Do It Yourself

Chimney Sweeping Morning In Trelawnyd

Goodbye to a grand lady

 It's not quite the thing to say nowadays but I was incredibly proud to see the entire Chatsworth Estate  staff lining the funeral route of the late Dowager Duchess of Devonshire today. I have walked the road from the village of  Edensor to Chatsworth and the thought of cooks, maids, shop staff, farm workers and gardeners all lining the road with their heads bowed as the last Mitford sister passed in her wicker coffin is incredibly moving......
Tally ho

More Tea vicar?

The vicar  and his entourage waiting patiently for their rhubarb tarts

Every year after Harvest Festival, the Church holds a harvest lunch in the village hall to raise funds. 

They usually put on a hot pot and fruit pie to follow, so it's well,worth the small talk., especially as Church stalwart Christine Davies usually makes the pies, and she's a cracking pie maker. ( I'll get her to enter the cookery classes in the flower show if it kills me)

It's a beautiful sunny day today, and suddenly the village seems full of activity. There is a funeral at the Chapel with a burial in the graveyard next to the Ukrainian village and the Children from the school will be attending Church this afternoon for their harvest festival service. 

I also met the incredibly cheerful foreman overseeing the renovation of the houses on London Road, who strangely knew of my blog. He asked if I could dig out any historic photos of the houses for him, which I have done, I think he's been somewhat overwhelmed by people congratulating him for taking the job on.

The cooks in the village hall, Mrs Trellis is first right 

Bake Off

It was the semi final of Bake Off this evening.
Cheerful chippy Richard, wisecracking Yorkshire gran Nancy, the elfin Chetna and technical wizard Luis slugged it over baklavas, a dry-as-a-nun's chuff German Schichttorte and a show stopping selection of French entremets. 
Who will win?
Who knows? And to be honest it doesn't really matter which one lifts the trophy as every one  is a talented baker in their own right
Having said this ,  I really would like Nancy to win, 

Not A Sausage

The heavens opened after a grey morning, and apart from a few faceless drivers I have not seen a living soul all day. No affable despot Jason shouting something disgusting through his dining room window, no auntie Glad polishing her glass fish in her front room, no animal helper Pat wanting eggs and no village elder Islwyn pottering around the Churchyard.
I haven't spied Ralph the gentleman farmer in his yellow pick up, Gay Gordon's invalid scooter is no where to be seen and even dog walkers Pippa, Mrs Trellis and Terry with his yappy Yorkshire terrier haven't shown their faces in the lane.
No Ann Malthoff out on her horse, no Sandra Cameron on her allotment and I haven't even had the opportunity to wave at Basil out on his usual sheep feed run...
I feel like Will Smith in I Am Legend

Miss Violence

Theatre clwyd  Cinema Trip MISS VIOLENCE

Miss Violence starts with a birthday party in a neat and clinically austere Greek apartment. A family are celebrating the birthday of an eleven year old girl. There is cake and dancing and music, yet the whole scene doesn't feel quiet right, a sense of unreality which is repeated in the family's reaction when the birthday girl leaps to her death from the living room balcony.
This is obviously a dysfunctional family, and from the very start of Alexander Avranas's film, the audience is never quite sure just how each character is related . All we do know is that the grandfather ( Thermis Panou) rules the household with with a quiet and increasingly cruel control.
Very, very slowly we start to see the extent of his abuse as the two other adults in the  apartment ( his wife and elder daughter) are helpless , if not implicit , in his subsequent abuse of the younger children.
It's a difficult and malevolent film, filmed almost secretly and in a dull olive hue through doors and corridors of a horridly  faceless apartment.And not since Sergi Lopez's monster soldier Vidal in Pan's Labyrinth have I seen such loathsome character as Panou's grandfather. I really wanted to strangle the bastard every time he appeared on screen.
The film is coldly powerful and not an easy watch as Ayrana injects very little hope into the narrative. and I don't think it was a coincidence that the main character is a victim of the particularly drastic Greek recession..... The subtext of damage inflicted to the dysfunctional by austerity is loud and unfortunately all too clear.........

As I drove home..... I suddenly wished I had gone to see Helen Mirren in The 100 Foot Journey....sometimes being a fan of foreign movies does mean that you miss the froth and comfort of mainstream pap........hey ho

A Fat Man Eating An Eclair

At 7.30 this morning Albert had a close shave with a Welsh Water Board van, which caught him napping at the lane corner.. Usually he preempts any confrontation with traffic but had been sidetracked somewhat by a mouse down a drain  and had not caught up with me and the dogs before the van arrived.
I flapped my arms to slow the driver down, but he too seemed preoccupied  and the inevitable collision was only averted by some nifty footwork on Albert's part.
Our little corner of Trelawnyd may well be a little idyll for us, but for Albert there is danger at almost every turn. Not only is there a threat from ignorant van drivers  but " The Bastard " still mooching around in the churchyard (  the " Bastard " is the local feral cat who tried to kick the shit out of Albert on a regular basis) but Benji ( the wire haired fox terrier from down the lane) is baying for some black cat blood to be spilt as soon as possible and I have no doubt  that if he  ever catches Albert in his garden than Albert would be killed as quickly as a fat man eating an eclair .

It's harder being a cat than you think

A Bit Of Common

Chris took the car to the station early this morning. He's working in London over the next few days .
I worked past midnight at SAMs so couldn't be arsed getting up to take him, subsequently I had to catch the bus down to down to collect the trusty Berlingo.
If there are people from the village on the bus, then the fifteen minute journey to town can be rather jolly, but more often than not a rather loud rough looking woman from somewhere  " up country"  holds court at the front of the bus where  she talks loudly to the scouse bus driver.
Today we had to endure a somewhat robust blow by blow critique of various video nasties from Sky tv's horror channel and so when we finally got to Prestatyn , I had to take myself to the quiet order of Marks & Spencer 's food Hall to gather my thoughts.
Relatively speaking , the  food hall is a little oasis of calm and class.......especially when you have just suffered a somewhat flamboyant review of something called Baby Blood and I was just searching the " cooked meats" for a reduced price scotch egg bargain when I spied a rather chunky guy slowly jogging down the aisle to where his wife was  busy gazing at the raspberry trifles.. She looked up and frowned and her  theatrically waspish comment that followed had me chuckling
" Don't Run Kevin !" She hissed " your man boobs look like space hoppers!"