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| Finlay, our first Welsh terrier loved Christmas |
Christmas Eve
Merry Christmas fa---la----la-la-la..lalalala
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Well I have woken up from a fireside slumber ( complete with Welsh Terrier attached to my face) and have just realised that my last post was far too depressive
So I will leave you with my much lauded festive Christmas photograph (taken last year) and some heartfelt good wishes to everyone who actually reads this ....my "diary of a middle aged nobody" pile of shit
Let us all have a peaceful Christmas eh?
Please take my advice!!!!!!!!!!!!
Catch up with family, with friends or just your significant other
Catch up with family, with friends or just your significant other
Sit through 2 hours of Downton Abbey with a whole chocolate Orange in your mouth
and whatever you do DON'T watch the news
pps
watch this from 23 seconds onwards..... I dare you not to give me a little Christmas smile
xxxx
Blackout
The whole retail park and adjoining streets were totally in darkness, and after a moment of uncertainty (when I couldn't quite locate my last chip) the supermarket's dim emergency lighting kicked in and suddenly a few hundred shoppers all acted as though they had survived a terrorist attack.....
The powercut continued, but we were allowed to shop in the gloom as the tills re booted.....and as we did our shop in the muted hysteria people indulge in when faced with a collective "threat", I had a seriously worrying "think" about just how we, as a nation would cope without the all singing , all giving God Electricity......
Not very well...I suspect.......
People today have no reserves when it comes to disaster have they? . People just don't have proper larders anymore, they have no stockpiles of food,fuel, water and other vital items. We rely on these monolithic supermarkets for food that would empty within hours if not refilled by fuel guzzling lorries and we rely on electricity for almost everything else......electricity that can disappear literally at the "flick of a switch"
Yes I thought about all this as we filled our basket with tasty stuffing and Christmas baubles..........
and before we left.... I made sure several packets of store cupboard candles were placed into the trolley.
....as I wait......
I am sat at the kitchen table waiting for a delivery man to drop off some vital computer equipment for Chris....of course no time can be specified, given the Christmas deadlines....so I have to be around, and available all day....
There is an upside to all this....for as I wait here...I have been making lists for the "Christmas dinner" shop we are embarking on this evening......In between the planning of the sherry trifle and the reviewing of a recipe for Braised Red Cabbage ( thanks Pat), I have had time to notice
those grubby little marks around the kitchen that have always been previous neglected.....namely the dog snot on the back door ,the dribbles of kittikat down the side of the fridge and that lump of something unmentionable under the sofa.....
Not being content just to look at these little badges of pet ownership, I have got off my arse and scrubbed the offending areas clean.......so much so....that the kitchen is actually starting to look......er.....well....... habitable......
A first for me, I can tell you.
Most of the dogs have stalked off for a sleep, all that is except Mabel who feigning slumbers is now keeping one eye open to see what I would start scrubbing next......she closed both eyes firmly when I found myself muttering in true Joan Crawford style
"Its not you I'm mad at...I'm mad at the dirt"
Being a typical bulldog, she cannot cope with any bad feeling!
Anyway, it's 1.10pm and still there is no sign of Mr Delivery Man.....all visible signs of dog snot have now been removed from the kitchen and I have completed at least three " to do" lists on the back of three envelopes.........I am confident that most Christmas day boxes have now been ticked...
My two sisters and their husbands are all coming for Christmas dinner here.....Non of us really feel like celebrating but the effort has to be made to mark the day .....tomorrow I am going down to B& Q to buy some cheap as chips Christmas lights....with the aim of transforming something like this
into something like THIS
This being......Nigella's twinkling Kitchen....
Hopefully the effect with raise a few , well needed smiles!!!!!!
Hello?
Message Left on the Answerphone this afternoon
This is a transcription in it's entirety
"I have a little something ready for you!" rasped the breathless voice.......".I will be in alllllllll day!...pop round if you're free!!!!"
That was it!
A secret admirer...organising a bit of rural extramarital rumpy pumpy perhaps?
Naw....... Auntie Glad has just baked me a load of mince pies!Sherlock Holmes- A Game Of Shadows
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| A tough, sexy Watson and a vulnerable Holmes |
Now first let me say that I am a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes.....Basil Rathbone....Benedick Cumberbatch.....Jeremy Brett........I have enjoyed every one of the sleuth's reincarnations both on the big screen and on tv....and even though Guy Richie's first foray into the genre (The slightly zany
Sherlock Holmes 2009) was somewhat superhero-ish, I must admit, it was a most enjoyable romp of a movie.
Richie's sequel is very much more of the same.........overly stylised , and cinematically complicated...the movie uses GCI and slow motion visual tricks to highlight Holmes' lightning intellect....so much so, that the audience is whisked away from the "normality" of Baker Street and Victorian London literally within seconds of the opening credits being rolled......
This film is a totally different take on the Conan Doyle's hero...
Robert Downey Jr. makes for a charismatic and rather dangerous Holmes...He is not the asburger loner portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch (my personal favourite Holmes) nor is he a calculating Jeremy Brett, posh toff......he is, in fact, a drug addled,brittle, hyperactive child genius...who relies more on his cool as a cucumber best friend Dr Watson (Jude Law) than ever he did in the original novels
Both actors make the characters their own.... Downey is likable and just vulnerable enough to be always sympathetic....and Law oozes a smart sexiness and toughness which keeps him on level pegging status with Downey on screen.....
Their partnership works beautifully.....
Having said all this, both lead performances are almost eclipsed by Jarred Harris's menacing performance as Professor Moriarty....he makes for a cracking baddie........a necessary foil for Holme's seemingly invincible hero..
Stephen Fry does a nice comic turn as Sherlock's brother Mycroft and Noomi Replace ( the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) even turns up as a Gypsy fortune teller...... it's all very silly, it's all very showy.... and it's all great fun.....
A new Sherlock Holmes franchise continues
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| Stephen Fry as Mycroft |
War Horse
We went to see the new Sherlock Holmes film this evening....and a cracking romp it was too!
I shall give a review of it tomorrow...but I will leave you with this trailer for the forthcoming Spielberg weep fest WAR HORSE, which proceeded the main feature this evening.
I can honestly say that this is the only trailer that has actually brought me to tears (I lasted until the 53rd second when the look on that horse's face literally finished me off)......Bugger alone knows what will happen when I eventually see the film.........
Watch and weep....... Spielberg is a master
"Oh, I wish I was Good With me hands"
Oh I wish I was good with me hands......
(No it's not the start of a Pam Ayres poem by the way)
(No it's not the start of a Pam Ayres poem by the way)
I really envy people which have such talents...
Today Jackie our ever-cheerful dog groomer Transformed this
Into THIS!
and did so effortlessly and with some considerable skill!
As she worked, I pottered around the cottage like some reject presenter from Blue Peter
I made a simple Christmas wreath for the doorway
and spent a somewhat irritating hour or so making paper chains for the living room .......
(Occupational therapy for the mentally bewildered!)
(Occupational therapy for the mentally bewildered!)
The red faced farmer made me laugh when I told him what I had been doing.....
"Not a job for a man!" he bellowed cheerfully as he drove off down the lane!!!!!
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