Theresa, Rogo, a friend of Dorothy and Micmacs

I have a new mouth to feed, albeit for a fairly short time! Chris, a fellow small (small) holder from the other side of the village brought around a rotund, benign and rather dopey bow legged female white turkey called Theresa to be mated with Boris (who has just got the hang of this sex thing); she sat quite contentedly inside his car boot during the short journey, and confidently laid an egg inside the turkey house within minutes of her arrival.
I have left her in a Ménage à trois alongside Gloria and hopefully love will blossom !

On a downside, Rogo remains very poorly despite his antibiotic treatment. He has spent another day sat in the sun by the Church wall and has hardly moved all day. He has eaten some bread and a few handfuls of cat food, and I have made sure he has taken some water. The other cockerels have ignored his presence, which is worrying. Obviously he is no longer any threat to them. In the above photo he has been joined by the lace Buff, Lillian, she has sat with him for most of the afternoon

The juvenile turkeys, who have spent long hours escaping from their enclosure have now been housed in the pig house. I have repaired their fencing and have made them a new enclosure well out of the way of mourners, and the graveyard. Not happy at the move and their confinement
all four have squawked and called throughout the afternoon. Tough titty I thought!

This morning I sold some some eggs and took the opportunity to go to a morning pensioner showing of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Micmacs.

Going to the cinema at 11am!! That is a treat and a half!

I paid my 4£ (OAP discount!) and went to the cafe to have a cup of coffee before the showing. The sweet waitress at the cafe told me that because I was going to a "senior citizen" showing I was entitled to a free cup of coffee and a chocolate biscuit!- which I thought was great fun!

An elderly lady on the next table asked if I was going to the film showing and introduced herself as Dorothy! Apparently we were the only members of the audience!

We went into the cinema together......I didn't think that she enjoyed the movie very much, but as she said...she only really came for the lovely coffee!

Now I love Jeunet's movies.

Amelie and A Very Long Engagement are two of my favourite movies of all time, so.... I had high hopes for his latest offering-and generally, I really liked this sweet, off-the-wall tale of whimsy, even though it wasn't quite in the league of the Audrey Tatou star vehicles.

Micmacs is filled to the gunnells with Jeunet's usual visual jokes and his comic strip touches and I absolutely love the way that he holds huge amounts of affection for his main characters , a fact he celebrates, by giving them tiny and wonderfully human eccentricities which warm the cockles of your heart. As in Amelie, where Audrey Tatou gained vicarious pleasure when she placed her hand in a bucket of beans, Jeunet captures the small pleasure of his leading man (Dany Boon) when he squeezes the contents out of a cheese triangle; he spends time and patience in isolating these tiny moments, and they serve him well, as the audience warms, as he has done , to his leading characters.

As in Amelie we follow the misfortunes of an eccentric who has lost parents and happiness. Bazil (Boon) is orphaned after his father is killed my a land mine in the Middle East. Years later,after he is nearly killed by a gunman's bullet, he is left destitute, potentially fatally injured and forlorn but is "adopted by a group of misfits who live a recycling life of sorts in a local junk yard.

Together with his friends, he finds that two city arm dealers are responsible for manufacturing the weapons that killed his father and injured himself, and the motley group devise a complicated plan to exact his revenge.....

So the scene is set for madcap slapstick chases,some complicated twists and turns and for gadgets galore...and although the leading man doesn't have the draw that the beautiful Audrey Tatou may possess, Dany Boon makes for a rather charismatic and likable hero.

With his distinctive facial tics and sad expressions, Boon is an up-to-date Charlie Chaplin. Comfortable in both physical and verbal humour, he commands the audience' attention despite some scene stealing turns by regulars Dominique Pinon and Julie Ferrier, and exactly as Jeunet
planned, the audience, , falls head over heels for his easy charm, and sweet nature.

Mimacs, is a likable, complicated and enjoyable comic romp which zips along like a bullet. Not quite as charming as Amelie, which it echoes constantly, nor as emotionally satisfying as A Very Long Engagement , it is however a joyful and zany journey into the mind of a filmaking genius

8/10