Bridge Of Spies

A work in progress

I painted the base coat of the Prof's Valentine cat food tin/ desk tidy and went to the cinema as it was drying on the sideboard.
I went to see a one off showing of Spielberg's Bridge Of Spies
I knew the movie would be worthy, after all everyone involved has a pedigree as long as your arm , but I wasn't prepared just how good a story it is and I was very grateful that I had no knowledge whatsoever of the "true"story that the film was based upon.
At the height of the cold war New York lawyer James Donovan ( Tom Hanks) reluctantly accepts to defend Rudolph Abel (Mark Rylance) who has been arrested on charges of being a KGB spy. Although the trial leads to Abel being imprisoned for life , the sudden capture of an American espionage pilot by Russian forces and the imprisonment of an American student in East Berlin, means that Donovan's negotiating skills are brought into play to forge an exchange in a wintry and divided Germany.

Rylance ( centre) and Hanks

Hummm, it sounds good, and believe me it is good with the ageing Hanks playing the cold war Jimmy Stewart role that Stewart should always have been offered. He is , quite simply marvellous as the measured , quick thinking and decent Donovan . Wisely, Spielberg pairs the warmth of Hanks with a wonderfully ambiguous and unreadable character of Abel. Their pairing has an electricity reminiscent of Hopkins and Foster in Silence of the Lambs.
Rylance's performace here is a masterclass of underplaying and with the faintest glimpse of a smile
and an almost reptilian glace he walks the very difficult line between slightly doddery invisable eccentric and a calculating and fiercely loyal Russian agent. When the pair are separated for film's second half East Berlin scenes , I bet the rest of the audience was rooting for their reunion, as much as I was.

Spielberg touches abound in this movie. A terribly upsetting machine gunning of five East German escapees in no man's land as seen by the passenges of a passing train, the savage beauty of a snow covered and decaying Berlin, the breathtaking shooting down of the American spy jet over Russia are just three set pieces that linger long in the mind.
The master is oh so back on form with Bridge Of Spies
9/10

My Fat Balls hanging and other Monday stories

Olivia from Walking Dead

Normal life can be terribly mundane ....but in the great scheme of things shopping has to be done, dry cleaning needs collecting and fat balls need a hanging.
Those birds won't feed themselves.
The Prof has his own mundane stressors to cope with as he is off to Norway for most of the week to talk about something important.
This morning he was no doubt double checking his international travel arrangements and how to say " I'll have a large Akvavit" in Norweigan.
I had to pick up a newly laundered and formally piss stained duvet from the laundry.

Fat balls

The woman at the dry cleaners looked like Olivia from The Walking Dead and she was very apologetic when she informed me that she couldn't work out which black bin bag was ours. " I've mixed up the labels" she told me. " Would you recognise your duvet if you saw it again?" She asked nervously..." it has big blobs of bulldog period blood in one corner" I informed her
She found the duvet within seconds after that.

I went to poundland to buy some cheap reading glasses and treats for the new hens. ( Jean Claude Van Damme especially  loves to wander around with one of my big fat balls in his beak) and after all that I have come home to shelter from  bloody Imogen by the fire.

I think I shall make the Prof's valentine pressie......it's a desk tidy made from a painted kitty-kat tin......
I think homemade gifts are so much more personal than expensive chocolates, designer underwear and champagne.....don't you?
Hey ho

Flu Jab Blues

Sunday afternoon after night shift.
The Prof is cooking pork and is sighing a great deal about small shit.
I've been lying on the couch watching old war films
With some company

My arm is sore...I had a flu jab yesterday

Thin lips

Mrs Trellis was a bit thin lipped when I bumped into her on a very soggy Marian lane.
By some mistake two of her answerphone messages had not reached me last Wednesday when she needed a lift from the garage.
I had asked her to ring, so it was my fault.......oh dear!
Hey ho....working later!

Janet & John

This was played on radio four today as a tribute to Terry Wogan

This was actually aired on his morning show in the 2009

Brilliant 

Out with Anger, in with love ( or failing that chips for tea)

Everyone in blogland seem to be rather nonplussed at the moment . Rachel had a fall out with Weaver, which is a bit like Joan Rivers bitch slapping Julie Andrews right out of her wimple and Tom Stephenson has suddenly started to worry about his followers ( sorry Readers) and is cutting down his prose into easily digestible chunks....he's even missing the odious Grouchy, a sign, if a sign be needed that all is not well.
I too am feeling rather prickly today.
Most of this is related to the weather , which is getting me down somewhat. I am tired to buggery of damp washing about the cottage. I am tired of sweeping the muddy and coal stained concrete outside the back door and I am tired of being patient with a Welsh terrier puppy who won't piss outside because it is cold and wet ! 
We all need a bit of sunshine and good humour.
I thought of this yesterday and left a slightly overwrought Prof a small vase of miniature daffs on his desk. Daffodils always make people smile....they are cheerful little souls.
I went out into the garden to pick some more this afternoon and couldn't find any
This pissed me off even more !
I was curt to the teller at the bank today, when she tried to double talk herself into reviewing my account, even though there was a big queue behind me . " I'm in a hurry " I snapped , not looking at her , but I what I really wanted to do was to pull her through that little slot thing at the counter by her ears.
Of course I didn't ......but I did feel that I wanted to.

Anyhow I got home after all this and have pulled my bad mood up by it's bra straps. The kitchen floor needed another mopping , so I did this with an energetic tune blasting full volume from the bluetooth speaker, and I refused point blank to shout at Mary and George after they had raided the dog food cupboard and ate great mouthfuls of William's hypoallergenic food. I just overstepped the large pile of puke and lay down on the bed with Albert for ten minutes.
I dozed...dreaming of fish and chips we are having for tea!

Out with anger , in with love

How do you cheer yourself up? On this kind of , blustery , dull, moist and grotty winter's day?

Music to mop the floor to

Longing

I'm longing for blue skies

And dry lanes.

Grass you can lie on and look up to white clouds

and green hedgerows that frame the fields.

Hard dry ground, and happy hens lying in the shade and

no dirty paw prints around the house

Trelawnyd is warm, and dusty and clean

Trelawnyd under a dry Gop Hill in summer

Barter Loaf

The Prof is working exceedingly hard at the moment.
He's often up hours before dawn beavering away at his office desk.
As me and the dogs are snoring away in our beds
To oil the cogs somewhat, I have a tendency to feed.
I am a feeder.
In my mind nothing helps a bout of overworking tiredness than a nice cup of tea and a slice of cake.
It's the food that won the war.
I'm out later , so thought that the Prof may appreciate a cake to come home to.
I thought I had all of the ingredients so greased a loaf tin, preheated the oven and measured out the butter.

The new girls 

I suddenly realised that we were short of eggs ( the new girls are still somewhat stressed by their recent move and are stubbornly keeping their egg ducts closed) so I traipsed around to animal helper Pat and borrowed some .
Then I realised that I had run out of self raising flour ! So went around to another neighbour to blag a cupful. The price of the trade was me to give  some health advice for her husband later in the week.
It's useful being a nurse sometimes.
Luckily I had all of the other ingredients to hand, but I bet I could have bartered more ingredients if I needed to......talk about frugal living
In 30 minutes I had banged out a loaf as Mary and George slept off a mornings' play fighting.

Banana cake

Mary & George