Logging

In a few weeks time I am off to Sheffield, my adopted home town.
I've been gone well over a decade now but am still in touch with most of my friends and ex colleagues there, so it is with the lightest of hearts I am due to catch up with my old Spinal Injury fiends at a formal " reunion" dinner at the Dam House, avenue near Walkley, a suburb where I bought my first house back in the 1980s.
One of the friends on the guest list is a blowsy, garrulous and sweet natured middle aged nurse called Ruth.
I've know Ruth a year after she completed her nurse training and we were firm friends from the get go.
Like me, Ruth has a penchant for storytelling.
She does her storytelling best surrounded by drinking buddies in the pub and this story was sparked by an episode of the tv show The Inbetweeners which was apparently responsible for the holiday " craze" of logging 
click here for what " logging " is all about

Now Ruth can deliver a story with all of the skill of Victoria Wood and would often set the scene of this one by underlining that much known and much accepted teenage right of passage of the " a gauche Brit's first holiday abroad"
She hadn't prepared herself for the cheap booze.
She hadn't prepared herself for the spicy food
She hadn't prepared herself for adhering to the 1970s  rule of not drinking the water! 
And she certainly didn't prepare herself for the terrors of wearing an all in one white bathing suit.

Couple all this with a maiden trip on an extra long water shute
And you have recipe for disaster.
I remember her words as if I was listening to her tale for the first time back in 1990....this is how I remember her story

" I was halfway down when I got the sensation that all was not well but I hit the water arse first, rather proud that I had made it in one piece and stood up in the thigh length shallows. Then a woman nearby pointed and shrieked. Then another and another joined in whilst an older lady grabbed a towel from her lounger and started to wade towards me...the wet shit stain went all the way up the back of my white one piece bathing suit. I looked like a negative of a badger as the large brown sieved stain, emanated slowly outwards in a rough circle around me......as the screaming started"

I hope at the reunion , we hear this and all the other funny stories of our salad days.

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The post cards entries today are particularly wonderful .......enjoy...big thanks to L  too

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and the reverse

" They Do A Lovely Sausage"

villager Nev Lancelote took this photo of the village this morning

with recent forestry work you can clearly see the Neolithic burial mound on the top of the Gop

Half asleep I asked my " hey google" thingamy what the time was.

She remained stubbornly quiet.

The power was off again and on the coldest day of the year too!!!!

Outside two dozen or so bearded bears prepared to get all manly with the electric cables so me and Winnie went out into the snow to see when the power would be back on. ( but really all we were doing was having a good butchers at the butch fest!!!)

It was my fault, I hadn't read the original letter properly, the one informing me that there would be two power cuts not one. The foreman  was very apologetic which was silly as it was my problem and not his and was sweet enough to accompany me to old Trevor's house to see if the 96 year old was ok as he had just been discharged from hospital .

Trevor was, if fact, on his was out when We arrived " I'm off to Sainsbury's for breakfast " he told us chirpily " they do a lovely sausage !"

I should have known better. Only yesterday I had caught him walking the mile and a half to the shop and back at dusk when it was -3 and very icy .

They breed them tough in Trelawnyd.

I drove to McDonalds at Caerwys for emergency hot coffee and saw several villagers including animal helper Pat catching the bus into town.

Marks and Spencer's cafe will be crowded I thought to myself.

The spirit that won the war, 

Get on and cope......

postcard HQ - the pile on the right is the reply pile

I shall try to reply to every one with a return address

but they will be sent in dribs and drabs

love the sausage detail

Out

On nights and theres no power in the entire village. 20 or so linesmen in their hardhats are back and Winnie and I have just gone to watch them work in the snow. Im off to bed now will blog later when power returns

Scotch Eggs (at last)

And they keep on coming. 281 so far!

How fantastic is that?

the first Scotch Egg postcard!

I wish I was That thin

Clydene & Tom I did go to Fallingwater when I was in Pittsburgh but didn't meet Charles Frederick Brown

Tuesday Evening- Wednesday

Mary( background) , Winnie, Albert and my foot all on the couch last night

Cold nights in a dog house means that everyone piles onto the couch in the evening

Last night even Albert squeezed himself onto the scrum. ( just in front of my foot!!!)

Only George has any self control....for he sleeps in the new cat bed donated to me from my sister. 

Albert hates organised beds!

We sang a version of the South African Nkosi Sikelel' Afrika at choir last night and we the choir preened when 1940s RAF Moustached Choir master Jamie praised us after our final rendition 

It's lovely to get get positive remarks especially  as we all want to make him pleased with our singing.

One of the altos stopped me when I returned from the loo with a hiss

" I have a postcard for your competition " she told me with a whisper. 

We giggled like schoolgirls.

Tonight I'm going to see the cinematic live version of la Traviata 

I need to get out of the house

I'm worrying too much