Date

I’m working all weekend so will fill some of the space before hand doing a few nice things.

Coffee with a friend tomorrow morning , breakfast with another ( that was this morning) Dinner out with my counselling friends tomorrow evening and an on line film course on zoom Friday morning. 

Friday afternoon I’m on that date I told you about a few weeks ago.

I’ve changed my whole view on dating, I think. 

I’m not cynical 

But I’m realistic…..and dating will only occur in a local watering hole “ for coffee”

“ coffee” means you can make a run for it if things are not quite what you hoped for.

No investment in dinner. No long drives, no feeling trapped 

And no bullshit

Over coffee I can smell bullshit a mile away.

Roses, Ballet, Castration and other stories

 

 I spent today at home. 

Bedding was washed and hung on the field gate to dry.

Underwear and t shirts on the kitchen wall and shrubbery.

I washed windows and cleaned paintwork 

Washed floors and mopped the old uneven wooden floorboards

Ones that date from 1760

You can tell it’s the summer holidays as a gaggle of children ran up and down the lane shouting “ The Queen , Curtsey at the Queen!!!!” as Roger barked excitedly at them running up and down the gravel path like a loon.

The Queen cut out now is beaming up the lane from my spare bedroom

The local children find her presence amusing.

I read a counselling text book in the afternoon and fell asleep for a while with Mary  under my arm. She is in season and Roger is still awaiting a reschedule of his castration ( sickness at the vets caused his original one to be cancelled) 

I need to rebook him tomorrow 

I made Mandu dumplings with kimchi and ground pork spiced with garlic and fresh ginger and cleaned Bluebell inside and out .

Before sweeping the paths clear of rose petals from the climbing rose which is still blooming strongly around the front door.

I love that I have a living stereotype of roses around the front door 

The blooms are a deep red this year and look magnificent .

I rang Chic Eleanor and arranged to meet for coffee and booked to see old Trev in his residential home later in the week. I will take the information the visitors to the flower show gave me when they dropped off the Hall blueprints. He’ll find them interesting. 

I also had an email prompt by the Royal Opera House to book tickets for the ballet Don Quixote in October for my sister’s Christmas pressie so I booked them quicksticks as tickets fly so quickly  and also managed booked us in for a meal on the balcony restaurant before hand …what fun 

I’ve always wanted to go.

How wonderful that we can.

Hey ho

Bunting Bank

 

The TCA phone box is up and running as a food bank, information centred book swap and whatever you want it to be, now that Sailor John has furnished it with its own shelving unit .

I popped up yesterday with a few books and some bunting.

Ok the bunting isn’t practical but it’s pretty and some deserving soul may like it 

Food banks shouldn’t  always be all about food.

I went to a barbecue last night, my brother in law was 75

I don’t see him as an older man , I see the and hear the teenage man/boy I first met in the middle sixties when I was a very small boy. 

I’ve known him 61 years, the same as both my sisters ….wow

Anyhow today looks sunny. 

And washing the cottage windows is the planned job for the day

I’ve picked hydrangea heads and put them in vases in the living room and kitchen and saw Terry sulking in the lane with his dog as I did so,

“ I woz robbed “ was all he said, smiling at the floor

This afternoon I read a counselling text book , the saddest of quotes

“ We Leave doors open for people , who’ll never knock again….how stubborn the human heart”

Oppenheimer

 I went to a morning showing of Oppenheimer today

A film so intricate, complicated and detailed it probably mirrored the remarkable life of the theoretical  physicist J Oppenheimer very well indeed . 

The film by director Christopher Nolan is complicated and nuanced. It covered three time periods in Oppenheimers development of the hydrogen bomb highlighting the intensity of the storylines with some roars of musics and sound effects.

Cillian Murphy is impressive as the charismatic yet quite unlikable Doctor, and captures the intensity of the character in a kind of almost reptilian way. Oppenheimer was a womaniser and had an Ego to boot. He knew his abilities and was conceited enough to blindly disregard his position within the government machine until that government took a dislike to his communist sympathies after the war. 

This is a male orientated film with fine performances from Murphy, Robert Downey Junior as Lewis Strauus the head of the Us Atomic Energy Commission, and Matt Damon, a General in charge of Los Alamos , the secret town in the desert where the scientist developed the A bomb.

Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer’s second wife and Florence Pugh as his communist sympathiser  psychiatrist mistress have only minor parts in the drama, which is a shame as both interesting characters could have been explored further, but I guess the narrative ( which is complicated enough ) does last for three hours.

Oppenheimer is an excellent, intelligent and overall detailed movie which weaves magnificently intricate scenes together with intense editing and skill. 

It’s worth the effort of concentration 

A new Star

 I just have to tell you that next year’s Flower Show poster will feature this young mum from the village who won second in the Jam class yesterday

It’s priceless 

A Boiled Egg

 I’m only going to share one story about the Flower Show

Ive done it to death over the last week.

But this story is about the power of feeling a part of something.

Of joining in.

Of community.

Eirlys is a friend of mine. She’s like me, not built for fashion or elegance and is at her happiest mucking our her hens in a tired old jumper.

She is the first to say this, before you reach for your keyboards.

Anyhow, it’s been a very tough year for Eirlys. Her husband died in the winter and like many, rural widows, she’s been a bit isolated and all rather flat.

Yesterday she came and chaperoned the arts and crafts judge to help me out.

She also entered the boiled egg class in the cookery section, an event slightly fraught with difficulties as she arrived a whole 24 hours too early clutching said boiled egg on a plastic plate. 

After realising her mistake , she spent yesterday early morning boiling scores of eggs before turning up at the right time but in a rainstorm, laughing but stressed

“I ve dropped me egg in the street” she shouted at everyone when she walked into the hall but with a bit of cajoling peeled it before arranging it on a plate alongside the nine other entries.

She left just before the cookery judges assessed the eggs, with all the forensic detail of a coroner, she was happy that she had played her part.

After the show, I dropped off to her farmhouse with the egg. She had entered a vase of flowers too which I returned too; flowers she had picked from alongside the hard shoulder of London Road. And before she could draw breath I showed her First Prize certificate for Best Egg!

She laughed hard and long and almost seemed suddenly overwhelmed by the happiness and fun of the whole day. 

It was never about the egg,

How could it have been?

It was all about sharing, and company, companionship 

And being a part of something, ever slightly bigger than yourself and your own worries

The Trelawnyd Flower Show

The Manleys

Cameron with his prizewinning succulent 

Me making a final speech

Jo and ian

The family who brought the Hall’s original plans were guests of honour 

Hattie, Adam and Pippa

The hall’s original plans  brought as a gift of the day

Debbie the vegetable judge

 

Enjoy

 I’m buggered and have just sat down with a very VERY large Spanish Sherry.

Dorothy is licking my feet and all is well

In just three hours, Ian and I with just two helpers set up the whole show after the day care kids had left the hall at three.

In previous years six hours was the general timescale 

True I had a mini meltdown because the classes where run anti-clockwise instead of clockwise , but I pulled myself up by my bra straps and stopped my mini strop 

With the school children’s art entries and their novelty vegetable productions mean that our entries number is heading towards 450

Enjoy the video

A little gem by ex villager kelda