My Secret Santa

Now, I know I risk sounding rather ungrateful here, but I have to admit that I have never had a " good" pressie from work's secret Santa.

It is such a regular anticlimax, that I no longer look for my gift when I go to work over the Christmas period.

Last night some bright spark " found" my pressie and in front of the other staff proudly brought it out for its official unveiling 

Now I may be many thinks to many people......but I am not..... ( and I repeat) am not a person who would EVER be seen dead in a cheaply made, all in one , superman themed , red and blue baby grow

Having said that, there is one person, not a million miles away from me, that HAS taken a shine to the offending piece of clothing

He has been wearing it all morning

Wonders never cease

2013

Like any year 2013 has seen its fair share of comings and goings in the village.
The phrase " They don't make them like that anymore" was uttered more than once, I can tell you after we lost John Lloyd- Ellis ( aka " The Red Faced Welsh Farmer" ) in Feburary and Sylvia Evans in the summer.
The RFWF always reminded me of a scruffy and harder Brian Blessed. Big in voice and big in heart, he was the marmite of Trelawnyd. you either liked him or loathed him...... I was lucky for I liked him and after a shaky start ( we had a huge row over some water containers) we became good friends.
I still miss seeing his red landrover careering around Trelawnyd, with his fat red face grinning through its open window....and I miss his vocal tirades at the  community Council meetings where he gave the local counsellors a run for their money.
Trelawnyd is a much quieter and less colourful place without him.

The R F W F

Sylvia Evans was equally colourful in her own indomitable way A local matriarch, champion cake bake provider and village ' organizer', I got to know her when I joined the most elite of all village committees, which Was and IS The Trelawnyd Flower Show Committee.
Now Sylvia kept a tight rein over the committee, and presided over meetings around  Auntie Glad's kitchen table with , I am sure, a diastolic blood pressure of way over 100 and a very firm hand.Think of a more polite Agnes Brown from tv's Mrs Brown's Boys.....and you will understand where I am coming from. The flower Shows, under her captainship were always successful, and energetic affairs
I miss her dearly.

Sylvia Evans

It has not been all gloom and doom losses in the village however. Winifred arrived like  a whirlwind and in a relitively short time has dovetailed rather neatly into life in a tiny welsh cottage and on the field nearly forty " refugee" birds took up residence amid more unwanted ducks, hens and a disabled wild rabbit called Mary, who has gone from strength to strength in her neat little warm hutch by the field gate.

Winnie

What will 2014 bring?
More of the same no doubt.
Watch this space
Happy New Year x

Master Bedroom

This is my third favourite Andrew Wyeth's painting entitled Master Bedroom
To me the dog looks old and frail.......it's a painting that always makes me a tad emotional

Lucky I don't " do" emotional romps on New Years Eve either
Am working night shift tomorrow night..........I have never liked New years Eve since 1989 it must be said
My Father and a good friend of mine , newspaper photographer Ian Parry died tragically a couple of days from each other......around new year Eve almost 24 years ago

Since then, I have never really had the stomach for it all

Turkey Emergency

Chris returned from his daily morning jog yesterday, which proved to be a little bit disappointing owing to a bit of " over indulgence " over the Yuletide period.
When he returned home he gave strict instructions for any calorie busting flotsam to be removed from the cottage and out of temptation's way..and so leftover Christmas pudding, Half eaten oatcakes,biscuits,   crackers, old mince pies, a large  tub of forgotten brandy butter,a large packet of Bombay mix, peanuts and a box of unwanted dark chocolates were all emptied into a bucket and dumped in front of the field population.
The chickens literally thought it was Christmas!
Within seconds chicken lips were smeared with crumbs and brandy butter as coffee cream chocs and the remains of a Yule log were  fought over by eager beaks.
Now, I have some advice if any of you are doing the same thing with your Chrimbo leftovers....make sure that you soften your biscotti!
For the one piece of uneaten Italian confectionary that had been discarded, was snapped up by Bingley , the turkey, and swallowed in one gulp.
Now, I think Bingley's eyes were just too big for his head, for the biscotti biscuit, quite clearly had become stuck in his throat as the turkey started to choke and bob his head frantically .
Years ago,when I was a student nurse,  I once removed half an apricot from an senile old lady's gullet by employing the Heimlich manoeuvre and so I roughly sort of knew how to approach this kind of emergency and so I clambered over the fence and went to Bingley's aid.
I shouldn't have worried, as turkeys are made from stern stuff, so after a few frantic gulps and a bit of manhandling from me , the offending biscotti disappeared and Bingley grabbed a whole mince pie to wash it down with....

Maga's Daughter

Watching tv this evening , I was reminded of one of my most favourite pieces of art.....I have blogged about Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth before.....which is was a painting that captured my heart and my imagination when we visited MOMA in New York many moons ago but it is Wyeth's 1966 portrait of his wife Betsy that really takes one's breath away
Enjoy

The Mysteries Of The Gop

The storm of a couple of days ago

Today will be sunny and calm, a respite from the stormy weather we have been experiencing of late. I spied village elder Islwyn in the churchyard yesterday, who is he unofficial " weatherman" of the Trelawnyd....he warned me in that Dad's' Army way of his, that another storm is on it's way, and will hit the area with its 80 mile an hour winds sometime tomorrow...

" we're all doomed!" 
Luckily, Trelawnyd is protected  by " Gop Hill" which shields the village from the worst of the Northerly winds.......for those that may be interested this is a video I found on YouTube , it gives a little background of The Gop....
I found it interesting
Unfortunately the storm winds that are expected tomorrow will be blowing from the west

Thank f*ck , it's over,.......

Yes! My one and only " Christmas" Walking Dead T Shirt

I tried my best to be more sensible with my calorie intake yesterday, but some home made chocolate biscotti baked by my sister in law proved to be a little too tempting for me to resist.
I only had three!....after all I am more a savoury  pig out merchant rather than a sweet toothed bunny
Thank heavens we didn't buy any scotch eggs

Anyhow
As I was feeding two new geese on the field ( I am babysitting them for a couple who are off to Malaysia for a month) I got to thinking.....
The one "Christmas thing "that worries me about getting older, is that I will be soon at an age where socks and slippers will be gifts " du jour" so to speak......now don't get me wrong , I do love some practical gifts ( my mother in law 's lovely hand knitted scarf and accompanying gloves are just two of the more welcomed pressies)I have received) but I would like to think I am a still a little more interesting than the recipient of a pair of brown cotton socks!

This year, I have been incredibly lucky when it comes to interesting gifts

A tiny and robust radio for field use

A walking dead " Daryl Dixon" T shirt,
A ticket to see Mathew Bourne's sex filled Swan Lake

A selection of  baking tins AND baking beans( oh be still my beating heart)

A " find the zombie" cartoon book!

A baby bulldog calendar

And one joint gift from one of Chris' old colleagues and friend proved to be an absolute delight

A commissioned piece of  original Chinese style art

"Cockerel, hen and ducks"

Quite lovely

WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR FAVOURITE GIFT. & WHY.?

Right , Christmas is now officially OVER

A Hen Of No Importance

This spate of wet, blustery and cold weather will see off the old and the sick within the hen population. Several of the nondescript " refugees" that arrived in the autumn have already faded away, their bodies keeping the small badger population in the next field topped up with protein during the sparse winter months.
Such is the way of the world.

Last week one of the refugees ( an old muddy coloured hen) started to look somewhat frail and unwell. She was light and off her food, so I popped her in with Phyllis Diller , gave her a short course of antibiotics then placed her back in her own hen house to let nature swing her one way or the other.
The hen neither improved or deteriorated , she remained stubbornly " unwell"...so it was inevitable that the other hens, who often mistrust a fellow that is " different " in any way, would start to pick on her.
On Christmas Day the muddy coloured hen disappeared. I suspect the other hens had driven her out into the field to die, so I thought nothing more about it.....I had more pressing things to think about......
That was until I locked the animals up for the night yesterday.
It was almost dark and terribly squally when I  tottered from one hen house to another in my hat and scarf.  The Ukrainian village was deserted, for even the sheep had hidden themselves away in the bad weather, so it was a case of lock the doors and leg it back to the cottage.

I was just dragging my wellies through the mud, when a movement from the hawthorn hedge caught my eye. I thought it was a rabbit at first, but out of the darkness, about thirty feet away crept the muddy coloured hen.
Purposefully, she made her way over to where I stood, and stopped an inch from my foot. There she stood hunched and sad obviously waiting for me to " do something" before the darkness really hit home.
When the shit hits the fan, animals will often overcome any natural shyness with humans, in order to maintain their own safety....it's a strange phenomenon , and a rather a moving one to witness.
It is also not as rare as one may think.

I picked the bland little hen up and tucked her safely away in my coat where she shivered quietly against the crook of my arm before I found her a space in a spare coop with food and water....and I thought to myself that I had just witnessed something rather wonderful.....a small little moment of contact between a nondescript pea brained, sick old hen.....and a 51 year old fart who was rushing home to keep warm