International Competition !

It's St David's Day here in Wales today.
No doubt the village school children will be dressing up for it's traditional for the girls to wear the old fashioned tall black hats with lace trim or to have small leaks or daffodils pinned to their clothing.
I've filled vases with daffodils and have put them on the window ledges to mark the day.

Anyhow to the subject of today's post!
It concerns all of you readers!
After much discussion by the Trelawnyd Flower Show Committee, it was eventually decided that the " International Novelty Vegetable/ fruit Photo Competition " (which has been such an informal but popular part of the Show's schedule over the last two years ) will be made an official part of the show from now on!
So have a look on the schedule and you will see it proudly entered into section 4 - The Floral Art & Photography Section. This year it would be great to have around a hundred photograph entries ( for those that don't know the photographs can be emailed to me for printing)

The link for the Flower Show BLOG is

http://trelawnydflowershow.blogspot.co.uk

Knots Untie

Jesus has lovely eyes! 

One of the strengths of The Walking Dead is it's a characteristic snapshot of rural Georgia caught up in a world apocalypse where zombies rule. In  knots Untie the new and likable character of Jesus  ( Tom Payne ) informs the Alexandrians that their world is getting a whole lot bigger, as he introduces our favourites to the fellow community of Hilltop , which is a trailer dominated version of Alexandria .
Although this fresh move towards a new alliance and a confrontation with the new threat of uber baddie Negan is exciting, I hope the series doesn't over stretch itself to a more complicated narrative.

Having said this, I like that Maggie ( Lauren Cohan) had a chance to shine as Rick's new ambassador
with Gregory,  the odious leader of Hilltop , but the  blasé way Daryl thinks that dispatching Negan for the greater good  will be a done deal......is worrying for team Rick me thinks!
Hey ho

A Dying Breed

Trelawnyd Phone Box

This morning I saw someone in our village phone box.
It was a sight that I have never seen before, so I had to stop and give the woman visitor another look.
She was indeed using the phone!

I am always surprised that British Telicom hasn't  decommissioned it, given the fact that no one ever uses it, but I guess it has survived so long because it is situated on one of the main roads from the A55 and the coast.
I was impressed that the phone inside the box was indeed working.

Many villages now adopt their outmoded telephone boxes. The village of Sandon in Herefordshire used theirs as a goose house until their famouse gander was shot in a drive-by shooting recently.  Other villages have made theirs into miniature lending libraries or " honesty" shops but I have always been impressed by the idea of converted old telephone boxes into a place where a community defibrillator can be stored.   ( see http://www.communityheartbeat.org.uk/adoptatelephonebox.php)

Any idiot can use a modern defibrillator. For fuck's sake, the thing tells you exactly what to do ! All anyone has to do is to press a button!
Alas, at the moment it looks as though our box will remain a phone box .

Guinea Pig

The Prof has a new clay face pack treatment

I was " treated" to it this evening

Hey ho

I left it on too long
Now my face is as red as a baboon's arsehole

Gop

In one of his rare fits of " derring do" the Prof suggested that both of us take the dogs for a walk up  Gop hill today. It 's been uncharacteristically  warm and sunny.
He conceded that it was unwise to Winnie to walk all of the way up ( after I reminded him that it was me that had to try to resuscitate Constance after she had collapsed during a walk) so we filled " little Fanny" with dogs ( I promised to " dyson it out asap)  and drove up the hill behind the village..
The views were lovely.

Down be valley to the coast ( Note Winnie cloud watching)

Across the valley towards the village

The Fucking Fuchsia

Val, Bingley and Peter

I was walking up Byron Street yesterday when flower show stalwart,   Bethan stopped her car to tell me the dreadful news that village resident, champion fuchsia grower and all around nice guy, Peter V had sadly  passed away that morning.
Peter and his partner Trelawnyd Val had been an integral part of village life for some years before their recent move to our neighbouring village of Caerwys.
Infamous for using astroturf in their garden ( a fact that nearly gave our flower show judge a stroke) Peter and Val were always prominent in all aspects of village life.
With great humour and warmth, I remember the couple judging our village fete " name the turkey competition " as well as entering the Trelawnyd Flower Show fuchsia class with their monster fuchsia (which had to wheelbarrowed into the memorial hall by two sweaty men ) and my daily walk around the village was never complete without a wave and a thumbs up by an upbeat Peter who was invariably sat in his conservatory with a paper .
His battle with cancer was characteristically brave and wonderfully inspiring.
I shall miss him and his blokey positivism
There is always something infectious about natural good humour and warmth
Peter had it in bucketloads .
We send our love and thoughts to Val xxx

Full Circle

I picked Mary up from the groomers at 4 pm
I didn't recognise her when I walked in.
for she had lost her puppy look and had been transformed  into a true Welsh Terrier.
I put her in the passenger seat for the journey home
and she sat quietly by my side
with bright brown eyes

Suddenly I felt just a tad emotional,

as I realised that

I now had  my co pilot back

Road Sense

A topic of conversation here in Rural North Wales has been the recent killing of a dog by the police on the much hated A55 duel carriageway. The dog was running loose and had apparently escaped all reasonable efforts of capture , so after discussion with the firearm officers, ( who decided that shooting the dog was not a safe option) the police ran over and killed the dog with their own patrol car.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-35662889
This situation took place, I am told, in the early hours of the morning, when the carriageway is generally quiet , so, as you may expect, comments about the police action have been varied and at times vociferous.
My views about it all are somewhat mixed.
Some dogs can cope with traffic and being loose. They are in the minority . George and Winnie , I suspect could walk through the village without causing a problem. I think Winnie would even use the zebra crossing all by herself if she had to, but the Welsh terriers, would, I know, dart into traffic without even batting an eye.

My heart goes out to those police officers. Unless you are a psychopath the killing of  an innocent and terrified animal can never be seen as an exciting and sporting job and in my experience most police personnel are like most nurses in that all they want to do the right thing.
That's common sense.

Apparently there is independent enquiry into this incident. I hope it comes to light just how a dog got away from it's owner in the early hours of the morning .

******************************************************************************
Anyhow on a lighter note I am just about to take Mary for her first haircut, I shall post a photo later...oh and the Prof has just emailed me that by accident he took one of my t shirts with him to the gym this morning........it was my second best Walking Dead T shirt........
I would have paid good money to see that