Yanks In Town

William , Winnie, George , Mary and I were returning through the old Churchyard Yesterday afternoon after a brief catch up with the Alcapas in Mrs Frazer's glebe field, when a bright American voice sang out from behind the gravestones.
" I guess you're a real local" the woman called out.
I should have known that the Yanks had arrived as parked next to the Lych Gate was a large white minibus. The Graveyard suddenly seemed full of them .
They descended on me, greedy for information.
In the mid 1840s, Trelawnyd elder John Parry Sr led over 100 Mormon converts from North Wales to Liverpool in order to catch a steamer to the United States. Parry and his followers went on to settle in Salt Lake City where he became the first conductor of the famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir .
Now, on a regular basis, his descendants arrive in the village for an hour or so, intent on locating Parry's meeting house ( thought to be a set of cottages up High Street) or in the vain hope of finding an old gravestone of the Parry family amongst the few intact gravestones in the old graveyard.

I gave them as much information as I was able which proved to be a rather odd experience as it was only after five minutes that I realised one woman was filming me on her mobile phone!
I showed them the 13 th Century Prayer Cross, and explained that it was (and is) common for Welsh headstones to document the names of the houses in which the deceased lived , a fact which often makes research easier with so many Jones', Parry's and Evans' living in one place.

As I was showing them around , I suddenly recognised  a few words on a tombstone I had never seen before. The words " Tan y Fynwent " sticking out like a sore thumb.
Now, Tan-y-Fynwent was the ancient Welsh name for our cottage and when translated it literally means " Under The Graveyard" a rather apt description as the cottage is located on the lane that borders the lower Western part of the Church boundary.
I had , by accident, found the previous occupants of our cottage.
People who had lived and died in the 1800s an early 1900s

Lick My Fat

I rubbed a bit of chicken fat ( which was impregnated with garlic) on my sore swollen knee this evening. We had had the chicken for supper.....it was very nice. Anyhow, It's not an old Welsh recipe against such ailments, but it did make Winnie lick the hell out of the afflicted part which was as soothing if not more  as a bag of frozen peas.

This ailment thing is boring me now

I'm getting quite down with it

Being Too Nice.

The other week I mentioned the interviewing skills of journalist and presenter Kirsty Young with some considerable admiration.
Today I watched probably one of the worst " celebrity" interviews I have ever had the misfortune to witness as a simpering and sycophantic Lorraine Kelly made a fool of herself with Helen Mirren who tried, with some patience, to unsuccessfully balance the constant barrage of " you're lovely" comments.
I don't trust overly nice people. Perhaps that says something dark about my childhood or my trust issues , but I don't.
Now don't get me wrong, I am attracted to warm hearted folk, you know the sort!, those that have an aura of kindness and genuineness about them but these people, in my book,  must alsohave an edge about them of sorts,  whether it humour,a touch of sarcasm or a big dollop of irony; and edge to me, always means interesting.
And interesting is always good.
Lorraine Kelly take note.

The Crow and other nothings

12 hours on my feet yesterday coupled with a two mile round robin with Mary this morning and my knee gave up the ghost again . True I had just then started to bleach the toilet, which necessitated me to kneel on a hard bit of lino, which was, I am afraid,  the straw that broke the camel's knee cap.
But you don't need to know such trivialities.
It's a warm day here in Trelawnyd and apart from walking the dogs, I've already checked on Pat the animal helper's seedlings in her greenhouse ( she's on a cruise) and have photographed another villager's facial skin graft over the garden wall so he has a record of it improving.
I don't mind being asked about health matters as long as I know what I'm talking about
Gay Gordon saw me limping slightly the other day and told me quite bluntly to loose weight.

Everyone has an opinion.

The good news today is that the crow survived!
Do you remember a few weeks ago that I noticed that a crow had broken into an unoccupied cottage up near the Gop and had become trapped? Well , I passed the same cottage today and the owner was on one of his rare visits and was tidying up the garden.
I asked him about the bird and he told me that he had arrived home a week later to find the bird very much alive and well. The thing must have been kept going on toilet water and odds and sods from the kitchen shelves, but it had survived which pleased me greatly.

I'm off to trim the Montana clematis now, Mrs Trellis complained that it had overgrown the small metal arch over our kitchen garden gate and that she'd caught her hair and spectacles in the tangle of growth when she had last visited.
" It could have had my eye out" she trilled.


    

A Thank You

Remember that I gave a lecture to a group of seven year olds at the village school?
Well the mother of one of the lads popped up to the cottage yesterday evening with a sick bantam in a box.
The Prof snorted a warning comment of " No more sick bastard hens in this house" before I marched out, but he need not have worried, as the little bantam was literally beyond any help I could offer.
I examined the little bird and gave some pointers to the lady of how to keep her comfortable and she left secure in the thought that she had now done her best.
I know this as when I locked the birds up for the night , on the garden gate there was hung a small package of scotch eggs with two cream scones in a bag.
A thank you for my consultation.
After a shitty night shift and before an even busier day shift today.
It was a bloody lovely treat!

This Is How I Feel Today

This is how I feel today

Blog Break

Whilst a selected few intensive care nurses live it up in Marbella this weekend, grunts like me get the bum deal with shifts to cover the unit. I worked night shift last night and am due back for a twelve hour shift tomorrow daytime .
Hope my colleagues are enjoying their pina coladas! 

Shoot The Damm Dog

It very much looks as though the journalist, magazine editor and agony aunt Sally Brampton took her own life earlier this week.
She has written much about her life long experience with depression, indeed before I started work as a Samaritan, her book Shoot The Damm Dog- a Memoir Of Depression was one of my suggested background reads.
Last night, I was reminded of a quote from that book. It is, perhaps, the most graphic yet simple explanation of the suicidal act.

" Killing oneself, anyway is a misnomer. We don't kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness, people are apt to say, with a note of approval, "He fought so hard." And they are inclined to think, about a suicide, that no fight was involved, that somebody simply gave up. This is quite wrong.”