The Field

 Yesterday, I sort of threw away a comment that I had decided not to carry on with leasing the field.

I didn’t mean for it to sound dismissive.

It was just time for it to go.

Once, a few years ago now the field was filled with the chatter and movement of animals, activity surrounding four large allotment beds crammed with neat rows of vegetables, fruit bushes and the like.

The Ukrainian Village housed nearly 100 hens in one summer, with satellite houses providing a home for the dim hysterical Runner ducks, a gaggle of geese and the slow moving, delightfully morose turkeys who glided around the paddock like galleons in full sail.

Four pigs lived in the sty in the corner triangle right at the bottom of the field and up in the Ash trees on the Church borders came the noisy chatter of the guinea fowl who serenaded the entire village every morning and every dusk for years and years and years.

The Open Allotment days eventually turned into a successful  village fete with a giant marquee housing, Sylvia and Irene’s famous table busting cake sale ( over 100 homemade cakes donated from the village ladies) and the Name the pig, save the pig Competition  raised hundreds of pounds towards the Church Fund and  The Motor Neurone Association 

I’ve had a wander down memory Lane this morning and have picked out a few photographic memories to share with you all today. 

Enjoy…..

The Ukrainian Village

The allotment beginnings 

The hysterical runners and young cockerel facing off a strange cat in the field 

The villagers at the open day

My brother doing the raffle whilst he was ill

The villagers at my very first open allotment day

The biggest fete open day

The indomitable Sylvia with her record busting cake tent

Halleh the duck who thought he was a hen

The nasty guinea fowl Angostura, pecking at the gentle Boris

( she was named because I always thought she was bitter)

Hughie, Ivy and Alf who lived for years in the Church trees

camilla Parker Bowles as a gosling

Bingley and gentle old William

The famous Ghost hens, the battery broilers who taught me a great lesson about animal cruelty

The allotment was not only filled with vegetables and animals , great swathes of it was planted out to wild flowers

Jesus, the cockerel that just turned up on Boxing Day

The hysterical runners being hysterical

No 21 the nasty old spot sow and the gentle no 12 the saddleback boar as piglets

Camilla after she had crash landed on the binman’s lorry

The sausages made from the pigs

The field has been a good friend to me

And has been one to the village too

I’m not sad to be letting it go

It’s time

And I have new things to do

Hey ho

The huge blind rooster Cogburn

The original Mary ( the injured wild rabbit in her own hutch)

And Just Like That ep 7

Carrie is dating again 

Just like in the old days

She looked lovely

Even when she puked

But I was a bit shocked at the Miranda’s  “ finger me “ moment 

The series is back on form

Crockery

 

I spent the morning measuring the living room, stairs, landing and bedrooms. 

I’ve picked the carpet which will replace the existing one and the ancient bare floorboards in my bedroom will, at last be covered too , silencing the occasional middle-of-night tap dancing by the dogs. 

I know I will get a few lectures about how carpets are not very practical with dogs and a cat in the house, but I don’t really care. 

I like carpets.

I ordered a new washing machine on line then I’ve photographed the field as only today, I’ve finally decided not to renew the yearly lease and I want to prove to the land agents that it’s been left in good order.

End of an era I guess.

This afternoon, I finally tackled the living room cupboards and removed an old mismatched dinner service bought as a job lot at an auction many years ago. 

I’ve never really liked it and only kept it out of apathy

It’s of no quality and is well out of style so in a fit of devilment I spent a therapeutic twenty minutes smashing it to bits in the bin.

Mrs Trellis stopped just as I smashed an old tureen without it’s handle and Blue stood on his hind legs to look inside the wheelie bin at the bits.

“ Looks like fun” she commented, her eyes twinkling 

I offered her a soup bowl to throw but she declined it.

She was wearing her overly erect bobble hat

This afternoon , I cleaned the soot out of the cupboards and refilled them with books and jugs, cups and glasses. 

Very satisfying

 

Big Thinks, Welsh Subtitles

 I have nothing at all planned for today.

This is a big change for me, as you all know, because I do like a plan and I do enjoy a list.

Today I earmarked as a thinking day.

Now I do think a great deal, like most of us I do…but I have a bad habit of thinking about the wrong things.

I procrastinate

I day dream

I worry about the wrong things,

I waste time.

I watch tictok in bed

Watched lovingly 

And so, today I’m having a “ think and do” day

I’m sorting out paperwork, through ideas and am information gathering.

Decisions left about things will be made. 

Loose ends tied up

Plans formulated 

And lists will be ticked off…

The chimney engineer has just been and his quote is 700 £ cheaper than my first estimate

I could have kissed him

I’m adding his quote to my list of to do things on my desk

Oh by the way my Welsh is getting better.

I make it a point of watching the clunky but long lasting welsh soap opera Poble y Cwm ( People of The Valley) and even though the Welsh is a type more spoken in South Wales , I can almost get by without subtitles 

Boiling Point

Another food orientated day.

I took leftover dumplings and stew to a friend of mine before I went to Chester. 

My friend has a son and ex partner on intensive care, both very poorly with covid. 

It’s sobering to realise that things are not over for many where the pandemic is concerned .

I then took myself to the Storyhouse for an afternoon at the cinema.

 Long takes in film are not a new phenomenon. Film fans will easily remember those famous tracking shots in Goodfellas and the seminal Touch of Evil as well as those lengthy but somewhat theatrical takes in Hitchcock’s Rope but I can’t think of a film that has been totally shot and choreographed in one single take.

Boiling Point is such a film. 

Set inside a city restaurant we follow the fortunes ( and several misfortunes ) of the eclectic group of staff members led by a harassed and brittle senior Liverpudlian Chef ( Stephen Graham) who is trying to juggle, bad hygiene reviews, staff problems including a hysterical pot washer, disillusioned sous chef , and a french salad station worker who can’t understand scouse. . Add to the mix the sudden arrival of a much hated food reviewer, a racist customer flexing his muscles against a black waitress, drug taking and incompetent staff and a front of house manager more interested in Instagram reviews than staff support and you have all the ingredients for a dizzying drama. 

Director Philip Barantini has produced a relentless film, with the camera swooping in and around the restaurant in question like an owl who misses nothing. 

It is exhausting to watch and the constant motion continues for nearly 90 minutes, a remarkable feat in itself given the number of actors and the amount of dialogue and action which has been choreographed within an inch of its life.

Having said this, despite the expected chef rants and conflict moments there remains tiny gems of real pathos in this movie. The sadness of the black waitress ( Lauryn Ajufo)who has to deal with a racist customer , isolated and alone amid the chaos  is poignantly palpable and the moment where the warm hearted pastry chef ( Hannah Walters) hurriedly discovers her teenage helper has self abused is incredibly moving even though the scene lasts mere seconds.

Graham and Vinette Robinson (as Carley the sous chef) , lead the ensemble with great energy and chutzpah. 

It’s an exhausting watch to be sure but one that makes you think twice about the times you have enjoyed a meal out in a trendy eatery. 

Lamb Casserole

A friend’s mother died last night.

I asked what, if anything, I could do to make things even remotely better

She told me a lamb casserole with dumplings and a bed for the night

And so that’s what I’m preparing

The power of simple food can’t be overestimated 

It says, without really saying that someone cares.

It brings back the comforts of Childhood

It doesn’t demand anything but the use of a spoon

I’m just been peeling veg.

The casserole pan is warming

The fire engineer comes soon to look at the chimney and I’ve just received the new lease for my field which village leader Ian is about to check with interest

It’s dull and overcast but the cottage is warmed by the oil heaters and feels cosy.

As promised I’d leave you with a photo of one of my new cushions from John Lewis 

I will spare you a photo of the washing up bowl lol

Fat Bastard

 More food this pm ! 

An early dinner after shopping for yellow cushions in John Lewis

Too much food in fact

Mowgli in Bold Street, Liverpool…street food

Bloody lovely

Healthy eating tomorrow 

And Just Like That…..

 

Brunch has always been my favourite meal of the day.

I always think that you are always almost too ready for it too which makes it even more delicious

I made eggs Benedict this morning in a half arsed and slightly pretentious homage to Sex and The City, the city I last visited just over three years ago.

I’m overdue for a re match, me thinks.

Anyhow this morning, I ate my eggs and drank my cwarfee to episode 6 of And Just Like That 

And it was nice.