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…….

 

Head Over Heart

 My heart rules most of my decision making, it always has, but there are times you have to listen to that Jiminy Cricket voice in your head and decide just why it is there. Over the week that nagging voice has plagued me regarding Olive’s planned arrival and before the weekend I had made my decision not to take her, albeit one with a heavy heart. 

The memory of Winnie and Dorothy celebrates everything that’s good about bulldogs and the thought of the stories of a new character is tempting and honestly addictive to be sure, but I work full time , depend on Trendy Carol’s hubby too much for dog care and have Weaver to consider. After all this is the only home she has ever known after a start that was somewhat fraught and stressful.

There are other reasons too personal to be shared here, which need to be considered and I know that I will disappoint many here with today’s choice but I have made the decision and have deliberated about it carefully.

The cats  enjoyed the spring sun in the cottage garden this morning

As did I 

Froth

Lovely day today. 

Simple pleasures, a lovely roast dinner at The Crown with a friend , then some mindless cinema with the awful but entertaining Mother’s Pride where Martin Clunes’ failing pub landlord is saved by a prodigal son, and a village of very unlikely characters including a Morris Dancing Team , the village slut and a drunk Mark Addy playing Mark Addy.

Clunes manages to steal all of the sentimental weepy bits for himself and the comedy when it arrives is clunky and unfunny but in this climate of war, bad news and disillusionment I’ve had worse afternoons entertainment.  

A Death In The Village

 Somebody I know died suddenly in the village this morning. 

Apart from knowing who it is and the fact they were young and liked , I am aware of little else , but like ripples on a small pond the news is spread not out of gossip or salacious interest , but from concern and self reflection and as I’ve cleared the back patio of detritus and slime, villagers have stopped, then passed some with sad faces and in hushed tones.

In my experience a death, any death, makes people seek others out. There is a reaching out, a sort of sharing which is needed. Contact has to be made. 

Maybe it’s a grace of god go I  thing….? Or maybe it’s an innate thing where neighbours stand shoulder to shoulder, a comfort to each other rather than just being the witnesses to an event. 

I have some nice boxed paper with my name on. Nu gave it to me for Christmas. I will write to the deceased’s partner with my ink pen over the weekend. The ink and the paper says I’m thinking about you more than any words do

Well in my mind they do

I’ve planted out long stem polyanthus in planters on the kitchen wall and will buy more from the supermarket late

Hey ho

TA

 I went to a lecture on transactional analysis today.

Invited by my personal counsellor, the old Irish therapist who was leading the proceedings . 

The psychoanalytical theory concentrates on the study of social interactions as a way of understanding behaviours and its premise that people work in certain ego states has a resonance with me , even though I have been trained in a more human centred therapy approach.

I still feel the new boy in the counselling field so remained quiet but present in the discussion groups even though one was a long in-depth on looking at the characteristics of the critical parent ego state which left me feeling somewhat bruised but still interested

I noticed that as this junction my old counsellor walked around each group , checking in that all was well …..as she passed me she rested a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it once…..class

360

 I’ve come to Bridgerton late and rather enjoyed the “ BOUNCY DANCE “ the other day 

I’m catching up with the raunchy going on today ….

Weaver joined me but didn’t look happy 

A Bulldog Remembered

 

With a new bulldog on the way, I think it’s time we revisited one of my most flamboyant girls, in this piece written a day after she died back in 2020

Winifred Sâlote Tupou lV was a diva of rare proportions.

She was a blog writer’s dream as her adventures over her seven years at Bwthyn Y Llan never ever needed embellishing. 

She was truly larger than life

Larger than I ever expected from our first, rather lacklustre meeting. 

The meeting was September 1st 2013.

I was in the middle of organising my last open Allotment Day when she arrived with her previous owner for an introduction, so our meeting was brief and , for me somewhat disappointing.

All I remember thinking was that she was overly large, had no neck to speak of and looked frightened of everything but I agreed she could come a few days later for a trial run.

And after that, stay she did.

I think Winnie was a fully cooked five year old bulldog when she arrived and it wasn’t long before I worked out that she had her own quirky set of obsessions which proved to be somewhat of a challenge when she finally got her confidence.

• She masturbated incessantly, goaded on by the Professor who thought this behaviour hilarious rather than embarrassing and the object of her desires centred upon his tastefully buffed brogues and the infamous “ Slippers of sex” which were strange hand knitted slippers designed and made by Kit, an old lady who still lives in Bron Haul......Her habit of self pollution continued until her late onset emergency  hysterectomy a couple of years ago, but even then , very occasionally she would back her toilet parts seductively onto her trusty fanny flannel when having a periodic summer bath.
• She adored visiting Workmen of any description , though it was fairly obvious that a generic friendly masculine type with overalls was her man of choice, and I must say that she would sulk for hours if she was not allowed to watch what household job needed to be completed. I also remember, her going missing when the British Telicom men were here putting in the broadband extra line. .........I eventually found her sitting in the telicom van’s passenger seat sharing a packet of cheese and onion crisps....
• Winifred was also totally obsessed with food. All food. Any food.....and I once famously brought her round after a particularly robust attack of heatstroke after dipping her nipples into a cold bath and dropping a Tesco cocktail sausage on her gums.
• Her food obsession lead to a life of stealing if left unchecked and I remember the toe curling embarrassment when she raided an elderly woman’s handbag for her polo mints and the time she helped herself to a baby’s Farley’s Rusk , which she found wrapped on the lower shelf of a baby buggy parked in the Church Yard.
• She adored very small children too, and given her great size remained totally in control and gentle when around them. I remember one very emotional moment, observed a couple of times on Going Gently when she suddenly found herself surrounded by a large gaggle of pre school children out for a crocodile linked walk on the Dyserth walkway one summer. I warned the supervisor that she was indeed safe and as I walked up I saw a plethora of stubby little hands rub every inch of her in wonder.....her gentleness and obvious pure pleasure of the toddlers’ attention moved me to tears as I glimpsed just for a moment her natural ability of being a mother
Of all of her fellow animals in and out of the cottage, only one became a true friend, and that friend was Albert. I have often blogged that only she, out of all of my dogs had the capacity for thought and the understanding of simple concepts. 
She understood Albert, and was never fazed by cat behaviour, (idiosyncrasies that were always lost by the other dogs 
)and last night,  as she lay silent and still on the kitchen floor, only Albert came to her, carefully and wide eyed, to sit between her paws , his black head rubbing hers.

Now Winnie, was also a serial sulker. I often referred to her as being a gay man in a bulldog suit as when thwarted or god forbid told off in any way she would stare carefully into the middle distance for the longest of times before flinging herself with gay abandon onto a rug or an unoccupied sofa.

The longest sulk I ever timed, lasted almost six hours....a lifetime in the dog world.

Her last half hour on earth was typically Winnie. She ate a full bowl of dog food ( garnished with several Aldi cocktail sausages) then was allowed a ten minute hysterical rubber chicken gum before settling down on the mat by the door ( instead of her usual place in the reading armchair next to the radiator ) 

And that was where I found her only an hour later. 

Quiet and peaceful 

And all on her own terms 

I’m sad but not heartbroken ....it was her time to go 

And like the ideal cocktail party guest 

She didn’t outstay her visit

But I shall miss my old girl 

Spring Funeral

 Out of duty my elder sister Ann and I went to my second cousin’s funeral this afternoon. It was forty years since I had last met her, less for my sister, but the duty centred around the fact she was the last of the old Guard to pass away. The final, tangible link with my father’s generation, of my sister’s youth and for me memories of 1970s Christmas lunchtimes.

It was a sad funeral, and sad for all the wrong reasons for the celebrant had retold facts and memories adequately but without really gathering the essence of a real character  with skills, triumphs, passions and humour. 

My cousins were there, cousins I played with as a child, and we all looked old now, and just a little deflated by it all. 

Only 15 people were sat spread out in the congregation .

On the way home my sister told me to do something nice, to blow away the funk of the afternoon. So after I dropped her off I went to Marks and bought some Mac n cheese and a bunch of cheerful miniature daffs which I arranged in the green wade vase, left to me by my grandmother before opening the cottage windows to the sun and the breeze from the south east