Cry

I can cry quite easily
When the wind is in the right direction....

I inherited this " skill" from my father
Who would cry at a soppy birthday card

I have cried a few times this past week

I have cried three times TODAY,!

I have cried at David Sedaris' essay on radio 4. It was the story of how his family

coped after the suicide of his sister.

I have cried at the emotional jacuzzi which is Davina McCall's Long Lost Family on tv

and 

I  cried, just a tad, when old Meg climbed painfully into my lap after she fell up the stone steps of the garden path.

I need to get a grip

Formal Introductions

Like a wife and a mistress the sheep and the dogs have known of each other's existence but they have never " met" in real life. Sheep by definition are thick characters who have a talent for banging into things when upset. Dogs often like to chase thick characters who bump into things.
It's the way of the world.
Anyhow, I've gotten a little tired of putting the ewes in the lower field when the dogs arrive in the upper, so today, I thought it time that the two factions finally met.
The dogs split up as they entered the field. The Welsh terriers skipped around in lazy circles, George  tottered off on his own in the hopeful search for eggs and Winnie stood quietly by the gate, watching everything with her sad little piggy eyes.
The sheep had no idea who to go to first.

.....they finally faced off George to start.

I suppose it was a case of pick on the little guy first. 

Now sheep are huge bluffers when it comes to confrontation. They stamp their sharp little hooves and sweep their horns menacingly but will try whenever possible  not to make contact with a threat unless it is moving. If you are small and run, you are likely to be butted

George, is no fool when it comes to confrontation. This is a product of being the lowest in the dog pack's pecking order all of his life. He did what he has done for the past seven and a half years when faced with a threat.. He quietly ignored it and pretended to be interested in something else.

The ewes watched him carefully as he pottered around sniffing absently at the daisies then decided to change tack to face off the Welsh who continued to skip around in circles like excited psychiatric patients at a asylum disco .

Meg backs off

This was the danger point.  Excited dogs and bad tempered sheep , could prove disastrous if things were left to become silly, but I need not have worried. Meg, at almost nine backed off, letting William to run all goo-goo eyed around Sylvia and Irene for a minute or so until he too became bored. Luckily the sheep didn't bolt. Dogs love a chase.

Winnie steams in

And so this finally left Winnie.

Trotting like a pigmy hippo, she arrived on the scene ready for action, and unlike all of her pack mates, she was having non of this gently gently approach.

Winnie's approach to everything in life is to push her way into the centre of things, appear depressed and uninterested, and wait for a reaction

Think of Buster Keaton running right up to your face with an off stage trumpet of " TRAAAAAADAAAA," as way of fanfare and you will get where I am coming from..

It was the final straw for the two pea brained ewes. As I dished out the layers pellets to the chickens and filled the water feeders with fresh cool water, they put their heads down to graze as Albert walked past, and sniffed at them.

It was the right day for formal introductions.

An anticlimax all round.

Swan Song

I noted that Hugh Jackman sang at Joan Rivers' funeral

His piece was the emotional romping Judy Garland swan song

" quiet please there's a lady on Stage"

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OMLdtEmufAQ

It's a wonderfully indulgent song to have at a funeral.

Now I love picking songs to be played at my funeral

I drive Chris potty with the game

Walt Disney has an ideal collection to choose from

Every one would slay 'em in the aisles

This is my latest choice

Rather apt I thought....

What is your swan song?

And why?

Modern Parenting

Perhaps I needed more coffee this morning?

I'm not in a bad mood...honest governor!
I'm just mildly irritated.
But what is it with some parents of small children
Now I am not about to bash all modern parents here.
Most, I will admit have a right old time of balancing modern life pressures, after school activities, psychological support, academic performance, play needs and the odd chipped tooth and scraped knee.
No, but I am about to bash that small minority of parents that think that their child is the most important thing in the world....and when I say that, I mean that they thik that their child is the most important thing in the world in a social and public setting!
Are you still with me vicar?
I had just returned to the small car park at the Dyserth walkway with the dogs when I was confronted with a large group of kids around 20) with around fifteen adults, all on bikes. The children were lined up excitedly having their photographs taken by the parents and the scene was a happy one all around.
The old berlingo was parked in the centre of all this , so I walked up to the group and waited patiently
I waited
And I waited
The cameras clicked
There was much chattering in welsh
And I waited some more.
The dogs all sat down.
I suddenly began to feel invisible
Finally one woman who was filming the whole thing on her phone, turned to me and said
" do you want to get passed?"
I smiled  and said , not  unreasonably I thought, " no , I'm just waiting to get into my car"
I smiled again and walked past her and the other chattering moms and dads and got into the car
No one moved
Everyone chatted, more photographs were taken, I was surrounded the worst type of modern parent known to man.
Modern parents who only could see their children and nothing else
It was as though I had gate crashed  a private event.
I was invisible .
I waited for , some astute adult to realise that when someone returned to a car park, their general next move was to start the car and leave.,but that just was not on anyones radar. The group had effectively taken over the car park and I ( not having a child ) didn't figure .

I took a deep breath and reminded myself that perhaps they hadn't really noticed a 14 stone middle aged man in a lurid green t shirt dragging a 25 kilo bulldog ( who was sporting a very bright Canadian flag bandana) as well as  two welsh terriers with a loud Scottie called George in tow, through their ranks.....
And so I sat in the car waiting for the bikes to move behind me so I could reverse out of the car park.
Not one bugger moved,
They only had eyes and ears for their little Megans' and their little Dafydds'
There was no little waves of " sorry" when I eventually started the car
Just a few dirty looks as bikes had to be moved and kids had to be shepherded to " safety"

This modern parent arrogance gets right on my tits!

Anyhow I will leave you with a sweet , happy photo
Albert and Winnie in a playful embrace this morning
( and not a fucking modern parent in sight)

An Eyeball On The Carpet

Chris has been musing about promotion 

A city university

With clean lines, red bricks and wall to wall civility

This morning the Bette Davis strains of

" OH MY GOD," 

had me leaping from my bed

Chris had spied the headless corpse of a rabbit at the foot of the stairs

" There is a single eyeball lying next to the body" he said weakly

and he was right 

a lone and rather  morose eye looked at us from the carpet

" please remove it" chris ordered 

He sounded and looked like the Dowager from Downton Abbey

I sighed

Sometimes the countryside  with a rabbit  serial killing  feline does get him down!

Goodnight Jim Bob

I'm looking my age

 I've suddenly friggin turned into a cross between Grandma Walton and Mary Berry. Admittedly I think the start of it all could have been the blue gingham style shirt I stole from Chris' " never again" part of the wardrobe, but the success of the baked pies last night, I think, have gotten  me all " let's prepare for the snows of winter"
Before Chris put down his empty boiled egg shell ( breakfast in bed I have you know) I had collected a load of over ripe tomatoes from Bosoms and from animal helper Pat's greenhouse and was busy making pasta sauce for freezing.

Since then I have baked more apple pies for the freezer, stewed more apple which I have boxed up for the freezer also and made a stew which again has been ferreted away

All I need to do now, is to look slightly exasperated , dust the flour from my forearms at the porch door and shout at the young 'uns who are having all sorts of Blue Mountain adventures in 1930s  Virginia.
It' has been a little all too much for Chris
He's gone back to work in the 21th century University!
At least I haven't found a pair of dungarees to wear!
So he can thank goodness for small mercies.

Chris is in his usual " I love  Canada" mood.... So because of this Winnie has been wearing her Canadian Flag Bandana all day!
I'm off to cook some grits..........and there's a load of firewood to chop before I amble down to the creek to fish for supper
Yeah ha

And to end with.............. Who thinks she knew EXACTLY what she was doing?

Oh P L E A S E!

                       My vagina is like Newark. Men know it's there but they don't want to visit.

RIP Ms Rivers

Love Token Pies

Ps.......first blog of today was movie centered

The second is a brief "emotionally based" one.

Chris returns home from Canada today

He's been away since the weekend

Now it may surprise you when I say that I am not a heart warming emotional sort of old queen in practice 

But I am looking forward in having him home.

I am not the sort to wave a white handkerchief from the garden gate

I am not the sort to gush emotional platitudes over the phone either

But I am the sort to lovingly bake you two types of pie

For when you return home from distant shores.