Things

In the living room we have a 1940s glass fronted bookcase. It is a depository for things collected over a period of fifty years.Things that would mean little or nothing to anyone else on earth.
There is nothing of great value here. A ginger jar with a cracked lid. A Christmas bauble bought in New York. A silver framed photo of Chris' grandmother. A Inlaid box stuffed full of family papers.
The flotsam and jetsam of two lives as well as one shared life together.
I don't look into the bookcase much, like most things at home you look at them without seeing. Today I did see them......Coal dust from the fire had seeped onto the shelves and needed dusting away, so for a few minutes I enjoyed the gentle memory trip that " things collected " can give you.

Poor Relation

" are you alright?"

This was from a woman visiting the new graveyard

I think I had given her somewhat of a turn

When she saw me lying face down in the snowdrops.

" I'm fine" I called over

" I am just taking photographs!"

She looked at me as if I was a loon.

Well I was taking photographs as it happened

See!

I have been busy today

I am responsible for sorting out the contents for the Trelawnyd side of the official community council

Website.

Now we will be sharing the site with our " sister" village of Gwaenysgor

and Gwaenysgor is the " posh relation"

Now if Both villagers were celebrities

Gwaenysgor would be Mary Berry and Trelawnyd would be more like Kathy Burke 

If both villages were James Bond

Gwaenysgor would be Pierce Brosnan to Trelawnyd's Daniel Craig

And if both villages were magazines

Gwaenysgor would be Homes & Gardens while Trelawnyd would be Take A Break

Ok...you no doubt get my gist

Apparently, there are people falling over themselves in Gwaenysgor with interesting web page 

information on the art group, local heritage, and that bloody important mention in the soddin Doomsday book

So I am determined for us not to look like the badly dressed spinster sister and have been busy collecting  the best bits of  the village in word and photo

Hey ho

Another Chapter

In 1957 Newmarket was renamed Trelawnyd

The funeral passed without incident as did the funeral tea, everyone pitched in, as is the norm The older members of Trelawnyd sat at the  back of the Church allowing Eileen Jones' extended family to fill the pews at the front. 

I sat with the olduns, and noticed that I was one of the youngest of the villagers to attend.

I found this incredibly sad. It felt that a chapter of the village history has almost passed

Bounced Around By the Bra Straps

With Chris away ,I "  treated " myself to a Sunday evening showing of  12 Years A Slave. Unfortunately the only cinema that was playing the movie was in Rhyl , so I took a chance and went.
There was five other people in the cinema.
A middle age couple, me and three fifteen year old girls.
I agree...not the best of mixes.
The girls were chatty and showing off with one another, so I left things well alone until we were five minutes into the film. The girls had still not settled down by then,  so I quietly walked to the back of the cinema , lent over the chairs and said in my best firm teacher's voice
" can you stop talking"
To be fair the girls apologised and all was quiet until an hour later when giggles, and the banging of phones and chairs could be heard.
I walked back yet again and hissed " I wont tell you again BE QUIET" then returned to my seat.
I thought.....firm...but fair

A minute later an anaemic looking cinema manager appeared and asked me to leave the cinema
Outside the door she told me that one of the girls had complained that I had told her off " inappropriately" and she wanted to hear " my side of the story"

Where was I ? Fucking school? What I really wanted was to fling both the manager AND the snotty teen around the multiplex by their bra straps... But all I said was that " I told them to be quiet that's all....they were noisy... Now I am missing the film, so I am going back"
The manager then informed me the the girl had been " told off" before the film had started ( if that made any difference) and I found myself suddenly getting all defensive, which pissed me off even more. I walked off back to my seat.

Now there is a serious message in all this silliness.....and that is just how vulnerable a single man is when a self confident teenage girl flexes her muscles in public.In the back of my mind all I was thinking about was what would have happened if the girl had said I had laid a hand on her?
It doesn't bare thinking about....obviously the manager had made the value judgement right in her eyes......middle aged pervert who was " BY HIMSELF"  very wrong!

Bloody hell..I am so angry at that value judgement

Anyhow teens remained thankfully silent for the rest of the film.... A film that was rather impressive to say the least..

Michael Fassbender and Chewitel  Ejiofor wonderful acting

Here's To You Mrs Robinson

I am waiting for a chicken to cook. Then I can retrieve it from the oven to cool so I can go out for a walk. Chris is off to London at 1pm,  so I need to get an early lunch ready, he is busy sorting the academic world of research out in his office.
I have been clearing clinkers out of the living room stove.

" ok lads , same again!"

For over twenty minutes Winifred has been trying to seduce George. Her method , me feels, is based on Anne Bankcroft's performance of Mrs Robinson in The Graduate , albeit just slightly more subtle.
Back up to prospective victim
Push vagina slowly into face
Wait for a reaction.
I am sure that this ploy has worked very effectively for her in the past.
George however, unlike Dustin Hoffman, is not interested and has spent the time counting the small green leaf designs on the living room wallpaper.
That's my boy!

Many many moons ago now, I was subjected to a rather florid seduction attempt from an older woman who bore a remarkable resemblance to Joanna Lumley ( well to her alter ego Patsy Stone actually) Luckily I don't remember that much about this unfortunate interlude, (thanks to the mind numbing properties of Gordon's gin) But at least , it can be said that
I have ticked that particular box so to speak....
A box, thank goodness, that I shall not be revisiting anytime soon.

Scald

Irene keeping her distance in the  background after the tussle

A disabled rabbit

A hormonal and sexually promiscuous Bulldog

A cat with an arthritic back leg

A run down muddy coloured hen

And now a couple of limping sheep

What next?

One of the Welsh terriers with a STD?

I wouldn't be at all surprised.

Anyhow I knew roughly what to do with Irene and Sylvia, 

Check the hooves, shorten them if necessary and spray the feet

Giving particular attention to between the toes

Simples

There was only one fly in the ointment

I have not managed to catch either ewe as yet

This morning my sheep(y) friends came around to help catch the buggers, but both ewes Sussed what we were up to and kept their distance.
This afternoon I waved a couple of pieces of cheap white bread at them and in the
Scrum that followed caught irene by the horns and then
got smacked a nut busting clack in the knackers
before I managed to trim and spray her feet.

I have asked gentleman farmer Ralph from down the lane if he would help me catch
Sylvia tomorrow
She's so nervy I am contemplated spiking her corn with
Rohypnol

I think I sprayed more of my hand than the sheep's feet

My purple fingers with a rather worried Mary

Game, set and match

 Do people joke around at work anymore?
I seriously doubt that it does, what with HR's bullying policies , harassment at work directives and a workforce that can't seem that they can take a bit of horseplay or leg pulling.
People seem to take umbrage so much quicker nowadays.
Now, let me make something very clear. I cannot abide destructive and cruel bullying behaviour, but in my experience real bullying is often much more subtle and insidious than a whoopie cushion  on a chair or a good natured Micky take.
I once worked on a rehabilitation ward with a boisterous enrolled nurse called Karen,who was a self proclaimed " Queen" of  the workplace practical joke. For over a year the pranks against each other grew in complexity and effort. She would whitewash the windows of my tiny terraced house in Walkley. I would remove and hide all the wheels from her car.....it was that sort of silliness .
Eventually the pranks faded away, when I got a junior sister's post . It was a time I felt I needed to become a little more professional in the workplace.
I think that Karen thought I had " sold out" just a little and I remember one day she turned on me during a ward round discussion and accused me rather angrily of not being " any fun anymore"
Her words stung somewhat, but I finished the ward round professionally, completed other jobs on the ward then called the staff into the office for handover.
Handover was a  time for a chat and a cuppa. So I made several cups of tea, left the tray in the office and rushed down the ward where one of the older patients was eating his dinner and whispered  to him
" give me your false teeth"
Surprisingly enough he handed over both sets without question, and seconds later I was back in the office handing out the tea mugs to the staff.
Karen drank half her cup before the teeth clinked gently at the bottom of her mug
The screaming was heard on every ward of the Spinal Injury Unit.
All I said was a smug " game , set and match"

It's Official, I am a village old lady

I was cleaning Winifred's tuppence with a soapy dishcloth when the phone went.

It was Mrs Murray

She told me that her close friend Eileen is to be buried next Monday with the funeral " tea" set out in the Memorial Hall afterwards, and asked if I Would be free to help Mrs Bagguly and Mrs Jones with the refreshments..

 Of course I  said I would be free to help.......

There is nothing more impressive than a proper welsh funeral tea.........

A Tesco special offer