Sparrowhawk

Sparrowhawks are amazingly fast predators .
They skim hedgerows and zigzag through trees like silver bullets and if you blink just once, they are gone, usually in a puff of victim's feathers.
I saw that explosion of white feathers this morning, just as I looked out on the old Churchyard whilst making pea soup.
Moments before the bachelors had walked the top of the Church wall in Indian file formation so it was with a heavy heart that I hurried outside to check

The female sparrowhawk dropped with one bachelor into my field.
He was dead when I got to him

Big Mistake

I still can't quite shake this virus.
I suspect I have had the Yule plague Australian Flu.
Last night I had the great idea of having a hot steaming bath in order to clear the old sinuses
And thinking it would help I dolloped a very large glob of vics vapour rub under the running hot tap!

Big mistake
Lying in a bath containing vics
Burns your knackers! 

Hostiles - A Study Of P.T.S.D.

Christian Bale

Cinema at 10.30 on a Sunday Morning! Bliss!
The Prof is away and I indulged myself with a good movie.
I went to see Hostiles and it left me reflective and quiet....a sign of a good movie.

Hostiles is a thoughtful and well crafted Study of 19th Century post traumatic Stress disorder. Set amid the brutal end of the Indian Wars the film explores a whole set of characters ( civilian and military) who all are suffering from varying degrees of the condition. Consequently their stories are not an easy watch and after two hours of what feels like abject misery the viewer is left rather exhausted by it all, but the effort is worth it, believe me as the performance by Christian Bale as  Capt  Joseph Blocker , a serial Indian Killer who is entrusted with transporting a dying old enemy Chief Yellow Hawk ( Wes Studi) to his Indian burial ground, is worth the price of the cinema ticket
alone!
Blocker is near retirement and is reluctant to take the assignment on . He spent a career watching and participating in the horrors of the Indian wars and adheres to the maxim of the only good Indian is a dead Indian with almost religious zeal. But as the politicians in the East want to sanitize their treatment of the native Americans he is forced to face his prejudices by having to co operate with Yellow Hawk and his family on the dangerous Journey from New Mexico to Montana.

Rosamund Pike

Add to the mix a traumatised rancher ( Rosamund Pike) who has just lost her entire family by an Indian raid. A suicidal trooper ( Rory Cochran) , who is depressed by his violent military career and a court marshalled prisoner ( Ben Foster) who murdered an Indian family with an axe and you can see where the narrative was going.
Bale is wonderful as the damaged, complicated and in his own way Honourable soldier who has been brutalised by life. His character seesaws between cruelty at his Indian Charges, loyalty and genuine affection for his men and pitch perfect treatment of the traumatised Rosalie Quaid ( Pike) and his scenes with the granite faced Wes Studi are especially powerful and ultimately incredibly moving.

Wes Studi

Unfortunately the Indian characters are less successfully fleshed out with director Scott Cooper sticking to the tried and tested stereotypes of savage killer or Dancing With Wolves nobility. But Studi  's Understated performance complements Bale's nuanced performance well as a mutual respect starts to grow between the two men.

The violence in the movie is pitched just right as it erupts from nowhere in a clumsy confused and totally surprising way typical of a life is cheap time when brutality was everywhere and PTSD was the norm rather than the exception.

Not an easy film to watch but it's worth the effort.

A Post For Ellen in Ohio

Oh dear....my last post was somewhat depressing.
Necessary but depressing.
I don't feel depressed today.
It's late afternoon and I'm all clean and shiny after a long hot bath.
I have my Jim jams on too......the Prof is away working and it's freezing outside so I'm slumming it today.
Now blogger has been fickle of late and several commentators have had varying success in posting comments on Going Gently. Indeed, Gail from Oz, Joni from Canada and Ellen from Ohio all have emailed me about it and today's follow up post is a reply to Ellen's request for an update on village Folk namely Auntie Gladys and Jason the affable despot. Apparently I have been rather remiss of late and have not mentioned them
My apologies!
Now that rascal Yorkshire Pudding penned a somewhat fruity and almost libellous post about Trelawnyd recently....it made for some interesting reading ( see link)
http://beefgravy.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/awards.html
Tonight , I shall endeavour to put the story straight.

Despot Jason

Affable Despot Jason usually hibernates for most of the winter months, so it's common not to see him until the Daffodils have flowered and the Vicar has changed into his spring time surpluses, but he has thrown caution to the wind and has been in touch suggesting we go to the theatre in a few weeks time, which will be fun.
We saw many of the Church characters at the Christmas Eve service including Mrs Trellis who, as see is now signing all correspondence  with her " adopted " pseudonym rather than her real name.
He greyhound Blue is as difficult to control as ever!

Mrs Trellis

Her Christmas Card

Village Elder Islwyn is just getting over the death of his dear mother and will hopefully be jumping into another village - benefit project which will desperately need his organisational skills. I saw him today pottering in the new graveyard.

Animal helper

Boffin

Trendy Carol 

Animal helper Pat, sailor John , Cameron the teenage boffin and Trendy Carol all remain well and as far as I know happy, indeed Trendy Carol floated gaily past the cottage today  wearing something wonderfully ethereal and rather expensive.

The members of the Flower Show Committee are all on fine form too,(you may recall that most of them helped out at the Christmas Fayre recently) and I saw Auntie Glad at her nursing home before the holidays . She looked vague and frail but held my hand for the longest of times as we sat together in the nursing home sitting room which was festooned in decorations.

Let's Talk About Death

Yesterday I was sat in the car waiting for the Prof to arrive at the station on the 17.59 from Bangor.
Eddie Mair, was, as usual, being all clever on Radio 4 and his subject du jour was this time about death.
Well it was more about how we prepare for death, especially in this tight arsed, head-in-the-sand modern day world where death is not viewed as a part of life and living but seen as a something that happens external to our battle with love, shit and the universe.
Mair's debate was an interesting one. "Experts" extolled the virtues of discussing your death with your loved ones "over a glass of wine" where the subject of living wills, power or attorney, financial considerations, burial details and legacies.
It wasn't rocket science, but it was common sense.
One commentator pitched it just right.
"Discussions like these are best done in a more detached and abstract way well before the fact and should not have to be faced in the high emotion of hospital admissions and nursing home waiting rooms."
Having autonomy at the end of your life is paramount. Instructing a legal advocate who perhaps can act in your interest rather than a medic who may act in "best interest" is becoming more popular nowadays but often that "chat over a glass of wine" may be more beneficial, especially when family is involved.
Nothing can split a family more than a death of a loved one

ManBag

Quick Post today...lots of jobs to do and not enough time.
This morning on the way to collect the car from the Station I bumped into an old friend from Intensive Care who commented on my manbag.
She actually referred to it as a handbag which is by definition an incorrect term.
Manbags, I am reliably informed by The Prof , are slung across your body and not carried over the shoulder (Dick Emery Honky Tonk style) or held in the hand (Lady Bracknell style)
a manbag, he says, is an essential accessory for every modern man!

NowI don't know about that, but ever since the Prof bought me my Manbag for Christmas I have not mislaid anything, which for me is some sort of mega achievement
The items I presently have in my manbag are as follows

one pot of vicks vapour rub.
one pen,
one pair of novelty Christmas socks,
keys,
£2.30 in change
My wallet,
Notebook
phone,
Bluetooth earphones,
facecream (body shop)!!!!! - YES I MOISTURISE!!!
Clinique Happy
Mary's ear drops,
Beanie Hat

Simple Things

I've just bought a set of dominos from eBay ...
I had to follow the bloody thing until 22.40 before I " won" it!
It cost me £ 6.99 ( including postage)
Is that surprising for a man of 55?
I've bought it because when The Prof and I were in Broadstairs I escaped to the micro pub The Thirty Nine Steps  and had a lovely hour teaching the Prof to play dominos!
I could have bought a bingo dibber as on New Year's Eve , ( and much to my horror) , The Prof's family set up a game of bingo at the dinner table ...- and that provided us all with a strangely entertaining and somewhat lively after dinner pastime!
But I didn't
My innate snobbishness precludes buying bingo accessories !

Neat And Tidy and a lesson on doing the right thing

I have a soft spot for Jenny our now retired village postmistress.
She remains as disorganised as ever, (indeed she only posting our Christmas card and those of our neighbours through our letter boxes after Christmas) and today I remembered her post office counter with some affection as it always looked in total disarray and as though she had just been burgled.

I am trying to organise myself better.
It's a product of having a new orderly kitchen for I am liking everything having a place and a purpose.
So, when I am waiting for a new arm chair to be delivered ( it's to go in the corner of the kitchen ) I'm sorting out our piles of paperwork. It is these that is reminding me of Jenny and her chaotic post office counter.

I'm not making any  I must be organised resolutions this January, indeed I'm not making any unattainable goals which could ( according to the charity MIND ) affect my mental health negatively if I don't fulfil them .
But I have decided to orchestrate more nice things for us to do.
Retirement must have its own perks.
So 2018 will be a year we travel a bit more. I have already organised a couple of London jaunts and we are having a whole week's holiday in Sitges in the summer.
We also hope to get to Canada and Sweden too......

The John Lewis arm chair arrived early so the paperwork was stuffed away to be forgotten for another year.

Have you made any resolutions? 

I'll leave you with a handmade thank you heart which arrived  by post today.
It was from someone we gave a Christmas present  to.
A gift that we easily bought and we easily gave
The recipient was strangely moved when we handed it over and only then did we find out it was only one of two gifts they received over the Christmas period (the other gift was a small parcel of sweets)
Christmas is about giving, and we often forget that fact.
It was nice that The Prof and I exchanged humbled glances when we realised we had done the right thing