For baby sitting their fish and uncommunicative gecko, affable despot Jason and wife Claire gave me,amongst other things,four Crestwood Scotch eggs as a bit of a thank you!
A thoughtful and much appreciated gift, I thought.
Now I have not taste tested this variety before,
And so I set aside a few precious minutes this evening, to give the little beauties my full attention
Here is my assessment
Egg quality 8/10
Grey egg ring - absent 10/10
Thickness of sausage meat cover average 0.5 centimetres 6/10
Breadcrumb cover - slightly soft in places 5/10
Biteability - fair 6/10
Overall... A fair scotch egg with an averagely tasty crumb cover.Not in the class of Waitrose best or Marks& Spencer quality ranges...... But, nevertheless a nice scotch egg, which could be enjoyed at a pub lunch or a lower Middleclass family get together
The deadline for taking entries for the Trelawnyd Flower Show is only a week away.The big set up of the village Hall takes place next Friday when the Children's art from the school is displayed , and the tea tables are set up each with a vase of garden flowers set out on hand embroidered tablecloths. The trophies from last year are polished and set out, Auntie Glad's bric-a-brac stall is assembled and great rolls of paper are celotaped to trestle tables in readiness for the entries to come in early on Saturday morning.
We have been debating whether or not to cancel this years show as to many in Treawnyd Sylvia Evans WAS the Flower Show.....it's heart and it's soul.. Some have felt it distrespectful to carry on, especially if Sylvia's funeral was scheduled for the end of the week Others have voiced a " The Show must go on" kind of mentality, which I must say is hard as every tiny part of the show set up was choreographed within an inch of its life by Sylvia and long term treasurer Irene, who by a quirk of fate will not be available to participate in this years show.
I must admit, if it was solely up to me.
I would cancel the whole event.
But it's NOT up to me,
and so after a long discussion with Sylvia's family,other members of the cast so to speak and to Auntie Glad ( who feels that only a war could disrupt the show) it has been decided that we will go ahead as planned.
AND SO I AM BLOGGING TODAY TO ENCOURAGE THOSE THAT ARE THINKING OF ENTERING THEIR PRODUCE FLOWERS, VEG, CRAFTS AND FUNNY NOVELTY VEG IN THE SHAPE OF AN ANIMAL BUT ARE IN TWO MINDS ABOUT IT....PLEASE DO Due to the erratic wether we have recently experienced, as well as the fact that the local Eisteddfod will be taking place over next weekend show entries are predicted to be down this year. .
So as Tesco always says " every little helps"
So please Support the show, as a mark of respect for the former flower show champion That was
Sylvia Evans....and get your entries ready.
One look at my " encouraging " blog stats, and I could be forgiven in thinking that Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainments would be soon snapping up the film rights of Going Gently ( with Russell Crowe playing me, Bradley Cooper as Chris and a delightful cameo performance from Helen Mirren as Auntie Glad)
Alas, I don't think that these stats always give the budding blog writer the full picture.
In between Google, and odd referral sites such as fif-course and Feedly reader ....genuine Going Gently fans are not as common as loose knicker elastic is in a whorehouse.
It's good to remember this fact.
" you are never as popular as you think you are"
Such should be blogger's mantra.
Having said all this
As soon as I reach my 1 millionth page view
I'm opening the champagne
I am as shallow as the next old Queen !
Hey Ho
Off to bed now for an hour....night shift last night
The humour of yesterday's post, belied a very real sense of sadness that circulated through certain factions of Trelawnyd yesterday as the health of matriarch village stalwart ,champion cake maker and Flower Show Diva, Sylvia Evans deteriorated in hospital.
The phone has rung a few times this Morning, every caller passing on the sad news that Sylvia had indeed passed away .
My thoughts are with her family today
The village has lost someone quite special.
Now what would you say, if I told you that you could have sex " on tap" so to speak during all of the daylight hours of the day.
" Chance would be fine thing" may be the response from many I suspect.
If that is the case, please give a thought for my last two remaining Indian runner female ducks, Daphne and Nell . With the recent demise of their drake Halleh ( who refused to have sex with either duck preferring the company of the more buxom and obviously sexier hens), two younger and more virile drakes have grabbed their opportunity for multiple sex partners and have given the runners a good " seeing to" so to speak.
Unfortunately it's got all out of hand.
Out of all of our animals , drakes are the most rampant.
They are aggressive, demanding and ardent love makers.
They also don't pause for a post coital cuddle and cigarette
It's wham bang, " I'm going to grab you by the back of the head and shag you until your eyeballs pop out" kind of romance..........there are no flowers and chocolates in the duck world
Yesterday I had to save Daphne from the long grass, where she had effectively collapsed under the strain of it all.
She allowed me to pick her up ( unheard of in hysterical runner duck circles) and heaving a massive sigh of relief, she joined an already vagina smarting Nell in their own peaceful and shag free run.
They will have to stay there until the drake testosterone fails in the autumn.
Peace has now returned to the field
Hey ho
Postscript:
The two males have been given their own run for a while leaving the six females free on the field.
The peace continues
Being responsible for a child's much loved pet is a daunting prospect, especially when you know noting about benign, putty coloured reptiles which seem to spend their whole existence with their arses stuck in a mass of plastic foliage.
Affable despot and blog pin up Jason, gave me various instructions regarding water spraying, feeding and the like, so I was ready to cope with the responsibility of " looking after Gracie"
Or so I thought.
The water spraying was easy, the sorting out why Gracie's tank was not plugged into the mains was sorted ( I had to ring my sister who is works in a national pet shop to find this one out.....)
But I couldn't quite get the hang of tipping a few miniature live crickets into the tank for Gracie to chomp on.
Miniature crickets are slippery little suckers.
On my first attempt I managed to get just one into the tank
On my second attempt I dropped the cricket container onto the living room floor, scattering the little bastards everywhere....
Have you ever had to round up a dozen or so tiny insects from an average shagpile in someone else's home?
No me neither.
It took an absolute bloody age.
..and this is only day one!
I think I'll stick to baby rabbits
Roland seems to still be doing fairly well btw
Although my pet shop expert sister thinks he may be a her
Roland has therefore been renamed Mary
The former vicarage gardens where the show is held
Yesterday morning was spent taking admission money at The Prestatyn Flower Show. You meet a nice lot of people, you feel useful and you play with money, so it's a win win sort of experience all round and I kind of enjoyed myself.
Of course there are always a few difficult customers.
" How much to come in love?" One old bag asked
" £ 1.50 " I said giving her big smile
" HOW MUCH?" She shrieked
I repeated myself and added in my best PR voice " there's lots to see and enjoy"
" You can bugger off" she said huffing away.
So I couldn't resist a call of
" have a nice day" as she left
She wasn't my favourite bad tempered customer.
And Chris can verify this story as he was stood feet away from the exchange, which had to be seen to be believed ( he has actually left his first (AND LAST) comment on GOING GENTLY below!)
I have been asked to verify the truth of this story, which I can. The only thing he missed was that her false teeth fitted none too well, so the oooohhhh and ahhhhss were interspersed with a high pitched whistling of air. Delightful.
Picture the scene
Very old lady in a blue mac. She walks firmly up to my " meet, greet and pay " table and plonks down a one pound coin.
I smile and say in my best Nanette Newman voice
" I' m sorry admission is £ 1.50 I'm afraid"
She starred at me long and hard
" I am not going to be very long" she muttered
I smiled again
" Admission is still £1.50, you can't just have a pound's worth of a look"
There was then a bit of a stand off.
The pressure was on
The queue was starting to form and she knew she had me at a slight disadvantage
She gave me another long stare
I thought I would play it hard ball
So I looked the old bat straight in the eye and said slowly
" ONE....POUND.....FIFTY.....PLEASE"
She then played her trump card
And I am not exaggerating when I say this,
For suddenly she started to make a noise I can only liken to Robert Newton's Pirate voice from the film TREASURE ISLAND
" arrrhhhhhhhh arrrhhhhhhh arhhhh" she croaked ( thank fuck she didn't add " Jimlad" ....) and I looked helplessly at Chris not knowing just what to do
It's not often you see an old lady giving a pirate impersonation....and a good one at that
" arrhhhh arrrhhhhh" she repeated gnashing her gums at me.....and I did what any self respecting Flower Show admission steward would do in that sort of situation
I waved her through the gate.
John O
Old pirate lady 1
