Oh Dear

Well, I went to be entertained and I went to have a good bawl.........and unfortunately I did neither....

Warhorse, I am afraid to say, is not one of Steven Spielberg's better films.Sure, it has a chocolate box view of Edwardian Devon, sure it has a totally underused Emily Watson as a plucky farmer's wife and sure it has sweet boy in love with his pet horse which is sadly taken off to the Great War...... but what it doesn't have is any real dramatic tension, in a story which, on stage at least, has gripped and moved literally millions of people.

The play is narrated by the central horse character of Joey; subsequently the emotion of the trauma of separation,loss and of War itself can be shared by words, as well as visuals... The film lacks this device and is, I am sorry to say, much the poorer for it, as horses, although beautiful animals, can look ever so slightly inscrutable to the untrained eye. If they show human emotion...they can unfortunately look a little cartoonish

Warhorse also does not have many of those flagship Spielberg touches that satisfy the soul.

But a few scenes do linger  in the mind

- the horse Joey galloping madly  across the besieged trenches at night

- the shooting of two deserters as seen through the sails of a working windmill

- the gentle banter between a sweet natured German soldier (Hinnerk Schönemann) and a chirpy Tyneside   Squaddie      ( Toby Kebbell)  who meet up in no-man's land

  ( incidentally the best performances of the film)

But overall, I felt cheated there was no "Lassie Come Home moment".....

I needed a bit of cheap sentiment, and a lot of blubber

Unfortunately I had neither!
6/10

A Chink In The Armour ,"Coppers" and the unsung 7,500

I have just had a run in with Thomas the gander during feeding time. This perhaps underlines the fact that I am not quite firing on all cylinders at the moment, for when I bent down to fill their water bowl I never noticed his low, rear guard attack posture and only really "reacted" to his presence after he had took a firm hold of two inches of underwear elastic and an unhealthy amount of buttock in his sharp, serrated beak.

I hit a top  "c" that anyone on the male voice choir would have been proud of, spun around and instinctively punched him as hard as I could right in the kisser.
He let go, staggered back a few steps in shock then gave me a rather half arsed "Honk" of threat
I jumped around a little, fingering a hole in my undies and flicked him the "v"s even though I was feeling dreadully guilty
No matter how ill you may be, animal enemies will always seek out a chink in your armour


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Moving on.....


Last night I watched with interest a channel four documentary entitled quite simply Coppers

This second series started off in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire and followed the mundane, stressful, irritating, hands-tied and frustrating world of an urban British CID force.
Part of the documentary was the "seen it all before" fly-on-the wall details of crime investigation, which was interesting enough given the fact that the law seems always heavily on the side of any potential perpetrator, but it was the face to camera interviewing of the senior police detectives themselves that proved to be the most illuminating parts of the documentary.
Straight talking, wry and in most cases very VERY pithy,  the detectives thankfully didn't tread that hackneyed old path of political correctness.....colourfully and with some feeling they told their story of frustration and impotency with the criminal classes rather gamely and I could have happily cheered when the dry-as-toast Sergeant Marcus Oldroyd (above) was asked what he thought of a burglar's house he had just had to search in order to find a neighbour's stolen goods.....
"It's a shithole" he said simply and directly to camera.

The police came over as hard working, decent people; people that have to face not only the tragic and the exciting every day, but the boring, the stupid and the lazy in our society who make petty crime a way of life without hope or want of rehabilitation..............One DC summed the whole thing up when after an age patiently trying to interview a vital but reluctant witness she turned to her collegue and said "As the famous saying goes... you can't polish a turd!"

Thank Goodness for them all, that's what I say.

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And finally...........
This morning I had a chat with an old guy in the village about the movie WARHORSE which opens today....He asked me if I knew that WARDOGS were commonplace in WW1 and were used not only as guard and sentry uses but more importantly were invaluable as message carriers between the trenches and command centres
"Over 7,500 dogs were killed in the the Great War alone" he told me "did you know that?"
I had to admit I had no idea
Mr Spielberg...please take note...............

Novovirus Blues

I have not blogged for the past few days because I have been rather dramatically ill.

On Monday I could feel a "bug" coming on, and by Tuesday morning, I could hardly lift my head off the pillow. There was a funeral on in the Graveyard and I could hear the gravedigger's lorry arrive on my field ( he has to access the cemetery from my land) but just felt too ill to go over to save the poor man from being chased by the geese.

By midday I was suffering rigors,nausea and joint pain worse than I have ever experienced before and after an aborted attempt to walk the dogs I did what I have never done before, I rang Chris at work and told him to come home.

I have been in bed ever since, watched over continually by a loyal and slightly anxious Meg Well that is until this morning when I dragged my sorry, stinking arse out of my Tracey Emin-ish bed......and I can honestly say that I have never experienced a virus which has made me feel so bad...ever......ever in 49 years!. This is no word of a lie....but on Tuesday night I had visions of me being whisked away to hospital I felt so awful, ( and even the cool-as-a-cucumber Chris was worried when he saw me all vague  pale and feverish hidden under the duvet)- I must have looked like Kate Winslet in her sick scene in Sense And Sensibility.....

Anyhow I survived and thank goodness for Carer's leave, that's what I say

Without Chris having the flexibility to come home to look after me and the animals, I really don't know where I would have been with it all........

Things can change on a sixpence can't they?

"Put The Bun Down, Walk Away From The Bun"

I have always enjoyed my food

Chris says that it comes from being a twin, 

It's Something about having competition at food time.....

Once when I was tucking in to a plate of goodies, he laughed and said that if we were infant birds rather than babies then he was sure that I would have kicked Janet right out of the nest when mommy came-a-calling with a beakful of worms...

Even at a year old I was chubby and  just a little camp!

Of course weight gain is sort of natural when you are fast approaching 50. My regular twice a week badminton games with friend Mike stopped long before we came to Wales.......(because of creaking knees and pressures of work) and we have got into the habit of big meals in the evenings, too many takeaways and for me, the fatty perils of a crisp white wine!

Add to this recipe, a propensity for comfort eating, a liking for big portions ( a legacy from my Grandmother who re enforced love and affection with feeding) and a genetic "Gray double chin" and is it no wonder that I look like a pig in a leotard?

So it is time I do something permanently about it.....

I know I can do it.

A few years ago I lost three stone in six months, and did so fairly easily ...

I just didn't keep it off.

This time I am serious........ I can do it again and for good this time.......Looking like Shelley Winters on a bad day  and having embarrassing, uncontrollable and uncomfortably loud flatulence when I cock my leg over the field gate is the last straw........

There...I have said it publicly........

My Name's John...... and I am a porker.

So from now on Mondays will be my weightwatcher weigh in...Last Monday I was 16 stone exactly

Today I am

15 stone 10 lbs.
"Way to go Girlfriend!!!!!!!!!"

A Little Extra

Meg, Mabel, William and George and the ubiquitous blue rug

Sunday morning is a time for slow paced activities...

Chris has gone to Church in the next village and the dogs are all heaped together on the kitchen sofa, unwilling to get up into the fine , grey mist and rain which looks as though it has set in for the day.

This is the time for coffee, eggs Benedict and Radio 4 Extra.....

Radio 4 Extra is a little gem of a radio station. For those that do not know ( and I am quoting wikipedia here) Radio 4 extra is:-

"BBC Radio 4 Extra, formerly known as BBC 7 and BBC Radio 7, is a British digital radio stationcomedy, drama, and children's programming nationally 24 hours a day. It is the principal broadcasting outlet for the BBC's archive of spoken-word entertainment broadcasting "

What wikipedia does not make clear , is the fact that Radio 4 Extra  often cherry picks the best the brightest of the BBC productions for a re airing...this morning I have enjoyed a cracking adaptation of Kipling's Jungle Book....(with Eartha Kitt literally shining as Kaa the snake) and as I type this, Kirsty Young is in the process of interviewing Debbie Harry for Desert Island Discs 

Vintage Peter Coke

Tomorrow, I will catch the 1959 re run of Paul Temple and the Conrad Case and if I remember on Thursday, I will try and catch The Chief Inspector Dover Mysteries from way back in 1976, 

We are lucky having the BBC here in the UK...... but if it was up to me I would rip most of the shitty tv programmes off BBC1 ( apart from Sherlock of course) and replace them with some of the quality radio productions from the past and present..... 

But, alas, a day cannot just be crammed with breakfast eggs, good drama and a warm kitchen....

dogs have to be walked in the rain..........and I need to burn off the calories before my weightwatcher's weigh in tomorrow morning

Have a nice Sunday

It's All Go.....

I am still keeping on eye on Village affairs

Trelawnyd seems rather quiet in this post Christmas time lull

There is little news to report....

Neighbours Della and Arfon found an abandoned Jack Russell outside their farm gates...she's a sweet little gal too

The village noticeboard has been finally erected

-The builder who did the work gave me the key as he knew I am on the community council--( oh the power!)

and Kit Hopkins kindly presented me with my second pair of handmade slippers this afternoon.....she apologised for the wait......she had a rush order to get out!

The ever cheerful guy with multicoloured hair and numerous piercings from Maes Offa dropped off a load of wood for me to burn in the lounge stove...

Carys at 1 London Road said she didn't mind that I had forgotten to deliver her eggs this week as she has enough

and there is talk of a part time post office being opened up at the Village Hall very soon......

The Trelawnyd Village folk seem happy enough despite the lack of excitement!!

Frodo's tale

Frodo

Now as regular readers will know, I am a bit of a sucker for a sob story. 

At least 30 animals on the field arrived as a result of being neglected or unwanted, and most have blossomed into healthy, happy and in the case of the "Crackhead whores" productive birds, who have all started to lay after a few barren and somewhat bald months.

Yesterday I received an email from  a woman in Shropshire, who had rescued a predominantly blind bantam cockerel from a farm after he was bullied by the resident cockerels and the farm children who delighted in throwing stones at him..

She had heard , through a mutual friend that I keep poultry (and probably that I am a soft touch) and wondered if I could help her

Frodo, apparently is a bit of a character. Before being re homed at the farm, he was one of the star attractions in the petting zoo at Alton Towers, subsequently he is tame, loves human contact and a cuddle, and now is almost fit enough to be re homed

I have a spare run, and the Rhode Island Red who had a stroke would make him an ideal companion so of course I have emailed Frodo's rescuer and have said yes. 

She was lucky, I think, as her timing had been pitched just right. With the start of the New Year, and the faraway prospect of better weather, I am beginning to feel more like my normal, more positive self.

The dreadful 2011 is now behind us

The Wind Doth Blow!

70 mile an hour winds, horizontal rain and hail ....I could hardly see the field this morning

I managed to snap a quick photo of the hysterical runners all leaning desperately into the wind