Diverged

 

The Walking Dead has continued in a somewhat abridged and covid shortened self for the postponed last few episodes of season 10 

Most have been somewhat boring , but the latest , Diverged is a miniature masterclass of charismatic acting from the actress Melissa McBride. The fifty something heroine of the zombie apocalypse.

I won’t go too far into the plot. Suffice to say that old friends Carol and Daryl ( Norman Reedus) are finding their way in a uncertain world again, and like many old friends , their bonds are tested by fate and serendipity .

Carol is trying to cope with Daryl’s rejection and with the benign help of the the delightfully  sweet Jerry ( Cooper Andrews) she finds some order in the chaos 

Jerry, the lovely Cooper Andrews

I loved this gentle, meandering episode , which was a thoughtful character study of two lost people.

I hope the final season , season 11 is just as good 

It’s amazing , that I’ve followed this programme and these characters for over a decade now..carol and Daryl are flawed people...irritating and flawed and oh so human .....and we all know they are going to make up at the end 

They have to

Affection

 I have a proper affection for places.

I think we all do.

Our home towns, our favourite holiday destinations , places that mark significant milestones and times in our lives.

We all have love for a place.

New York City holds such affection from me, of course so does Trelawnyd, Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, Sydney, Sitges in Spain and that grubby old dame of Yorkshire my beloved old home city of Sheffield all rank highly in in those places that have made me the person you see today.

As I was  driving into Llandudno this morning, the early morning Sun , made earlier by the clock’s change, lit up the Great Orme eastern face in a dazzling flash of golden warm light.

I stopped on the North Shore to take a photo of the peninsula and had a sudden rush of affection ( once termed SRAs) for the slightly fading but still valiant Victorian town.

The town is my place of work,

It’s Welsh but remains oh so different from Trelawnyd and indeed from its local hinterland,

And I regard it with some pride and like the Sun reflecting on the Orme, with a great deal of warmth.

A Nothing Kind of Day

A strange day.

It’s stormy, and we have gales here today. 

I’ve done little , save for watching various eclectic stuff on iPad and tv.and didn’t leave my bed until midday.

The Bette Davis romp The Anniversary. Upstairs Downstairs ( the episode when the King came to dinner) and the delightful Canadian comedy show Kim’s Convenience was the order of the day.

By late afternoon , I became quite stir crazy and still in my nightmare the dogs and I picked up some mozzarella dippers and sat in the Car in the beach to share them .( 3.33 dippers each) 

I opened the window as far as I dare, and the rain which was falling almost horizontally refreshed us all .

I wasn’t the only single person sat in their cars overlooking the slate coloured sea. 

I’ve always felt sorry for single people sat in their cars before.

The wind and rain blew away the cobwebs and I’ve come home and lit the fire

Ghosts

Something white at the window 

 I was sat in the office writing notes when a large morphing white figure slowly pressed itself to the frosted window immediately to my right. 

It was almost dark outside and there was a bang of something hard on the glass

I shat myself 

And let out an unmanly squeak 

I am the only person working at this part of the hospice.

Another white figure appeared .

Looking out of the dark

I opened the window very carefully.

Ten Kashmir goats, were happily grazing on the hospice gardens as gales started to lash the Orme

Painting By Zoom

 

My chickens

The last time I met up with my friend Nia was in a cooking video call, where she made supper and I made breakfast. 

This morning we were painting and chatting.

A relaxing way of spending an hour.

Talking and painting.

I plumped for a naive but colourful collection of chickens 

She was more abstract in her much loved colours of blue and white.

I can highly recommend it. 

The conversation has a different pace than if we were talking face to face

The gaps are not awkward, 

They were filled with brush strokes and giggles and lots of I don’t know what I am doing

But like doing someone else’s jigsaw, or colouring in, or doodling 

The painting was strangely therapeutic and relaxing

Nia’s work

Long Legged, Thin Lipped

Waiting outside the vets

My Hitchcock lecture tonight was the most disappointing of the eight I’d signed up for. It felt very cobbled together so I left after an hour and listened to the end of the David Sidaris essay on radio 4, which was more stimulating but somewhat sadder.

In retrospect I hadn’t then realised that I was in no mood for Hitchcock . I had just spent an unsatisfactory hour and a half or so at the vets, being gently bullshitted by well intentioned young vet about Mary’s recurrent ear infection. 

I was polite enough, recognising the way she covered what she didn’t know but when she commented that the old surgery on Mary’s ear was heavy handed then asked where I had the surgery done, my lips went thin and I hardened my tone and stare .

“ The operation was done here !” I reminded her.

My tone and lips became even thinner after I was kept waiting twice for a discussion then for meds which had been labelled incorrectly. 

“This has not been a good consultation “ I told the vet, something she didn’t follow up

I guess that the Hitchcock lecture just irritated me more 

Today’s good news is that I have picked the colour of my bedroom walls.

Given the fact I have a gently vaulted bedroom ceiling which will be painted a brilliant white, the room can take a dark tone of wall colour.

So this will be the palate I will use.....a deep dark blue

Oh.....and Thank you all for your painting advice . I have found the exploration really interesting and somewhat challenging as now I will have to change my bedroom curtains too. 

Expensively glorious Curtains that my husband and I bought together from Laura Ashley 

Our very first purchase for a shared home.

I think “lobster orange”;may be a good choice , lined of course 

I thought it was Wednesday today and am somewhat disappointed that it is  Thursday . 

Bedroom

 With the new bookcase up and running, it’s time to change my bedroom’s colour.

This is where I need some help.

I am working around two very large Art Deco posters which will dominate the room.

It’s taken me an age to pick the ones I want but these are my final choices

I need suggestions of wall colour

I’m thinking chimney breast one colour the rest of the room the other 

I have a vaulted ceiling and a wooden floor of ancient varnished floorboards

The lobster needs a contrasting wall colour 

Ideas anyone ?

Chatter

Just for Lizzy here is a photo of my shrimp vase.  

It’s the biggest vase I own and always has pride of place in the kitchen lane window, where it looks at its best. I always have fresh flowers in this window and in the living room window and have kept the tradition of flowers in the house ever since I bought my first home in 1989.

I note here that I’m not the only one that always has flowers in their windows, it’s a tradition Affable Despot Jason’s wife Claire adheres to

Which is nice

Yesterday I cleaned an old shelving unit and spray painted it.

With the addition of some cheap primulas, hyacinth and herbs like sage and parsley it’s brightened up the patio which still needs it’s cottage walls painting. 

I need some consistently dryer weather to do that .

The choir met last night on zoom.

It was a year to the day since we had our first on line meeting and our conductor Jamie and his 1940s moustache ( but with non regulation overlong hair) has kept us going more socially that musically . 

Mary delights to sit on my knee during out chit chat , watching the zoom boxes and activity through one eye, and she remains so still that several of the choristers shout “ she’s a puppet “ when they see her.

Before choir I pottered. The lane was muddy and noisy as ty newydd farm ( New House farm) was transporting turnips in vast containers from the fields down the lane back through the village, and so most of my pottering was inside. 

However, Mrs K did stop to talk. Her husband has been poorly and she has a habit of telling you  of what many would think as too personal information .

I think she’s frightened and needs to share.

Anyway in between her, and the tractor trailers loaded with turnips a sparrow hawk landed in the lane like a spitfire. She had a collared pigeon in her grasp and started to rip at its breast meat before the unfortunate bird was dead. She must have been hungry for I snapped two shots of the drama before another tractor thundered around the corner and she took flight into the churchyard with the pigeon swinging from one talon. 

The crows from the trees by the pond suddenly appeared calling loudly as did a trio of magpies and I watched the sparrow hawk land heavily amid the gravestones as clouds of white feathers burst along the lane like snowflakes.

  

My DIY bookcase arrived this morning , so I need to channel my inner testosterone in order to put it together. I was only contemplating this with a bucket of coffee when I spied Gentleman farmer Ralph’s wife pulling up at the gate.

She dropped off  my soup container and a few orders of service for me and the other locals.

She looked brave.