Always A Drama

A Hopeful Roger

 At six Roger has realised that sex is EVERYTHING , just as Bluebell lost her exhaust , Mary sans menopause burst into an elderly season. Now fair dos ……Mary , like a robust Diana Dors, is still on for a shag so drastic measures have had to be employed and she has been relocated to Trendy Carol’s complete with a whole new set of jumpers and coats. 

Roger was so vociferous in his ardour I’ve had to send flowers to neighbours Mandy and John  in way of apology. Weaver understanding a blip in dog hormones has suddenly appeared downstairs ready to take over as alpha

Me and Bun are clinging together like children 

It’s all fucking drama 

Sigh  

Hey ho

 Car problems 

A breakdown

More expense 

Real life can be tiring, 

Circles of Daffodils

 

The Community Orchard now has a daffodil boundary on the common land outside the village. In the summer a wildflower border brings the fruit trees to life.

I always think it’s a simple but inspired bit of planting.

Today it’s sunny. Yesterday it was 19 degrees and the views of the hills from my counselling room in Abergele were sublime. I found myself gazing out at the sky between clients , enjoying the view like I do when I people watch on holiday. 

The daffodils on the field wall are almost going over, but I cut a few with some untidy stems of eucalyptus  to brighten up the kitchen.

I never tire of the view from my living room, and my garden hens look warmed and russet in the spring sunshine

The church view is sublime too, and the cats shadow me as I water the planters and check the honeysuckle for new growth. 

I don’t want to be anywhere else today

Under Milk Wood

 Like most people I know something about Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood. Essentially I understand it to be a piece of prose for a myriad of voices, what I didn’t know it was a commissioned piece for radio

A poetical day in the life of the Welsh town called Llareggub (read it backwards) this stage version wisely projected the prose about the cast of eleven who were playing every character and scene with gusto and with an energy which was at times slightly exhausting they lived the sometimes bawdy words seemlessly together. 

Slightly long at 2 hours 20 I was still happy with going and Theatre Clwyd  is looking mighty fine after it’s refurb from 1970 Crome to rich 2025 larch wood and copper panels 

It’s beautiful

You know Where You are with!

A beautiful cover to a sad video

Back to work today 

Last night Roger enjoyed Call My Bluff

 

The Other Bennett Sister: The First Bridget Jones

 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