Fill The Void

Transplant Lizzie Bennett or Marianne Dashwood and their families into the ultra traditional Haredi Jewish Community in Tel Aviv. Add to the mix, the death during childbirth of a much beloved elder sister and complicate with the collective need of the family for the younger sister to marry her former brother in law....and you get the gist of Fill The Void.( At Theatre Clwyd this evening)
The traditions and customs of this religious community may be as alien to a general audience as tropical fish but the Jane Austen flavour of the romance amid a claustrophobic set of relatives is as familiar to everyone as Kate Winslett in a busty frock.
Rama Burshstein has crafted a fascinating story which centres about the coming of age and wisdom of the teenage  Shira ( Hadas Yaron) who has to balance out her family's need for her to marry her grieving brother in law and her own need to self determination. Her journey, typically of Austin , runs an uneven path, a path which is ambiguously outlined by Burshstein , a director who underplays all the messages in the drama.
I loved the fact that Shira's favourite aunt Hanna ( Razia Israli ) is armless...a fact that is never explained or highlighted in the story......it  is a fact that is gently and subtly made known as the plot unfolds........
A surreal fact in a very understandable story.
One sequence lingers long in the mind.  As Shira eventually gets married and is congratulated by a succession of female relatives, she is seen to descend into an emotional and religious fugue state , it a a piece of cinema which is beautiful and incredibly moving to watch
8/10

Turkey in wool

Yes!
It is a selfie of my new " turkey" pullover, a delightful gift from Chris's big shopping spree over the border yesterday! Now I detest shopping trips and Chris loves them, so my sister accompanied him to all of the designer stores at Cheshire Oaks.
I don't know just how they do it. Hours of shopping, lunch, a glass of wine, more shopping and then even more shopping. It sounds like pure hell to me..... So I left them to it, and caught the train to Chester yesterday evening to meet them for dinner at a nice Italian.

Tuesday night! and out for dinner.....get him!

Chris  ( and his new Van Dyke beard and moustache ) and fellow shopper Janet

So it was a win win day all round. Chris and Janet had a wonderful shop, I got a new jumper and we all had a lovely meal and far too much wine .

I am in dire need of that first coffee this morning.......

Just a tad hungover!

Chester at night

" now, let's just have a look at you"

A slightly drier day today

There were a few people around when I went out on deliveries

Auntie Glad was stood at the bus stop,

She looked smart and had a hat on which wasn't like her

" you look dapper!"

I called out

" I'm off to the doctors" she explained

Suddenly I was reminded of those days when my father would have a bath on a weekday!

It was always before a doctor's appointment
Spick and span and clean underwear

You always made an effort for the doctor!

Walking Dead. Episode 10

Daryl & Beth....." Happy days...matching outfits"

 Well after the fall of the prison , The Walking Dead wisely returned to its disaster movie roots and concentrated a whole episode on the eclectic bunch of survivors in zombie infested Georgia.
Of course in true Star Trek fashion the prison red shirts are eaten ( including some of the minor child characters) but five separate groups weave their way along the railroad tracks towards a new destiny.

Carol is back, as is baby Judith...and fledgling psychopath Lizzy ( who almost smothered the baby to save herself and her sister) is suddenly making things a whole lot more interesting.
Maggie and Glen's separation is nicely observed, Daryl is interestingly retreating back into his asbergers  shell and Beth has finally stopped singing and has started to act.

Still great fun... Team prison is now up to 18 souls!

Carol's back and not a child in the house is washed

Bitch Peace

This is an exceedingly rare photograph

Meg, the old Welsh terrier has never taken to any other bitch 

She has spent the better part of nine years, posturing and snapping at any female.

She has initiated numerous fights

She has bitten through a succession of leads when transferring aggression 

And she has spent many a stress-filled evening making sure she remains top bitch in the eyes of alpha male me.

That is until today.

Today she sought out and curled up with the benign Winifred on the hearth rug

And stayed there, with her skinny little face resting on Winnie's fat biceps 

For an hour or two.

It's not huge news in the great scheme of things

But

It certainly made my day

Modern Parents : a discussion

There is one phenomenon that truly irritates me and that is the powerfully insular way some  modern parents view ( and expect everyone else to view) their wonderful little darlings.
It's as though the children and the children's behaviour is the centre of everything that is Holy.
Life is child dominated
Child is king.
And the rest of the world can go f@ck itself.

Yesterday, on the way back from the vets, I listened to a radio 4 discussion between a Scandinavian psychologist and a prickly British Child " expert"
The  Scandinavian was bemoaning his country's liberal attitude to child rearing, stating that Swedish teens now have the largest drop out rate from school in Europe and worrying high levels of suicide and self harm especially in young girls.
He quoted many other surprising facts about the disenchanted Nordic youth before suggesting that " making your child into a Prince or Princess at an early age " wasn't doing them any favours"
He concluded that children that are told and treated as though they are the most important people in the world have huge problems adjusting when the real world informs them that they are in fact, normal.
Of course, there is more at play here, there always is, but I did find the general premise interesting.

I came from a home where both parents never praised or applauded anything we did, so an occasional crumb of congratulation and adulation would have worked wonders on my shy eleven year old psychi....Now....I am in total agreement that children should be praised, nurtured, supported, loved and most importantly not criticised when they are growing up
But what I do not agree with, is the overwhelming way that some nuclear families allow and indeed cultivate the myth that their child rules all, and the rest of society ( and community) can go hang.

The Swedish psychologist ( who incidentally had six kids) concluded that kids nowadays often think that they are brighter, more talented, and more popular than reality would dictate...so they often come down with a bang when realisation hits.....on reflection....my slightly unhappy childhood might have
given me an uneven start......but when I did eventually find out that I wasn't as bad and as useless as I originally thought I was, life took on a rather different and more rosy hue!
The only way was up!

Mr Right

I didn't get him a Valentine's day card

He sent me a Marks & Spencer's one

With

From Mrs Right

Inside.....

( I guess Marks and Spencer's haven't yet got their heads

Around Mr & Mr Valentine's Day Cards )

I made amends

And stopped any  further sulking by making a banana loaf with custard this afternoon.

I am spent up this morning,

Had to take William to the vets regarding his skin irritation

£ 75 and not even the  George Clooney vet to make goo goo eyes at

Pah!

Blustery and exceedingly wet here today
I've lost 7 followers in a week
Perhaps I'm talking about the weather too much!

Underwear Malfunction

Now I only realised my " underwear" mistake when I  got changed into  my uniform at work.
I had left my thermal long johns on....the ones I wear on the field with the holes in the gusset.
By midnight on the claustrophobic High Dependency unit ,  I was grossly overheated.
My colleague, a round faced happy soul called Greta, suggested that I change into a couple of pairs of hospital   paper pants but I said I couldn't stand the  " rustling"
And so after rooting around  for some surgical scissors , I disappeared behind the nurses station, delved down into my uniform pants and cut the legs off my long johns with a flourish
Greta then pulled the separated legs out of my uniform and I continued the shift, cool, and comfortable and sweat free.