Going Gently

A Day In Two Halves

It’s been a day of two halves .

The dawn chorus

Then The Play That Went Wrong at Theatr Clwyd.

Both enjoyable for completely different reasons .

I said to my sister Janet, on the way home tonight , that in this my 60th year

I’m going to do all the things I’ve never done before as well as all of the things I like to do too

If that makes sense .

Still on my bucket list for this year

Go camping in a tent

Go to a European city mini break with my old girlfriend Jane,

Driving through Ireland to Nu’s cottage,

A holiday break abroad totally alone,

Dance in public

Start my counselling course

Learn a totally new skill

Walk up Snowdon

I’ve booked five already…..

Hey ho

Birdsong

I went on a dawn walk this morning.

A first for me.

I saw it advertised in Holywell when I popped into Tesco

“ Dawn Walk With A Twitcher - birdsong explained”

The meeting place was in Caerwys before 5 am

I was the last to arrive.

There was ten of us, all told, led by a quietly spoken man in his sixties called Eifion.

We were led down a bridle path by torch light and from time we’d stop to have a brief lecture

It was an interesting and somewhat cold early morning

But an invigorating one

The robins and blackbirds and the more rare thrush, were the first on the performance with other birds such as wrens, wood pigeons and warblers joining in.

The likes of the tits and the finches usually only start to sing when dawn has broken.

Apparently it is usually the male birds that call and at times the sound was amazingly loud

One woman in the group had a good cry at the experience and kept apologising for it.

I liked the feeling of being anonymous in the pre dawn gloom

And felt a little exposed when the day finally lifted the dark to a translucent blue.

I’m off to meet a friend for lunch shortly.

They are going into hospital soon and are in need of a bit of calm

It’s sunny but still cool and I can see Islwyn pottering around the pony field fixing the gates

He’s like me.

He likes to be needed.

Gay Wizards

I disliked the Harry Potter film franchise finding it all somewhat tiresome but I liked the first Fantastic Beasts movie , which is a prequel of sorts.

I didn’t enjoy or understand the second film in the Beast trilogy but sort of got to grips with the third- tonight’s movie fantastic Beasts The Secrets Of Dumbledore

I say sort of ……

The action bits were exciting , I like the Queenie and Jacob characters too but over all it is

Jude Law who made it for me as he makes for a rather tasty gay bear dad wizard, what with his lovely beard and wide selection of hand knitted tank tops.

“ John Gray!!!!”

I bought a nice fish dish yesterday. I’ve put my smaller money plants and cactus in it

Albert has recently amused himself by knocking the plants onto the floor

I think it’s a case of transference because Mary is chasing him a little more over mistaken jealousy over the rubber chicken

I photographed the dish

Preempting my post of today,

yes it’s been a slow week

I’ve been sat in a waiting room for 28 minutes.

I’m precise because there is one of those digital clocks on the receptionist’s desk

And this is the third waiting room I’ve been in this morning and it’s only 11.23

The hospital has WiFi thank god , but not enough to stream The Walking Dead

That’s probably a godsend as zombies can be noisy when you’ve forgotten your headphones.

I’ve not seen a doctor yet, just a series of technicians .

The ultrasound woman was a bit of a pig, so much so, I asked her if she was having a bad day

“ Staffing is dire “ she moaned behind her mask.

The phlebotomist was more sanguine she told me she was off at one and was going to Sainsbury’s to buy her daughter a birthday gift.

Tu’s range of girls dresses are lovely and very reasonable apparently

It took her four goes and two arms to get a sample.

I don’t want to be here

Heartstopper

A friend’s daughter told me I should be watching Heartstopper on Netflix.

“ You’ll love it” she told me

I looked it up.

Based on a graphic novels by Alice Oseman, it is a coming of age tv series about the lives to two teen age boys Nick and Charlie and it has a wholesome, innocent but very modern look on teenage first love.

I joined Netflix in order to watch it and I must admit it is incredibly sweet , and angst and all consuming the way love always is when you are fifteen.

Oh how I wish we had Heartstopper when I was a boy.

I’ve had a paperwork morning. I’ve sorted out travel insurance, logs, vets appointments, urology appointments , banking, theatre tickets and my counselling course, and now I’m just organising some batch cooing.

My new food bible is Slimming Eats by Siogban Wightman who is a blogger favourite of mine.

I’ve decided to get my eating under control by always cooking something flavoursome and in quantities that can be frozen as well as eaten. Therefore anything I’m tempted to eat in the house will always be homemade, slimming, tasty and easy to get hold of.

Tonight it’s lamp balti curry with cauliflower special rice.

Old Trefor is ok today btw.

Little Bathroom man has just messaged , he hopes to start work next week.

Lamb balti and cauliflower rice

CODA

CODA (child of deaf parents) is a nice movie

It’s not a great one, but it’s a sentimentally sweet one, the kind you enjoy of a Sunday afternoon when you have nothing to do.

The story is a simple one.

Ruby (Emilia Jones) is the only hearing person in her hard working fishing family. When the family business is threatened she is torn between supporting them or going to college to study singing.

It’s an appealing coming-of-age story with a lovely performance by the doe eyed Jones,and if you want a blub, just enjoy Ruby’s audition into Berklee where she signs and sings a version of Both Sides Now quite beautifully .

I was sobbing like a real man when there was a knock at the kitchen window. It was Mrs Trellis with Blue She had met up with old Trefor down the lane who had taken a bit of a turn .

“can you come?” She looked worried

We all piled into Bluebell

In his late nineties , it had seemed that Trefor had walked a little too far on his daily sabbatical and was a little shaky stood at Graham’s field when we got to him and it didn’t take long to get him back home with a beef dinner on hand .

I checked him again at tea time and will do so again tomorrow morning

When I was pottering later Lywenna stopped briefly. She is the widow of Gentleman Farmer Ralph. She told me she was in the process of picking out her husband’s headstone and our eyes met briefly, in a silent acknowledgment of just how hard a job it was for her.

Lywenna has a quietness and wonderful dignity about her,

I’ve always envied that

It’s been a nice day

Spring Garden

My sister arrived early on and licked the front garden into shape.

I videoed the result and have mooched around it for most of the morning. If my new neighbours are out in their back garden I try not to be around in mine, for all I seem to hear is an elderly Yorkshire terrier’s incessantly yapping followed with their incessant bellows of “ Shut up Charlie”

It’s all a bit common.

Speaking of common I’ve just braved Tescos in Prestatyn

Which can be a trial in itself if you aren’t in the mood for badly behaved kids and their sports wearing parents.

I soothed my nerves with a mooch around the home department of TK Max and bought a rug, and some accessories for the new bathroom.

Charlie was at full hysterical yapping stretch when I got home so I closed up the back of the cottage and opened up the front to the sun.

Hopefully he’ll have a Stroke soon

( I only mean that a little )

The sea pinks

It’s still glorious here.

The honeysuckle which Janet so fervently cut back last year has formed the front door in dark green healthy leaves in which the hedge sparrows from the lane are presently chattering.

The sea pinks in the basket by the door have finally bloomed and are thriving in their mid air beach.