The Other Bennett Sister

 The retelling of a much loved story from a different perspective will be always a bit of a challenge to digest, as change often is, so I was interested to see the first two episodes of The Other Bennett Sister which recovered the bare bones of Pride and Prejudice from the third, and perhaps least interesting of the Bennett Sisters, the plain and academic Mary ( Ella Bruccoleri)

This BBC adaptation has a lot to cram in to its first hour, so it all feels frothy and at a bit of a gallop, but we do get a flavour of how different this adaptation is. Mary is the ugly duckling for sure, but is seen by her mother as the main protagonist against the rest of her sisters getting successful marriages. Mrs Bennett ( Ruth Jones) plays the character as a hard bully. Gone has the humour and the hysteria and the desperation  of Brenda Blethyn’s version and in its place Jones gives us a cruel and nasty piece of work. HNo wonder poor Mary picks at her fingers all of the time. Mary is constantly criticised for holding her sisters back and although sister Lizzie is kind to her , there seems a distance between her and her siblings which makes Mary the underdog. The only warmth Mary receives is some gentle support from house keeper Mrs Hill ( Lucy Briers) and her aunt Mrs Gardiner ( Indira Varmer) so as we suddenly reach the time when all her siblings have left home and her father dies a new chapter with a new story stretches before us by the third episode. 

Mrs Hill

I’ll be interested to see where the story takes us.

Gawd Help Us

 We now need a bit of lightness 

Three Mothers

My mother, aged 16 in 1941

 I’m lucky, I guess, for in a lifetime that has spanned 63 years so far, I have had the fortune to have had three mother figures in my life. 

My real mother was a drama queen. She was critical and anxious and depressed and ultimately bitter. She lacked warmth and found affection giving difficult and awkward, but she was my mother and I loved her in a dutiful way that was as exasperating as it was hard work. 

My grandmother and my elder sister were the warm constants in my life. They brought laughter to a sad home life and gave me a taste and an attraction to warm people with big hearts.

They allowed me to balance my own psychi, and taught me empathy, and kindness and showed me that encouragement not criticism was the way forward . 

If you are lucky you have a mom that nurtures and enables

My mother could not share that gift 

But my surrogates could …… 

Ps…on reflection I suspect my mother suffered from untreated PTSD before this photo was taken she was actually shot at in the streets of Liverpool when walking home from work ( the rear gunners would do that after bombing the docks ) she was also in the house when a bomb blew in the windows and when another unexploded bomb went under the kitchen floor 

Hablaré español con fluidez.

 I met a friend for lunch. He gave me some learn Spanish for beginners books. 

This is my next challenge 

I’m going to sing along with the lisping choir! 

I’m boiling a haggis

Tomorrow I’m having haggis and cheese toasties as suggested by Jay Rayner on BBC Radio 4’s Kitchen Cabinet.

I wonder what haggis is in Spanish?

Like you do

 Don’t get me started

We only get post around once a week now. 

Of course it’s all unofficial but after a straw poll of villagers was taken 

I have come to the conclusion that letters are not a priority for the Royal Mail and that weekly visits are becoming the norm. Today I’ve had three letters and each one posted back at the beginning of march

Go figure that one

Today the postman couldn’t push the letter box open, so he called through the open window

I explained that I had to jam a knitted Father Christmas into the letter box itself to keep it shut in the gale force wind of yesterday. 

He looked faintly surprised but said “ like you do”

Riding the storm II

It’s stormy today and Trelawnyd feels as though it’s hiding in the protection of the Gop. The cats have hunkered down upstairs and refused to go out in the gale force wind and the wind through the yew trees in the graveyard has almost been deafening. Twice I’ve checked on my laburnum sapling, and thankfully she remains tall and strong and defiant. She’s seven years old 

How time flies

Last night I watched Notting Hill a film that reminds me of an unhealthy relationship I was once in… having said this and  film’s portrayal of what could be seen as an ultimately decent relationship between Anna Scott( Julia Roberts) and William Thacker ( Hugh Grant) gave me that “ arh ha!” Therapy moment I was writing about yesterday.

I went with my boyfriend to see the movie on a Friday afternoon, after which he disappeared to his second home in the Lake District, something he’d do regularly and always without me. I realised after that that I was making do with the crumbs of the relationship and that was “ok” because I didn’t deserve anything more or better. 

Crazy to think that now, but back then I did , only to realise by the final credits of the movie I was worth more than that.

I broke up with him soon after.

Riding The Storm

Spanish froth 

Sometimes Counselling is all about helping a client look for patterns of behaviour in their lives. Ways of coping, ways of thinking, developed often in childhood can often be the go to in adulthood, ingrained patterns that are often comforting habits which are not always healthy places to go.

Understanding why these behaviours develop is pivotal when exploring self awareness and tapping into old hurts, and losses and pain, much of it hidden away in locked boxes can be hugely emotional moments within therapy. Visceral and frightening, powerful and sometimes strangely wonderful.

I witnessed such a moment today. The client so upset that support staff had to be waved away when they came running “ to help”. I’m learning , that you have to “ ride the storm “ with your client and be the rock they can share with. Inside, every empathetic fibre has been stretched to its limits and your eyes well just a little with understanding tears but you remain stalwart and kind and strong and professional and hope that the “ah-ha” moment is not far away

If you are lucky you can talk the session through with your supervisor or colleague soon after, today I didn’t have the opportunity so I videoed my German friend who works from home . 

“ vat can I do for you?” he asked not unkindly, but to the point.

“ Talk to me about some shitty 1980s movie you have seen recently” ( he is a movie geek and loves cheesy films) 

Without asking why he launched into a review of some teen movie featuring aliens and busty cheerleaders and with a coffee in hand I decompressed and laughed and get bored with the light conversation until the ghosts of the session were dustered away

A Time Of Great Mischief: Secret Agent

 

This sprawling political thriller set in 1970s Brazil is exhausting but in a good way. I cannot begin to explain the plot but suffice to know that Marcelo or was it Armando (Wagner Moura) is heading to Recife to visit his son. He has a shady past, and is on Government business at a time of political upheaval, change and corruption ( The Time Of Great Mischief) and here he crosses paths with political refugees led by the aging, chain smoking Dona ( the amazingly charismatic Tania Maria) a corrupt police department and contract killers wanting him dead. 

Tania Maria

It’s an odd film, but one that is literally bursting with the mise en sense of Latin America at its most threatening , where life is cheap and where the city feels one step away from being Sodom and Gomorrah.

A simple pit stop at a country petrol station is laced with tension as the police stop our hero fully aware that a thief has lain dead in the forecourt for almost a week, a shark is killed with the remains of a police killing in its stomach and where a Jewish holocaust refugee is pointless mocked by a police officer. 

Moura is impressive in the lead role, always sad, but wise, but I was tired after three hours of complicated political shenanigans. 

After the movie we treated ourselves to mac and cheese( bloody lovely) 

And I came home and watched the final episode of Call The Midwife ( spoiler alert). Now I have to be honest here I have never watched one episode before ( it’s gone on for 15 seasons) but this one featured the death of an elderly nun Sister Monica Joan ( Judy Parfit) whose death scene had me blubbering all evening ….when she asks the ghost of Sister Evangelina who has thoughtfully come to collect her“ What’s it like where I will go?” I was in buckets…….