Behind The Bedroom Door

It's almost dark in the bedroom
I've slept very heavily for a few hours
And I've just woken up with a bit of a start.
I was dreaming that I was at work and I was hiding behind an iv gantry with
One of the Filipino nurses, a girl called Carmen.
There were zombies shuffling around and one seemed to have caught our scent.
and we were convinced thet we were goners 
I am glad I woke up
And I know now just why I have dreamt what I dreamt 
For behind the cottage bedroom door
I can hear the long, deep sniffing of a welsh terrier as he noisily comes to terms that
Daddy,who usually takes him for a walk at this time,...is stinking like an old kipper in bed
in the middle of the day.


Is that an eclair you're eating or are you just pleased to see me?

Twilight Albert watching the rain

85 comments  on the last post........and I hardly wrote anything...... Go figure.....sometimes I think there is no need to write anything profound ....just post a silly photo of yourself  perhaps in a pair of ill fitting underpants with a cat on your head and poof......more comments than you can shake a stick at...........anyhow this weekend is a sort of non event for me thanks to the new nhs electronic rota system who, in its wisdom now considers Sunday as the START of the week and not the end . Subsequently part timers like me often get given a Saturday shift from one week and a sunday shift from the next.....hey presto we now get all weekend to cover.........
It looks like the end of the world outside as the weather has turned.....I had just got back into bed, wet and shivering after letting the birds out when Chris informed me that there was another funeral in the Church today...the sheep  are grazing next to the Churchyard and need to be moved, the grave digger will be arriving in his lorry to cross the field anytime now....
What a shitty wet, nothing day.
POSTSCRIPT
well we've just had a sneaky jaunt to marks and Spencer's
And after some lunch we have had a crafty chocolate eclair in the car on the way home
I was driving and still managed to eat the eclair without holding on to it
Now that's skill!
Off to bed
X

Do It Yourself

Chimney Sweeping Morning In Trelawnyd

Goodbye to a grand lady


 It's not quite the thing to say nowadays but I was incredibly proud to see the entire Chatsworth Estate  staff lining the funeral route of the late Dowager Duchess of Devonshire today. I have walked the road from the village of  Edensor to Chatsworth and the thought of cooks, maids, shop staff, farm workers and gardeners all lining the road with their heads bowed as the last Mitford sister passed in her wicker coffin is incredibly moving......
Tally ho


More Tea vicar?

The vicar  and his entourage waiting patiently for their rhubarb tarts

Every year after Harvest Festival, the Church holds a harvest lunch in the village hall to raise funds. 
They usually put on a hot pot and fruit pie to follow, so it's well,worth the small talk., especially as Church stalwart Christine Davies usually makes the pies, and she's a cracking pie maker. ( I'll get her to enter the cookery classes in the flower show if it kills me)
It's a beautiful sunny day today, and suddenly the village seems full of activity. There is a funeral at the Chapel with a burial in the graveyard next to the Ukrainian village and the Children from the school will be attending Church this afternoon for their harvest festival service. 
I also met the incredibly cheerful foreman overseeing the renovation of the houses on London Road, who strangely knew of my blog. He asked if I could dig out any historic photos of the houses for him, which I have done, I think he's been somewhat overwhelmed by people congratulating him for taking the job on.

The cooks in the village hall, Mrs Trellis is first right 

Bake Off

It was the semi final of Bake Off this evening.
Cheerful chippy Richard, wisecracking Yorkshire gran Nancy, the elfin Chetna and technical wizard Luis slugged it over baklavas, a dry-as-a-nun's chuff German Schichttorte and a show stopping selection of French entremets. 
Who will win?
Who knows? And to be honest it doesn't really matter which one lifts the trophy as every one  is a talented baker in their own right
Having said this ,  I really would like Nancy to win, 



Not A Sausage


The heavens opened after a grey morning, and apart from a few faceless drivers I have not seen a living soul all day. No affable despot Jason shouting something disgusting through his dining room window, no auntie Glad polishing her glass fish in her front room, no animal helper Pat wanting eggs and no village elder Islwyn pottering around the Churchyard.
I haven't spied Ralph the gentleman farmer in his yellow pick up, Gay Gordon's invalid scooter is no where to be seen and even dog walkers Pippa, Mrs Trellis and Terry with his yappy Yorkshire terrier haven't shown their faces in the lane.
No Ann Malthoff out on her horse, no Sandra Cameron on her allotment and I haven't even had the opportunity to wave at Basil out on his usual sheep feed run...
I feel like Will Smith in I Am Legend

Miss Violence


Theatre clwyd  Cinema Trip MISS VIOLENCE

Miss Violence starts with a birthday party in a neat and clinically austere Greek apartment. A family are celebrating the birthday of an eleven year old girl. There is cake and dancing and music, yet the whole scene doesn't feel quiet right, a sense of unreality which is repeated in the family's reaction when the birthday girl leaps to her death from the living room balcony.
This is obviously a dysfunctional family, and from the very start of Alexander Avranas's film, the audience is never quite sure just how each character is related . All we do know is that the grandfather ( Thermis Panou) rules the household with with a quiet and increasingly cruel control.
Very, very slowly we start to see the extent of his abuse as the two other adults in the  apartment ( his wife and elder daughter) are helpless , if not implicit , in his subsequent abuse of the younger children.
It's a difficult and malevolent film, filmed almost secretly and in a dull olive hue through doors and corridors of a horridly  faceless apartment.And not since Sergi Lopez's monster soldier Vidal in Pan's Labyrinth have I seen such loathsome character as Panou's grandfather. I really wanted to strangle the bastard every time he appeared on screen.
The film is coldly powerful and not an easy watch as Ayrana injects very little hope into the narrative. and I don't think it was a coincidence that the main character is a victim of the particularly drastic Greek recession..... The subtext of damage inflicted to the dysfunctional by austerity is loud and unfortunately all too clear.........

As I drove home..... I suddenly wished I had gone to see Helen Mirren in The 100 Foot Journey....sometimes being a fan of foreign movies does mean that you miss the froth and comfort of mainstream pap........hey ho