The Running Of The Horses

Even tv adverts can make a person cry
This one is a doozie !
It has every cliche thrown at it and it still works.
The group of people running to meet a herd of horses on a faraway beach include a lesbian couple expecting a baby, a wide eyed young girl and a man with downs.
It should, by rights be terribly mawkish
Instead it brought a tear to my eye

Telepathic

The Prof left for a week's work away before dawn this morning
Seconds later a certain bulldog fought her way under the duvet with a satisfied sigh
She woke me at 7.30 demanding a snog
No lie in ....proper blog later

Bum Marks On The Fridge

Facebook and blogging like most aspects of " social media" provide people with a Vehicle to show off. 

See what I've done, 

See what I've got, see how lucky I am...

See what an interesting , valid person I am

See me

See me

Like me

I've been asked by two people now to post some photos of the new( ish) kitchen. I think that many will think it a shame that we are moving so close to all the hard work it took to organise it....perhaps they are right but kitchens sell houses ( I am told) so it was fortuitous I got it done. It remains my favourite  room in the cottage. 

Today I've given it the weekend once over, and minutes after the last duster was packed away and the last bit of dirtymop water chucked down the sink, I am showing it to you

Of course it's not really like this....

The photos are there to underline how lovely I am.

How lucky andhow houseproud and interesting I am...

The photos lie

The arm chair never looks like the chair in the photo. The arm seat and back usually have strategically placed teatowels on them ---a protection from muddy paw prints. 

And along the window ledge , just out of shot in the first photo is Albert's smelly cat food bowl half filled with bits of horse that has had the gravy licked off it.

Just right of the New York arty cushion ( see more me, me me !) are paw scuff arks on the paint where Albert knocks his bad leg at every visit to his dinner plate.

They are there every day

And I wipe them off every day.

Hidden under the table George is keeping his usual low profile on his sheepskin bed. 

Despite regular washes the bed remains grey and "doggy" 

Not quite homes and gardens material me thinks.

Part of the kickboard by the sink is not quite square , there is a dust trail the length of Hadrian's wall on the new radiator and I can make out a clear bum mark left by William on the side of the fridge cupboard which I somehow missed in my frenzy of cleaning

See not quite perfect everyone

Not quite perfect .......

  

" We Are Sailing.......stormy waters...."

We have spent the day sailing !
Eat your heart out Rod Stuart..it was a flat calm .....not good for sailboats !
Whoa! Ok ok .... well the Prof and friend Nick went sailing
I spent the day with Nick's wife playing with dogs on the beach and eating tuna sarnies

A Quiet Place

Noah Jupp, Millicent Simmonds and John Kraninski

 As the tension builds in the monster horror movie A Quiet Place the audience squirms uncomfortably when Emily Blunt's character Evelyn goes into labour just as the killer aliens enter her house. The message unsaid but collectively realised by the audience is that babies always cry and the blind aliens only attack when they hear noise.
To survive, you have to be quiet!
It's a simple but incredibly effective premise.
And so in a practically empty post apocalyptic world we follow a survivalist family's quest on their farm festooned in light bulbs but without an animal that may give their presence away.
The family has a head start above other survivors. Father Leo  ( John Kraninski) is a tough protector sort whilst chubby daughter Megan ( Millicent Simmonds) is deaf allowing her and the family to communicate effectively by sign language, but a childhood game with a noisy rocket ship brings tragedy when the youngest son is killed brutally on a forage out for medication .
Despite the family strengths , the odds are clearly stacked against total silence and safety here. A crying baby, a deaf child who cannot hear the noise she is making, a nail on a staircase just waiting to be stepped upon at the wrong moment have all been set up to give the game away, and at times the story gets unbearably tense as the monsters move in....
A Quiet Place is what it is , a great old fashioned monster movie......
With a twist
8/10

" shut the fuck up" Emily Blunt

Plans

A Sunny Morning over the village

I've started to let people know of our intention to move. 

One neighbour kindly said that they were "stunned and saddened" 

Mrs Trellis was more pragmatic " How lovely, pastures new!" She trilled as her bobble hat wagged in the wind. 

I've also had quite a few " we will miss you statements" which is nice but I am in no doubt  there will be an Occasional pleased expression to our news..especially the by the villager who I had a run in with on Monday night after her unleashed staffie had belligerently faced off William who was helpless on his lead. Her dog got a swift kick for her trouble and I got sent a " You walk round the village as if you own it"  social media comment......

It's interesting how people see you.

I've just resigned from the newly formed community Association and my next step is to get the flower Show Committee together to discuss the future of the show. 

I suspect that the show will end if a new secretary cannot be found!

I have someone coming to view the good quality hen houses on Sunday and joy of joys now have a potential new owner for the skittish and lonely Irene. Dear friend and former blogger Sue ( and her lovely hubby) have kindly offered to adopt her.....so at some stage in the future all we have to do is catch her! 

A dear friend told me this morning that he always liked my optimistic nature.

Onwards and upwards dearhearts! 

On A Lonely Road

Have you ever broken down on a pitch Black Country road in the middle of the night?
I have.
Last night!
Around nine pm I was driving to my Sams shift when I took a call on my mobile. I stopped at a layby , just south of the village to take it and got talking to an old friend for good while
Foolishly I had left my side lights on and when I eventually set off, the car battery was dead as a dodo
It was chucking it down too!
I was in a pickle, so I did who so many Trelawnyd-ites do when things go tits up...I rang village elder Islwyn to see if he could help.. As it turned out he hadn't got any jumpleads and so I rang my breakdown company and prepared myself for a long wait.

Now the dark does not spook me much, but sitting in the dark,surrounded by trees away from the main road is a somewhat stressful experience especially as my mobile's battery was low and I am an old queen with a vivid imagination ! ( I almost wet my panties watching The Blair Witch Project)
Around ten twenty pm I spied a car's headlights though the rain . It was Islwyn , who had decided to come out to see if things were alright. Kindly he offered to keep me company for an hour.
Now Islwyn is a raconteur of some note so I was kept amused and diverted from thoughts of serial killers and monsters in the dark until he too finally had to go and I was left for a further half hour wait for the breakdown lorry to arrive.
I made sure the central locking was on
And finally got home just before midnight

The Lady With Fabulous Shoes

Do you remember the lady with fabulous shoes?
She arrived the other day at the same time as the Superfast Internet workman who was sexually molested by a certain bulldog that we all know.
She also had a dark expensive looking suit on that Trendy Carol would have fallen in love with , and so sensibility kept out of bulldog hair range by sitting at the kitchen table with me.
That lady with fabulous shoes was an estate agent.
We are planning to leave Trelawnyd.
It's time for adventures new.
The Welsh countryside has been a delightful backdrop to village life and village characters, especially for me, before this a complete countryside virgin. The community has taught me how to be a part of something and has given me a sense of self within that bubble so to speak.
The village has been very good to us.
And we in turn have been very good to it.
But all good things have to come to an end.

My Retirement has freed us from weekends that revolved around invasive night shifts looking after the critically ill and we are now feeling drawn again back to a life where just popping out to a wine bar, a museum,a cinema, some culture ! doesn't have to be planned and where someone has to drive for bleeding miles to achieve.
And so at some time Going Gently as we know it, will be finishing. It is a blog that started because of our move to " The Town full of wheat" which is Trelawnyd and it is fitting that here it will be ending.
It was always meant to be a diary of a man not sure that he had made the right move and it became a story of just how adaptive people can be.
I embraced the change we went through and I shall always be grateful for what that gave me.

I will however start a new blog on the day we eventually leave,  ( 3 terriers, a sexually provocative bulldog, one cat with a damaged leg and a Professor all in the same car, heading for pastures new ....now that should make for some interesting reading don't you think........?
I do hope that when the time comes , some of you will follow me.......