Sundays

The Gray family circa 1963 , Andrew is on the far left , I am the baby on my father's knee far right

I met my sister in law for lunch today.
It's a habit we've got into since my brother died
I can't believe it will be seven years this December.
I can't quite remember just how the subject arose, but over a pulled pork pannini ( try saying that when you're pissed!) she mentioned that my brother hated Sundays with a vengeance.
She also admitted that she never quite knew just why.
I knew why.
Sundays were rather hateful, wasted days growing up.
They were filled with parent lie ins ( and hangovers) over cooked roast dinners, long boring sits in front of crappy tv and cold Sunday tea times listening to song something simple.
A Sunday drive out was unheard of. I don't remember picnics or walks out ( except the ones with my elder sister), there were no seaside jaunts, Church visits or zoo trips.
Pre lunch my father would retire to the fraternity that was the local Conservative club while my mother boiled the fuck out of mashed carrots and we children were happy that he brought home the Sunday treat of a block of Neapolitan ice cream.
My sister in law probably still cannot quite understand my brother's hatred of Sundays.
Her childhood was very different to our own.
I understood it, perfectly

Have you ever hated a day?

Ngā mihi Māhāna

I have returned to blogging earlier than I thought
And I have some kind words from a Maori follower to thank for it!
They reminded me of the kindness of bloggin and bloggers
Kindness that was added to by the majority of comments of the last two blogs.
Hamitana, you are a star

"I hug with my Maori Soul; I smile with my Maori Heart; I laugh with my tummy; I think with my Hands; I speak with my Eyes; I listens with my Maori Mind and, abundantly Love with my Everything"

A Heart Again

I painted the bathroom all yesterday and the day before
Baby blue with white trim
I never left the house unless it was paint or dog related.
I feel back to normal today.
The shitty time has passed.

At 8 pm on Monday night  Mary and I ambled through an icy Trelawnyd
The village was dark and closed
All except for Auntie Glad's old house which was a beacon of bright light.
Light that shone across the green .

The new owners were scraping old wallpaper from the walls
I met the husband over the weekend, when he spied me with the pack.
" You're John aren't you?" , he said extending his hand " The dogs gave you away"
The new owners are teachers and want to engage...I told them the house used to be an old school.
They are nice people.

It was cold on Monday night ,so we didn't linger. Mary peed quickly due to the icy grass
And as we turned for home we heard the musical tinkle of Children's laughter from Gladys' front room.

How lovely the house has a heart again

Not Back just visiting

Not back yet , a week off should do it...perhaps more....I got into my head that I had to blog everyday
Of course... I couldn't and Ursula's bile upset me more that it should
I need to recharge the batteries !
I just wanted to share that a badger broke into the bachelors' hen house last night by digging under the entrance and removing the stone step and  then lowered the portcullis door enough to squeeze in....
It must have taken it bloody ages.......it's winter and badgers are hungry
How sad...
The Ukrainian village is now totally silent ....

.....Have A Kit-Kat

After 12 years blogging I've decided to take a break for a little while
A bit of an energy change is required .
Hey Ho..... watch this space. X

Bullying

Yesterday Mrs Trellis told me of an innovative new school initiative to combat bullying.
Instead of discussion groups, witness statements or counselling, the children involved were given a real baby to care for.
At first, I thought that this rather  theatrical intervention was concerning itself more with the act of caring for another living thing rather than anything else but I was only half right as Mrs Trellis explained more.
The important part of this exercise was crying.
The crying of the baby.
For when the baby naturally cried when it was hungry or wet or uncomfortable the children automatically tried to pacify it. They showed natural empathy and concern for the baby and reacted in a positive way to its tears.
It was hoped that this reaction to  the crying baby would be transferred to a positive reaction to the crying of a fellow pupil and according to Mrs Trellis, the experiment worked and levels of bullying decreased.
True or not, the story is an interesting one.

I am reminded here of the reaction of a boy of around six to William when they came face to face outside the school at home time. The boy, after making his usual fuss of the ever avuncular Winnie pointed to William's noticeably odd blind eye asking what was the matter.
I told the boy and his mum that William was blind and to approach him from his good side if he wanted to pet him.
The boy, as young as he was, carefully reached out and rubbed the gentle William on the chin with one hand, and gently covered his bad eye with the other.
" poor little boy" the boy cooed
Empathy is a wonderful thing

A Vegetable Samosa

A seagull whipped a vegetable samosa from out of my hand outside Marks and Spencers today.

I'd only had one bite of it too!
I don't know just what was worse
The fact I was still hungry or the fact that a passing couple found the whole thing hilarious.
I should have known better.

The plumber has just been. He's returning tomorrow or Friday to fix the leaking toilet. Winnie joined him when he laid down on the bathroom floor with his head at the U bend. She pushed herself around the other side to get a glimpse of what he was seeing.

It's cold today and I've lit the fire early. I am listening to a podcast from radio 4 a police mystery -A Small Town Murder with Meera Syal . It's very good.

The Shape Of Water

Hawkins and Spencer 

I  adored Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. 
A child's nightmare fantasy set against the violence of the Spanish Civil war was a tour de force Adult fairy tale piece which still haunts me over a decade since I first saw it.
I always thought that nothing could quite beat it, and although I really wanted to love The Shape of water, Del Toro's revisit to the world of strange creatures and the flawed people that come in contact with them, wasn't quite as good as his first triumph....not quite.

I think we all know the story by now.
In a 1962 government research centre an amphibious humanoid creature is being studied and brutalised by special agent Strickland ( Michael Shannon) A mute and lonely domestic worker Elisia (Sally Hawkins ) secretly interacts with the creature , and a strange love affair starts between the two before the creature is ordered to be killed.
Helped by fellow cleaner Zelda ( Octavia Spencer) and closest gay best friend Giles (Richard Jenkins), Elisia then breaks the creature out of the facility with the violent Strickland in hot pursuit .

In anyone else's hands this might have been a Beauty and the Beast type  fairy tale full of whimsy and sentimentality but typically del Toro has produced a dark, multilayered and strangely credible story about loneliness, damage and loss. Elisia, Giles and Zelda are the " water" of the title as they are damaged people mouldered by their lot just like water is shaped by the vessel it finds itself in. Elisia is mute and is defined by her silence, Giles is in his own words born at the wrong time and Zelda is trapped in an unhappy marriage and it is their varying interactions with the creature that sets them free of the confines of their lives.

Hawkins is truly wonderful and without saying a word is incredibly moving as a woman who has found love for the first time in her sad life. I have to say that the  scene where she silently stands up to the psychopath Strickland with just one look is a revelation and incredibly moving all at the same time.
Jenkins , Spencer and the granite faced Shannon are equally impressive with Shannon echoing Sergi Lopez's brutal baddie performance from Labyrinth.
Del Toro does love his psychopath baddie , and Shannon is truly evil in this movie , so much so I had to look away at two of his more horrific moments !

The Shape Of Water is really worth the effort. It's magnificently atmospheric, and despite its oddness, strangely believable. It's moving , engaging and , I warn you, darkly shocking.
But I found it perhaps just half an hour too long.
8/10