by late afternoon the isolation became noticeable.
After a beautiful week the weather turned yesterday, sending Trelawnyd folk scurrying back into their houses.The village  "Friendship Group" had also unfortunately planned their outing to Chirk Castle for a squally day and strangely there were no neighbours to chat to, or even a passing  farmer to buttonhole.
The whole village seemed deserted.
Mind you the wet day was useful in as much as I have finally planted out bosoms with potatoes, onion sets and cabbage......and our recent warm weather has brought the grass into life which has in turn provided the poultry with a boost they needed to kick out eggs with the frequency of  ping pong balls in a sleazy Bangkok nightclub.

So if you are local and want some eggs

Get in touch

I may even give you some discount

....a bit of light dusting....

Yesterday I took the train to the University " city" of Bangor

Fortified by a strong coffee and a Marks & Spencer scotch egg

I was ready for that challenge, all gay men like to face from time to time

And that is a spot of furniture arranging, room makeover titivating and rubbish removal.

Chris' work office was a ultilitarian, slightly bland lesson in functional academia.

You couldn't move for piles of research papers, box files and magnolia.....so my job ( and I was being paid just over minimum wage!) was to box up the shit, rearrange the office furniture to a more user friendly situation and ( and this was MY remit rather than Chris') to personalise the office with some judicious use of photographs and postcards, a collection he had tucked away, unseen in a drawer for an age.

A photograph we had taken of the Angel fountain in Central Park a few years ago now seemed to fit

the bill and by the time I had grouped it and other holiday snaps in a tastefully untidy collection that would impress any visiting Professor, the office looked more lived in and personal.

A colleague of Chris' popped her head into the office as I was arranging tea things onto a coffee table.

" I've made him some gingham curtains too!" I piped up

I wonder if she knew I was joking

A Sweet Natured Goose

Recently I have been debating whether or not Camilla, the Canada Goose is indeed a Charles.....

That general debate is now at an end, for she has now made a nest in which has been deposited several large white oval eggs.

Her eggs, I am presuming, are not fertile, for I have not seen Russell mating with her as he has done in his normal noisy way, with Winnie and Jo. And so, I need to remove them regularly in an effort to stop Camilla going overly broody.

Sitting geese can be terribly aggressive.

They are big powerful birds which can inflict a painful bite when they have a mind to, and so I have been somewhat cautious when retrieving her eggs. 

But so far, apart from the odd half hearted hiss, Camilla has been a real sweetie....with her big black eyes watching my every move, she always ambles gently to one side, so I can reach into the nest.

Her only show of bad humour this morning was a brief  and perfunctory  pull at the  band of my underpants when I bent over......

And before you all ask

Yes..they were clean on

For Wanda

Enjoy

Spring Dancing

The Berlingo is facing its MoT this morning.

God help it

That's all I can say.

My nephew who is a mechanic and garage owner is well used to the state of the car

He didn't batter an eyelid when he spied a clutch of goose eggs on the back seat

He's seen a great deal worse.

It is another beautiful spring day here in North Wales, and before I dropped the car off I noticed a group of old ladies ballroom dancing together in the grounds of local nursing home....

A carer in green overalls was clapping out a tempo as the women shuffled around the lawn in their woolly cardigans and floral dresses.

It was a charming  if slightly incongruous sight which reminded me of little incident from my student nurse days in Mental Health....

I have blogged about this way back in 2008 , but I think it is a story that is worth repeating, 

As a student nurse working in the last days of asylum care, life was sometimes a little tough! My elderly placement was on an ancient blue painted institution called Dunham Ward. The place was a bleak Victorian prison like building with a Nightingale dormitory for 24 senile men and had a staff of five per shift to care for them. Early shifts were a never ending slog of washing,toileting,changing, feeding and bed making. It was relentless and at times soul destroying, but generally the staff were upbeat and friendly and placements were survivable as they were usually only 12 weeks long!

One day I remember making the patients' drinks in the kitchen. I was tired and fed up, so was carelessly slopping tea into the variety of nhs cups and feeder beakers.Our kitchen was shared by our "sister" ward called Daresbury, which was the female version of Duham ward, and as I brewed the tea I could look out from a serving hatch into the ward's day room, where 20 old ladies, all of whom were suffering from the end stages of Alzheimer's , were slumped in their chairs which were all set up against the walls!

As I stood there, I could see one male visitor sat presumably with his wife. He was drinking coffee from a flask and she looked as though she was asleep. I remember she had her grey hair in a small tight bun. Slowly he put down his drink and holding onto her hands, he eased the lady to her feet. I thought he must have been preparing her to go to the toilet, but he didn't call a nurse or do that thing that carers have to do from time to time,and that is to check for wet spots!, he just pulled his wife to her feet and held her close before he slowly started to dance with her.

The woman staggered at first and then like stiff little robots they both tottered around for a while. But ever so  slowly muscle memory kicked in and the couple started to waltz gently around the big room , in front of 20 pairs of unseeing eyes. It was an incredibly moving moment and one that remains with me nearly 30 years later! In just a few precious seconds, I had learnt an incredibly important lesson about human dignity 

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