Shopping, shops and more shops

Doing the weekly food shop at my local Sainsbury's on Thursday morning was quite an eye opener. If the media is to be believed, we are all busy counting our pennies, tightening our belts and generally hunkering down for a long, hard recession. Maybe some of Sainsbury's customers know something the rest of us don't but I was amazed at the sight of all the extra deep trolleys piled high with food and drink everywhere I looked. At the checkout next to mine a 'mature' couple had two trolleys, one full of food and the other full of bottles and cans and they were not the only ones to be struggling with two overloaded trolleys. I began to wonder if I had done a Rip van Winkle and woken up the week before Christmas.
Mind you, anyone who has money to spend or suffers from shopaholic tendencies is now spoiled for choice in the fair town of Wrexham. Not content with a bustling town centre and various other small retail parks on the outskirts, we are now blessed with Eagles Meadow. I haven't ventured in there yet although it opened last week but I am told that by no means all of the units have been let. Apart from the fact that we have suffered two years of traffic diversions, road works and widescale disruption for this white elephant to be built, many of the shops which are opening up there are closing their branches in the town centre, which leaves us with the strong possibility of that area becoming a ghost town with the attendant problems that boarded up shop fronts generally attract.
However, it was interesting to note this morning that the queues of traffic were not making their way towards Eagles Meadow. Maybe they were still all stocking up at Sainsbury's.

Lest we forget

This year I was at home this morning to watch the BBC's coverage of the Armistice Day ceremony at the Cenotaph in London and found it incredibly moving, particularly the laying of wreaths by the three centenarians, Henry Allingham, Harry Patch and Bill Stone, all sadly, wheelchair bound now but still retaining a strong presence and dignity. I should imagine that the occasion was a challenge for all three and it was obvious that memories of former friends, companions and experiences were as if from yesterday.
As I watched, I wondered if the dispicable thieves who stole the four bronze plaques from Mountain Ash in the Cynon Valley and all the other thieves and vandals who have despoiled war memorials throughout the country were watching.
Sadly, I'm sure they were not.

Sixty? It's the new forty.

Over the last couple of days, I have been looking at some of the comments, posts etc on the internet about John Sargeant and his situation on 'Strictly'. From what I've read, he still has a lot of support out there but what REALLY annoyed me was a comment on one site which referred to him as 'an old man'. He's 64, for heaven's sake!! Don't they know that 60 is the new 40? In case I haven't got my message across - 60 is NOT OLD!
Oh, and Arlene Phillips, one of the judges who has been less than polite towards him, is the same age and apparently, doesn't dance at all any more.
By the way, anyone who thinks I have a personal axe to grind here on this age issue is definitely barking up completely the wrong tree - completely.

Yesss!!

Yes!!! He's back to fight another week! You just can't keep a good man down...

Vote for John Sergeant!

Throughout the ancestral pile chez Jennyta cries can be heard as an 'animated discussion' gets underway over the merits (or otherwise) of one of the contestants of tonight's edition of Strictly . Yes, it's good old John Sergeant, the contestant I'm rooting for. Keith, incomprehensibly, doesn't really rate him; in fact, he thinks he should have been out of the competition long ago. I however, appreciate his gentle, self deprecating wit and think he's an all-round good egg. OK, so his terpsichorean ability would not set the world on fire but you have to admit, he has put in a lot of effort, sufficient to lose two stone in weight in fact, and the clip of him dragging his poor partner across the dance floor a few weeks ago is sufficient to set me giggling any time it comes to mind. Check it out yourself
While dancing ability is undoubtedly important, 'Strictly' is a family entertainment show, which means that personality has to be a vital ingredient and John certainly has that.

I would really like to see a burgeoning 'John Sergeant' fan club with a rapidly expanding sideline in stickers, banners, flags with captions along the line of 'Vote for John Sergeant - Strictly's next winner!' I want to see houses festooned with banners across their front windows, cars with stickers on their rear bumpers.

Come on everyone - VOTE FOR JOHN SERGEANT! You know you want to!

(No, I haven't even started on the red wine yet!)

Remember, remember the 5th of November

An experience to avoid - counselling clients during the evening of November 5th. The repeated explosions in the immediate vicinity are not conducive to a peaceful session!
Speaking of which, can anyone explain why, in this era of Health and Safety overload, in which the Nanny State involves itself in every minute aspect of daily life, it is still regarded as perfectly acceptable to buy explosives and set them off in the privacy of your own garden?

Looking after pets

This post on Daphne's blog stirred up memories of when my children were growing up and the boys had a variety of animals between them. Mostly they were Younger Son's, though and at one time we had 13 rabbits, several mice, hamsters, gerbils, a couple of chinchillas and weasels and then there were the reptiles, an iguana and a water snake. The iguana feasted on crickets for preference and these were bought from the local pet shop. The water snake, on the other hand, was partial to baby rats, dead ones, which were also bought from the local pet shop but, being dead, had to be frozen until they were used. You see where I'm going with this? The clue is in the word 'frozen.'
Which is why one day at work, I received an extremely irate phone call from ex-husband who had plunged his hand into the freezer to find something for dinner that evening and had encountered a plastic bag of frozen baby rats.
The only thing which puzzled me was that, as I had had no idea that YS had put the rats in the freezer, it should have been my fault. Perhaps one of those examples of how 'a mother's place is in the wrong'?