Another Year, Another Flower Show

With another level head on the Flower Show committee in the shape of Trelawnyd Val, we thrashed out the 2017 schedule in record time.
There was a bit of a debate over schedule layout, some lively talk about who will open the show ( we are toying with a Mary Berry lookalike named tantalisingly as Mary Cherry, but we may be in muddy legal waters here. Meirion & Daphne know someone from Coronation Street so we may have a real celebrity on the cards! If we don't I'll ask the newly elected counsellor for our area.......the local elections are just about to start!

The pub tv was playing quietly in the corner, so I was mindful that my Nemesis Terry was paying too much attention to a video of a Macarena rather than the strenuous conversation over the differences between a pie and a tart!
We all missed Auntie Glad's kitchen!
It's Gladys' 98 th birthday on Tuesday...I learned today that the village Male Voice Choir had planned to call on her to sing her happy birthday. They called in to her old care home to sing carols to her at Christmas which was a delightful tribute I thought. ( Gladys had provided refreshments to the choir for many many years)
Anyhow I am going to propose that we have a new cup " The Auntie Glad Cup" for a baking category in the show. I forgot to mention it tonight, the pub was rather busy and it slipped my mind.....
The food in the restaurant looked fab, I must admit.....
As I sipped my diet coke!
Hey ho

A Kid In A Sweet Shop

If you are ever " down in the dumps" I suggest you call around here. Pick Winnie up in the back seat of your car and drive, quicksticks, to the local pet superstore which is located just five miles away.
You know the sort of store I mean.
Spotless shelves with every feed, medication, plaything and grooming implement known to man , nose to nipple with bunnies in glass fronted enclosures, azure blue fish tanks and green smocked sales people smiling sweetly at you from behind the tills.
This is Winnie heaven.
I first found this odd fact out a year ago when she accompanied me into the store when we were picking another dog up from their in-house groomers.
Wide eyed with wonder she investigated every box, packet and snack carefully eyeing up anything that she thought different or interesting and practically wet herself when she turned a corner to see thirty feet of selected balls, squeaky toys and rubber " things" all neat and tidy in their containers.
Their selection of rubber chickens practically gave the old gal an orgasm on the spot and I had to put her on the lead again to prevent an over excited incident from occurring.
(I didn't have enough dosh on my to pay for any damages) but generally she behaved herself, sniffing the boxes, tins and packets with a smile on her big fat face.

As I recall we ambled on.
Carefully and over some time, the guinea pigs were watched and then the ratty things and gerbils in their boxes were given  the a serious once over, then the vet's receptionist had to be greeted as she yawned behind her desk.
To Winnie the store was a place of wonderment, to be savoured slowly like a good wine.
She didn't want rushing!
And so I let her march around, enjoying her enjoyment of such a simple activity.
Her happiness is incredibly infectious .
Remember that if you are ever down and you are in North Wales
Just call around and borrow a bulldog for an hour or so.

This morning in the garden with Mary

" Get away from her .....YOU BITCH!"

I'm sat in the vets.....it's going to be a long wait as there are two labs, an old spaniel with a bad heart,
and an RTA before us.
So I'm playing on the old ipad.
It stops people chatting to me, I hate small talk at the vets

A few years ago I found myself walking around the corner of Bloomingdales New York and I  bumped right into a tall, chic looking woman wearing a tartan coat.
She said " Pardon" and floated on.
I squeaked like a girl.
The woman was Sigourney Weaver! 

We are going to New York in the Autumn ( instead of Australia) 
I wonder which famous bod I shall spy there.....
We have not been for a few years and I'm already excited

Who is the most famous celebrity that you have met, albeit briefly!??
I'd be interested to know 

A Worrying Turn

Blogs talking about the oldest and one of the youngest Village characters

Go figure

It's been public knowledge for a little while now, but the care home that Auntie Gladys is in has been recently under close scrutiny by  the Welsh Care and Social services inspectorate after it breached 11 regulations in the care of its residents.
I have not blogged about all this as in many ways it was not my place to say anything, but very recently things have changed yet again.
We visitors had no idea that things were not quite they seemed as Gladys seemed very happy with her care, and although the place looked somewhat shopworn there was nothing in the home that unduly concerned me, nothing, that is, that I could see on an hours visit.
I know that Gladys' family closely monitored the situation, and have kindly kept a few of us here up to date with what was happening.
Tomorrow, it has been decided that the remaining residents will be moved by social services to another care home and Gladys will transferred to a more appropriate place on the English border some twenty miles away.

I've got the details of the new home if any villagers need it.
I'll be visiting next week and I may post the home's address here! A plethora of supportive cards may underline to te managers just how well loved Gladys is!( hint hint)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-east-wales-39469229

Boffin Thank You

I promised to pass on Cameron's best wishes to the locals ( and blog readers) who sponsored him on his run last weekend, hope you can read his text

D.I.V.O.R.C.E.

I went to fat club late this evening and left the cottage all cozy and toasty for the Prof on his return from work.
A chicken curry was warming in the oven and the dogs were all sorted
When I finally got home the fucker had eaten his AND my half of the curry!
I was so mad I could have clubbed  Julie Andrews to death with her own guitar

I Need A PA !

The Prof has his own PA.
She is an affable, and exasperated sort who is always hidden away behind a desk covered with paper,
I sort of know her feelings this morning as today I have spent several hours catching up with paperwork and phonecalls and phonecalls and paperwork.
Half an hour of my life that I will never get back was on the phone to an ever perky " Matty" at my pet insurers, after an unexplained delay in Winnie's operation payment.
" How is she now?" He asked in a desperate attempt to court favour after my third thinly lipped complaint of the amounts quoted
"Sexually very promiscuous" I replied shortly
"Oh!" Was all he managed to reply, albeit weakly.
Another thirty five minutes was spent on the phone to a dopey so-and- so at the pension department ( more paperwork outstanding) ten minutes booking dog haircuts, five minutes to the vets, and fifteen soul destroying minutes hanging onto the phone in the fruitless hope of speaking to a sales rep at Sky ! ( I had to give up due to an overdue bowel movement!)
10 minutes booking a badminton court at a local leisure centre ( I didn't understand the card system) 10 minutes on Samaritan business and two minutes ringing Animal helper Pat about the flower Show Meeting and finally after another 20 minutes of on line banking, I spent a joyless time answering a short on line questionnaire about the BBC, a product of a recent complaint about the odious Jeremy Vine, I emailed the radio 2 website last week ( fucking hell get a life John!)

Oh, and It took me a further quarter of an hour writing this shite! 

Bedroom Ettiquette

Walter Pidgeon and Greer Garson had twin beds. So did my parents in the latter years of their marriage. Blogger Rachel has gone one step further, she and P has seperate bedrooms,each, no doubt, enjoying the starfish abilities of cool sheets and a double bed.
Woody Allen and Mia Farrow went a step further, they lived in seperate houses...but that's another story!
In our home, I sleep on the left and always have done. The Prof sleeps on the right with our only bedside table which is usually covered with books and ipads and phone.
The dogs take pot luck.
Until recently George has aways slept at the foot of the duvet, politely away from feet and movement.  Now he enjoys the armchair in the living room. Mary sleeps in her crate in the kitchen and Winnie enjoys the hospitality of the sofa. Winnie understands only too well that bed sharing with the Prof is a total no-no when he is in situ but after he has left for work she will gallop gleefully up the stairs and hurl herslf with gay abandon onto the duvet like a fat lady at the circus.
Willian is the only dog with any manners, for he will come up to bed after his first dawn wee stop and will place his head on the pillow next to mine.
If cold , he actually gets under the bedclothes like an old man.

I'd like a bigger bed. I've always thought that American sized hotel beds are a delight because you can get totally lost in them. You could, if you wanted share one with a bull ox and still have room for Shelley Winters......but that's another story.

When I was a boy we had nylon sheets that always caught on your toenails. We also had bunk beds, candlewick bed spreads and hot water bottles.
Oh and those warming stripy flannel sheets in winter!