Buteo Buteo

 I was content to let the previous, rather lazy post suffice for the day.

Nothing has much happened, so there’s nothing to report.

But I’ve just been for a walk with Mary, who has been a little under the weather today, and I needed to share something, like you do when something quite profound, or beautiful or both has just happened.

We walked down the lane to Graham The Shepherd’s gate. His fields lead off to the West and the dusk sky was still clear against the silhouettes of the hawthorn hedges and trees and fences. 

It was cold and fresh and sat at the very top of the dead Ash tree , the one that always dominates the skyline sat a lone buzzard. 

He was crying out like buzzards do.

A strange mixture of cat call mew and squawk…a keey ya! 

Sharp and plaintive 

A lonely call in the darkening dusk.

I picked Mary up and she rested her feet on the top rung of the gate and she watched and listened as Welsh Terriers do and I could feel the thump of her heart against my chest as it raced to the cry of the buzzard as  it continued to call in the dark.

A moving rather  beautiful and simple little moment,

Caught by accident on a Friday evening

Rainy Day

 Dreadful weather today. Torrential rain 

Three dogs on the couch day 

Watched Amélie, Airport 77 and ate fish pie

Mrs Harris Goes To Paris

 

Towards the end of this movie the gentle hearted Mrs Harris ( Lesley Manville) turns to the finance director of the Dior fashion franchise ( Lucas Bravo) in the street and says “ We all need to dream , especially at this time” 

Suddenly we are not in a story set in 1957 Paris. 

Suddenly the titular Mrs Harris, a sixty something working class woman, is speaking for all of us in our post lockdown society of uncertainty, war and isolation. 

We all need a dream.

And this film celebrates dreams with gusto.

For Mrs Harris , it’s the dream prospect of owning a bespoke Dior  dress, and with a plucky positivism she wins over the elite Parisian fashion house staff in a rather sweet story about how easy it is to become invisible in later years. 

Lesley Manville breaks your heart as Mrs Harris and it’s nice to see her and Isabelle Huppert, as the Dior snobby manager taking the leads roles as women in their sixties. 

I can’t recommend the movie enough

It has a sweetness we all need so very much at the moment .

Normal Day

 Our corner of Trelawnyd seems a bit busier than on late. Three men, including the ubiquitous Islwyn  are working of the Church Gates. 

“They’re fixing the hinges” Mrs Trellis informed me as she and Blue trotted down the lane.

And by the look of the ladder, one of them is giving the Lytchgate a spruce up.

Sailor John is walking around my old field photographing wild flowers.

Mrs X rang me up and asked if I could vouch for her again regarding her shotgun licence.

I’ve bought some cheap solar lights and have lined the back garden path with them in readiness for Saturday night. Mr Poznân thinks that they are an excellent idea for stopping accidents 

He also told me my gate needed a lick of paint.

The yappy dogs are still at it next door. 

I’m playing radio 2 a bit louder than I should to compensate.

Depeche Mode Everything Counts 

Operation Dog Snot Removal

 

Typical of most families, mine tends to meet around the matriarch’s home for family meals , birthdays and Christmas . 

It’s what people do.

We congregate around the queen, sometimes the King.

For a change I’m having my sisters, their husbands and my sister in law to dinner on Saturday .My nephew is invited too but he has a social life busier than mine so we will see if he turns up

After covid and my divorce , it will be the first family meal that I’ve hosted 

So there’s a significance here that’s left mostly unsaid , but which screams of emotional importance.

I’m making it easy on myself and going simple 

Aioli and warm Spanish style bread, 

A one pot chicken, rice and chorizo bake, baby lamb chops, soaked in garlic yogurt before cooking , 

Glazed long green beans and “homemade” Spanish ice cream whisky cake

A typical Sitges meal.

Tomorrow I’m initiating Operation Dog Snot Removal like the exercise I used to indulge in , in the days I had in laws to stay.

Study Day

 

Tuesdays used to be choir days. 

For the next nine months they are now my study day.

Tonight until nine, I have my lectures.

Before that this afternoon, I’m having special help by the IT department in order to get my head around Google classroom. 

This morning and early afternoon , I’m studying.

I miss choir, but have solace in the understanding that I will be returning 

So it’s study day today, work tomorrow and Mrs Harris Goes To Paris on Thursday.

Saturday I’m cooking dinner for my family 

My first supper party for them for over four years.

The Storm of 2017

 

This is my favourite photograph taken by the boffin Cameron .

It’s a real stunner

It is of my Soay Ewe Irene during the harsh snowy winter five years ago.

She was hardly bothered by the weather.

Irene was a particularly difficult Ewe. After her mother Sylvia died ( and yes I did name both sheep after the flower show matriarchs ) Irene spent most of her days in the livery stables fields, shunning any attempt to be caught and moved, and there she lived with the horses until her peaceful death today 

Her face lying straight on the grass facing the ponies in the top field 

Don’t anyone say they are sorry. She wasn’t my ewe for nearly a decade, so I had no real investment in her care.

But I kind of respected her chutzpah at choosing where she was going to live.

Thank you to Rachel who runs the livery for allowing her to stay for so many years 

The final series

 

Apart from theatre tickets, oh and a new carpet washer, my only real indulgence  is my subscription to Disney +.

This will come to an end in eight weeks or so with the final airing of the last season of The Walking Dead.

I will be sad to see it go, but it’s time it did.

The last season has now morphed into a war film, with our multicultural and predominantly female “ family” set up as the French Resistance in WW2 

The zombies are only a side threat. Revolting set decorations. 

Halloween miss en scene 

I’ve followed the series from Frank Darabont’s seminal first episodes and carried on watching this morning with my bucket of coffee and Roger cocking his head at all of the zombie grunting

Like all good friends, I will stay to the end