The Garden at Dusk

We have a tiny cottage back garden, and an even smaller front garden, but in May and June, it does look at its best

The planting is haphazard and in places untidy

It's a pity, the garden is not always like this

But it kind of suits our old lady sense of style

The aubritia I planted on the church wall last year is doing well
It makes me feel that our garden extends way beyond the garden wall

Village News

In my somewhat limited experience, Old Welsh farmers are not sentimental sort of folk.
Having said this, if that Brian Blessed type character that was the RFWF ( the red faced welsh farmer) was gazing down on the village from his heavenly red landrover, he would be beaming his round, big red faced grin today as his son Ed was voted into his old place on the village community council.

The elections for counsellor took place yesterday and the turnout for a small village of under  500 souls was pretty good by all accounts, a fact that pleasantly surprised me. The  election of a younger bloke with a farming background will be an asset to the council and hopefully when more vacancies do eventually become free, then more women will perhaps take an interest. I would like us to shake the "Dad's Army" type image, councils' so often tend to foster.

Anyhow.......Well done Ed.... Your dad would have been tickled pink!

It's been a week of village meetings. Wednesday we finalised " who is doing what" at the Flower Show Committee meeting in Auntie Glad's kitchen and yesterday me and one of the Gwaenysgor Councillors met up with a web site designer to discuss developing their village website into a joint site with Trelawnyd.
I had to laugh when the rather chic middle aged lady web designer pointed excitedly at my Walking Dead  T shirt with a " ohhhhhhh I Lurve The Walking Dead......... who is your favourite character ?" Comment..........
It's a small world.
Anyhow, all is well with Bingley, as all the trials and tribulations of yesterday now seem to be forgotten. Thanks to all that left their good wishes
I have treated him today to a tin of cheap dog food, which he bolted down with some gusto and obvious delight...presently he is dozing in the sun, not far from the ducklings who are out enjoying the spring day

A Turkey On The Back Seat

Sore but well behaved

It's been a bit of a surreal morning all told.

Somehow Bingley got himself jabbed in the arse by one of the fence poles surrounding Bosoms during which he sustained a rather nasty puncture wound. A wound that, in my opinion needed a stitch. 

The vet practice I go to is ten miles from Trelawnyd, so without much thought, I placed a Marks & Spencer carrier bag on the back seat of the Berlingo, plonked Bingley onto it and set off to the vets.

Now I wasn't sure if  Gorgeous George Clooney was on duty this morning, but I did make a bit of an effort and put on my best Walking Dead T shirt on before motoring on inland, just in case...

Bingley , bless his little cotton socks is thick as mince, and so, to me, it wasn't at all strange that he sat quite calmly during the whole journey, gazing out of the window, seemingly enjoying the whole experience despite his injury. He was good as gold, when the 13 year old vet stitched his wound ( well he was wrapped up tightly in a blanket to make sure) and he didn't batter an eyelid when we stopped at a butchers on the way home ( the same butchers that dispatched the pigs last year as it happened) in order for me to buy a proper country scotch egg for my lunch.

I was just getting back into the Berlingo, when a passing woman stopped short and said rather incredulously in her best Lady Bracknell voice

" Is that a TURKEY on the back seat?"

" Yes" I said brightly" he does so love a trip out when it's sunny"

And with that I drove off.......

Election Fever

It's all go in Trelawnyd. Tomorrow is Election Day where the population of the village has the opportunity to vote in a new Community Councillor. The two candidates have canvassed their CV's and quite clearly both men would  be an asset to the council as they seem level headed, community orientated and very much their own 'men' so to speak.

I wish them both well, 

A few weeks ago, I embarked on a very rough straw poll of locals and their general knowledge of what the community council was all about. Out of around fifty people I asked, only four knew the name of just one community councellor from the village, a fact that really does speak for itself .

In these days of ' insular living' and community apathy, many dont see the relevance of such a small and local strata of local government, so I think that the fact that two local and popular men are presently making the effort to engage the village is a laudable and timely ' kick up the arse' for many.

I have just drafted a brief newsletter on behalf of the council, outlining whose who and what's what.... on  the council and what's happening in both villages .It's a simple PR exercise, nothing more, but hopefully it may spark a bit of community involvement that has been hiding away in more recent times. 

Who knows....

Anyhow... I will leave you with a community based observation. Yesterday I visited with Eirlys,a friend who has a chicken farm a mile or so out of the village. She mentioned that she had just bought a load of Flower Show raffle tickets from a " sprightly old lady" who in her summer dress, had walked the few miles around country lanes to buttonhole the houses and farms on the periphery of the village.

I had to smile to myself..... auntie Glad had been at work again....I bet she has sold most of her allocation of  several hundred tickets whereas we the younger members of the Flower Show committee have not even started selling our own bundles.....The community Councillor to be, take note........ You

 should have employed the old gal as your PA. ........

The Watcher

It's not a good photo but if you look very closely

You will see a pair of button black eyes watching every move I make.We all came back to the cottage at quarter to ten, just after the last hen tottered into her hen house, and as I watched some mindless tv, I could spy the old gal of our menagerie, the welsh terrier Meg

following every sigh, comment and every fart from her position on the couch

The older she gets the more needy our old lady becomes. In twenty minutes she will be curled up under my chin, happy at being a knat's crotchet away from my beating heart.

Now she will watch me with the tenacity of a furry limpet

Willing me to go to bed with her under my arm like a needy roll of lino

Her loyalty is all rather touching

Her anxious neediness breaks my heart

Normal Service Has Been Resumed

A particularly busy and crappy shift on Saturday and another busy night shift last night means that my body clock has been bounced around like like a good pole dancer on a slippery pole.
My patient, as it turned out had suffered a spinal injury, and so, for a change I could flex my ( considerable) spinal injury knowledge to tick all the boxes, other nurses couldn't quite reach so to speak.....I am a bit of a show off  on the quiet.......( quelle surprise! I hear you chant)...and so, I left work with a sense of tired satisfaction that I had completed a job well done

After night shift, there is nothing more delightful than early morning fresh air. The claustrophobic surroundings of work get kicked into touch, for spring green sunshine and within seconds of getting back to Trelawnyd, I have flung open the cottage windows to let in the sights and smells of home.

These are the times when I feel lucky.

Chris is working in London all week, and so it's just me and the animals at BwthynY Llan until Saturday afternoon.  I drop him off at the station with a kiss then return home after dribbling a strong costa coffee  take out all down my front as I negotiate the difficult bends back over the hill...I then make two cheese filled bagels and me and the dogs, with Albert in tow, wander over to the field  to share them under the graveyard elms, surrounded by the ever moving carpet of birds and two rather scruffy Scottish ewes

The best bit after night shift.........

I am home.......

Baby Oaks

Last year, the Jubilee year, The Flower Show Committee supported the work and enterprise of the village Carnival Committee with a notable donation.

In return, they kindly passed over to us a box of Oak tree saplings from Prince Charles' Highgrove estate, the remainder of which had been earmarked for planting in a local " Jubilee Wood"

The ten saplings were a welcomed gift, as last Year's Flower Show Objective was to replant some native trees into the old Church Yard. Trees that had died away or which had been removed by some over zealous strimming by the local council workmen.

Too small and fragile to plant out in the more robust graveyard, I placed the tiny, bare sticks into my allotment for the winter and although  I was not that hopeful they would survive, given the dreadfully wet, cold and miserable time we had experienced over the past  year or so, strangely enough they have, albeit in varying stages of growth.

When they are strong enough, we will transplant the Jubilee Oaks to their final resting place surrounding St Michael's....a future reminder to the residents of Trelawnyd, that The Flower Show Woz here!

Beautiful

I listened to an interesting debate on LBC Talk radio the other day. The presenter ( the affable James O'Brien) discussed how he and his wife disagree slightly on how they verbally support their two little girls. James, almost on a daily basis, tells his daughters that they are beautiful. His wife prefers to highlight their " beautiful behaviour"' a kindness, a Noble deed, a polite word. For her, their self worth is not just skin deep so to speak and she thinks it is important not to concentrate on the physical, nice as it is to hear.

I listened to the discussion with interest, and was reminded of it again , when I was on the phone to my elder sister just yesterday when we were chatting about her grandson who has a short term but painful disability. I reinforced that he comes from a supported and level headed family, who has instilled self worth and confidence into their child from the start. Huge skills that buffer the brickbats of life. The boy, I am sure,will do very well indeed.

My parents did not have had the skills or the knowledge to emotionally support their children. We were never told that we good at anything, we were never told we were beautiful. We were never told we were nice people....In general good deeds were overlooked and minor discretions were pounced upon....then it was normal...today,subscribers to mumsnet would be screaming from the rafters if they witnessed it.

How something's change. 

How, for the most part, has parenting changed.

This morning, out of the blue, but probably on the back of this blog subject, I remembered a moment in primary school when I had a poem printed out in a collection of pupils work. It was a wonderful and celebratory moment that I can still almost experience  and certainly appreciate some 41 years later, That poem game me some vindication and pride in myself, vindication and pride that I should have received from my parents consistently throughout my childhood...

I was feeding the ducklings this morning with a large plate of sloppy egg.

And I have just remembered that I told them both just how beautiful they were looking and how clever they were at scoffing the lot from their plate

I would have made a decent parent me thinks

.............Despite my upbringing.