A Walk Around The Village

I checked my landline answerphone yesterday . 

Eight messages since New Year’s Eve 

I never use the phone now except when I call Nigel . 

His home phone blocks incoming mobile calls

Four silent entries, 2 spam, and one from covid help line about my fourth jab.

The final message was a passive aggressive message from Mrs Davies in the village asking if I was alive or not . She said she had not seen me in months and wished me happy new year. 

She’s lonely and had probably fallen out with her son again , so I harnessed Mary and called round to say hello.

Luckily she was out , so I left a note saying hello and apologising for my absence stating I will work full time ( with college) 

I doubt I’ll be forgiven

It was cold and blustery, but the weather did us both good and we had a proper mooch around the village, something I haven’t done in a good while, not with Dorothy hating a walk near the main road. We walked around Bron Haul and I waved at Marion who still delights to share how her gay grandson is doing. No one else was about until we got to High Street where I spied Jo with her three whippets disappearing into her driveway. One of her dogs only has three legs but I never can tell when they are all together. 

We could go up High Street towards the “ posh Houses” on the side of the Gop but as it has started to rain Mary led me into Maes Offa , and down into Byron Street where I spied Mrs Trellis busy polishing her windows from the inside. The lights were on at affable Jason’s neat little  house too, but I couldn’t see anyone to wave at through the small symmetrical windows.

We walked past the dark lMemorial Hall as it rained harder and Mary stopped briefly to give me a look. 

We then crossed the road into Well Street which looked deserted. 

The cheerful Manleys, Velvet voiced Linda with Nick, Bridget and Boffin Cameron all live nearby but again we saw now one when we gave the Pond a once over. 

It looks splendid with its new little jetty and sympathetic planting even in the bad weather.

Mary had a wee next to the well, which reminded me that we need to look at an official opening day

I have so much to do 

Why don’t I ever feel as though I’ve got enough time?

Answers on a postcard please?

We walked back towards home, and Mary quickened her pace, half closing her eyes in the rain

Wendy from Rhoda Arthur waved from her car as did Della driving back from Pen y Cefn Isa 

We stopped briefly to shelter under the Church Lytchgate. 

It looks bare as the massive wrought iron gates still have not been returned from being repaired

I reminded myself to ask about them when I saw Islwyn next. 

Before we left for the cottage and the fire 

I checked on my laburnum , now stripped of its leaves but remaining healthy and strong.

The rain lashed down from the West just after we got home so hard that I had to put a sock in the letterbox to stop the draught bursting into the living room.

Saturday Morning

 Slightly less blustery today. For days you could see the white waves whipping the sea from five miles inland and Trelawnyd seemed to have hunkered down against the Gop as one dark day merged into another.

I’ve started Prince Harry’s “ Spare” and minutes into it, you know you are are listening to a damaged soul, so much so that I’ve stopped reading it today. I will catch up with it in a day or so . 

So it’s a non Saturday. Work later. Sleep in the afternoon.

I’ve put on Classic Fm , but only very quietly. 

I can still hear the wind in the graveyard trees and the tick of the kitchen clock.

I had a Chinese life reading the other day 

Thanks to my Friends in Korea.

 

Apparently my power is at its highest this year and 2023 will be a significant year all told. I have two fires which is rare and have high pride, a big gentle heart and I have a sublime white horse in my heart which means I long for an ideal work no one else will see.

I like dopamine fixes of sex and alcohol and I have a good voice with excellent expression and although I’m good at singing I have weak lungs …..( which it oddly true) 

I have a pure heart and am attracted to people who will look after me

“the clear water cannot sustain fish” means I am straight talking and popular but people may be jealous of me and will scratch my personality …go figure…..there were pages of reflections and thoughts all pretty accurate I must say 

It also underlined the need for routine, which I get…….totally

It was incredibly interesting and indeed hopeful …2023 may feel more positive 

I will leave you with two videos both fascinating  and both incredibly moving in different ways

Dim,Dim, Sweet but Dim

 I think it’s time for a Roger update, given the fact he’s now been with me six months now.

He is 18 months old and not a puppy anymore.

I snort….yeah right! 

There is no hiding the fact that Roger remains dim. Even with the girls providing the ideal role model, he still has not mastered the art of jumping into Bluebell for his morning walk and stands clumsily on the sill waiting to be helped.

Getting out of the car is easier, as all you have to do is pull his lead and hope for the best, but even then, that is a bit of lottery of how he in fact lands. He’s no cat after all.

The cottage stairs he has mastered, and to be fair he makes a rather good job of them once he gets his legs going. 

It’s a bit of a “hurl himself hopefully at them” sort of thing but it works…..eventually.

Like William before him , he is a gentle dog. I’ve not seen him chase bees but he’s a big leaf kicker and skips in this autumn like a little boy does in short wellingtons.

Uncoordinated but delightfully gauche.

Since everyone’s hormones have settled, his resting relationship with Dorothy is somewhat non plussed .

He and Mary will play together and Albert is gently tortured until his temper snaps and claws are shown, but for a lot of the time Roger is on guard. 

He patrols the house and the garden with rigorous efficiency being careful to bark his gentle bark at anything new. 

He is friendly with other dogs but is too quick to say hello and has yet to learn manners with a more dominant male. He smiles with his eyes and trusts everyone he meets and in the evenings will curl up on the back of the sofa next to Albert and place his head gently onto my shoulder

In short, he is a delightful dog

Sleeping on my shoulder

"Standing at the Sky's Edge" Crucible Theatre set

This short drone movie , moved me so very much tonight. 

It was sent to me by a dear friend who I worked with on Spinal Injuries with the note 

“ this will make you cry” 

And it did

And it sort of captured the pride I have for a city I no longer live in , but which I adore so very much.

I had a lovely time touching base with old friends yesterday and this afternoon. 

Tea and cake in Kathryn’s cosy front room with Vince just as sweet as sitting smiling at John H holding court with me and Mike in All Bar One and Jane running through the sodden Sheffield streets with our umbrella giving up the ghost.

Standing At The Sky’s Edge

 

I’m in Mark’s having a coffee. 

Just enough time for a sausage ciabatta and a blog before I meet the others.

Standing At The Sky Edge is a lovely Sheffield own musical. cleverly staged and impeccably acted it explores three generations in the history of one of the Hyde Park Flats In Sheffield. A listed building built in the 1950s  as a “streets in the sky” panacea to slum clearance . 

And so we meet 1960s young couple Harry & Rose . She a loyal housewife , he an idealist foreman in the steel industry, they move and laugh and love in their flat in the sky alongside an 1980s Liberian immigrant family and 2017 Poppy an unhappy lesbian from London in search of a new life in the recently upgraded and trendy housing complex. The three stories unwind on stage together and it takes some very clever choreography to keep the action going and storylines precise and clear but Richard Hawley and Chris Ode for the most part carry the whole thing off admirably .

Of course the in jokes were lapped up by the packed Sheffield audience 

A character brings a bottle of Henderson’s relish as a housewarming gift, the spicy contents loved by the Liberian family who think all English food is not seasoned enough whilst another character slags off Leeds to cheers from the audience, all jokes being lost if the production shifts to London.

I did enjoy it, and was incredibly moved at some of the visuals and memories it evoked. The story of regeneration, hope and positivism balancing the real backstories of urban decay , poverty  and misguided  local government decisions . 

The ensemble cast were wonderful

They even managed to bring in the prop of the I love You Sky Bridge which didn’t leave a dry eye in the house when it appeared 

https://disasterfilm.blogspot.com/2011/08/i-love-you-bridge.html

Sheffield

 I’m leaving for Sheffield. I’ve walked the dogs and fed them and Trendy Carol’s hubby will be collecting them soon.

I’ve eaten a shop bought sandwich with my bucket of coffee because I hadn’t shopped and have just booked my hotel in a slighter rougher part of the city.

I’m travelling by train and should be ‘ome around 3pm.

This afternoon , I will meet my friend John who is dealing with an illness with all of the arch of Barbara Stanwick at her very best and Mike who deals with everything with a laid back attitude typical of a Yorkshireman who is seldom bothered about “ owt”

Tonight it’s theatre at the Crucible with Jane  and tomorrow after a lie in Vince will pick me up and we will drive to see Kathryn for lunch in Derbyshire . I’ve known both since my student nurse days.

Hey ho

After all the shenanigans with the trains I was just about to give Aviva Trains a bashing , but a new 22 century train arrived on time and looked sleek and clean and fit for purpose.

Bit Between Our Teeth

 

The Trelawnyd Community Association of which I am now a trustee has recently taken over responsibility for our village hall, which is at risk of closing

The Memorial Hall is an impressively large building for such a small village and was commissioned at the turn of the century by the deliciously handsome Michael Antonio Ralli. 

Ralli, a Russian from Odessa who was the Greek Consul in Liverpool, strangely made his home in Trelawnyd with his wife Mia and knowing that many of the local men were in need of work , he commissioned a large hall, so that more men would be employed. 

Ralli

With fuel prices high, the Hall being a listed building and overheads as they are, the association has volunteered to take on a rather big job, but with a new committee of volunteers, we will hit the road running so to speak 

One of the first events was my idea, a large noisy, good natured, alcohol fuelled Village Céilidh, a celebration of a new hall management team and a new era 

Noodles

 I’m reducing myself to the old Facebook ploy of photographing my lunch.

How sad…..mind you my Thai noodles from a stall in the new Chester Market were bloody lovely, and have brightened a much dark and depressing Tuesday..

I wrote my letters and have drank coffee in the Storyhouse, this morning

And all is ok with the world 

This evening I caught up with some of the members of the TCA for an impromptu catch up and haven’t laughed so much in ages