Ghosts and Bones

 

Next to the Memorial Hall and just across Chapel Street is the old Ebenezer Chapel. 

The chapel and chapel house which makes up the building total used to be a market hall and dates from 1700.

The building has been bought by a property developer in the hope of making a quick buck. We understand that he’s planning to change the whole building into seven apartments which to me seems rather excessive given the limited amount of parking space there is in the village centre.

Affable Despot Jason lives next to the proposed build and his garden will be potentially overlooked by many of these flats and I reminded him on Saturday of the Ghost of John Wynne,  a story he already knew very well.

Now John Wynne was responsible for the growth and development of Trelawnyd around 1700

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trelawnyd and it is thought that his remains were indeed buried under the floor of the Chapel itself. 

A sobering thought for any developer to deal with me thinks, especially as he was obviously unaware of such a tale before he bought the building.

The figure of a man in a long coat, who is thought to be the Ghost of John Wynne has been seen by several locals, including the Randa girls and Graham the sheep when he was a teenager. 

More Singing

 Thank you from anon , who suggested this wonderful video on my last blog 

Singing In The Rain

 

It’s 70 years since Singing In The Rain was made, and so it’s easy to forget just how buff Gene Kelly actually was as a young man.

He was very easy on the eye.

Around twenty five people turned up for film night which is probably better numbers than the professional Scala cinema in nearby Prestatyn 

And I must admit the film holds up very well despite its age.

Hazel

This is Hazel

She was my second cousin ( I think) and was a dear friend of my mother and a favourite aunt to my elder sister 

The photo has a sweetness about it

Especially as Hazel died tragically giving birth to a daughter only a few months before I was born

I just wanted to memorialise it

It’s also been a baking day today

I’m made two boiled fruit cakes for the show , one slightly bigger than the other

I may enter both

It’s singing In The Rain at the Village Cinema Club later

 

Flower Show

 

My flower show entry for the photograph class “ pet”

The Manley’s came to the kitchen wall this afternoon  with boxes of dog food for my pack.

It was a bittersweet visit as they’ve just had to put down their floppy setter Gilly but I managed to make them laugh a bit as Roger bounced madly in the background like a loon. 

I like the Manley’s, a no nonsense couple in their 50s who love their community and who can be relied upon to do what they say they will do. 

Ma Manley sported a great homemade pair of dungarees and Laurie Manley seemed enchanted by Roger’s welcome. They are entering the flower show and are looking forward to it . 

Minutes later Boffin Cameron’s mum popped around with her old flower show cup.

I have a soft spot for her, as Lorna loves to support the Flower Show and has exhibited for years.

“Is it ok that I enter 20 classes?’ She asked

“Is the Pope Catholic ?” I replied 

And she beamed and laughed sweetly

She’s a star.

Mrs Trellis waved at me at teatime too , when I was drinking a brew on the patio

“ I’m entering the vase of flowers “ she called energetically as she passed  and I suddenly felt like having a weep

The troops are starting to come up trumps 

Me thinks

Gaenor The Mad Organist

With the church now shut, I haven’t seen anything of Gaenor The Mad Organist for an age now.

Never one to hide her emotions behind a smile, she would liven up any village service with a Les Dawson face, usually pulled towards one of the Church wardens who she disliked immensely.

Sometimes I felt I was watching a panto rather than a church sermon.

I heard that she had very recently died 

In more recent times, I would bump into her in the supermarket, where I would infuriate her with the game of Fill The Basket.

Now fill the basket is a cracker of a sport.

You first pick a victim ,( ideally this is a person you already know) and you follow them around the supermarket unseen .Then you start to fill their trolley with arbitrary items from the shelves, gaining more kudos for adding the most bizarre bits and pieces.

For The Mad Organist , I once managed to add two packets of durex,a packet of tena lite incontinence pads, budgie seed and a pair of fluffy ear muffs into her trolley before she stopped dead at the checkout

Such fun

Revisited

Seventeen years ago 

I wrote this, on one of the very first blogs I shared publicly, I was reminded of it today by an odd comment, overheard 

It’s just one small reason I love my sister so much

little actions of kindness

Today I have been thinking of something that happened on a Christmas many years ago.
It was a little action of kindness that had a profound effect on me and made me believe in the humanity within man.

One sunday, I think it was around Christmas, we were having lunch at home, all of us "visiting" my parents. My twin sister and I would have been around 26, my elder sister and her husband in their forties. My mother was a not-so-secret drinker and was pretty smashed as I recall. She carried on preparing the lunch and serving it as though sober, but it was all too apparant to all how much she had indeed drunk. In typical English/family secret way we all tried ignore her slurring and clumsiness, but as she tottered off into the kitchen my father could not bare it anymore and burst into tears.
We were all mortified!, and concentrated on our lunches as though they were the only meals we had ever been presented with. Only My elder sister reacted. Immediately and gently, and withour undue fuss she lent over and cupped her hand on my father's cheek. It lasted but a moment, but in that one tiny act of kindness she gave him her support,affection and control, it quietened him and he carried on his meal as we all did.

That gesture strengthened us all, and I have never forgotton it, it was something unique and special andthese things are often surprisingly overlooked in our self absorbed lives.

Real Life

Its all been rather busy.

I was planning a blog entry yesterday and  ended up catching myself unawares from behind

Today, has been a similar day and I won be home until after 9 pm

tomorrow I'm working in the community in the Hospice @ Home team

Real Life gets in Blogging way just occasionally