Going Gently

Remembrance

No, it's not an incredibly thin dalek goosing Mona Davies
It's Merion Ellis flexing his walking stick
The villagers at the War memorial

Remembrance Sunday always has a tendency to make me feel just a tad melancholy
It's not that the fallen that give me cause to reflect
It is the increasingly small band of those who are left, that leave me feeling just that little bit hollow.
Today a few hardy souls gathered around the village memorial to pay their respects to the six Trelawnyd men that were killed in two world wars.
In a few years time there will be no one around to salute the fallen. the baby boomers like me, are perhaps the last who heard of the war first hand from those that experienced the horrors of it, after we are gone, so are the links with a time that shaped the modern world.
The " new " conflicts of recent years will then be the conflicts of old men's conversations.

I took Winifred with me, as I thought a Churchill-esque presence would be appropriate.Strange that Winifred's former name was a totally inappropriate " Poppy" ...inappropriate for her...appropriate for the day......

Chris Does The Bus

What a lightweight... Three large glasses of white and I was fast asleep of the last train home last night......how sad is that?
Anyway we left the old Berlingo by the station, and so had to get the bus this morning down to town to collect it.
On a Saturday there is only one bus from the village
Now, you have to remember that Chris does not "do" public buses
The very thought turns him into a very passable imitation of Maggie Smith's Dowager from Downton Abbey, and so it was with somewhat of a devilish heart that I made him walk with me to the bus stop in the centre of the village.
In "Chris world" a bus ride could be a gentle, quiet and private experience. The reality of the situation was somewhat different when a largish gaggle of local grey hairs ambled noisily from the pensioner bungalows to join us in the bus shelter.
Now I know most of these characters , where as chris does not, and I could hear Chris mutter under his breath when local larger-than-life " gay" Gordon bellowed his usual "HELLO FLOWER,"as he limped across the road with his neighbour ( an elderly lady with a walker) in tow.
"MORNING MY DARLING!" Gordon sang out when another neighbour , Rowena, passed the bus stop on her way home." FLUTTERING YOUR EYELASHES AT ME FLOWER YOU NAUGHTY THING" he flirted away as Rowena gave him one of those " get away with you" waves.
He then turned his attention to me and asked me in his theatrical way how all the animals were doing
as more ladies from the pensioner bungalows arrived to join in the chat. Gordon sang out a lusty
" DO YOU KILL YOUR OWN COCKERELS JOHN?"
Chris tried to disappear into the background as I answered him.
It was getting all a bit much for him
" I USED TO GUT AND PREPARE HENS AT A FARM IN SARN" Gordon continued to explain to the small crowd
" I USED TO DRAPE THEIR GUTS AROUND MY NECK AND CHASE THE LOCAL CHILDREN" he added colourfully
Chris groaned to himself and said " how lovely"
It was all hugely entertaining.
And there was another ten minutes of all this before the bus arrived.

Half an hour later we had reached Prestatyn and jumped off the bus into the the sun
Chris didn't say much, but his face was a picture

" never again" he said simply

Date night

On the way home

A Good night

Mary

At the age of 51, there are things that you expect not to happen in your life.
You don't expect to get spots,
You don't get the urge to throw yourself head first on a bouncy castle
And you don't expect to be owning your first rabbit.
Mary, the disabled rabbit seems to be going from strength to strength.
Admittedly her life is a small one
A dry hay bed
A nice selection of bunny food
And a view of a field, a lane and the excitement of passing traffic.
It is a small life.
I have been thinking about the ethics of looking after a wild creature in such conditions. Her leg remains fairly useless, and so her survival chances within the Darwinian world of the hedgerows would be brief...
It's a knotty question
What would joy Adamson do I wonder?
I got home late last night after Samaritans and took William out for a quick pee break
We looked over the field gate and saw Mary, sitting up in her hutch, eager and alert and safe.
She looked happy enough..that is if rabbits can actually look happy.....and as we watched her nibble
Contentedly on some donated greenery...I thought to myself...even Joy Adamson wouldn't dare to whistle " BORN FREE" in my general direction.
I am 51
And the rabbit stays....

Ghost hen Christmas Card

Thanks to Em Parkinson
http://dartmoorramblings.blogspot.co.uk
This is our Christmas Card for this year. Avid readers will recognise a couple of the "Ghost Hens" from a year or so ago... You know those lovely fat rescue hens that spent most of their brief time on this earth sitting smiling in the sun

More clever dick computer work

Members arriving for choir practice in the early 1950s

Despot Jason has been working like a little ferret today and here are some of the results...I know a little boring for non Trelawnyd residents, but a fascinating journey for us locals.

The old long gone cottages at the bottom of high street

The same view showing the new pensioner bungalows

one of the three village shops. The little girl still lives in the village

Clever Sausage updated

The ever affable village pin up Jason is a clever sausage.
He has been playing around with some of the old photographs of Trelawnyd from MY HISTORY BLOG and has inserted them exactly into their present day positions.
A neat trick if you can do it I thought!
The below photo is a case in point. It shows the village wartime volunteer force posing magnificently outside the memorial hall.