I can Sure Move For A Fat Lad

George ambling

Like I said yesterday, George was attacked by a staffie.
He wasn't injured, but the reason for this was luck more by good judgement.
We were lucky.
I had taken the dogs to the Dyserth Walkway which is a country walk on the former track of a hillside railway line. The walkway is popular with walkers, bikers and dog owners and can be rather busy so the independent Welsh Terriers and George are always placed on a lead.
Winnie, who is too friendly (and too big to attack) ambles along behind at her own pace.
It was dusk and as we returned to the car park, I let off George to sniff at the grass verge whilst I placed the other dogs in the car and had just closed the car door on them when I heard a man's harsh shout of "Come here!"
George was perhaps thirty feet away happily sniffing at a clump of grass and perhaps a hundred yards beyond him, down the walkway came the staffie at full pelt.
It meant business.
Everything happened very fast, as behind the staffie two scruffy young men and a teenage girl came running and I jumped up like Fatima Whitbread, running from the opposite direction. The Staffie pounced on George a couple of seconds before I got there and the two had already started to fight.
I kicked the Staffie as hard as I could and surprisingly my aim was dead right and the dog bounced off snarling and as I picked George up it spun back to have another go.
I stamped on it again.

Like I said we were lucky.
Lucky that the staffie was a young and underweight specimen,
Lucky that I can move with the speed of a jungle cat when I need to,
Lucky that my boot connected
and lucky that one of the scruffy owners grabbed him and carried him away after the fact
If all of the dogs had been there Blind William or the slight Mary may have been attacked on their leads.
I found it strange that neither man complained that I had kicked their dog and even though the girl mumbled a "sorry mate" I let rip with a mouthful of expletives  a docker would be proud of.
I was still swearing as the group shambled away onto the main road.
"You Were lucky" I bellowed like Sylvester Stallone playing Rocky Balboa "If the bulldog was out she would have fucking killed it!"
Charming!

George Attacked

I've just been messaging my sister ( who is a dog owner and lover) about George being attacked by a staffie earlier today! Now don't worry he's fine ( thanks to my hard brown shoes which kicked the shit out of the attacking dog let loose by three trailer trash characters.)
But it was a rather upsetting experience
I'll tell you the story tomorrow , suffice to say as a treat I bought the old guy half a cooked chicken from Sainsbury's for his tea
I hate, HATE, HATE bad dog owners!

Three Billboards ( Spoilers)

I first became a fan of Frances McDormand after I saw her play wily old police officer Marge Gundersun in the Cohen Brothers' black comedy Fargo back in the mid nineties. In that movie and in most thereafter she has dominated the screen with a quiet authority so it won't surprise anyone that  she brings that raw acting power to her performance of a grieving mother in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri. 
She is simply wonderful.
Like Fargo, Billboards is a dark and at times violent black comedy that walks the fine line from potentially being rather a bleak movie to being a surprising uplifting and hopeful one. I say surprising  because it is essentially the study how the rape and murder of a teenage girl affects a small family and most importantly her feisty battling mother who cannot cope with the fact that her daughter's killers have escaped detection by the local small town police department.
McDormand plays Mildred, the boiler suited, bandana wearing mother who takes it on herself to rent three local billboards in order to highlight what she thinks is the lack of action of the local Sheriff Willoughby (Woody Harrelson). 
This drastic action has a knock on effect within the Small Town of Ebbing, as with tensions running high because of the open secret that the much loved Willoughby is in fact dying, Mildred has to fight the unstable and stupid deputy Dixon ( the excellent Sam Rockwell) an un supportive ex husband and the sympathetic yet powerless Willoughby in her crusade to find the truth.

The film plays fast and loose with reality at times, in a very similar way that old fashioned Westerns do to modern eyes and I think this is a conscious decision by Brit director/ writer Martin McDonough  who obviously has something to say about blue collar America where institutionalised racism, homophobia and small thinking can often rule the day.
Wisely McDonough chooses the main thrust of the story to be that of grief and redemption rather than focus on a social commentary and this is where McDormand comes into her own .
Reminding me of that wartime poster of the all-American factory worker , she takes on all comers with a potty mouth and the fierceness of a cornered lioness . Rarely smiling but possessing a wry humour McDormand's character wavers between being sympathetic one minute and truly monstrous the next and it is this ambiguity that makes the film so interesting.
9/10

Writing A Film Review

The Prof is in Ireland today
I went to the cinema to see Three Billboards Outside Ebbing , Missouri as a treat
It was a cracking movie
I'll post the review tomorrow as I'm having a little difficulty dealing with my new laptop
However I shall leave you with a photo of me and my co-pilot reviewing my review with the computer on my knee..
She likes to see what I see

Baked Beans on A Friday

when I was little...say around ten years old Friday afternoons were happy times.
It was when my sister and I went to my grandparents' house after school. The house was full.
With people talking , eating homemade cake and drinking tea as we, my mother and her friend and my elder sister and her children crowded in to a bungalow the size of a large chicken coop.
Eventually only my twin sister and sister were left and tea was served on a coffee table in front of the tv. Baked beans on cheap white bread toast and tinned fruit cocktail and evaporated milk.
Bloody lovely.
It was a happy house, and we children, who were used to a rather less favourable environment at home , sucked up the pleasure and warmth in it all, like hens do in an early evening sun.

On tv every Friday was an American soap opera...I was reminded of it this morning after I had read of the death of Dorothy Malone ...She of the shiny blonde hair and breathless voice

Funny What You Remember

The Pebble That Does What it's told !

It's sleeting today. Cold wet sleet in biting wind.

I cleaned the church early and slipped down the steps of the boiler house putting the Christmas tree away. 

The Tree cushioned my fall so no real harm done.

I made sure I sprayed every radiator in the church with polish before I left so as they switched on the smell of clean shiny wood filled the space.

I learnt that trick from a friend of mine who was a cleaning lady.

Mind you she got caught by one of her clients on his CCTV one day after spraying fabreeze around his flat and doing little else!

I've walked the dogs, fed the Prof his breakfast in bed, lit the fire, sorted the field animals and cleaned the Church.
All before 9 am

Now it's coffee time with some music.

The Prof's brother and sister law bought us a strange little object at Christmas.

It looked like a large pebble connected to an electric plug.
It's a" google plus" I was informed " you ask it things"

Well initially the google plus was a real let down as it got all flustered with some of my questioning
The " Hey Google will Carol Snog Daryl in season 8 of The Walking Dead?" question fell on deaf ears and it took an age before the bloody thing found me a recipe for low fat macaroni cheese  but after a bit of practice now it's sort of come into its own as just now, after I sit down with my bucket of coffee I call over ( still somewhat self consciously I must say)
" Hey Google play A selection of movie soundtracks by John Williams!" 
And after a polite acknowledgement by a posh sounding lady the kitchen is suddenly filled with stirring music!
What strange magic!
Apparently you can get different voices to answer your hey google questions?
I wonder if they do Russell Crowe?
Ohhh errrr

Hey

Ok....it's a lazy post but a lovely song

Result

Life In The Fast Lane

My husband is working late.
He let me know so at least I didn't feel as though I wanted to put his dinner in the dogs.
I had a bath then took the dogs out for their final walk before settling down next to the fire

On the main road, by the village green one passing car slowed down and several young women shrieked at me from inside, one was drinking Prosecco
One other , I recognised as a nurse from Intensive care. She and her friends were dolled up and on the way to the Chester bars
And she cackled with the others
" ooooohhhh Jonney Gray in his pyjamas ! "
It was only 8pm!

My New Co-pilot

I'm not known for my sartorial elegance .
Nowadays my somewhat eclectic attire is complemented by a large pair of Princess Leia headphones through which I listen to London's talk radio station when Mary and I take our daily power walk.
I know I look a knob, but I don't care.
They also keep my ears warm in cold weather.

This morning as Mary and I stopped at the top field above the village to take in the view,
farmer Basil stopped his van briefly on his way to feed his ewes
We chatted for a short time and Mary climbed into my lap
" That little bitch loves you!" He remarked.

For Lee

Mary licked Winnie's earwax for most of the late afternoon

The Sins Of Youth

Mr Bradly is on the far right

I was thinking today that this internet thingamajig should come with a health warning.
I am sure the MP Ben Bradly is thinking the same this morning as his blog comments, written when he was 21 years old came back to bite him in the arse.
Mr Bradly was promoted in Theresa May's recent minister "shuffle" and at 28 he has taken on the mantle of "Conservative Vice Chair for Youth". Unfortunately a comment about the sterilization of men on welfare, a nasty and ill advised comment no doubt thrown into a rant about the sponging poor, has been unearthed from blogland and it now threatens to cost him a job that he may well be very suited to.
The internet is unforgiving when it comes to quotes. If it is there in black and white it's there...plain and simple, even if it was written when God was a boy.
I have no thoughts on Ben Bradly one way or another. He may well still hold his youthful views for all I know but I would like to think that he does not.
My thinking, views and prejudices are very different now than they were when I was 21 that's for sure. My saving grace is that my gauche thoughts on the universe were never published on line for the universe to reread forever.
Inspector Javert never forgave Jean Valjean for stealing a loaf of bread despite all the good deeds the poor man did later in his life. Javert was like our modern media.....he never let anything go.

*****************************************************************************

In a rather different vein, the subject of disappointment has been somewhat on my mind. It was raised by an old friend who is clearly disappointed just how their life  has panned out over the years. and was shared not in a self pitying kind of way but in a matter of fact that's how it is kind of way.
I was asked if I had ever been disappointed with my lot and I changed the subject. Not to disguise that fact that I had in any way been disappointed by life's fickle ways but it was to hide the fact that I hadn't .
I didn't want to sound smug.
On the morning dog walk I got to thinking of just when I was last disappointed ?
ok I was miffed that the Mathew Bourne ballet was cancelled on my last visit to London ...oh and I remember feeling hurt and disappointed when a friend I once held very dear gave me a cheap bunch of petrol station flowers for a birthday but that was over a decade ago, and I was being Queeny.
One thought did come to mind when I put some more effort into the question
and it was a moment in New York.
I wanted to somehow reinact this wonderful scene at Grand Central Station

little did I realise that the New Skyscrapers that surround 42nd street now block out all of the light.

I am easily pleased

Lonely Tsar

I heard today we have a new minister for loneliness
Tracey Crouch has been given the job.....strange that seeing that she voted numerous times against increasing benefits for the long term chronically unwell and the unemployed.
But I won't be disingenuous just yet. Just having a loneliness advocate is a positive move I am sure.

I've posted this before but it is worth repeating here, that a few years ago I found myself washing an elderly lady on intensive care. She had survived a bout of sepsis and after I had successfully extubated her from the ventilator that had kept her alive for a week or so , I removed many of the invasive lines from her body and needed to "freshen her up" before allowing her to sleep.
I remember her watching me through her oxygen mask as I dabbed and dried here and there, and after I had finished combing her hair and wrapping her snugly into a blanket she croaked a brief thank you.
" That's the first time anyone has touched me in over nine years" she told me.
The phrase hit home as if I had been struck with a baseball bat

Nine years!

Waiting

I can't compete with yesterday's post.so I won't try

I am standing at the kitchen sink, looking out for the next workman to arrive.
My days recently have been filled with such waits.
This time its a roofer and he lives in the village, so I know he will turn up
I don't mind these moments as the wait facilitates the completion of those jobs that are often left.
This morning I have cleaned the oven and I am just about to make carrot and tarragon soup

Having a new kitchen means that home waits are  now a pleasure .

 The roofer arrived on time! I have time to make red pepper and lentil soup too

The Power Of Meatballs

enjoy......

Would You Believe It?

Going Gently Has been going for eleven years! ELEVEN BLOODY YEARS!
Can You bloody well believe it....?

So far, boosted no doubt by internet malfunctions It has had 6 million hits! SIX MILLION
How wonderfully nerdish is that?
Ok, it's brittle and shallow and indulgent,
And a view of a small life in an even smaller world
But it IS a generally honest view of how I see my life......it really is
And that's a fact that I am rather proud of !

I Never Knew Liquorice Was A Root Until today

I feel ready to learn something new.
A new skill, a new set of facts, a new way of doing things.......I'm not bothered what
It's just finding the right thing.
I fancy Spanish or perhaps painting.....or a degree in something stimulating.
My fingers are too chubby for me to learn the piano but if weave can learn the Ukulele perhaps I could?
Or what about a cooking course? Naming Garden flowers? Or Pilates ?
I could learn pottery, wood skills or plumbing?
( I'm colourblind so anything electrical is a no no)
Or Something in a English literature perhaps...

The world's my lobster

So Long

Today another blogger bit  the dust.
Unlike hippo- on the lawn , who just disappeared mysteriously with a festering thigh wound, debts and half the African mafia after him, Rachel popped away from blogland with a short whimper of  " I've had enough" which is a shame.
It is sad, for we will miss her idiosyncratic style, her paintings, her chatty blogs about nothing in particular and her humour.
Bloggers come and go. Some get tired . Some die, and some.......some  move on with their lives....

Choking On A Swedish Meatball et al

Winnie nearly choked to death on a Swedish meatball last night.
Such was the excitement of the moment, that she had no idea of what was happening and continued to get into position alongside the other dogs in order to receive the next morsel.
Luckily she has a mouth the size of an average gin trap , so I coolly inserted my whole hand into her mouth and plucked the meatball from her oesophagus before her lips went blue.
Not fazed she gulped it down almost immediately.
A near death experience should not prevent a girl finishing her meatball!

I tell you this, only as a bit of a comic aside
I'm in the kitchen pottering as a roast dinner cooks.
The Prof is reviewing a PhD in his office.

Some people have a lovely way of speaking don't you think?
I experienced this phenomenon this morning when I spied Mr A working away in his garden.
Mr A is a farmer and had lost his mother recently and although I had sent my condolences I had not physically seen him to talk to.
This morning we talked.
I asked him how he was feeling, and after a pause, and in that slight sing-song Welsh way of speaking only the North Walian's do, he said slowly
" The heavy veil of sadness has lifted from me  just a little" 
Richard Burton couldn't have said it any better

Darkest Hour

I expected to love Darkest Hour, I really did.
But I only liked it, which was a pity.
I thought I knew the preamble to Winston Churchill's " We'll fight them on the beaches" speech,
But as it turns out I knew nothing of the old buffer's prickly relationship with King George VI , and the manoeuvring  of his cabinet members Viscount Halifax and Neville Chamberlain as they tried to dispose him.
The play with these four key characters made for riveting viewing with the peace loving Halifax ( a wonderful  Stephen Dillane) being more than a match for the flawed but battling old minister!
Ronald Pickup also lends some depth and pathos to his all too brief role as the dying Chamberlain
However ,the introduction of Lily James as Churchill's sweet new secretary and Kristen Scott Thomas as Clemmie, the long suffering and almost impossibly loyal Wife seem surplus to requirements for me as they didn't really add anything to the drama which was a shame as I like both actresses.

I almost hated the implausible sequence where Churchill met " real Londoners" in his secret jaunt on the underground. It smacked of cheap sentiment even though Gary Oldman carried the scene with great skill and a lovely twinkle in the eye, which , for me captured the real Churchill ( I imagine) quite perfectly. His performance is outstanding throughout.
Of course , it is perfect that the movie ends on the bravura " beaches" speech and I must admit I did shed a brief tear as the old Prime Minister marches out of the House of Commons amid the roars of approval by all members of the house
7/10

Era's End

I pulled the previous post because of some particularly nasty troll work.

That's enough to be said on the subject.

This morning I stopped in high street to have a good theatrical cough. 

I already told affable Despot Jason that I had consumption ( a fact he found highly amusing) so was in the middle of a good hack when I suddenly spied a " sold" sign on Auntie Glad's old house. 

I had a good sigh.

Residential home care costs are high, so it was enevitable that Plas yn Dre eventually sold but the finality of the " sold" notification outside the former grammar school built in the 1600s made me stop for a moment.

Mrs Trellis tottered past, her bobble hat perched far too high on her head. 

" The new owners will have to fill some very big shoes" she trilled

" Indeed they will" I agreed.