Of Gods And Men

Last night I finally got to see the thoughtful, austere and rather grave French movie Of Gods and Men. Based on a true story, it tells of the last days in the lives of eight Cistercian monks, who live in a remote monastery in Tibhirine, an isolated  and impoverished part of Algeria. It is 1996 and the Jihadist uprising is claiming the lives of locals and foreigners alike and the monks have to make the terrible decision of whether to leave the villagers who depend on them and return to the safety of France.

Of Gods and Men is a slow, careful film which is reminiscent of the famous The Nun's Story in its depiction of the austerity and dedication of a cloistered existence. It takes an absolute age to "get to know" the individual monks and their personalities as time and time again we observe their pious services and rituals as the tension is slowly cranked up to the terrible conclusion, when the terrorists finally take the monks prisoner.
Generally the wait is well worth it, as Of Gods and Men is an absorbing and at times terribly moving study of fear and bravery under pressure. Not all of the monks deal with the threat of death with a Sound Of Music type of strength! Whereas the nondescript Monastery Leader Brother Christian ( Lambert Wilson ) stubbornly ignores the threat of death ,his fellow Brother, Christophe (a nice performance by Olivier Rabourdin) nearly buckles under the strain. And of course we have to have the cheerful, slightly gung ho monk who waves his hand in the face of danger ( this time is the affable Michael Lonsdale as Doctor Luc)----(remember sister Luke in The Nun's Story?)

Anyhow, the director, Xavier Beauvois, delivers two amazingly camp but oh so powerful sequences in this film that definitely need a mention.
The first is when an army helicopter hovers menacingly in front of the monastery stained glass windows as the monks huddle together holding hands, expecting to be machine gunned at any minute ( you can actually hear the audience take a collective gasp at this one)
and the second is a terribly indulgent but oh so moving "last supper" moment when the monks treat themselves to a glass of red wine whist listening to the strains of Swan Lake played on a rusty old tape recorder----believe me, there was not a dry eye in the house!!! ( I wish my old friend Bel was with me tonight...he would have wept buckets)


Oliver Rabourdin and Lambert Wilson

see The Alex Ramon review also

Dogs and Water

I went up to my brother's today whilst my sister in law did some jobs in town.
He was dozing for much of the afternoon, so I spent a long time sitting in the sun lounge reading the first part of an encyclopedia! which was a bit of a treat as I never do anything so indulgent during the day......I only got through 28 pages of the "A's"
The dogs, given their freedom in the garden spent most of their time playing around the pond, which held a facination for them as it does so often for little boys!

No misshaps this time, on my last visit three out of the four ended up in the water

William, George and Meg all watching some frogs spawn

Constance "stalking" a plastic duck ( she did this for an hour)

Matt Cardle - When We Collide

I haven't forgotten him!!!

Geek Alert

Men are geeks
Its a fact of life.
It is not a criticism , it is merely an observation!
Readers may think that I am just a bit of an animal geek ( what I don't know about hen psychology can be written on the back of a postage stamp!) but the real truth of my geek abilities centre around a phenomenal /sad bastard knowledge about every 1970 disaster movie
(In 2001 when I started a Film Studies degree at Sheffield University I  even got a merit for my essay on "The role of women in the disaster Movies of the 1970s")
There is a geeky blog that I regularly visit....affable psychiatric nurse Dan  over at http://allthatcomeswithit.com/ provides an eclectic look at the modern world and also provides in his sister blog  "The Midnight Movie Club" a wry look at those non arthouse but nevertheless entertaining movie productions of the 1980s and 1990s!
Dan and I met when he took four Indian runners off me to augment his little poultry flock and recently he asked me to wax lyrical over my three most favourite disaster movies (my ramblings have been recorded and added to his weekly movie podcast !)-http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/lee-dans-midnight-movie-club/id348480956
If you enjoy movies and like to listen to a blokey chat go to his website and give Lee and Dan's Midnight Movie chats a go.....its great fun

I will end with a sadish little postscript. Cora, who has sat patiently on her eggs for nearly two weeks was attacked by another hen who managed to get into her broody box. She was driven off her nest and the eggs were stone cold when I finally came to check on her.

I gave Cora a huge feed then I replaced her non viable eggs with fresh ones as bless her, she remained terribly broody. It is not ideal for an already slightly weakened hen to re sit on eggs but she is so broody there is little else I can do.

Names and Titles

Last night I went to my first Community Council Meeting.
It was quite formal and was precisely "chaired" and at times I had to stifle a fit of the giggles when I was referred to by the Chairman as "Counsillor Gray"
There was a reason for this.
My Father, was always a big  Councillor. He loved his committee work and was Chairman of the Council in Prestatyn for many years as well as being a bigwig at Prestatyn's Conservative Club and the local Rotary Club
The only Councillor I ever knew was Councillor G.R. Gray, my father!
It was weird hearing the "title" repeated, especially given the fact that my father died over 20 years ago
As a kid, I would never have believed that one day someone would refer to me with the same title and this in turn got me to thinking of where our "family" name will finally end up. My brother has a son called Jonathon. He is the only person that could carry our family name onwards. True I have several male cousins that  will also carry the Gray line forward, but for our immediate family, only Jon will carry the flag so to speak.

I find it surprising that this bothers me . Perhaps it is a male thing? Women that marry often give up their own family name without a second thought, and for some families the family name disappears totally after the wedding.....I guess last night...I caught myself having a little bit of a rummage down memory lane , just a little after all , on a very basic level......you name does define you somewhat doesn't it?

Gray is a surname usually of Scottish origin, and may refer to many people.

Also, there are many people in Ireland with the last name "Gray" that are not of Ulster-Scots heritage. It can be an anglicized version of the native Irish Mag Raith (other versions of this Irish name are McGrath, (Mc)Grew, McGray, (Mc/O')Graigh and others). In England the name is often of Norman origin, stemming from the town of Grayes in Calvados, France.

Constance Shows Her Metal

I dropped Chris off at the station this morning as he was off to Cardiff for a couple of days work. It was a grey start to the day, so I collected layers pellets from the farm shop and stopped in Rhuddlan to photograph the castle and the flooded river Clwyd on the way home. The Castle dates from an amazing  1248

After getting home and dodging the rain showers I walked the dogs on the hill behind the village and had my first opportunity to watch Constance in full..BULLDOG mode.
Up the hill there is a house that has a very large and powerful bitch. The dog is often let loose in the garden and the garden is not totally fenced in from the road. Several times when I have walked my dogs, this dog which is clearly motivated through fear, has ran barking out into the road to attack the terriers. So far, I have positioned myself between the waring parties and have kept them apart with a loud bellow and a swift kick out at this unsocialised animal but I do remember once when it was actually being walked with its male owner,it actually pulled him across a country path to barrel into William and Meg before it was dragged off..
Today Constance was with us, and as the aggressive dog bounded around the side of the house barking ferociously she raised her head and marched forward to face it. The terriers answered the dog's angry barks with a hissy fit of their own, so I pulled them back and on impulse I  let go of Constances' lead.
The bitch stopped dead as Constance gave her the dead eye stare and without a pause she adopted a strange stiff legged walk and deliberately took half a dozen steps forward with her head held high.

The dog barked loudly again and backed up a few steps. Constance followed with her little piggy eyes hard as flint. The dog circled on the spot and retreated behind the house gates still barking......Constance followed slowly, and for a few seconds there was a standoff before  the bulldog gave a little jump forward and bellowed one long,low  and very LOUD "woooooof".
The dog bolted and legged it around the corner of the house with Constance in pursuit......and there was a long silence.
I called out sharply and moments later Constance walked nonchalantly back out of the garden with a swagger Mae West would have been proud of. She walked directly into the middle of the now silent terriers who crowed around her like kids in a playground.........!  and the alsatian bitch didn't show her face again......



Constance asleep sat up in the car on the way home after her altercation



Shamed

Post night shift dog sleep

After a couple of hours sleep ( with Chris sarcastically taking the mickey stating that he thought  I always stated that I was "busy, busy, busy") I took all of the dogs around the Gop and the village.
There are a couple of nicely kept allotment plots situated right in the centre of Trelawnyd, and this morning both were being tended to and kicked back into pre planting shape by their owners The Camerons and The Smiths.........I stopped to chat and stated I felt dreadful that my own plots were so behind theirs!
I must admit I do envy not having an "on hand" neighbour with which to banter with. Allotment owners can be a strange breed. competition between plots can be subtle but is always there...so when one plot has a nice row of cloches...the other is sure to follow........it is not pettiness at all.....it is a healthy competitive drive and remains great fun!

Craig over at dykesedge allotments makes me smile, as his allotment is the perfect example of what I term is a UBER-ALLOTMENT! It is fantastically ordered and neat, and has the ultimate shed to die for ( complete with solar lighting , decking and no doubt an Ikea kitchenette and secret stash of whiskey next to an arm chair)

Beat that Alan Titmarsh!

So this week I am resolved to get going again....ok a shed which scales the same heights as Craig's may be a no no.. but I think I will try and get a small temporary poly tunnel as well as some proper fencing for the plots......the Flower Show and Open Allotment day countdown has begun

Saturday Smut

Ha! bet that grabbed your attention
Last night , before the musical, we had a chance to wander around Theatre Clwyd's art gallery. Some of the exhibits on show was by an artist called Anita Klein (http://www.anitaklein.com/) and it took a minute or so for me to remember that we had bought one of her original works a decade ago when we were in Sheffield.
Now we don't usually go in for humorous smut (Hey ho!)-most of our paintings are Miss Marple-ish watercolours- but there was something quite warm about this piece which now graces our spare bedroom.........
off to work