An Apology


The arrival of winter heralds the donning of the long johns at Bwthyn-y-llan. I have never really been a fan of the old budgie smuggler preferring something with a bit" more body" if you get my drift, but come the cold mornings...on go the thermals .......with a sigh of pleasure......and they will stay glued to me like a second skin until spring.
I learnt a new word this morning, as I climbed groaning out of bed. I was giving my arse a healthy scratch when Chris opened a bleary eye, took a look at my grey long johns and said
" you are certainly not known for your sartorial elegance"
I had to ask what sartorial meant
I guess if you have to ask you just haven't " got it"
Anyhow, whilst we are on the subject of " pants" I have to pen a public apology to the doctor's wife Pippa Barnsley to whom I flashed a pair of buttocks at the other day when I was squeezing into a second most favorite pair of long johns in front of the cottage window and she was out on the lane walking her hounds.
Old cottages have low windows

The Walking Dead ...mid season finale (spoilers again)

Don't mess with the kiddies

Well The Walking Dead has finished for a few months....this is a new and perplexing phenomenon for
after the eighth of sixteen episodes..suddenly it's time to leave the audience with a bleeding awful cliff hanger then break for 12 weeks
It's bollocks!
....Going Gently is now an official zombie free zone
Tonight on fox we saw that
The prison survivors have all been separated and have fled into the countryside
Old Hershel has been beheaded
Fledgling psychopath, ten year old Lizzie ,blasted lipstick lesbian Alicia into next week without as much as a second look
And fat baby Judith could have become a quick snack for any passing eagle eyed walker
Oh Happy days
Please wash your hair Daryl

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.