'twll dyn pob sais"

Last night we went to Theatre Clwyd to watch a "local" play entitled  Somewhere In England .
During the war, the BBC farmed out many of it's radio production broadcasts to the safety of the provinces. The ' city' of Bangor ( which lies just down the coast from us and which is no larger than an average town) had the responsibility of housing and dealing with a significant influx of London based variety artists.Jimmy Handley, Arthur Askey and a whole bevy of other comics and singers found themselves in the cultural backwater of the Welsh town and the play tries to capture this Welsh/ English, Urban/ rural, sexually adventurous / puritanical divide as the radio stars forge an uneasy truce with the locals.
The writer Mike James has chosen to produce a musical comedy of sorts over a straight drama, and so we have plenty of English bashing by the Welsh ( cleverly explained with written subtitles above the stage) , popular and well executed wartime songs and faithful reenactment a of popular radio shows such as Jimmy Handley's ITMA.
There is also a glimpse of how war changed the sexual behaviour and language of a significant number of the population , so the whole thing is not quite as fluffy as it at first appears.
It reminded me of a kind of adult pantomime .
Having said this, I think I would have preferred a straight drama to the comedy and one rather touching set of scenes perhaps hinted of just how powerful a straight production would have been.
I am referring to a scene where the comic Arthur Askey ( wonderfully played by Paul Barnhill) meets one of his biggest fans, a plain and simple farmer's wife, who is suffering from a severe mental disorder after the death of her husband. The comic's warmth and sympathy as he gets the matriarch to dance in her kitchen is beautifully observed and moving, and hints that the play would have been very different if it had not played for laughs.
Having said this, the laughs came thick and fast....and not just at the expense of the English characters, which was a surprise.
( the title btw refers to a common Welsh put down to the English.....it means literally
ARSEHOLES TO THE ENGLISH!)

The Memorial Hall

Affable Despot Jason is the caretaker of our village hall. He is away on a family jaunt, so I said I would open the hall up this morning in readiness for a " Vintage In The Vale" craft fair which runs from 10- 4.
I love our village hall. Slightly austere and proud, it was built with money donated by a village benefactor Michael Antonio Ralli  ( the Greek Consul for Liverpool no less) who lived in Mia Hall, which lies just west of Trelawnyd.
For over a hundred years it has been the centre of village life, and even today, when many in the village don't leave the security of their own houses, it still provides a stoic anchor for village activities.
The Trelawnyd Male Voice Choir practice at the hall weekly. There is a youth club, tai chi, The Friendship Group meetings,  craft fairs, The Flower Show of course and school concerts.
The church holds bingo nights and community meals there, wedding and  birthday parties are common and the hall is now famous on the national folk scene as a regular venue for " folk in the hall" nights ( see http://www.therecordjournal.co.uk)
I have helped prepare the funeral tea for the likes of  Flower Show matron Sylvia Evans in the tiny Hall kitchen, sat at barnstorming community council meetings in the meeting room with an apoplectic Red Faced Welsh Farmer in full fury and have even run an eight week " how to look after chickens course" for beginners from the hall a few winters ago.

Today, the hall is silent and empty before the craft people arrive with their over priced goods. It smells slightly musty with vauge hints of wood and polish and still looks splendid since its facelift of a few years ago.

I like being in the hall when it's empty. I love it when we have set up the flower show exhibits and everyone breaks for lunch. It's just me and one set of footsteps on the wood floor.

Happy Days

Oh...and for anyone reading the blog who wants to go to the craft fair....ITS NEXT WEEK,THE 8th!!!!!
Duh!

Middle Age

You know that you are a middle aged sad bastard

When your partner is Skype-nig his family during a Halloween family get together

And you are dabbing a bulldog's fanny with a piece of damp kitchen roll, just out of shot

Hey ho

Trick or What?

Yoda and what looked liked a very bad drag queen have just knocked on the cottage door singing out a very American " trick or treat" through the letterbox. Yoda would be around 5 years old, whilst the drag queen looked around 9. Both were accompanied by a slightly embarrassed woman dressed in a white sheet. It was she who explained that the drag queen was supposed to be Lady Ga Ga.
She looked a bit harassed
I didn't tell her that lady GaGa looked more like a plump and very badly dressed mini Cher,
It would have been too cruel
I gave both girls a handful of egg money from the jar in the kitchen and asked them why wasn't they tricking after dark.
" we're off to Pizza Hut " Yoda told me " with a load of witches"

" you can have a wine there" I said to the Mum in the sheet
" I may have three" she said with a sigh

I'll leave you with a photo of a Marilyn Monroe bulldog
Apparently it is all the craze to dress your animals up for Halloween
God help us!

Hershel The Vet

We returned from the vets around 7.30pm. Chris was A little bit non plussed  because the belly pork I was cooking for supper had been fucked up because of the unplanned visit, and Albert was fucked off because the vet stuck a large needle into his paw to retrieve a large thorn!

In the seven years he's been with us, it's the very first time I have ever seen the usually sweet natured cat spit at anyone.

I have met the George Clooney Vet, the Russell Crowe vet and the Irish Coleen " potty mouth" vet so far, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that the senior " Hershel" vet was on duty tonight.

A pleasant old chap with a easy manner , I was reassured to see that Hershel clearly loved his patients.

There was nothing pedestrian about him, and he was all smiles .....it was reassuring that the smiles were aimed at Albert and not Chris and I.....

He was my sort of vet

The thorn was removed and antibiotics duly administered
And an hour later we were back at home bickering  over cooked and cold pork!
As we bickered I opened the cat carrier and Winnie strode heavily forward and stuck her entire head into it.
Of all the dogs strangely enough,  it is the selfish and demanding bulldog which has forged the closest bond with this skinny wide eyed little cat.
In Winnie's mind, her pack was complete again
And she was content.as she took in big gulps of Albert smell....

Enjoy

Albert's non weight bearing on his front right leg and has gone to bed

I hope it's just a sprain

I've had to give Winnie's fanny a good scrub with the dishcloth as she has left a bit of a 

" woman mess" on my new chicken cushion on the armchair

And I have just been hit on the head TWICE by several large eating apples after neighbour Trevor 

Asked me to collect a bucket load from his Apple trees by shaking the branches with an old rake

I am off to  bed....for a sleep

I'll leave you with this video

Admittedly a little saccarine 

But it did make me smile after a woman from work showed me it on her phone this morning

" Jesus is a transvestite"

Zombie head no more ( look closely you can see Albert hunting mice in the background)

Despite waxing lyrically on village life in yesterday's post, not everything in the garden is indeed rosy. Last night some delightful character took my zombie pumpkin lantern from its position on our garden wall and smashed it down the lane
A nice little act of silliness, I thought.

I collected the skull bits  when  I took Winnie out for a wee this morning. She's much brighter today by the way.......her mood was connected to the fact that she is coming into season
Last night she spent a good hour rubbing her fanny on the fireside hearth tiles, and was much better for doing so, I can tell you..... But that, as they say, is another story!
Anyhow the hens enjoyed the bright orange pulp of the destroyed pumpkin  for breakfast
At least I could recycle some of the damage.

Talking of hens, does anyone remember Jesus, the single  chick that hatched on Easter Sunday.? Well as it happened Jesus has turned out to be a bit of quandary
For he/she is a hermaphrodite!
As it happens 1 in 10,000 hens turn out to be such a mixture . Big cockerel feet, shapely hen's body and not a f'cking egg in sight, Jesus is now just a non contributing extra mouth to feed!

,

Jesus

Not that I mind too much, for this strange little bird is now one of my favourite characters on the field. Ostracised by the other hens, who know she/ he is different Jesus has set up home in Mary the disabled rabbit's old hutch.....alone but safe from sharp bully boy beaks.

I was telling one of my elderly egg customers about Jesus the other week. 

" bloody useless " I said in way of explanation as the hen walked past  "half male half female ..bloody useless" 

My customer looked surprised and said in her sing song voice

" dewwww fancy that! Jesus is a transvestite then!"

Best oneliner of the day.

Delivering & Bulldog Sulks

Some people have commented that  Going Gently depicts a village which is overly friendly and wonderfully community minded.
I disagree.
I think Trelawnyd is no different to most communities rural or otherwise. I just think I am am lucky enough to be around to see the small village " snippets" that would be perhaps overlooked by others.

When you walk around an art gallery a hundred times, you will see more in the paintings...so to speak

Today is a case in point.
I have spent the entire morning hand delivering Flower Show minutes to the committee and the donations from the committee to their respective recipients, and the mild weather seems to have brought the village into life
The only thing not bursting into life was Winnie

For some reason she decided to sulk In her favourite arm chair all morning. Bulldogs can take sudden umbrage with the best of people and situations...
When they go like this, it's best to leave them to it.

At 10.40 the little nipper bus stops in the village as it weaves its way down through the lower village of Dyserth and then to Prestatyn by the sea. Today twelve people stood waiting for it to arrive, among them Jackie ( who has the bad tempered Labrador ) Mary with her all singing and all dancing walking frame and Gay Gordon who bellowed out his usual " HELLO FLOWER" as I passed.
We really should have a village shop INSIDE the village

The Polish workmen and their ever cheerful foreman at the derelict  houses on London Road all waved when we passed . They have worked very hard rebuilding the original stone wall by the road and as we ambled up Byron Street, I spied a serious looking Mrs Trellis through her living room window, practicing on her piano.

I dropped off AuntieGlad's copies of the Flower Show minutes ( she always has specially made copies that are twice the font size of any of the others) and chatted to Islwyn's brother who was working on the house next door which has just been sold. The two houses are the oldest in the village

I saw and passed some time with animal helper Pat, Margaret C and Muvvie, the ever smiling Ann M and her hubby Terry and then dropped off a payment of 20£ to farmer Basil whose contracted hedge cutters had trimmed my field hedgerows a week or so ago. Basil's sheepdog always give me a dagger look from his position on the passenger seat. The terriers all eye him coldly. They hate farm dogs.

As I get home Carol R suddenly leans over the garden wall and called breathlessly " I need two eggs!...I'm doing the hairy biker's Christmas Cake and I've run out!" She giggles helplessly after saying the words " The Hairy Bikers" out loud.

I had been out just shy of two and a half hours.... And all I had done was to deliver 14 envelopes!
Winnie was still sulking when we got home