Pissing Weather!

Winnie trying to get into the festive mood
This weather lark has been somewhat irritating. The train service to and from the North Wales coast has been cancelled due to the flooding and my trip to Manchester today to visit old friend Nige has therefore been postponed .
Now, we had not planned a giddy-kipperish trip round the gay bars of canal street ( a sedate trip to the corner house cinema and a civilized bottle of white was the planned excitement of the evening) but I am disappointed not to have escaped the blustery brown wet of Wales.....for the blustery grey wet of inner  city centre Manchester.
The weather continues to reek havoc.....Chris' family beach hut has just been washed away from Broadstairs' beach.....

floods


This was the scene  of the floods in Rhyl today
( Rhyl is 5 miles  west of Trelawnyd)
It is a notoriously poor town 
I went into Rhyl tonight for my Samaritan shift
A local told me that over 400 people had to be evacuated
And that hundreds of bungalows in the town had been flooded
" over 35 £  of damage was caused" he added with a wry smile

Farting In The Wind

The weather is as rough as a bear's arse
As you can see
I have more than enough to do indoors
Just about to be all pretentious with some mincemeat and filo pastry
And I have a 24 page questionnaire from the community council to complete 
Question 18 made me smile
The "other" box is just not big enough


Our " C" Word Decorations


Waddu think?
Classy  & Festive enough?
The cottage has taken on a multicolored glow this evening
And as I pin up more lights,
George and William have sneaked off to bed upstairs
Winifred has stalked off to her crate
and Meg and Albert  are curled up in front of the fire
A snow globe bought from Saks on fifth avenue
Is lost on them
......animals!
They have no class

Update

Sylvia and Irene....I have them eating from my hand
In response to Beatrice F, who wanted an update on the Ukrainian Village population, I snapped a few photos for her this cold and muggy morning. The village population has now plateaued at a healthy 73 souls. The refugee hens that arrived on mass from Llanasa in the autumn have now been transformed from slightly sad and untidy birds into sleek free range ladies. You can tell that they are doing fine as the winter egg production remains fairly high.


The four geese are healthy and the ducks ( including the last three hysterical runners) have bonded into a robust little flock of eight birds....I will need to separate two drakes in the spring. when sex rears it's ugly head, but for now things are calm and peaceful.





Cogburn, the blind cockerel has shed his feathers and has suddenly gone all red and gold. He looks fantastic now and has recovered from a cowardly attack by the field cockerels who sneaked into his run when I was cleaning it out. The other waifs and strays ( the two ancient hens I took in last month and Mary the disabled rabbit) are all doing well in their own little runs and houses. There are now 17 little green " buildings" in "Anatevka"


Bingley, the turkey, is now the real patriarch of the field and in the spring will be joined by a couple of females ( a promise from a friend). His slightly aggressive behaviour towards the geese has now settled down.


It was too cold for the dogs this morning,
I found them all hidden away like this after their early morning wee walk

I am waiting for something to go wrong....everyone seems far too healthy and happy
Hey ho

A Box Of Happy Days

A box of Christmas pasts
Chris is working away so tonight I will busy myself with the yearly tradition of untangling the Christmas decorations from out of their box . I really think, that out of everything that we collect....the flotsam and jetsam of the material " necessitates " that accumulate when you share your life with another person , that Christmas decorations can be the most poignant .
Like photographs , these little collections of plastic and glass chronicle a lifetime. They remind you of happy days, of people lost, of friends loved and of nostalgias shared.
The fact that you get to " enjoy" them in only a few weeks of the year, makes them, just that little
more special I think.....
I grew up in a household that wasn't a very happy one. However at Christmas things could be very different as my mother loved everything about the season and so worked very hard indeed to make everything special and childlike.
The tradition of "sorting out the decs" remind me of those happier days
I suspect, I am not alone in this.


Too Far Gone (Beware Spoilers)

Too far gone ( the mid season finale I watched on YouTube today)
Old Hershel Green

Well, it had to happen. The Walking Dead has finally  killed off one of its most beloved characters . From the slightly pious and irritating religious farmer we met two dozen episodes back actor Scott Wilson has transformed Hershel Green from a stock supporting character in series 2 into a moving beacon of humanity and warmth amid a savage and sad new world in series 4.
For a programme with a fan base in its teens and twenties, it's refreshing to see that a man in his seventies has become a bit of a super hero
Fans of The Walking Dead have delighted in Scott's quiet authority in his role.....and it is a valuable lesson to learn that amid all of the CGI and gore......it is the performances and characterisations that are really  central.to the drama..
Hershel will be missed

Customer relations


The day after a night shift is when my temper often bubbles just underneath the surface
I wish I could be a better person when I am knackered.
But I can't .
Today a woman stopped to buy eggs
She wanted duck eggs there and then
So I had to schlep across the field to check the duck house to retrieve them
I only had five and so I only charged her  £1
But she wasn't happy
Now, ducks are not the cleanest of birds 
So I rinsed the eggs in the water butt before I handed them over..but even so
the woman sort of turned her nose up when I boxed them in front her of her
she pointed a perfectly manicured red finger nail at one of the hastily  collected and rather grubby eggs and asked rather haughtily
" is that mud?" 

I just couldn't be arsed with her

" No it's SHIT !" I said shortly