Marriage One Year On - Some Thoughts

We are in the middle of a snow blizzard here in Trelawnyd. It's not sticking as yet but I 've been effectively marooned in the cottage until it's all over.
Mary, I note is the only animal awake, she is stood with her head out of the cat flap.
She is watching the snow fall.
She has never seen it before.

This weekend marks our first anniversary.
I cannot believe a year has passed since we got married.
Here are a few thoughts I have on the whole thing.

• A married colleague stopped me soon after the wedding and asked me " If things felt different". I wasn't sure just what she meant by the question and asked her if she felt different and she replied with some feeling that " getting married validated her relationship " " It said to the world that we were together" .....................instantly I understood what she meant. Marriage , didn't validate me as a person at all ( Gawd I had been happily single for most of my early adult life) but it did validate  the Prof and I , as a couple and that felt wonderfully inclusive . 
• Before we got married , the Prof and I underplayed the whole thing. This underplaying, on reflection, was a product of the fact that gay marriage was such a " new" phenomenon. For us , civil partnership, always seemed like a second class event so I think we were not quite sure just how the whole thing would eventually pan out. As it happened we were overwhelmed by how people saw the whole thing. They seemed to embrace the event, they seemed to embrace the celebrations and they embraced us as a couple and this suddenly mattered so very much ......as my best " woman" Nuala said in her after dinner speech " who would have believed a few years ago that two men who loved each other could ever get married......how wonderful is that?" ....and she was so bloody right
• Getting married is the best thing I have ever done..........hey ho

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