The Famous Five

 

Gorgeous Dave and I have a sort of pact together. We not only book theatre for productions that we know we may like but we have agreed we would try things off our own radar so to speak.

It was the World premier of The Famous Five - a new musical by Elinor Cook at Theatr Clwyd and although I scarcely thought that Enid Blyton was our cup of tea, we went.

It’s not a great musical 

Apart from just one song, where Aunt Fanny( Laura Denning) bemoans being an overlooked housewife , the songs are a bit bland and at times very shouty. 

A sense of 1930s whimsy is almost lost in present day ideals  of saving the planet and modern language and the cast of characters as written by Blyton, just don’t have the light and shade and depth the characters in a musical need to have in order to make it interesting, even when Cook brings in the potentially difficult elements of bad parenting , unhappy marriages and sibling rivalry 

Which was a shame.

The puppetry of Timmy was a highlight of the musical

When Things Go Quiet

 It’s a while since I had a puppy.

It’s probably like parents with grown up children.

You quickly can forget the rules of ownership 

And the first one is?

When everything is quiet

Something is afoot.

20 minutes unsupervised after a walk and two pot plants were disemboweled and scattered around the living room and one pile of vomit  left thoughtfully on the trendy blue sofa seat.

Roger has had his first telling off and is quiet and contrite in his cage.

Im sure Dorothy is actually smiling from her arm chair at his disgrace.

The Randa girls stopped yesterday. I say girls loosely as they are now very much young women but I’m happy to say that their need to cuddle the dogs have not diminished since they were little girls. Mary clambered into Eve’s lap and happily closed her eyes and Liv held Roger as though he was a baby, and although he sat stiffly at first, unsure of this new “ friend” he relaxed soon enough and closed his eyes too, as Welsh terriers have a want to do.

I reminded both girls of the time I babysat them years ago when I caught them back combing William ‘s red fur so much though that he happily resembled Tina Turner in her Mad Max period

Things suddenly went quiet then…..

What am I doing today? 

I refer to the filofax list after making a few litres of sugar free lemonade.

I drink nothing else during the day.

In the filofax is scribbled Shona

…..this means Lunch with an old colleague from my Intensive Care Days 

Reading……means Some reading for college tomorrow.

Theatre with Gorgeous Dave . A premier of The Famous Five musical at Theatre Clwyd.

It may be shite , but because it’s just bedding in and the tickets are cheap.

The weather changed last night and at 2 am I walked around the cottage closing the small windows which had been open for much of the summer . Both Mary and Dorothy cuddled up to me in bed, and even Albert sneaked in to the periphery to share some warmth. 

Roger has yet to be able to negotiate  the stairs so is not allowed on the bed as yet.

The winter duvet is airing over the thermal store

I don’t feel very inspired to write this morning 

Hey ho

Car Reliance

 

I’m going into work late today. Bluebell is playing up and I’m waiting for a man with the van to get her going again. 

I’m hoping it’s something simple. 

I have some time owed to me and there are enough trained staff to cover my absence until things can be sorted.

I’m lucky today, that this is the case.

Relying on a car is given to country people. 

It’s also a pain when things go wrong. 

I work 23 miles away from Trelawnyd which doesn’t sound far, but depending on traffic it’s a 40 - 45 minute commute one way on a bad day

Twice last week I caught pub quiz Claire walking to Dyserth to catch a bus to Rhyl. The walk on grass verges with long grass and no pavements next to a busy A road is difficult and potentially dangerous. She was waiting for her new car to be delivered and as there is no public transport available until later morning she just had to walk to work….I was happy to give her a lift, even though Dorothy never stopped barking.

I remember just a few years ago now when Aunty Gladys was in her late nineties and starting to get a bit confused she once set out on a dark winters morning to walk to the doctor’s surgery on the same road. 

Luckily two “ delightful “ policemen picked her up and took her home before disaster occurred 

Bluebell has her main service and Mot next week. 

She has served me well for the past few years 

And I hope she will last me a few more

Mrs Harris and Other Stories

 

I bought a second hand book online last week and it arrived yesterday. Paul Gallico’s The Snow Goose. The novella was written in the 1940’s and read by me when I was eleven back in 1973. 

It haunted me then, 

The visuals in my head of the snow goose circling the little boat in Dunkirk

I have not read it since although one of Gallico’s later novels The Poseidon Adventure is still one of my most favourite and perplexing reads. 

Gallico’s seems to be haunting me a little for after seeing this trailer I’ve booked to see Mrs Harris Goes To Paris at the Storyhouse 

It’s a gentle movie,I know I’d like 

I didn’t know until recently that Paul Gallico wrote the novel 

Pond

 The velvet voiced Linda and I had our first Pond Open Day meeting last night over one of her lethal gin and bitter lemons . The other members of the TCA have done all of the hard work clearing the land and planting and setting up the decking and the like. 

Our remit is just to sort out the open day which will, I’m hoping include the school children who I suggest will be conscripted into a competition to design a pond logo.

Flintshire council will have a whole plethora of environmental experts we may be able to use on the day and with the promise of free home made cakes and cups of tea, I’m sure we will have an impressive turn out. 

I didn’t stay too late. I’m mindful of not outstaying my welcome as Linda and hubby Nick are such good company so it had just turned properly dark when I left their cosy cottage which overlooks the pond and original village green.

It’s one of my favourite places in the village and one of the oldest. A square boarded on three sides with houses and cottages. The fourth side, the pond and lane leading to the Livery Stables and the ruined Siambr Wen 

Youth club Bridget and her family, Boffin Cameron and his , the Manley’s , Mr Poznań  all live on the quadrangle and each house ,was cheerfully lit up behind Living room curtains and small door windows. 

I walked over to the pond and stood watching the bats flashing in black shadows over the water for a while. 

And I feel grateful I am home

Cack Handed

 Many years ago now, a doctor who was neurologically assessing my patient paused and watched me draw up some medication into a syringe. 

Because I am clumsy I always draw up meds in a certain way which may look conspicuous to those clinical staff that do it day in and day out. 

The way I do it minimises the chance of me dropping the glass vial but does look somewhat ham fisted to others. The doctor asked me if I had a tendency to drop things.

I was intrigued and told him that I often dropped items at work and when cooking 

“ Do you know a millisecond before you drop something that you are going to drop it?” he asked and that was a lightbulb moment. For this strange phenomenon has happened for all of my life.

When I was a child I was called cackhanded

As a teen, I was just gauche and awkward. 

I cannot dance, I am often awkward in my own skin and I fall over when others don’t.

My fine coordination can be lacking and at choir when Jamie feels he wants to push his chorus to some movement to accompany the singing, it is universally amusing that I cannot do both

I am, also well know for food stains down my t shirts

“I think you have a mild form of motor Dyspraxia” the doctor told me and I felt so much better after decades of being called clumsy and by association a bit dim .

I repaired the back door handle today. It was fiddly, especially as  there was a tiny Allen key to negotiate, one   which I must have dropped a hundred times. But after an absolute age I had drilled new holes, matched up the handles with the spindle and got the handle working well.

I’m meeting someone for lunch and have just realised I’m almost late…..

Check my T shirt 

Yeap! 

There’s breakfast egg all down the front of it.

Dreary Day

 

What a difference a day makes.

The weather is miserable, it’s wet and very damp and the dogs are restless.

Dorothy woke me up at 7 am- gently occluding my airway with her throat until I woke up…it works like a dream.

I’ve walked them now twice in the rain, shopped bought a new back door handle ( it broke last night in Trendy Carol’s husband’s hand) and cleaned the cottage . 

By the time I’d bleached the kitchen floor and hung damp washing next to the thermal store it was almost two in the afternoon and I’ve decided to do no more.

Feet are up on the couch 

A Victorian thriller on the tv.

I’ve heard we have a Ukrainian family living in the village . They have children in the school. It would be nice to meet them and say hello. There is a coffee morning on Saturday on in the hall they may well be going to , but I’m working 

The interest rates have gone up today. 

I’ve held off lighting the fire until later

I’ve put a jumper on

Ps in Roger’s Aladdin Crate cave of Stolen goods tonight

Another flip flop, a lurid purple microwaveable bowl ( my soup tea) one dog lead, 

One paperback ( thankfully now chewed) “ Basics of counselling” 

And my best reading glasses with the arms chewed off

The Welsh Orient Express

 Nu and I had a table to ourselves in a coach that looked as though it had been plucked directly from the set of Murder On The Orient Express

It was quite lovely

The train left Chester just after 9 am and we were tucking into a glorious brunch soon after we skirted Oswestry and followed the Welsh border south towards Cardiff. 

The staff couldn’t do enough for us.

A friendly middle aged lady sat opposite us with her elderly parents. They were from Whitstable and it was the parents anniversary . She quipped that she knew that Nu and I were not married and were friends 

“ you never stop talking to each other” she said

It was true , we have talked for twelve hours straight.

The train went through Hereford and entered Cardiff around one and we walked up to Cardiff Castle where our guide showed us through the Victorian house, through rooms King Charles held private meetings in only last week.

The quadrangle at Cardiff Castle

The beautiful roof garden on the top of the Castle’s Tower

We finished at the Castle, had a drink in the sunshine and mooched around the city centre before catching the Northern Belle home.

The five course dinner which was served in the deco dining car was truly lovely and by the time we came to a final halt back in Chester Nu was sipping the last of her port and I had just finished my coffee as the 1930s singer ( complete with spats) sang me happy birthday

I’m so lucky to have Nu

The day was perfect