Politically Oh so not correct

This photo was shared with me on facebook the other day.

It was taken around 1983, when I was a student psychiatric nurse. The raven haired girl next to me is called Judith and she was a country girl from the Isle of Man.
At New Year, when all of the students were at home enjoying their families and friends, Judith was the only person left in the Nurse's home so at the last minute I invited for her to come home with me to Wales to join in with my friends' fancy dress pub crawl.
I rang my parents that a guest would be staying and told Judith to come up with a costume theme with literally a few minutes notice.
She found some boot polish and met me looking like this

Now my parents were probably beside themselves with the fact I was coming home with a WOMAN!  So probably bursting a gut, they sat on tenterhooks for us to arrive with a...." John's bringing a girl home"  being the only in town.
Imagine their faces when Hattie McDaniel walked through the door with a thick and playful African accent.
So good was Judith's make up that Both my father and mother initially thought that Judith was indeed black! And I remember delighting in my father's surprise and  nervousness when confronted by a buxom black mama in his very 1980s living room.
I was 21 before I met a person of colour
My father must have been 50 ( even though the person was was indeed a blacked up farmer's daughter from the Isle Of Man)......how different Prestatyn was in those small town days.

The Queen Of The Village

I know that I have a tendency to " big up" village characters like Aunty Glad on Going Gently, but there is a reason for that, and that is, She really is a special lady.
Very deaf and certainly registered blind, she sat quietly in her chair by the aga as the discussions over the finer points of " what is a tart and what is a pie" became louder and louder.
Heulwen, for the most part sat with her, informing her of the finer points of the committee decisions, and it was she that took a helping role when Gladys started to make tea. The large kettle of boiling water and a 96 year old blind lady don't always mix well, but between them the teas were handed out. Cups and saucers for the ladies and mugs for the men.
Gladys as always, handed out buttered scones for all.
The meeting lasted almost two hours, and for most of that Gladys again sat in her own chair. She laughed loud and strong when the group photographs were taken and when each committee member thanked her for her hospitality when they were leaving, she trilled out a merry " Don't thank me ..thank the lord!" 
Flower Show Matriarch Irene and animal helper Pat were the last to leave, as they were doing the washing up. I was collecting my papers and schedules and Gladys flittered around us rearranging the chairs around the kitchen table.
Nearly blind and very deaf , she clapped her hands like a schoolgirl
" oooohhh I have enjoyed this evening " she cooed
That is part of her immense charm

The Flower Show Marches On

The bun fight which is the Trelawnyd Flower Show committee meeting took place around Auntie Glad's kitchen table this evening. It's like supper time at the Walton's house with everyone talking at once.....and by the time of leaving, my head is ringing with the frenetic good natured banter of it all.

Most of the Trelawnyd Village Flower Committee tonight

The next show is on August 6th.

(Right to left), matriarch Irene, Terry, Mierion ,Daphne, Heulwen, Derek, Julie ( cookery judge) , sailor John and Pat my " animal helper"
Gladys is centre 

Valentine's & Amateur Dentistry

Miss Norm please take note

after hours of design work, artistic endeavor and blood sweat and tears

The Prof's Valentine gift has been finished.

And even though I say so myself,

It's MAGNIFICENT! 

I finished it this morning after a somewhat unsettled sleep

as I was woken around 4.30 am by the " chunnering " of an upset 

bulldog. When I sleepily got to the kitchen, I was confronted by 

a wide eyed Winnie standing with her mouth open .

She clearly wanted me to check inside her mouth.

Minutes later I had donned my trusty head torch and spied one of her baby teeth

hanging half out of its socket and with a twist popped it out of her gum.

Old dogs! The Prof had to do something similar with George a couple of weeks ago.

but , I suspect his patient wasn't as accommodating 

Satisfied that all now was well, Winnie blew me a kiss and 

stalked off to sleep on the couch. 

She's still there as I type this

Sleeping her toothless sleep 

Bridge Of Spies

A work in progress

I painted the base coat of the Prof's Valentine cat food tin/ desk tidy and went to the cinema as it was drying on the sideboard.
I went to see a one off showing of Spielberg's Bridge Of Spies
I knew the movie would be worthy, after all everyone involved has a pedigree as long as your arm , but I wasn't prepared just how good a story it is and I was very grateful that I had no knowledge whatsoever of the "true"story that the film was based upon.
At the height of the cold war New York lawyer James Donovan ( Tom Hanks) reluctantly accepts to defend Rudolph Abel (Mark Rylance) who has been arrested on charges of being a KGB spy. Although the trial leads to Abel being imprisoned for life , the sudden capture of an American espionage pilot by Russian forces and the imprisonment of an American student in East Berlin, means that Donovan's negotiating skills are brought into play to forge an exchange in a wintry and divided Germany.

Rylance ( centre) and Hanks

Hummm, it sounds good, and believe me it is good with the ageing Hanks playing the cold war Jimmy Stewart role that Stewart should always have been offered. He is , quite simply marvellous as the measured , quick thinking and decent Donovan . Wisely, Spielberg pairs the warmth of Hanks with a wonderfully ambiguous and unreadable character of Abel. Their pairing has an electricity reminiscent of Hopkins and Foster in Silence of the Lambs.
Rylance's performace here is a masterclass of underplaying and with the faintest glimpse of a smile
and an almost reptilian glace he walks the very difficult line between slightly doddery invisable eccentric and a calculating and fiercely loyal Russian agent. When the pair are separated for film's second half East Berlin scenes , I bet the rest of the audience was rooting for their reunion, as much as I was.

Spielberg touches abound in this movie. A terribly upsetting machine gunning of five East German escapees in no man's land as seen by the passenges of a passing train, the savage beauty of a snow covered and decaying Berlin, the breathtaking shooting down of the American spy jet over Russia are just three set pieces that linger long in the mind.
The master is oh so back on form with Bridge Of Spies
9/10

My Fat Balls hanging and other Monday stories

Olivia from Walking Dead

Normal life can be terribly mundane ....but in the great scheme of things shopping has to be done, dry cleaning needs collecting and fat balls need a hanging.
Those birds won't feed themselves.
The Prof has his own mundane stressors to cope with as he is off to Norway for most of the week to talk about something important.
This morning he was no doubt double checking his international travel arrangements and how to say " I'll have a large Akvavit" in Norweigan.
I had to pick up a newly laundered and formally piss stained duvet from the laundry.

Fat balls

The woman at the dry cleaners looked like Olivia from The Walking Dead and she was very apologetic when she informed me that she couldn't work out which black bin bag was ours. " I've mixed up the labels" she told me. " Would you recognise your duvet if you saw it again?" She asked nervously..." it has big blobs of bulldog period blood in one corner" I informed her
She found the duvet within seconds after that.

I went to poundland to buy some cheap reading glasses and treats for the new hens. ( Jean Claude Van Damme especially  loves to wander around with one of my big fat balls in his beak) and after all that I have come home to shelter from  bloody Imogen by the fire.

I think I shall make the Prof's valentine pressie......it's a desk tidy made from a painted kitty-kat tin......
I think homemade gifts are so much more personal than expensive chocolates, designer underwear and champagne.....don't you?
Hey ho

Flu Jab Blues

Sunday afternoon after night shift.
The Prof is cooking pork and is sighing a great deal about small shit.
I've been lying on the couch watching old war films
With some company

My arm is sore...I had a flu jab yesterday

Thin lips

Mrs Trellis was a bit thin lipped when I bumped into her on a very soggy Marian lane.
By some mistake two of her answerphone messages had not reached me last Wednesday when she needed a lift from the garage.
I had asked her to ring, so it was my fault.......oh dear!
Hey ho....working later!