Brew-ha-ha

I've just slept a solid ten hours, and do feel marginally better.
This morning, after a somewhat energetic chase worthy of the opening free running credits of Casino Royale I caught the last remaining bantam cockerel and took the poultry up to the barn at my friend Eirlys' farm.
When I was away The Prof had to deal with concerns from villagers about bird flu. Free range birds however safe in our minds bucks against government guidelines.
And people are scared.
For the first time in years the Ukrainian Village lies Empty, and this morning I am reminded of the sad end of Fiddler On The Roof 
Hey ho

Cinema, Ballet and Friends

Despite feeling like shit, it's all worked out for the best really. Arrived in London at midday yesterday and walked down from Euston, via the British Museum, and Shaftsbury Avenue to soho where I walked directly to the Curzon arthouse cinema to be in time for a 1pm showing of Nocturnal Animals
I was so glad that I did for the film is one of the best I have seen this year, and two hours out of the drizzle in the warm cucoon of a dark cinema was just what I needed.

Right, you have got to keep up with me here.
Susan Morrow (Amy Adams) is a successful yet somewhat haunted gallery owner. Slowly realising that her second marriage is on the rocks, she finds herself obsessing about her first marriage which she ended cruelly some two decades earlier. The catalyst for this is the arrival of a gift in the shape of her ex husbands first novel ( in proof form). The book is a violent and disturbing story of murder and revenge, which captures Susan's imagination, and it's veiled subtext of how her ex husband  Edward ( Jake Gyllenhaal) dealt with his feelings of grief and loss after their split, causes her to question her own motivations within their brief relationship.

It sounds good on this simplistic level, does it not?  but when you add in the complication of seeing the read novel unfold on film, with Gyllenhaal playing the traumatised Tony Hastings who lost his wife and daughter to an arbitrary act of violence during a road trip through the Texan desert, fiction blends almost seamlessly with fact as Susan realises just how much she has traumatized her first husband.
Director Tom Ford has crafted a sylish, almost hypnotic film here.
The violent desert scenes bookend the aseptic and slightly detached nature of Susan's life perfectly as two other characters come into play, to almost steal the show. The first is a tour de force cameo by Laura Linney who in flashback plays Susan's dominant and coldly pragmatic mother in one wonderfully icy scene and the second is an underplayed almost reptilian turn by Michael Shannon as a dying Sheriff, assigned to solve the murder of Hastings' family and who wants to do the right thing even though the law isnt quite on his side.
How does the story end? Well  you will have to see the movie to find out. Suffice to say, the whole piece will leave you thinking well past the time that the final credits roll.
It's a great movie
9.5/10

.,

After all that I met Nu after work and we had a good natter until we went to Sadler's Wells to see only the second performance of Mathew Bourne's production of The Red Shoes.
I knew I wasnt the most sparkling of company but I tried my best! 

Bourne's work is always a real treat, and The Red Shoes didn't disappoint even though the production was not as " magical" as some of his other ballets,the scene where the evil shoes take control of Victoria  (Ashley Shaw) has to be seen to be believed and is well worth the price of any ticket!

I'm exhausted but happy that I touched base with Nu....it's 9am and I'm aleady on my way home dosed up with antibiotics and paracetamol 

London Bound

I've been feeling like shit all week.
Picked up something nasty during last week's shift at the hospital and have paid for it ever since.
Yesterday I sorted through 500 logs. I shifted the lot, made a dry wood pile and cleared the drive so by teatime I had a raging temperature and a pulled muscle in my diaphragm after coughing and farting  too hard at the same time.
I went to bed around 8pm and was only woke by the Prof hours later after he rather reacted rather to an unexpected piss stain!in his office on his return back from Norway.
This morning I only feel marginally better, ( temp down) but my headache, cough, stress muscle pain,  and very slight disorientation remains with me which is a bummer as I am now on the 10.04 for London.
This evening I am meeting up with Nu, for eats, chat, catch up and ballet at Saddlers Wells. I shall be home midday tomorrow!
I left The Prof vague instructions for the Ukrainian Village. Yesterday's slightly underplayed yet worrying instructions from the Government to house domestic poultry indoors for a month is just not practical in our case, so an alternative stop gap has to be sought.
I hope to transfer my girls to my friend Eirlys' farm where they can join her hens in a vast airy barn.
I shall sort this out on my return.
The Prof looked worried when I informed him of the government instructions
" I hope you haven't got bird flu" he said as I coughed and spluttered my way onto the train.

I know. I look like shite

Ten Years On

Sue

After seven years Sue at " Our New Life In The Country" has written her last blog post. She says she wants her privacy back, and that is understandable given the fact she has a huge following who enjoy reading of her life in the Welsh hills, some twenty miles west of Trelawnyd.

She will be missed.

I have been writing Going Gently for a decade now. Almost every day, over a coffee, I have written down this diary of events ( or non events) the way I see them , and for a decade, with perhaps an occasional exception. I have enjoyed the ritual. 

That's why I do it. 

There is also another valid reason why I blog and that is vanity. 

Going Gently , to me , is like a painting in a museum or a book on a shelf or indeed a film locked away in a film can, for it's now " here" for good! An indelible tribute to colourful characters, loved animals who spend all-too-short lives rubbing along with you and to a small life with all of it's mundane highs and lows .

Sue, left her mark in the blogosphere and has touched others in the process. So have I .

You have to be a real sociopath not to enjoy the fact that others enjoy you. 

Vanity, validation whatever it is....

Write a blog, and for the length of time you write.....you are immortalised ...

Well as long as the World Wide Web survives in the ether

Sully

The Prof says it's bright and clear and sunny in Norway.
It's rather dull and drab here.
I took myself off to the cinema this afternoon to see Clint Eastwood's latest movie SULLY .
Sully is the nickname of Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot who landed his airliner on a freezing Hudson River after it was struck by a flock of birds soon after leaving LaGuardia airport  in 2009 and the film tells the story of the forced landing ( albeit in flashback) and the subsequent National Transportation Safety Board's investigation who sought to prove that Sullenberger could have landed his aircraft safely at the airport.
I suspect Eastwood is very much like Sullenberger, as the film, like the pilot, is a calm, unpretentious and unshowy piece that reeks of professional storytelling and unsentimentally.
Played with a quiet dignity by Tom Hanks, Sullenberger is portrayed as a calm, systematic thinker and obvious hero of the piece. However we do not find much else about him during this 96 minute film.His personality or his personal life are somewhat played down -though we are able to witness  brief snippets of phone conversations he has with his dutiful wife ( an underused Laura Linney) but I suppose that is a minor complaint as the interactions of Sullenberger with his co pilot Jeff Silkes ( Aaron Eckhart) during the emergency literally blows your mind by it's calm control.
Strong silent type heros.........Mr Eastwood would approve of and would, in his day, would loved to have played
7.5/10

Bring It On

We are spending Christmas with the Prof's family down in Kent, so I wanted us to have tasteful  Christmas jumpers for the event.

I did want this Walking Dead jumper but it proved to be too expensive, so I bought this monstrosity at Sainsbury's today
Waddu think?

Is it me or does the bear have a noticeable and actual double chin! 

Winnie And The Professor

Yesterday I was witness to a rare little Christmas scene.
No it wasn't local villager , Dave Smith driving around Trelawnyd dressed as santa as he did on Saturday for the Christmas Fayre.

It was a little moment between Professor and Elderly bulldog......
We were all sat in the living room watching David Attenborough, when I noticed Winnie lift herself heavily from the hearth rug. She ambled over to me and offered her head up to be kissed.
It's a regular demand in a demanding household.
She then made her way to the couch to say a hello to the Prof, and instead of his usual perfunctory one pat of acknowledgement, he moved his legs and surprisingly offered her a place on the couch next to him.
Her eyes widened in shock!
Even though that she had always wanted this moment  this offer had never ever happened in her three years at Bwthyn y Llan and she hesitated, unsure of exactly what to do. She looked at me, then back at the Prof who have her a Roger Moore eyebrow look, and waited to be asked again.
Surprisingly he didn't only ask her again, he stood up and gestured for her to jump up onto the couch, then, when she hesitated again, he half lifted her up onto the cushions.
I had to giggle at her expression when the Prof propped his legs up next to her and covered them both with his warm woollen throw
Within seconds, a contented look upon her face, she rested her big fat head onto the Prof's knees and  promptly fell asleep as we watched tv in front of the fire.
I sat quietly in the armchair as surprised as Winnie had been
I had never seen The Prof act so affectionately towards her !!

Cariad Bach

The nurse in charge of intensive care told me that we had had  a lady from the village admitted.
It was a villager I know fairly well.
Before we were allocated to our respective patients, I popped over to her bed space to check on how she was doing.
Intensive care disguises patients well.
It covers patients with tubes and lines and drains and cables.
It masks faces with endotracheal tubes and oxygen masks and through necessity removes personalised clothing for gowns and clean sheets.
From the centre of such a collection came a weak sing song voice
" Hello Cariad Bach " it trilled
" Cariad Bach " is a rather old fashioned term in Welsh.
It literally means " little sweetheart" or " little loved one" 

The nurse in charge, reads Going Gently , I think, for when I got back in line for the allocation , she asked me, in a somewhat theatrical stage whisper " is she one of your old ladies? "