Red

Kathleen Byron's infamous lipstick scene in Black Narcissus 

I have never liked the colour red. I am a yellow or a green person. At a push I will wear blue, brown and anything mucky but as for red , that's a colour that more suits women, young children and the mentally ill.

A decade or so ago , I wrote an academic assignment entitled " The use of the colour Red in five selected feature films" 

I thought it was a pretty profound discussion which covered sex, death,and everything in between, though I did mention Judy Garland's slippers in The Wizard Of Oz, a fact that did receive a  curt green penned comment from my very camp lecturer  which read " They were , in fact RUBY!!!!! Not red"

The killer midget in  Don't Look Now

The ghetto Jewish child in Schindler's List

The Red Shoes

1976 Carrie

I was reminded of this magnificent work of academia today when I was surveying the bleak dirty green brown wreck of the back garden. For, flashing through the drab graveyard, I caught a flash of deep and vibrant red darting between the tombstones .

Was it a Venetian killer midget that I spied?

Or a blood soaked University student?

Hummm...not at all...Just Auntie Glad in her cinematic vibrant woolly coat, who was late for church

Glad centre

Does anyone have any hated colours? And why?

Winnie & Albert

Sometimes I can embroider a good story for dramatic effect

But the relationship between one certain bulldog bitch and a tom cat called Albert

is a perfectly true one

Whist waiting for Chris to get home

( and after cooking a massive lasagne)

I caught the two of them playing in the living room

Sweet

Sorry about the sound

Goslings

I have no news today so I have posted a couple of videos of the geese

when they were little......it's lovely to look back on just how sweet they were

Always Your Mom & Dad

Today I held a married man's hand in public
Don't worry it's not a pre wedding mid life crisis kind of thing that was going on
I'm not the sort
It was, in fact,  a moment of support for someone who is a couple of decades older than I
Who has just lost a dear and very elderly parent.
There seems an unwritten rule in this world which says that if you are of pensionable age, then the loss of your mother or father is somehow cushioned by the fact that they were well past their " three score years and ten" and that the emotions felt are somehow less raw, less important and less valid than those experienced by someone who is bereaved at an earlier age.
In your seventies, you don't want to hear platitudes such as " she was a good age"
You just want validation for the grief that overwhelms you, the presence of which, because of your age, seems to elude most people

Grief  is grief........is.....well.......grief.......it's not rocket science
Even in the animal world
See below....Brutus grieves for his brother Hank who died in his sleep...heartbreaking

Fortitude

Irish actor Richard Dormer as chief Andersen

I was intrigued by the storyline of the new  25 million pound SkyAtlantic thriller series " Fortitude"
For a mystery thriller set is an isolated Norwegian mining community where " every one has a job, everyone is comfortably off so there is no risk of crime" sounds like the start to one of those in vogue Scandinavia noir series we have all come to enjoy and love over the past couple of years
Fortitude  it would seem, is quite, quite different.
Set in a strangely multicultural Arctic town where only four of the cast of around fifteen are supposed to be Scandinavian , the first episode boasts political shenanigans over a proposed " ice Hotel" which will save the town from financial ruin, a killer polar bear, adultery, a mysterious brunette with a gun, a drunk with a secret, a strange research facility , a fair bit of full frontal male nudity and a murder amid a whole lot of ice and snow.
I didn't know just what to make of episode one. It was brooding and ever so slightly confusing, with the majority of  characters , being somewhat unsympathetic if not a little " odd" in nature.
We have the somewhat driven  town Governer (Sophie Grabel) and her odd untrusting relationship with her hospitalized husband. A mysterious police chief ( Richard Dormer) who looks as though he's covered up a crime, an unhappily and bickering married couple (Nicholas Pinnick & Jessica Raine)  with a son with a mystery sickness, and a brusque British doctor ( Phoebe Nicolls) who is something to do with animal testing.
oh and let's not forget a British drunk( Michael Gambon) who cries a lot and Stanley Tucci who has flown in by the Met Police to help solve the murder
Have you got all that mother?
I have a strange feeling the whole series will take a few odd turns away from the tried and tested usual Scandinavian Noir it purports to be........
Watch this space.........

A Scotch Egg on the wall

Well, I am glad to say , I survived the night
sometimes it's not good working on intensive care.
For nearly every critically ill patient who is sedated and ventilated starts their illness journey with a temperature and flu like symptoms
So be aware dear readers.
Flu isn't alway just....well.......flu.
Before I started to court Chris , I lived on my own in a nice large Victorian terraced house in Hillsborogh. At the start of a weeks holiday , I started to become unwell with the aforementioned " flu like" symptoms. In a few hours I found myself weak as a kitten and pretty much helpless in bed.
I had rigors, didn't eat and spent two days lying in bed which I can honestly say was an incredibly frightening experience, for I was unable to even make a cup of tea for myself.
I thought I was dying but
then all I was suffering from was a late and severe bout of chicken pox.

The cottage lane this morning

I still have a low grade temperature this morning, but I do feel a whole lot better than I did last night even though it's snowing and very cold at the moment ...thank you all for asking!
I had to smile after I took the dogs out for their walk, for left on the back wall was a plastic carrier bag
In it was the following
A scotch egg wrapped in silver foil, a tin of tomato soup and a newspaper
I have no idea which kind soul left it.

Whitehall 1212

I've been painting all day

So when I was full of aches and pains at teatime

I put it down to balancing on a kitchen chair in mrs Hopkins slippers

However I have a temperature 

So I'm off to bed and

With chris away

If you don't hear from me tomorrow

Call the authorities 

Wild Geese That Fly With The Moon On Their Wings ( updated)

With Chris away I went to bed early last night,, subsequently I was up around 6.30 walking the dogs. The nice part of this is the subsequent " lie in" with coffee which was spoilt somewhat by the arrival of a somewhat blustery and violent storm just before 8 am

I knew it was a rough one for across the valley the house lights of Pen y Cefn isa and the light from Gentleman farmer Ralph's Yard disappeared in the rain, and as the cottage was buffeted by gale lashed rain the dogs and Albert all raced up to join me in bed just like the children did to Maria in " The Sound Of Music" 

Now before you ask No, I have not started to sing

Cream coloured ponies and Chrisp apple strudels
Door bells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things

For I was, in fact, thinking of inserting my own lyrics into the song.

But I got stuck tying to rhyme something with " scotch egg" and " zombie apocalypse "
Hey ho...wherever you are keep dry and warm!

Ok ok put these lyrics to the song......

" Scotch Eggs from Tesco's and zombies on tv

             Lost hens, and fat hens and KFC for me

             Large gin and tonics poured over ice

             These things are what make my life feel so nice"