An AFS Badge

In our house Sunday morning is a time for pottering and jobs. The Professor , In between his academic chores, has planted out buddleia in the garden, whereas I have splashed bleach around the cottage with gay abandon and have run amok with the mop. It's been the usual Joan Crawford " I'm not mad at you...I'm mad a the dirt" moment......... Come on we all have them...don't we?
Anyhow, as I was shifting some papers, this old badge slipped into view.
It was my grandfather's old uniform badge from his wartime Auxiliary Fire Service days in Liverpool, and I had long forgotten that I had kept it
He used to fascinate and frighten his grand children with stories of the Liverpool Blitz during the 1970s which, if you think about it was only 30 years after the true horrific events. Bloody hell it was only recently that I blogged about my own experiences as a student psychiatric nurse... And they were recalled from 30 years ago as well........Historical memories are only a stones throw away when you think about it , and after my generation has gone, there will be no one around to remember things like my Grandfather's heroic experiences down the bombed docks of Liverpool's waterfront or indeed  my own, more minor experiences nursing the lunatics of Chester.....
The Professor has his own thoughts on legacy and epitaphs.
" what would mine be?" I asked him
" Your blog" he said....
And that's perhaps why I felt the urge to document, albeit briefly, what my grandfather had done.....
Nothing EVER is forgotten on the Internet is it not?
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Anyhow after dog walks and jobs, come a most welcomed early Sunday afternoon sit in front of the fire......today, as the Prof jumps into his research papers , and the dogs make themselves comfortable in the arm chairs.....I am going to watch a re run of Sherlock

And finally....a quick photo for Pam, the lady who suffered the fox attack yesterday morning. Your hens are doing just fine and have perked up after their ordeal. I am keeping them in a small secure run until Tuesday, after which they will have free reign over the field.

Tits In Space

Spock and Kirk....true love?

Well in like any performance review...let's start with the good points

1) It's a roller coaster ride remake of the first movie with great set pieces, excellent visuals ( with the usual over abundance of fast editing) and a jaunty ensemble cast to die for .

2) The movie 'enjoys ' fleshing out of past story lines from the TV series and the 80s film franchise and does have an unexpectedly moving subplot involving the bromance between Kirk and Spock which  finally rears its head out of the wham bang wallop.

3) Benedict Cumberbatch's reincarnation of baddie Khan is a cracking success as is the wisecracking pacey script...which complements the action very well.

And the not so good

1) Much of what we see is a noisier, flashier, rehash of the original but in 3D....3D that the film just does not benefit from..

2) The two female characters of Uhura ( Zoe Saldana) and newbie Dr Carol Marcus ( Alice Eve) are a little embarrassing and are dreadfully oldfashioned. Uhura sulks with boyfriend Spock and Carol is filmed in her bra and knickers....not a good idea in a 2013 movie..... Mind you most of the diehard treckers will enjoy the big pair of boobs bouncing around in subspace I am sure 

3) the film did not need the obvious 9/11 references which surface in its latter stages

Overall it's an entertaining romp.

And Spock is still a VERY sexy Vulcan 

8/10

Ps. Long term fans may recognise where the plot will eventually go .....anyone remember Genesis?

Tits in space

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