A Shadow

It's been a week since Meg left us and I have tried to be busy. I have smiled and nodded at the kind words of the villagers when they have noticed I am now down to three dogs, and I have agreed with the platitudes that putting her down was "the right thing to do" 

I have gone to work, laughed and joked with family and friends, blogged, gardened, completed jobs and gone up a gear with the Flower Show prep but yesterday evening, with the Prof away, and with the other animals all in their own corners, chairs and hearth rugs, I suddenly felt the physical " pang" of loss when I realised that Meg wasn't lying in her normal position in the crook of my arm.

And boy did it sting.

Dogs often associate themselves with one owner and Meg was my shadow for a decade. At night she would always ensure that she slept between the Prof and I, and always made sure that she faced me with her head on my chest or her paws around my arm. During the day she was always just a step away from any of my activities. a worried look upon her face and she was only truly relaxed when she was physically touching me, a fact when I look back on it, that had its own huge responsibilities and demands.

I now miss that touch. 

The above photo is a genuine one. It wasnt staged or planned, it just happened quite naturally and it perfectly illustrates Meg's constant need to be close. She and I were fast asleep after a busy night shift.

Yeap, ten years is a long time to have a shadow.

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To finish, here are a few more entries to the Novelty Veg competition 

Enjoy....

" whoopping My Arse!"

Terry in happier days...with his winning quiche a few years back!

Apparently Terry Malthoff  is going to " whop My arse in the Flower Show this year"  or so the village gossip goes.
His stinging defeat against me in two of last year's categories has provoked a healthy need for him to win this year and we are both entering the Novelty Vegetable , quiche Boiled fruit Cake and loaf of bread classes . Our jousting was born a few years back when I accused of him using furniture polish on his award winning courgettes ( the accusation stung but I was wasn't the only one who was convinced that they could smell " Mr Sheen" over the vegetable exhibit table!)
I saw Terry this morning as he was off to put up our official Flower Show signs. He squinted at me with his best Clint Eastwood eyes.........
" Bring it on" I muttered at him under my breath.

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I do need some more novelty veg pictures please

They can be as simple as this entry

A potato clanger!

All entries to jgsheffield@hotmail.com

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and finally speaking of arses

Winnie's " Underpants of shame " have been resurrected as she finishes her season

Soft furnishings have to be protected

Have a good Sunday

Hey ho

Gobbling Binmen & A Walking Dead Avacado!

We had a lie in this morning, only waking up at the noise of the bin men " gobbling " through the field gate at an over excited Bingley.
What is it when a group of men get together ? They turn into overgrown schoolboys.

The Village Conservation Group were all out in force this morning , planting out the communal flower beds and tubs and containers outside the School and Church and will admit that The Trelawnyd Green spaces look quite professionally tended to.
I snapped a quick photo of Animal Helper Pat as she worked on the Church Flower Bed

 The only other bit of gossip I have today is that I am not the only " Walking Dead" fan in the village. The old guy with the bad tempered shih Tzu from the pensioner bungalows pointed at me rather excitedly as I passed him today. At first I thought I'd either left a long roll of toilet paper hanging out from the back of my pants but as he was pointing to my torso, I reevaluated my guess to the fact that he had noticed that my weight loss at the moment is rapidly approaching a stone and a half!
As it turned out, however, he was in fact pointing to the third best Walking Dead T shirt I was wearing ( the one with Daryl Dixon muttering " sorry Brother" before he shot Dale in the head) Apparently he is a big fan and never misses an episode.
I told him he needed a zombie T shirt in order to prove that he was indeed a mega fan.....
He said he would see if he could find one when he was next in the market!

Off to bed...working later

And to finish

The latest in the novelty veg entries

A walking dead avocado!!!!!!!!

Keep em coming

jgsheffield@hotmail.com

A Royal Night Out

Ok two old queens from Trelawnyd going to the cinema may be termed by some as A ROYAL NIGHT OUT , but I am, in fact referring to the Julian Jarrord comedy drama film, which gives a fictional  slant on the VE night out in central London by the present Queen and Princess Margaret.
Apparently the Earnest Lillibet ( Sarah Gadon) and the doe eyed innocent Margaret ( Bel Powley) team up with an RAF deserter, a group of Soho tarts and a royalist gangster with a heart of gold, as they negotiate the drunken crowds in Trafalgar square ....yeah right!
The two leads are perfectly fine with Gadon making a prim but spunky Quuen in waiting and Powley playing Margaret for laughs........but the film doesn't quite work as a piece of storytelling as the movie feels just a series of filmed set pieces rather than a smooth cohesive narrative....with some depth
5/10

Elizabeth and Margaret live it up

The new cinema needs to market itself a little better too
There were only 8 of us in the audience!
Hey ho

Feedback

Sometimes it's nice to receive positive feedback.
Especially if that feedback is given freely  and out of the blue.
And, in my case, at a time that my ebb is at a particularly low point.
After publicising The Trelawnyd Flower Show on facebook, I've had an opportunity to check on old colleagues from my old psychiatric and spinal injury days. Some, I have had a chance to touch base with again which has been lovely, but most that have acknowledged  me as " friends" have  just clicked a button stating that in one moment in time our paths crossed.,..and thats fine.
A hundred or so old faces have given me a "blast from the past"
Last night, a former colleague left me a message out of the blue. She wasn't a friend....I was her boss at the time, and after a decade of separation, I had to think hard to remember her from work.
She told me that I had been a good manager and a good boss and her words of feedback came as an unexpected tonic in this week of heaviness.
Four other old colleagues left their own thoughts afterwards, all nurses that didn't possess the loyal complication of friendship, and it was lovely to be reminded that in a former city life I was once good at something a little more.
I have just re read this blog today and I want to say that I am not touting for more feedback of what a superb specimen of manhood I am..so please no comments saying the same ........
But if you work with someone, and you think that they do a good job........whether they be a junior apprentice or a chief executive
Tell em eh?

• 

  Jo Tinker I have to agree with the ^^^ comments John, I think I had respect back then, firm but fair & always good for a laugh, we always knew where we stood with you xx

  Like · Reply · 3 · 10 hrs

  
  

Novelty Vegetable Entry

I adore this Monster Vegetable entry

In the on line veg Flower Show Competition

Cracking! 

Keep em coming please!

Baby Sitting

This Baby Sitting lark is pretty easy when you leave the baby sitting to 

A fat bitch and a dapper Welsh Terrier

Good News

Last year our local community cinema closed because of bad management and lack of funding.The local council , in this time of austerity felt that it was throwing good money after bad and a certain apathy from the general public saw the Prestatyn Cinema doors shut after only a few years of trading.
Tomorrow the cinema re opens under new management and I have already booked  tickets for the Prof and I and my sister and her husband to see

I have a feeling that the film is going to be shite... But I don't care. The important thing here is to support the cinema's rebirth .
Its a case of use it of lose it.....so locals...please get your arses into gear and SUPPORT THE SCALA!

My friend Bob from the village has his ashes buried in a plot in the graveyard this morning, which I will be attending. He was an old farmer , so I think his family will take some consolation that from " his position" he will be surrounded by horses at the livery stable and the animals on my field.....

This afternoon I am on the school run and babysitting duties with affable despot Jason's girls.....I will get them to prepare  The Prof's evening dinner which is a turkey lasagne...... All kids like to make a mess I have been told..

Jason told me to give them a load of jobs to do...... I'll get Winnie's fanny flannels ready!