Personal Space

This afternoon I am going to have an eye test!
It is about time.
The Laptop screen has been blurring on occasion, reading drug labels at work is suddenly rather hard work  and driving at night has become a little bit of a nightmare!
So I will give myself a good wash, brush my teeth three times and give myself a couple of small squirts of "clinique Happy" in readiness for the invasive eye exam....
Is it me? But does anyone else feel that eye tests are totally embarrassing and a challenge to one's  personal boundaries?

The last time I had such a test, I burst into a fit of uncontrollable giggles when the examiner peered so closely into my eyes I  could see the sweat stain on the inside of his shirt collar and smell that he had been sucking on "tunes" cough sweets before meeting me.

As a nurse I am constantly touching patients in an intimate yet perfectly acceptable and consensual way. This physical closeness is of course extended to relatives and visitors that often are stressed and traumatised and are in need of comfort and human contact, yet in everyday life, I have  realised that there are very few moments that physical intimacy with a stranger actually occurs!
Having an eye test is perhaps one....... having a haircut or even a massage are others......But we as a race ( and a Northern European repressed race at that) live so much in our little bubbles of isolation that even the old fashioned contact customs such as hand shaking seems to have all but disappeared.
I have blogged about this before, but we Brits could all take a lesson from the peoples from  more demonstrative climates...............and break this non touch "keep off me" taboo.
Bring back hand shaking as the norm that's what I say..... Yes that's it....break the ice with a firm grab and shake, that will solve the Nation's woes!
.....mind you...having said this......I still will be giggling with embarrassment when that eye examiner approaches me with his ophthalmoscope  poised!!!!!!

Hey Ho

Bored, Bored , Bored

The valiant little group of hen houses face the snow

I am getting bored of this snow lark now. I am still effectively snowed in as the Berlingo still is having problems negotiating the lane up into the village (right)
The farm tractors have compacted the snow into sheet ice and this coupled with  incline of the lane has meant that only 4 x4 s and farm traffic have managed to get through!
Having said this  I was gob smacked yesterday when Della from pen-y-cefn-isa shot right up the lane in her tiny nissan Micra, without stopping once!!!
That certainly knocked my masculinity!

So armed with a spade and my fisherman's socks, I am just about to try another lane run to escape the village for an hour or so.Earlier the dogs followed Constance's example and all peed on the back patio (she looked at me sternly this morning as if to say "you've got to be f*cking kidding") when I took them all for a walk at 7.30...and then promptly opened her bladder like a horse two inches outside the back door!
Yellow snow is not a pretty sight.

I am due to go to Sheffield on Saturday to attend a wedding do! ( the daughter of the famous Bel Ami!!!) I just hope I can get there!!! I need to shed my wellies for an evening in the city at least once this year!!!

English Bulldog watching TV

No , not Constance...but I think you get the gist of the breed!

Just before 5am

Chris is flying up to Glasgow this morning and got picked up by his taxi from a snow strewn main road hours before dawn.
The dogs remained firmly asleep. The three terriers all hiding under the bed eiderdown and Constance in her crate bed in the kitchen but I couldn't get back to sleep, so am presently drinking coffee in the living room whilst watching the snow fall in worrying amounts on the lane

 I don't want to be be snowed in today! I am almost out of poultry feed and desperately need to go to the feed shop....and although the snow is only 3-4 inches deep so far , the steepness of the lane just before it joins the main road, means that cars will remain effectively stranded until the lane is cleared!

Anyhow the only good point of dragging myself out of bed at 4.45 is that I saved a young cockerel from freezing to death. As I  tried to take Constance out for a pee (she was having none of it) I heard a cockerel call from the field, the call was louder than the usual more muffled ( inside) calls, so I went to investigate and found the youngest of the cockerels ( the one that escaped the cull of last month) crouched forlornly in the snow next to his closed coop. The poor bastard had obviously been late to roost and had been locked out all night.
I picked him up and tucked him head first under my armpit inside my coat to perk him up a little before sliding him into the middle of the ghost hens.....fat hens give off more heat!He should be ok!.............that bloody cockerel is living on borrowed time

I hate bloody snow 

Terry at the flower show

ps

Just have to give a big up to Terry, our neighbour and fellow Flower Show committee member, who went out of his way this morning to take me up to the feed shop to stock up on corn and pellets.
A former police driving instructor, he was the ideal person to navigate the minor roads here, which can be treacherous!
A few eggs seemed a small price to pay, for the peace of mind knowing that the animals are now all well fed and insulated against the cold

Bulldog snogs

William (sans eyes) Constance and I, getting warm after being out in the garden

 Bulldogs are quite unique. Unlike the boisterous terriers they seem to hate exercise, dislike walks out and are almost pathologically connected to their beds next to the fire. In essence Constance resembles a somewhat lethargic scatter cushion who has a pair of piggy eyes and a huge talent for flatulence.
She only seems to come alive when she thinks you are about to treat her with some nice titbit, or ( and more importantly) you are about to cuddle her or kiss her huge foolish fat face!

Constance loves to kiss you back.
It isn't one of those wet sloppy kisses, hounds have a tendency to give humans, no Constance will heave her massive face within  a millimetre of your own then slowly and deliberately squash her face against yours as she wheezes like an asthmatic without ventolin.
She seems to  take great delight in this oddest of practices
I have mentioned before that her advances feel a little like getting sexually molested by a furry Buster Keaton....but what I didn't say, is that these "kisses" are rather fun and completely pleasurable!
Having her literally "in your face" does have the feeling of being totally enveloped...and is reminiscent of the feeling you used to get when you are cuddled by a parent when you were  a child....

Still of the Night

Coincidence is a funny old thing
Last night , when I was locking up the birds I found myself humming a tune that I just knew was from an old Meryl Streep movie from way back in the 1980s. I just couldn't for the life of me remember the movie title, but I kind of recalled the film was a Hickcockian piece about psychiatrists and their patients...
Blow me, when I was having a quick flit into TCM this afternoon...there the movie was the all but forgotten movie Still of the Night!!!
I couldn't find the title theme on its own, but here is the first few minutes of the movie.... enjoy the first minute and a half , the music by John kander, is rather sweet

British Bulldog

Last night my sister Janet organised a raffle in support of MOTOR NEURONE DISEASE (MND) at a local theatre...... we raised over 300 £ in a matter of an hour....basically because we all blocked the entrance to the theatre with "helpers" so no bugger could get past us. and forced everyone to "buy a ticket".... which was basically just like a game of British Bulldog!(only brit blog reader will remember this school game)
So far over 4000 quid has been raised!
 see Janet's blog

Mitten demonstration

It was so cold this morning that the dawn air actually hurt the lungs slightly when I took a big breath in.....as I said in the video......thank goodness for my new mittens!