Anne-Marie David ~ 'Tu Te Reconnaitras'

I really enjoyed Graham Norton's homage to Eurovision last night....it couldn't have been any more camp if Diana Dors had been wheeled on in a pink jumpsuit by four naked musclemen.
Anne Marie-David, looking fab reprised her 1973 hit " Tu Tu Reconnaitras"
I loved it.

Well Done

My twin sister works for a big company and today she has just won the " colleague of the year award"
How good is that.....?
In this age of targets, figures, and profits, she has quietly supported her fellow workers by never throwing a sickie, completing her work diligently, changing her shifts at the last minute and always supporting the high flyers with being in store, on time and with a smile on her face.
Congratulations Janet......
The oldest worker in store...and now, obviously one of the best

Sugar Or Saccharine?

It's a damp and rainy Good Friday here. 

As a treat we are having fish and chips for tea

We bought some designer cutlery yesterday which will replace the eclectic  mixture of ikea crap and 1940s bone handled hand-me-downs we have been using for years....

We both decided that we felt very grown up having proper tableware!

The dish is another wedding gift to ourselves

Anyhow

 I've often been accused of portraying village life in an unrealistic and somewhat saccharine way. Perhaps I am guilty as charged .
But I don't really think so.
A few late wedding gifts are perhaps a case in point.

They could be twins

 The bulldog cushion dropped off by Eirlys & John , who live at a farm on the other side of the
village proved to be a big hit with a certain dog in the cottage and when I was on the phone to another Trelawnyd-ite , who was in dire need of some phone TLC a somewhat strange but typical message "
appeared " magically on the answerphone
It was as economical as it was clear
" Auntie Glad here..........SCONES,"
I dutifully called in with a pocket full of goose eggs for her, half an hour later, only to find her laughing at the fact that she had forgotten to add sugar to the scone mix.
" They are not my best specimens" she quipped " so, Ive added a jar of raspberry jam to compensate"
When I got home, I found a handwriiten card hidden away amongst the goodies

In it was £30 and the words " wishing you Both good Health and happiness"

Life in a village can be lovely if you meet the right people!

Albert

We have spent the day in the city of Liverpool, spending our wedding gift vouchers at John Lewis.

After a great deal of debate we decided to buy some cutlery.

Which is very grown up of us both me feels.

Anyhow I am late blogging today.......and that is why!

I promised Scottish Andrew that today's post would feature his favourite Going Gently character

So here is a brief history of Albert The Cat

Albert on his arrival to Bwthyn y llan

In the Autumn of 2008 on a whim I drove into the animal rescue centre at Dyserth and asked a remarkably wizened old lady with an unlit fag hanging out of her mouth if she had any cats who could hold their own against a quartet of terriers. She told me that she hadn't but took my telephone  number " just in case"
That very afternoon she rang me
" we've just had an older kitten brought in by a woman with two staffies" she rasped
" He's a feisty little bugger".
I called down to the shelter later that day and literally minutes after seeing him, I took possession of a tiny wide eyed black kitten with a sad history.
Albert was the only survivor of a littler of feral kittens . His mother had brought them up in a farm outbuilding next to a busy road and had herself been killed the day after Albert's brother had been knocked over by a milk lorry.  Albert and his sister had carried on in a fashion through the charity of one of the farm workers. It was the farm worker who had rescued him after Albert's sister was killed on the same patch of road.
It was the farm worker's wife who had re homed Albert after one of their staffie crosses had taken a dislike to the kitten.
The sob story was worthy of Walt Disney's BAMBI.
Albert arrived wide eyed yet remarkably calm, and set up home inside a cardboard box placed carefully on the dining room table. For six weeks he lived on the table and on the kitchen cabinets without once setting a foot on the floor ( even the cat littler was placed out of dog reach) and for six weeks he drove the dogs mad by remaining just that bit out of reach.
The resulting hysteria bubbled just under boiling point as the terriers lived in a permanent state of cat arousal
It was a long , long month and a half!
Then it all changed.
For one very cold night , he left the safety of the kitchen table and took his place in front of the fire with the other dogs.
And nothing was ever said about this sudden assertion .

For seven years now Albert has been a true delight.
He's been knocked over by a car , breaking a leg, (which he still can't bend properly)
He has killed hundreds of rabbits, mice , small rats and birds
and he has gone out of his way to be an active  part of the cottage dog pack spending a few minutes every day head rubbing each dog in turn in happy recognition of a friend well loved.
Albert is a constant backdrop to the more boisterous animals at the cottage
But he is as necessary to the running of the place as oxygen .

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

The sequel to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is in actual fact more of a remake of the original, with the stella grey hair cast of the likes of Dench,Nighy, Smith, Pickup, Imrie, and Richard Gere all jostling for position in this coming-of-age story. Strange really as the coming of age- age is 75 rather than just 16.
This is why, I suspect, that  the "Marigold" franchise has proved to be so popular with the over 50 year old cinema going public, for it underlines that EVERYONE no matter how old they are can have a second chance.
And so, set against the vibrant colours of an Indian Wedding we have Judi Dench embarking on a new career and a new relationship with Bill Nighy at the age of 79. Society good time gal Celia Imrie settling down with a gentle taxi driver instead of her Royal suitors and Career Man Gere giving up his job for the love of an Indian Widow.
Yes all bollocks
But it's pretty, colourful and fairly entertaining bollocks...even if the hotel manager ( Dev Patel) is far too garrulous and irritating for the average movie goer to cope with...
I had to laugh to myself too, for when Richard Gere appeared at the hotel reception for the first time, there was a loud ripple that went through the audience like a Welsh matrons' Mexican wave......

Maggie Smith as the foul mouthed Muriel

I have to give praise here to Maggie Smith , who reprises her role as the foul mouthed Cockney spinster receptionist Muriel Donnelly with some gusto. She steals every scene she appears in and the whole
film is given an unexpected and surprisingly moving turn when her character realises that she dying ( dying being the running gag throughout the movie)

This fact is underlined in one beautifully understated scene where hotel resident  Evelyn (Judi Dench ) acknowledges Muriel's Possible Death through suicide.
Very little is actually said, just the powerful sharing of a message through two old faces, but it had me blubing with the rest of the audience at the  packed independent cinema at Colwyn Bay Theatre!
Clever casting two old dames in their 80s who without breaking sweat could so easily rule the world.
7/10

A Professor At Home

Chris is full of cold, so is working at home today.
I tend to be busy outside when he works from home.
( if you get my drift)
Through years of experience , I knew I needed to hide various bits and bats..........
I found an ideal hiding place for the Easter Eggs I bought for Sorrel's Easter egg hunt ( I have a tradition to organise an Easter Egg hunt for my seventy year old mother-in-law)

This morning, I went shopping with the dogs
Now any " proper " shop means a ten mile round trip to Marks & Spencer, a trip that was irritatingly extended by  another five miles after I caught sight of Albert sitting with Winnie on the back seat.
Best laid plans ......best laid plans
So I drove back home, extracted a fairly sulky Albert from the car then carried on with shopping, dog walking and other jobs.

Like I said, best to be busy when there's a Professor working from home
At the moment ...he's involved in some high powered shinanigains
I'm making dumplings
BTW
By mid afternoon......only a couple of eggs were left!
Hey ho

Bleeding Lidl

Like a lot of people, I have been sort of seduced by the aspirational tv adverts circulated by the Lidl chain of supermarkets. You know the type of advert I mean. Well dressed, city types, sitting in a comfortable gastro pub, all tucking into cheap but ever-so-tasty morsels washed down by a cheeky little number that only cost £5.99
Well yesterday, I decided to see for myself what all the ballyhoo was all about.
But unfortunately the Lidl in Rhyl is NOT the Lidl of the tv adverts.
Rhyl Lidl is situated in probably one of the poorest areas of North Wales and it showed.
I was decked out in a knackered pair of combats and my second best walking dead T shirt and even I felt overdressed as the very poor, mentally ill and disadvantaged of the coast did their shopping.
It was a depressing experience, even though much of the food looked ok!
I was perusing the meat counter when I caught sight of a man next to me giving me a funny look., I didnt feel like challenging him so I carried on looking at the schnitzels until he said loudly " you're bleeding"
I put my hand up to my face and almost from nowhere I was covered in blood. I had a doozy of a nosebleed.
By the time I had fished into my pockets in the futile search for a tissue I looked like Sissy Spacek from " Carrie" so I took my woolly hat off , jammed it on my nose and staggered out of the store.
No one else gave me second look.
Knackered looking middle-aged men in blood soaked Walking Dead T shirts must be two a penny in Rhyl

Now the last time , i think I had a nosebleed I was in my teens, so I pinched my nose and waited for the bloody thing to stop .....it didn't.
An hour later, after driving home one handed, my face looked like two fried eggs in a bucket of blood
And so off I went to A&E , where , after a large and painful " pack" my hemorrhage finally stopped
Several hours later!
It was almost dark when I eventually got home.
There were puddles on the kitchen floor from the dogs and because I was late, an opportunistic fox had snatched my ten year old buff orpington from  behind the hen houses and  I didnt even buy a schnitzel for my tea.

The Walking Dead Finale

Well, it's all over. The Walking Dead finale finished with the remains of " team family" more or less intact, Rick Grimes firmly in charge alongside the broken democrat Deanna, and with Zen master Morgan Jones ( Lennie James) neatly dovetailed into the black male lead character position , left free by the killing off of Tyreese ( Chad Coleman) a couple of weeks back!
It also hinted at the threat to Alexandria to come, as Morgan, Daryl and Aaron fought off the work of "The Wolves" a brutal killing group out in the countryside.
Add to the mix a kind of touching "mending of the ways"by Abraham and Eugene, the irritating minister being a real twat, Sasha lying down in damp graves and Maggie slowly morphing into her saintly father Hershel and it was a fun packed episode!

So.....season 6 is set up nicely with a large, suddenly swollen cast, and so logistically we all know that there WILL be several casualties very early on as the narrative and drama cannot cope with over 20 characters effectively.
But I can worry about all this next November!
Season Five has been one of the best yet. I didn't much care for series 3 and 4, after the Governor bollocks and the stupid storylines of Carol as the secret murderer  so I have enjoyed the character led journey of a more rounded Michonne,  and Glen and Maggie ( as the voices of civilisation) Melissa McBride's wonderful turn as the damaged but increasingly wily Carol. Tara's sassy mouth and the welcome arrival of the balanced and happily married gay character of Aaron. ( Ross Marquand).
Most of the characters have developed intelligently and without the leaps we saw previously.
The action too in season 5 has been appropriate and exciting.....and not too contrived as it has been......i'd give this year's Walking Dead 8/10
My only complaints are that Rick's mental instability is getting on my tits
And Noah shouldn't have got his face ripped off inside the revolving door! He was a sweetie!

Little meek Carol giving Pete the psychopath treatment!

The walking Dead remains in essence a 1970s disaster movie akin to The Poseidon Adventure
- a group of different individuals fighting against disaster!
That is why it works....