Angry Men

You can't " me" but I am second from the left...I effin know...there's only 11

It's my best friend Nu's birthday soon and I wanted to get her a pressie with a bit of a kick ( I am sick of sending her nice flowers)....so I got all stuck in with mr google and have just booked her ( and me) two tickets to the west end production of Twelve Angry Men just BEFORE IT CLOSES... It's a cracker of a movie if you remember

I will get down to London around 6 pm. Meet her for a cocktail the off to Angry men we'll go.......

If I was ever picked for a jury ...I am oh so wanting to be Henry Fonda............juror 8

However I am more likely to be the juror 6

Look him up if you can't remember

I can't wait 

Fat Feet In The Sunshine

The last time I actually sat down to read in the sunshine was in Sitges a few years ago now. We never seem to have the time, or the weather to do it here.
This afternoon, we bought bedding plants  for the front garden but it was far too hot to put them out, so we all ( Chris, dogs and Albert) arranged ourselves io the grass for some serious relaxation.
While Chris played with his iPad , I sipped homemade lime-ade and got tucked into Agnes Keith's Three Came Home, an  account of the writer's internment in a Japanese Prisoner of war camp during world war 2.  ( I didn't feel like anything too frothy)
I fell asleep seconds after taking this photo of my fat feet. It's the first time they have had an airing this year, so I was mildly excited to see them again.

I woke myself up just before four o'clock, snoring like a pig. I had been dribbling too, all over my second best  Walking Dead  T shirt. I am such a catch.
The eggs need collecting, and Chris wants a hand to light the new barbecue ( I won't get involved for fear of a domestic incident) but I just cannot be arsed moving.
I have that " just woken up on the beach" feeling you get when abroad.

Of course I did get up briefly, that was because Auntie Glad has just popped around with 12 scones in a bag.She didn't stop, she looked hot and bothered by the sun....it's a good walk from her house to ours, but she was as good natured as she always is.
" what do you think of the new colour of the flower Show Raffle Tickets?" She asked with a snort
" we've never had green ones before!"
I told her that I quite liked the green
" I don't' " she trilled away" but i can't see them anyway so it doesn't matter"
After she left, I sat there in the sun, contemplating my fat feet whilst munching on a scone
It feels as though I am on holiday

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers

hot hens

Its 18 degrees here in Trelawnyd but it feels hotter/The hens started to sunbathe against the church wall but now have all taken themselves off to the field borders to sleep in the shade. I have strimmed the long grass and nettles until the strimmer ran out of petrol. and now am just about to clear up. The dogs have been taken back inside the cottage to cool down and Winifred especially is in need of a lie down with a cold drink and a lace hankie
Bulldogs cannot cope with heat of any sort...they resemble Blanche DuBois when the sun's out
and go all limp and pathetic

Winnie this afternoon

Anyhow, as i have been working, I have been listening to the film composer John William's lesser well know pieces. This one is particularly good. Its a reprise of the hymn LOOK DOWN LORD which Williams used in the film ROSEWOOD (1997)
it has a wonderful power about it

I had no idea that whole towns were attacked in racially motivated mob riots in the deep South USA

Apparently Rosewood was a primarily black town in Florida that was abandoned in 1923 after several hundred whites attacked it burning most of the houses to the ground

The hymn takes on more poignancy given the reality of the story

Trelawnyd In The Sun

It's been a day for being outside....
I took a few photos and a video Inbetween selling eggs and meeting fellow villagers
Had nice conversations with John F, Pat the animal helper, Stan from Bron Haul, Ralph the gentleman farmer, (who told me off for my overgrown nettles )and Islwyn who was cutting the graveyard grass.
Val and Peter promised me some bric a brac for Auntie Glad's stall in the Flower Show ....(they do a better class of bric a brac)........they were clearing out their shed when I passed!

Arfon ( from Pen Y Cefn Isa) stopped for a chat when I took the dogs out for their first walk of the day, but I was too tired to understand or remember what he was saying.. I even saw Bridget  from well street and her family when I went to Tescos to do the shop this evening

Pat found out that Trevor ( who lives behind us) is 90 on Monday
Trelawnyd-ers please note

The church has never looked so fine

Ceanothus in the garden

I sent this video  of our garden to Tom ( hippo)

I think he must be missing African green

Give Me A Soldier Any Day

Today, I noticed with some astonishment that Hippo ( http://hippo-on-the-lawn.blogspot.co.uk)
has now bluffed his poor Filipino nurses into allowing him to change his own vacuum thigh dressings. I may be astonished, but I can't say that I was surprised. I have nursed ex service men before, so I know only too well just how " gung ho", and humorously brave they can be.
If a rule does not make sense to them, it is there to be broken
Simples
Soldiers can be exasperating and they can be challenging ( the constraints of nhs protocols can drive them batty) but in general they are a dream to work with in a rehabilitation setting, as most are disciplined, focused, adaptable and in the officers cases, generally bright.
Soldiers also employ and enjoy " gallows" humour at every difficult turn and as we all know nurses love black humour
Especially in rehabilitation settings
I am reminded of one such officer / patient called Neil. He had suffered catastrophic injuries following a motorbike accident and was admitted to us for specialist treatment before he was due to be transferred to the army rehab facility at  Headley Court in Surrey.
He was confined to bed rest for over five months as I recall, and suffered set back after set back before starting to mobilise in a wheelchair for a frugal one hour, twice a day.
After so long , what did he do when he got up?
Did he wheel himself to the physiotherapy gym perhaps? Or Did he go out on the ward veranda for a ciggie and a moment in the sun? Well in the end he did both, but not before taking himself off to another ward bay to " have a chat " with a young man, who was also on bed rest.
I asked another nurse what was the brief meeting was all about
And I caught her laughing
Apparently many weeks before Neil had overheard the young man racially berating  one of the African nurses on duty and he wheeled himself up " to have a quiet word about it "so to speak.
No shouting.
No fuss
No " feeling sorry for himself" even though he was obviously in a great deal of pain after 20 weeks flat on his back
Just a word in the " shell like"
Yes, I'd nurse a soldier any day  of the week.

Sheffield's Spinal Injury Unit

Kiss

As Chris took an important video conference call in the living room this evening

Me and Winifred had a smooch 

Twatface

There is nothing more satisfying than someone turning the  tables on a bully. You just need to log on to YouTube and type in the words to see a million hit video of a Russian drunk getting bitchslapped or a fat  American schoolboy getting his own back on the class psychopath.
It has to be said that Karma is satisfying.
This morning I was going to post a photo of some donated veg. (I am planting out " Bososms" today and thanks to the "screwdriver wheeling  lesbians from Prestatyn" I now have  a plethora of seedlings to transplant)  but What I will do is share a little story of about karma.

Now for several weeks now Albert has been bullied by a scruffy feral black and white longhair Tomcat, who I have nicknamed Twatface. Twatface is based for the most part in the churchyard and surrounding fields and like Albert seems to be an expert rabbit killer. I see him daily, sitting in the long grass,giving me the evil eye. He never looks a happy chappy.

Now several times a night, Albert will come into contact with Twatface. There is no yowling, no growls no spitting ( or not much) to be heard , just the suddenly and loud clatter of a panicked Albert bouncing through the kitchen catflap with all the speed of Shelley Winters doing a bungee jump.

So far, Albert has been lucky, for Twatface has not been able to catch him on his gallop home, but the constant daily gauntlet must be wearing on the old nerves, for a black cat with a slightly deformed leg

This morning, as I was hoovering fluff from under the bed, all hell let loose in the cottage downstairs.
I hurried down to see a wide eyed Albert standing on the back of the armchair and with the dogs baying somewhere down the garden path.
Twatface had been ambushed.
Obviously he had caught Albert somewhere out in the garden. Albert had bolted for the catflap, but with the kitchen door being left open he had galloped through the silent cottage followed closely by Twatface, who thought all his Christmasses had arrived at once.
Adrenaline had perhaps clouded his mind somewhat

I would have paid 10 quid just to have seen his face when he ran into the living room, right in front of four dozing dogs on the couch.

Albert with his " smug bastard" expression, after the hysteria

Taaaa daaaaaa!

It's late and I have almost finished

Among the many MANY things I have sorted through tonight

I have found

45  assorted pens

A long forgotten box of vintage 1940s Christmas Crackers

£3.28 in change

A card of acknowledgement for a card my mother sent to the Kennedy family after the assassination  

of JFK

My grandparent's birth certificates

The bill from All Bar One from My first date with  chris!

A tiny piece of mummified toast

2 teaspoons

A photograph of me and my mother  taken a couple of weeks before she died

( it's the ONLY photo taken of me and her together since I was a baby)

My grandfather's wartime identity card

And most bizarrely 

Tucked under a load of old photographs

An old fashioned  lady's sanitary pad

Hello?