A Chutney Jar Full Of Shit

I decided to take Meg to the vets after she had the squits at 5 am this morning. After waking me up, I let her squat in the front garden and in a moment of nurse based inspiration I followed her round on my hands and knees collecting a stool sample in an old chutney jar.
Be prepared for anything the vet wanted to know, I thought, even when I was creeping around the garden in my underpants.
I left for the vets after 1pm, after stuffing the jar in my pocket, alongside with poo bags, spare tissues and a list of questions for the vet! Years of  experience with sick animals has made me a little over zealous with items that  " I may need" when away from home.
My vets is 16 miles away from Trelawnyd so finding myself just a little early for the opening time, I stopped briefly at a rather nice tearoom and antique centre to see if I could see something for my Sister Ann's birthday.

The place was full of genteel ladies having tea when I got there, so I had a quick mooch, used the loo and was on my way within ten minutes or so.

The antique Centre

It was the rosy faced Irish vet that saw Meg and I could tell she was impressed when I gave a comprehensive handover of Meg's symptoms. 

After a long physical examination, temperature taking, blood tests and the like, I chirped up that I had a stool sample if she needed one for testing.

The Rosy faced vet raised her eyebrows.......I obviously had every base covered

Only the jar wasn't in my pocket.

Meg's kidney and liver  function proved to be normal and the first port of call is a short course of antibiotics....

Apologies to the good people visiting the Avonwen Antique Centre in Caerwys today.

It might of come as a bit of a shock for some, to find a chutney jar full of shit on the sink of the gents toilets

A Lesson In Avoidance

I've been putting off taking Meg to the vets today and busied myself with rearranging the living room furniture and cleaning up. It's a stereotypical gay man's coping mechanism in avoiding what needs to be done! This morning I went to the shops and bought individual portions of chicken , garlic sausage and turkey slices to tempt Meg to eat and after wafting each tidbit in front of her in an enticing way, I had to admit defeat. The vet surgery didn't open until 2pm so I busied myself with titivating

I scrubbed the paintwork, found £4.58 in change down the back of my armchair and removed the remains of a mummified mouse found under the sofa, so it was nearly 1.30 pm when I eventually finished. I put the feed bowls down for the other dogs, got changed and searched for Meg to be off to the vets.
I found her in the kitchen
Eating the whole of George's dinner.......

With An Olive.,..please

I could just fucking well do with a vodka martini

The ones you get in American Bars that blow your tits  off.

My husband has been over working recently and has slept most of the afternoon away on the couch

covered by Scottish Terrier.

Therefore we missed the cinema and have done bugger all...... but I wont complain......he needed the rest! I know that

Now I am sat with a poorly, pooing Meg on my knee

Watching shit tv

Hubby is in bed with smiling Scottish Terrier

and he's working away all week

Modern lives eh?

Not Even Toast..........

Sunday morning is a time for The Archers omnibus and lunch preparation . Chris is doing something in the Church in Dyserth, William, Winnie , George and Albert are still sleeping in bed and only Meg is downstairs keeping me company. 

She's not well today. She's had the runs overnight and is off her food today. I tried her with the dry toast test this morning and she politely ignored my offering which is a worry.

( Our old breeder always told us that as long as a dog eats dry toast when off their food there is no major things to worry about!)

At eleven , as the Church bell started to ring we had our walk around the village as usual but it was clear that Meg's usual exuberence was noticably absent even though it was warm and sunny

We stopped outside the Ebeneezer Chapel and listened to the tiny congregation belting out their hymns in Welsh before heading home.

I could hear them singing, their natural harmony wafting after me as we working ambled slowly down Chapel Street towards the green.

Ebeneezer Chapel

Chris is working incredibly hard at the moment. Too hard. He was away most of last week and will be away most of the next so I am beginning to feel a little like a war widow.. 

I think that we may go and see a rubbishy disaster movie at the cinema this afternoon

Young Cameron has been busy designing this year's Flower Show poster and posted me his draft just yesterday. He's done a grand job

If anyone would like to start to send me their photo entries 

For the NOVELTY VEGETABLE COMPETITION 

please do

My email is jgsheffield@hotmail.com

Have a good Sunday!

Sweetie

I am not a lover of over familiar people who use the pet names " lurvie" or  " darling" when they address me in public. The regional " up north" references of " me duck" and " love"  never bother me too much as they seem perfectly natural , but its the upclose and too personal " sweetie" that I cannot abide.....
The weigh in lady at fat club calls me " sweetie"
I was going to say something to her at my initial weighing moment, but I was too embarrassed when she told me my weight,
She was very nice to me and dropped her voice so that everyone in the room couldn't hear., so I thought it churlish to pull her up on her " sweetie greetings!"
Today she rolled her eyes theatrically when I stepped on the scales
" 10 pounds loss SWEETIE" she yelled " GIMMIE A HIGH FIVE!"
I got lost in the moment and high fived her without thinking!
I also high fived the leader and the lady waiting behind me.....
I got all giddy!

A Bad Death

I noted with some sadness that the former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy died following what his family described as an "alcohol related hemorrhage." I hope that his cause of death wasn't a ruptured oesophageal varice, but unfortunately I suspect that  it was.
This depresses me greatly as Charles Kennedy always struck me as a sweet natured and principled politician.
I have only seen one death from a ruptured oesophageal varice and I never want the experience again. It was a 45 year old woman who had been brought into hospital with acute liver failure, and unbeknownst to me as a junior student nurse, her cirrhotic liver had caused a back up of blood to the blood vessels feeding from the junction of her stomach and windpipe
As I helped the charge nurse slide the woman from trolley to bed, she gave a little cough. She then said something like " oh no" very quietly and suddenly the entire bed was filled with blood. She coughed again and what I can only describe as a tidal wave of blood erupted from her mouth and I just stood there opened mouthed as the woman literally bled to death in front of me.
It all happened within, what seemed like ,a couple of seconds.
Another experienced nurse raced over with a morphine syringe as the alarm bells went off and the arrest team was called and she dragged  some spare sheets and blankets from a nearby bed and threw them at me
" put them on the floor around the bed" she hissed quickly and then I understood.
The bedclothes were to dam the blood from spreading across the ward floor.
There was nothing we could do.
I was soaked in blood by the time the charge nurse told me to clean up and get a cup of tea and
I remember stripping into pair of  borrowed theatre scrubs in the staff toilets, sobbing in shock.
The poor, poor woman and poor Charles Kennedy, they both deserved better than that

A Break In The Shade

I've been strimming the field today. It's a backbreaking job especially in hot weather. The animals all congregate by the field gate, in the cool shade. From there they can watch  the lane, keeping an eye out for people to scare.

I sat down to eat an orange with my back against the old church wall.....and promptly fell asleep

I only woke up when Islwyn's brother stopped his landrover by the gate to ask me if we wanted an old piano!

Albert at his usual place next to Winnie

The dogs on guard

Meg day dreaming, watched by Bingley

Albert and the Ukrainian Village Hens

The Lane Down The Hill

The lane down to the village....today

At some stage the road which is our existence here in the village will take another turn. Like the lane down the side of The Gop , we will turn around the next corner and instead of venturing down High Street, we will be off to pastures new.
I have known this for a long time now.......such is the life of a successful academic.
I am not playing games when I share this, there is no hidden news waiting in the wings, no new University City where we are off to tomorrow, but in the fairly near future the Prof will need to move onwards and upwards and with a full heart I will be by his side.
I am ok with this.....I have known it ever since we moved to Trelawnyd ten years ago. Then I moved from a Northern City into a village without knowing anyone and I surprised myself that I could forge a new life and a whole new way of looking at things so easily.....I adapted when I thought I never would
..So its a case of I have done it once......I can do it again.
That is very liberating.
Hey ho