Going Gently

Beach Holidays

For the first time in a few years we have organised a beach holiday. Well to be perfectly precise we will be having TWO breaks by the sea!

The first break is a few days here

And the next is ten days here!

Yes the two places look rather similar.....only the first is in Broadstairs in Kent ...and the second is in Manly in SYDNEY AUSTRALIA! How good is that!
The break will do us both good.
The Prof is working in Australia in August then will join his best friend and colleague for a weeks sailing ( I'd rather stick needles in my eyes than be seen dead on a small sailing yacht in the middle of the Pacific ( I've seen Dead Calm!) he will then fly to Sydney and meet me as I fly in from the UK
Now you know just why I am trying to shift all that ugly flab at fat club now!
I want to be able to sit on a beach without looking like Demis Roussos.

As usual, at holiday time it is the animals and more importantly their care which is the knotty problem.....but I think I have just about sorted it all out. The neighbours have promised to watch over Albert and will sort out the water requirements for the field animals . Village boffin Cameron will be
in charge of the birds and William is set for a stink in our local kennels.
Winnie is going to the home of one of my fellow Samaritans who is a bulldog fanatic and George will have a holiday break at my sister's house with her dogs.

Broadstairs and Sydney how fantastic is that!

I Find Your Love

It would be fair to say that it's not been the easiest of 24 hours.
Yesterday, another trip to the vets ( this time with the ever smiling William) proved to be a little to soon for comfort and last night's stint at Samaritans turned out to be surprisingly busy.
This morning I was unexpectedly slapped very hard on the back of the head by a boy with learning difficulties as I entered the petrol station shop and followed this sweet moment with a fraught trip to the council recycling centre where two very unhelpful workmen refused to even raise an eyebrow to help me unload a berlingo full of crap from out of the shed!

William post injections

Yes by mid morning, I was in dire need of a " zen" like moment.
I found it thanks to radio 2...which was a surprise,
For exactly at 11.29 am , as I parked outside Marks & Spencers the radio station paused for a minutes silence in memory of the casualties of the 7/7 bombings.
I sat in the berlingo for the duration and found myself listening to this specially chosen song which followed

I have never heard it before, but I can see perfectly well why the radio producers had picked it for such an emotive moment. It's a lovely song.
As it finished I opened the car and caught the eye of a woman who was exiting her car in the next space. Her face was a bit blotchy but she was smiling. " I was listening to radio 2 too " she said wiping away a tear!

Ok .....lets lift the mood
Here is the latest international entriesto the Trelawnyd Novelty Vegetable Competition

Keep em coming!

jgsheffield@hotmail.com

A Shadow

It's been a week since Meg left us and I have tried to be busy. I have smiled and nodded at the kind words of the villagers when they have noticed I am now down to three dogs, and I have agreed with the platitudes that putting her down was "the right thing to do"

I have gone to work, laughed and joked with family and friends, blogged, gardened, completed jobs and gone up a gear with the Flower Show prep but yesterday evening, with the Prof away, and with the other animals all in their own corners, chairs and hearth rugs, I suddenly felt the physical " pang" of loss when I realised that Meg wasn't lying in her normal position in the crook of my arm.

And boy did it sting.

Dogs often associate themselves with one owner and Meg was my shadow for a decade. At night she would always ensure that she slept between the Prof and I, and always made sure that she faced me with her head on my chest or her paws around my arm. During the day she was always just a step away from any of my activities. a worried look upon her face and she was only truly relaxed when she was physically touching me, a fact when I look back on it, that had its own huge responsibilities and demands.

I now miss that touch.

The above photo is a genuine one. It wasnt staged or planned, it just happened quite naturally and it perfectly illustrates Meg's constant need to be close. She and I were fast asleep after a busy night shift.

Yeap, ten years is a long time to have a shadow.

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To finish, here are a few more entries to the Novelty Veg competition

Enjoy....

" whoopping My Arse!"

Terry in happier days...with his winning quiche a few years back!

Apparently Terry Malthoff is going to " whop My arse in the Flower Show this year" or so the village gossip goes.
His stinging defeat against me in two of last year's categories has provoked a healthy need for him to win this year and we are both entering the Novelty Vegetable , quiche Boiled fruit Cake and loaf of bread classes . Our jousting was born a few years back when I accused of him using furniture polish on his award winning courgettes ( the accusation stung but I was wasn't the only one who was convinced that they could smell " Mr Sheen" over the vegetable exhibit table!)
I saw Terry this morning as he was off to put up our official Flower Show signs. He squinted at me with his best Clint Eastwood eyes.........
" Bring it on" I muttered at him under my breath.

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I do need some more novelty veg pictures please

They can be as simple as this entry

A potato clanger!

All entries to jgsheffield@hotmail.com

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and finally speaking of arses

Winnie's " Underpants of shame " have been resurrected as she finishes her season

Soft furnishings have to be protected

Have a good Sunday

Hey ho

Gobbling Binmen & A Walking Dead Avacado!

We had a lie in this morning, only waking up at the noise of the bin men " gobbling " through the field gate at an over excited Bingley.
What is it when a group of men get together ? They turn into overgrown schoolboys.

The Village Conservation Group were all out in force this morning , planting out the communal flower beds and tubs and containers outside the School and Church and will admit that The Trelawnyd Green spaces look quite professionally tended to.
I snapped a quick photo of Animal Helper Pat as she worked on the Church Flower Bed

The only other bit of gossip I have today is that I am not the only " Walking Dead" fan in the village. The old guy with the bad tempered shih Tzu from the pensioner bungalows pointed at me rather excitedly as I passed him today. At first I thought I'd either left a long roll of toilet paper hanging out from the back of my pants but as he was pointing to my torso, I reevaluated my guess to the fact that he had noticed that my weight loss at the moment is rapidly approaching a stone and a half!
As it turned out, however, he was in fact pointing to the third best Walking Dead T shirt I was wearing ( the one with Daryl Dixon muttering " sorry Brother" before he shot Dale in the head) Apparently he is a big fan and never misses an episode.
I told him he needed a zombie T shirt in order to prove that he was indeed a mega fan.....
He said he would see if he could find one when he was next in the market!

Off to bed...working later

And to finish

The latest in the novelty veg entries

A walking dead avocado!!!!!!!!

Keep em coming

jgsheffield@hotmail.com

A Royal Night Out

Ok two old queens from Trelawnyd going to the cinema may be termed by some as A ROYAL NIGHT OUT , but I am, in fact referring to the Julian Jarrord comedy drama film, which gives a fictional slant on the VE night out in central London by the present Queen and Princess Margaret.
Apparently the Earnest Lillibet ( Sarah Gadon) and the doe eyed innocent Margaret ( Bel Powley) team up with an RAF deserter, a group of Soho tarts and a royalist gangster with a heart of gold, as they negotiate the drunken crowds in Trafalgar square ....yeah right!
The two leads are perfectly fine with Gadon making a prim but spunky Quuen in waiting and Powley playing Margaret for laughs........but the film doesn't quite work as a piece of storytelling as the movie feels just a series of filmed set pieces rather than a smooth cohesive narrative....with some depth
5/10

Elizabeth and Margaret live it up

The new cinema needs to market itself a little better too
There were only 8 of us in the audience!
Hey ho

Feedback

Sometimes it's nice to receive positive feedback.
Especially if that feedback is given freely and out of the blue.
And, in my case, at a time that my ebb is at a particularly low point.
After publicising The Trelawnyd Flower Show on facebook, I've had an opportunity to check on old colleagues from my old psychiatric and spinal injury days. Some, I have had a chance to touch base with again which has been lovely, but most that have acknowledged me as " friends" have just clicked a button stating that in one moment in time our paths crossed.,..and thats fine.
A hundred or so old faces have given me a "blast from the past"
Last night, a former colleague left me a message out of the blue. She wasn't a friend....I was her boss at the time, and after a decade of separation, I had to think hard to remember her from work.
She told me that I had been a good manager and a good boss and her words of feedback came as an unexpected tonic in this week of heaviness.
Four other old colleagues left their own thoughts afterwards, all nurses that didn't possess the loyal complication of friendship, and it was lovely to be reminded that in a former city life I was once good at something a little more.
I have just re read this blog today and I want to say that I am not touting for more feedback of what a superb specimen of manhood I am..so please no comments saying the same ........
But if you work with someone, and you think that they do a good job........whether they be a junior apprentice or a chief executive
Tell em eh?

Jo Tinker I have to agree with the ^^^ comments John, I think I had respect back then, firm but fair & always good for a laugh, we always knew where we stood with you xx

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