Smiles and Tears

I have spent most of the morning sorting out carpet cleaners and appropriate food for a knackered old 

Welsh terrier. 

Get one right and I may save money and energy on the other

Anyhow

When I got back the 96 year old " Scone Fairy" had been

as a jar of homemade black currant jam was left tied to the front door knob.

*

Some people smile and laugh when all they want to do is to frown or cry.
Whilst others frown and cry when all they want to do is to smile and laugh.
I met both sorts yesterday and both tugged at my heart just a little.

My friend from the otherside of the village has a group of aged sheep as well as a massive gaggle of hens and with a heavy heart she had to make the decision that the ewes had to be put down. The animals had been housed in a spare stable, safe and comfortable and all together and my friend laughed and smiled as she told me that the deed was to be done this morning.
She smiled and laughed but her eyes didn't sparkle at all

The other friend was Bob's wife, who had hit that dreadful void in grief where the adrenalin which pumps after you have to deal with a death, starts to subside alongside generalised support from friends and family. She called around on a pretext , but needed to talk about how she was feeling.
The tears flowed, as no smile could stop them

People seem to be ashamed of sadness......I think this comes from the fact that miserable people tend to get of everyone's tits!
Now when I say miserable people, I don't mean people who are battling terrible upsets like my two friends above, I mean those unhappy, blood sapping people that are just unhappy with their lot.....and we all know them. Mean spirited, self centred and exhausting.... They give genuinely sad people a bad name

My friends like most people I like are generous of spirit and it was sad to see them so unhappy and lost.

" Groan"

I had a hangover this morning.
A case of too much champagne during the Queen Honour celebrations.
I think I am too old for hangovers. When I was a young nurse, hangovers and early starts went together like  Oscar Pistorious and lying. You just got on and pushed through the tiredness and the nausea, breathed through your mouth and survived by mainlining paracetamol and eating powdered egg from the breakfast trolley.
I also remember oxygen at 8 litres a minute via a facemask often helped with a thundering hangover and on my very early days I was known to very occasionally wash a sleeping patient with an oxygen mask IN SITU
But them were the old days.........

Whats your hangover cure?
I'll make a list...I don't intend to have another

BEM Praise

The family surround the B E M tonight

How lovely

Amateur Dram Lives

Last night we attended a somewhat bizarre but entertaining night in the village Hall. " A Casserole of Comedy" was advertised as a night of humorous sketches performed by the Rhyl Parish Players to raise funds for Trelawnyd Church Funds and over sixty locals turned up at the door.
The Flower Show tables were covered with white tablecloths and were set up in lazy rows in front of the stage and as we sat down we were immediately served with small glasses of sherry by the church ladies.
The usual faces were all there. Auntie Gladys in her finest wool jacket, Irene from the Flower Show, Old Islwyn Thomas, Gaynor the Mad Organist, Mrs Trellis ......all seemed to enjoy little sketches even though some were truly awful and so unfunny it hurt.
My favourite moment was an oddball unfunny " heist" scene where four members of bank staff were supposedly locked in the vault by a robber. One moment, one of the characters shouted that her husband was in a coma and a voice piped up behind me " isnt he the lucky one!"
There was coffee and tea AND biscuits at half time, and a raffle and everything was typical parish council  fare which, as it turned out, was oddly sweet and comforting.

One of the sketches which was reproduced 

Lady night!

British Empire Medal!

What has my sister Ann got in common with Lenny Henry, Kevin Spacey, Eddie Redmayne and Van Morrision?
Answers on a postcard?
Well....I Will tell you..........for she, they and only 1000 other people from this nation have been given an award IN THE 2015 QUEENS BIRTHDAY HONOURS LIST,
How bloody amazing is that ?
Ann has been awarded THE BRITISH EMPIRE MEDAL for services to her community of Prestatyn and for her charity work and I think it's a wonderful tribute to all of her hard work over decades of community support.

Ann Walkden Williams BEM ( left)

Fan- fucking-tastic!

Bush Envy

I was just leaving the field gate with a bowl of eggs when a woman I know vaguely who was walking her dog chirped up and said " Haven't you got a lovely bush!"
She wasn't referring to my " down below garden area" , thank the lord, but my bargain from woolies
Ceanosus in our front garden

A New Experience!

I looked after Jason & Claire's delightful girls today
It was the first time I have ever picked up kids from school and a first time doing girly things with a 5 and a 9 year old.
It was a delight.
I took winnie with me to the school,so I didn't look like a child molester and after I found the right door where each of the girls were let out we all skipped down our lane to collect wild flowers
Liv ( aged 5 going on 35) told me a long story about how ugly Winnie's bottom was whilst Eve told me what a good horsewoman she was...the chatter came as thick and fast as a machine gun going off.
We fed the hens,
Watered the sheep and the girls chased the turkey.
We collected eggs.
I had a panic attack with them walking too near the main road!
And we laughed about songs in school
They Cuddled the dogs. Ran screaming from the geese and told jokes about poo.

I washed dirt from knees, rubbed dock leaves on nettle stings and showed the girls what an onion plant smelt like......
Mum Claire picked them up at tea time
And I had to take myself off to lie down on the couch in the quiet!
I had looked after them for just over an hour!

Village Meet ups

Yesterday proved to be somewhat of a hot and sweaty day.
I trolled around the nearby villages of Gwaenysgor, Cwm, Trelogan, Llanasa and Dyserth opening up the village notice boards with my trusty skeleton key and sneaking in  this year's Flower Show Poster for all the world to see.
In Trelogan, one old boy asked me what I was advertising. When I told him, he snorted
" Fuck all happens in this village"
The rest of the day, I went house to house In Trelawnyd dropping off schedules  but I was hampered by catching up with the local news

• German Bernard has cut his thumb rather badly during a circular saw incident. Both thumb and Bernard do not seem to be doing very well.
• Old Stan is recuperating after a " bad do" I knew a " bad do" was a " very bad do" because Stan said " bad do" around a dozen times. 
• Meirion E was planting out an old wheelbarrow with bedding plants when I dropped off his schedule , he growled and laughed like an old pirate
• The new guy who has bought Plas yn dre Ucha ( the House next to Auntie Glad's) waved and asked me if I was the " history Boy" ( Boy! Yeah right) I told him that I was, and he kindly gave me a look into his house which is in the process of being totally renovated. He has a deep voice like Richard Burton and obviously has a love of history and strangely enough of the village itself. And he asked me if I could dig out any information about his  home (which is  one of the oldest houses in the village dating from the early1700s
• Mrs Trellis caught up with me to apologise that she had forgotten my birthday. She gave me a gift wrapped up in pink tissue paper which turned out to be a four inch garden gnome...." Bet you haven't got one of those" she said triumphantly. I told her that "she was right!"
• Affable despot Jason asked me if I could pick his girls up from school today as he would late home....he laughed that it would be a " first for me" and that I would enjoy standing with all the   Other moms and Dads and talk about " fat club" and recipes . I'll take Winnie with me as the girls adore her
• The conservation group was out too clearing the flower beds for the summer planting. This reminded me that the Flower Show Committee agreed to make a donation towards the cost of the shrubs and plants. So I popped to the treasurer's house to pick up a cheque which I handed over....job done!
• Gay Gordon and Big Mary waved merrily from their bungalow window after I had dropped in their schedule....Gay Gordon may enter the boiled fruit cake class, though he said he may have trouble delivering it on his invalid trolley...I said I would collect it

The large building is plas yn dre

A former old school it is now two houses

Its all go