Happy Easter

New York

How lucky we are, in May we are off to London again, June we go to Spain, August a seaside break in Kent and in  November we have booked our trip to New York.
It's been a few years since we went, my goodness for many years we visited the city annually, so I am so excited to be returning .
I am reminded of a quote from Woody Allen from the movie Manhattan

" He adored New York City. He idolized it all out of proportion........no make that: he romanticized it all out of proportion. Yes, to him, no matter what the season was, this is still a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of Gershwin" 

Another Year, Another Flower Show

With another level head on the Flower Show committee in the shape of Trelawnyd Val, we thrashed out the 2017 schedule in record time.
There was a bit of a debate over schedule layout, some lively talk about who will open the show ( we are toying with a Mary Berry lookalike named tantalisingly as Mary Cherry, but we may be in muddy legal waters here. Meirion & Daphne know someone from Coronation Street so we may have a real celebrity on the cards! If we don't I'll ask the newly elected counsellor for our area.......the local elections are just about to start!

The pub tv was playing quietly in the corner, so I was mindful that my Nemesis Terry was paying too much attention to a video of a Macarena rather than the strenuous conversation over the differences between a pie and a tart!
We all missed Auntie Glad's kitchen!
It's Gladys' 98 th birthday on Tuesday...I learned today that the village Male Voice Choir had planned to call on her to sing her happy birthday. They called in to her old care home to sing carols to her at Christmas which was a delightful tribute I thought. ( Gladys had provided refreshments to the choir for many many years)
Anyhow I am going to propose that we have a new cup " The Auntie Glad Cup" for a baking category in the show. I forgot to mention it tonight, the pub was rather busy and it slipped my mind.....
The food in the restaurant looked fab, I must admit.....
As I sipped my diet coke!
Hey ho

A Kid In A Sweet Shop

If you are ever " down in the dumps" I suggest you call around here. Pick Winnie up in the back seat of your car and drive, quicksticks, to the local pet superstore which is located just five miles away.
You know the sort of store I mean.
Spotless shelves with every feed, medication, plaything and grooming implement known to man , nose to nipple with bunnies in glass fronted enclosures, azure blue fish tanks and green smocked sales people smiling sweetly at you from behind the tills.
This is Winnie heaven.
I first found this odd fact out a year ago when she accompanied me into the store when we were picking another dog up from their in-house groomers.
Wide eyed with wonder she investigated every box, packet and snack carefully eyeing up anything that she thought different or interesting and practically wet herself when she turned a corner to see thirty feet of selected balls, squeaky toys and rubber " things" all neat and tidy in their containers.
Their selection of rubber chickens practically gave the old gal an orgasm on the spot and I had to put her on the lead again to prevent an over excited incident from occurring.
(I didn't have enough dosh on my to pay for any damages) but generally she behaved herself, sniffing the boxes, tins and packets with a smile on her big fat face.

As I recall we ambled on.
Carefully and over some time, the guinea pigs were watched and then the ratty things and gerbils in their boxes were given  the a serious once over, then the vet's receptionist had to be greeted as she yawned behind her desk.
To Winnie the store was a place of wonderment, to be savoured slowly like a good wine.
She didn't want rushing!
And so I let her march around, enjoying her enjoyment of such a simple activity.
Her happiness is incredibly infectious .
Remember that if you are ever down and you are in North Wales
Just call around and borrow a bulldog for an hour or so.

This morning in the garden with Mary

" Get away from her .....YOU BITCH!"

I'm sat in the vets.....it's going to be a long wait as there are two labs, an old spaniel with a bad heart,
and an RTA before us.
So I'm playing on the old ipad.
It stops people chatting to me, I hate small talk at the vets

A few years ago I found myself walking around the corner of Bloomingdales New York and I  bumped right into a tall, chic looking woman wearing a tartan coat.
She said " Pardon" and floated on.
I squeaked like a girl.
The woman was Sigourney Weaver! 

We are going to New York in the Autumn ( instead of Australia) 
I wonder which famous bod I shall spy there.....
We have not been for a few years and I'm already excited

Who is the most famous celebrity that you have met, albeit briefly!??
I'd be interested to know 

A Worrying Turn

Blogs talking about the oldest and one of the youngest Village characters

Go figure

It's been public knowledge for a little while now, but the care home that Auntie Gladys is in has been recently under close scrutiny by  the Welsh Care and Social services inspectorate after it breached 11 regulations in the care of its residents.
I have not blogged about all this as in many ways it was not my place to say anything, but very recently things have changed yet again.
We visitors had no idea that things were not quite they seemed as Gladys seemed very happy with her care, and although the place looked somewhat shopworn there was nothing in the home that unduly concerned me, nothing, that is, that I could see on an hours visit.
I know that Gladys' family closely monitored the situation, and have kindly kept a few of us here up to date with what was happening.
Tomorrow, it has been decided that the remaining residents will be moved by social services to another care home and Gladys will transferred to a more appropriate place on the English border some twenty miles away.

I've got the details of the new home if any villagers need it.
I'll be visiting next week and I may post the home's address here! A plethora of supportive cards may underline to te managers just how well loved Gladys is!( hint hint)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-east-wales-39469229

Boffin Thank You

I promised to pass on Cameron's best wishes to the locals ( and blog readers) who sponsored him on his run last weekend, hope you can read his text

D.I.V.O.R.C.E.

I went to fat club late this evening and left the cottage all cozy and toasty for the Prof on his return from work.
A chicken curry was warming in the oven and the dogs were all sorted
When I finally got home the fucker had eaten his AND my half of the curry!
I was so mad I could have clubbed  Julie Andrews to death with her own guitar

I Need A PA !

The Prof has his own PA.
She is an affable, and exasperated sort who is always hidden away behind a desk covered with paper,
I sort of know her feelings this morning as today I have spent several hours catching up with paperwork and phonecalls and phonecalls and paperwork.
Half an hour of my life that I will never get back was on the phone to an ever perky " Matty" at my pet insurers, after an unexplained delay in Winnie's operation payment.
" How is she now?" He asked in a desperate attempt to court favour after my third thinly lipped complaint of the amounts quoted
"Sexually very promiscuous" I replied shortly
"Oh!" Was all he managed to reply, albeit weakly.
Another thirty five minutes was spent on the phone to a dopey so-and- so at the pension department ( more paperwork outstanding) ten minutes booking dog haircuts, five minutes to the vets, and fifteen soul destroying minutes hanging onto the phone in the fruitless hope of speaking to a sales rep at Sky ! ( I had to give up due to an overdue bowel movement!)
10 minutes booking a badminton court at a local leisure centre ( I didn't understand the card system) 10 minutes on Samaritan business and two minutes ringing Animal helper Pat about the flower Show Meeting and finally after another 20 minutes of on line banking, I spent a joyless time answering a short on line questionnaire about the BBC, a product of a recent complaint about the odious Jeremy Vine, I emailed the radio 2 website last week ( fucking hell get a life John!)

Oh, and It took me a further quarter of an hour writing this shite! 

Bedroom Ettiquette

Walter Pidgeon and Greer Garson had twin beds. So did my parents in the latter years of their marriage. Blogger Rachel has gone one step further, she and P has seperate bedrooms,each, no doubt, enjoying the starfish abilities of cool sheets and a double bed.
Woody Allen and Mia Farrow went a step further, they lived in seperate houses...but that's another story!
In our home, I sleep on the left and always have done. The Prof sleeps on the right with our only bedside table which is usually covered with books and ipads and phone.
The dogs take pot luck.
Until recently George has aways slept at the foot of the duvet, politely away from feet and movement.  Now he enjoys the armchair in the living room. Mary sleeps in her crate in the kitchen and Winnie enjoys the hospitality of the sofa. Winnie understands only too well that bed sharing with the Prof is a total no-no when he is in situ but after he has left for work she will gallop gleefully up the stairs and hurl herslf with gay abandon onto the duvet like a fat lady at the circus.
Willian is the only dog with any manners, for he will come up to bed after his first dawn wee stop and will place his head on the pillow next to mine.
If cold , he actually gets under the bedclothes like an old man.

I'd like a bigger bed. I've always thought that American sized hotel beds are a delight because you can get totally lost in them. You could, if you wanted share one with a bull ox and still have room for Shelley Winters......but that's another story.

When I was a boy we had nylon sheets that always caught on your toenails. We also had bunk beds, candlewick bed spreads and hot water bottles.
Oh and those warming stripy flannel sheets in winter!

Mrs Miniver

I'm better slightly out of focus!

I'm more like Mrs Miniver than not today.
The weather is warm and the Sparrow Flock is causing a riot on the stone wall of the cottage.
The windows need to be flung wide open as the sky beyond the green hills is a Danial Craig blue.
A Spitfire drones overhead.
I'm not kidding a Spitfire IS flying overhead, it is a privately owned one from across the valley and you can always tell it's earthy tones as it grumbles past.
I'm suddenly transported to Kent in 1942. ( well the Hollywood version of Kent that is) but unfortunately Bwthyn-y-Llan is not Starlings, I haven't got a tittering housemaid called Gladys and I don't have to worry about telling my husband I 've just bought a new hat!

The Prof is out having a 1:1 with his 24 year old fitness coach.
It's something Walter Pidgeon would not have done. He just smoked a pipe and rattled his big pants!

I have been moving aquilegia from the back garden into the front. I am clearing the back garden for a make over and I want to save as many as the cottage plants as I can. Winnie is sunbathing on the warm soil.
She looks as though someone has hit her with a stick.
Greer Garson would never have owned a bulldog, she was a black labrador kinda gal!
I open the windows wide and hear the Spitfire again. I wonder for a moment if there is a German paratrooper in the larder?

I feel like Mrs Miniver today, popular but useless! 

Calling All Committee Members

It's that time again...the first Flower Show Meeting of the Year
So to Sailor John, Animal Helper Pat, Trendy Carol, Meirion & Daphne ( from the posh houses)
Chucklers Terry & Ann, Heulwen & Derek, Matriarch Irene and Trelawnyd Val
The  meeting will be held in the back of The Crown 7 pm on Thursday.
Items to be discussed include the format of this year's Schedule, refreshments and the future of Auntie Glad's stall!

Coming Out

My Uncle Jim and Dena

A woman I know told me that her daughter, who is 16 , recently noted at a family lunch that she was, in fact, asexual.
Another relative, a man in his fifties apparently chirped up with the question " A sexual what?"  And had to be patiently educated by his niece, who calmly explained that she had no sexual attraction to men or women .
I asked what was the family reaction to such news and my friend proudly shared that it was in fact a positive one, as the family apparently accepted the news with some interest coupled with slight indifference.
Perhaps that is a sign of the times....who knows, I am not privy to my friend's family dynamics.

When I was a child my uncle Jim divorced his wife and went to live with a woman from South Yorkshire ! The woman was twenty five years (?) his junior and hailed from a family that was colourfully working class and I remember so vividly just how shamed my grandparents felt at the news as they talked in hushed tones and cried together in the privacy of their bedroom.

I still love my grandparents so very much and it's nearly four decades after they died, but I know that they could not have coped with me being gay, not in the early 1980s. They thought and were shamed by things that shamed and upset people from another era........we don't live in that world anymore .

Having said this, my grandparents eventually came around to my Uncle's new life, much younger wife and bonny baby grandson. They did this because my new aunt was and is a decent woman with a warm personality. My cousin was a delightful little boy and my Uncle was loved so very much.
Loving him, for them, finally out weighed any prejudice they felt.

I would have liked to have come out to my grandparents. I would have liked to have come out to my
mother and father  too, but it was never to be and it was never the right time........ c'est la vie as they say in Frenchland.......

When I told Auntie Gladys that The Prof was my partner ( before we all met up for one of my first Flower Show Meetings)  I was acutely aware that in some small way I was "re-living" a moment I
wanted so much to have had with the matriarchs of my old family all now deceased .
It wasn't rocket science....in homespun psychology terms!
I said the words that I really didn't have to say and waited with winced eyes for the reaction.
Gladys was 86 back then.
"Will he be coming to the meeting too?  " She asked me, her eyes were bright and interested
" I don't think it's his cup of tea" I told her
" Right O  " she said busying herself with a tea towel   " " I'll wrap up some scones for him to have later" 


And she left him scones, tied in a bag to our front door for the next ten years! 

Run On!

There is a downside to writing blogs. My friend Nu reminded me of this fact recently when she admitted that our news sharing was somewhat one sided.
I tell you this in way of a bit of colour!
I have been watching the excellent BBC2 documentary series American Justice recently and the music which features over its opening credits has been causing me a headache in so much as I love it but couldn't find it's title or who in fact performed it.
I have been pondering this problem for a day or so, but it was thanks to Iris , my visitor of this afternoon that popped in with her market research laptop to ask me a hundred questions on sky tv and my holiday choices.
In a moment of small talk I mentioned that I loved this music but couldn't find out what it was and she introduced me to Shazam an ipad app that would recognise the music and tell me what it was!
How wonderful is that?
Anyhow enjoy the music! And if you get the chance watch the documentary.....it makes for  sobering viewing

Spring Flowers in the kitchen

Trelawnyd Boffin Sponsor

As promised I am bigging up the teenage Boffin Cameron's sponsorship page.
He's doing the Denbigh 10k to support his Cricket Club.
I'm expecting great things from his Flower Show Entries in return!
See link
http://www.leetchi.com/c/cameron-ackroyd

" Oh William!"

Old dogs have accidents .

Old people do too. 

It's the way of the world as we all get older

I once skidded on a puddle of urine as I was rushing around a corner of a hospital ward and fell hard on the floor ripping  the backside out of my pants and I remember often finding malteezer sized balls of poo lurking like land mines around clinical areas after being warmed and shaped down pyjama trouser legs and around netty knicker incontinent pads.

Nurses on elderly wards always keep one eye fixed on the floor as they go about their business.

This morning the Prof sang out that William had "flooded "  another corner of the living room after being let in by Albert. and  with a sigh I grabbed the biological cleaner and kitchen roll.

5.30 am is not a time to be cleaning up pee.

This afternoon I caught him just about to wee in the same, newly laundered spot and after I yelled his name, he sort of "came to" and realised his mistake, hanging his head in the shame of being shouted at yet again

Yells of " oh William " seem to echo about the cottage at the moment.

I put down the bucket of ashes I was collecting from the fireplace  and scooped him up into my arms and we sat on the armchair together for a long long sweet moment.

Old dogs are just like old people. 

They don't mean accidents to happen

Fat Club!

There were more people queueing up for fat club than I expected yesterday morning.
As usual there was posters advertising just how effective the programme adorning the hall and on a table there was boxes and packets of diet cookies, cakes and anaemic looking pasta all ready to be bought.
I know the routine, I've been there before.
Most of the " clients" were women and most disappeared off to the toilets before joining the weigh in line in order to squeeze that last tiny bit of urine out of themselves before they jumped upon the scales. There was only one bloke in line and like me , he was the newbee.
He flashed me a sympathetic look.
The woman behind me had a handful of dogeared paperwork and told me that she had been coming to the meetings " for years" 
" They are my social life" she admitted " they gets me out of the house"
I asked her how well she was doing with her weight loss and she laughed
" I haven't lost anything since Christmas"  she confided "But I am on diuretics now so things may start moving" 
I nodded
" How long have you been big?" She asked me after a pause
I thought I'd be honest
" I was born big" I told her.

The Walking Dead Finale ( Spoilers! )

He never saw her coming ! 

The producers still had  a few tricks up their sleeves as The Walking Dead draw to a bloody climax tonight.
With the ambiguities very clear of who are the goodguys and who are the bad guys , " Team Family"  is effectively double crossed by the ill conceived junk yard group and find themselves again at the mercy of Negan and his band cut throats.
Nothing New there, especially as the audience could see Sasha's self sacrifice coming a mile away, but the  real satisfaction of this last episode comes from the sight of Carol leading the Kingdom's small band  of knights alongside Maggie and a rag tag band of brothers from Hilltop. Who turn up at the eleventh hour to save the day.
In actual fact, it is the remarkable CGI of Shiva, who steals the show, as she interrupts Carl's murder with a murderous attack of her own, dispatching Negan's men with  a crowd cheering munch!
In the end no more of the now united team family are killed, and Negan is driven off alongside Dwight who is clearly Rick's new cuckoo -in-the-nest .
Maggie's final voice over, as the leaders of the communities unite,  is strangely rather moving  and underlines the equalities of the sexes and just how far many of the characters have now come.
" People that once would pass each other in the street" are now family. she muses in her southern drawl.
I do hope baby Hershel survives in season 8!

The Sun On My Face

I've always made it my policy that if I see good clinical practice I let the person involved know what I think.
Last night I watched a young doctor deal with several complicated scenarios. These included a cardiac arrest, the admission of a desperately ill young man and several other knotty medical issues.
She competed her tasks with a cool and precise professionalism and in a brief lull in the proceedings I told her exactly what I thought of her.
I think she was surprised but pleased with the feedback.
It was a hard shift all told which she summed up beautifully to the tired group of nurses just before dawn
" I will be so grateful to feel the sun on my face in the morning" she said with feeling

Sunday

I was going to say it's a lazy day today, but already I have walked Mary in a power walk, ambled with the others, cleaned the cottage, prepared a roast lunch and cleared the ash from the woodburner.
It's fat club weigh in tomorrow and because we went out for a nice meal with friends last night where I had a baked Alaska to  myself, I need to keep activity levels up.
A farm lorry broke down on the school crossing this morning which caused a temporary gridlock in the village, a traffic jam only beaten by the moment Winnie decided to open her bowels on the zebra crossing at the end of school one summer's afternoon.
I stopped to say hello to Mrs Trellis who was on the way to church. She told me she was off to Spain on her holidays.t
Some new people were moving into ( or moving out of) one of the rented cottages on the main road, and I had to walk into the road with the dogs in order to pass their white van.
Short term lets do nothing for the village community. People come, they sleep, keep to themselves then go. It's a shame.
I spied Sandra C in her wellies as she ambled to her allotments behind Bonc terrace and Terry M who was out walking his dogs gave me the thumbs up when I called to him that the next Flower Show Meeting was due next week. Trelawnyd Val, who, comments here from time to time has agreed to join our committee though made it very clear that she doesn't DO scones! 
She will be a very welcome addition to our team of twelve.
Cameron the teenage boffin, is no longer the short geeky adolescent from last year, sporting longish studentish hair like Carl's  from The Walking Dead I caught him out jogging, a practise run for a half marathon he's doing to raise funds for his School's cricket pavilion.
I promised we would sponsor him , I think he's off to University this year!

The weather is warm and clear today, and all I can hear through the open cottage window is the crowing of the bachelor cockerels, the cheep cheep cheep of the sparrow flock on the stone wall and the dulcet tones of the Prof as he yells lustily at Winnie for accidently stepping on the tulips