Downton ( Spoilers)

 

 I felt like a Sunday afternoon film today.

Nothing too taxing.

Just something to wash over me .

It had to be Downton Abbey a new Era .

Now watching Downton is a bit like attending a works reunion or a night out with old school mates. 

You are visiting with people that you like but you haven’t really got enough time to talk to.

24 main characters within a two hour storyline? 

Therefore everything plot line is hurried and save for a couple of scenes, most of the pathos and drama is lost.

It must be slightly annoying for some to watch their favourite characters, for instance  Anna, Mr Bates and Danka who just stand around muttering the odd word and I had to smile at Imelda Staunton who popped up in three scenes only to say something like I need a cup of coffee and I’m off to a sleep before exiting stage left.

But it’s very silly and lovely to look at , what with Downton being used as the  backdrop for a cinema shoot as most of the toffs relocate to the south of France to take possession of a villa left to Dowager some seventy years previously.

And in good fairy tale style all the romantic loose ends are tied up with Baxter, Mosely, Mrs Padmore and 

Barrow finding happier endings.

Of course it is Maggie Smith’s swan song as the wisecracking Lady Dowager and rather movingly her final scene with the glorious Penelope Wilton ( her nemesis for all of the tv series ) is sweet and unhurried and incredibly poignant 

Take your tissues

It was sunny in Chester when I left the cinema and it was nice to sit in the sun on Northgate street and listen to a busker playing a Spanish guitar

I fell asleep 

Sewing

 

Gawd it was a busy shift, somewhat fraught and rather stressful 

I’m now drinking a huge gin with a wonderful long slice of cucumber 

Watching Sewing Bee

I’d love to meet the three presenters over dinner

Bucket Of Coffee

 Bucket of coffee.

It’s a bright morning.

Bracing in the lane.

The wind turbine over the valley at Marian Mawr is working again and there is enough breeze to have it turning, albeit slowly. 

The woodpecker is busy.

And early too, as it’s just past six.

I am pink, 

Pink after a hot shower 

And I feel as clean as you only used to feel the Sunday night before school.

Dorothy is sulking,

And has adopted a strange position in the kitchen reading chair

She knows I’m off to work

kór

Post Covid choir lockdown has seen a sudden burst in new male choristers . One younger man with a higher range has been nabbed by the female tenors, all of whom looked suitably chuffed. The other guy sat next to me .

Jamie , still bursting from his yearly obsession with Eurovision , announced loudly that we were going to learn this year’s Icelandic entry IN Icelandic and I heard the new man mutter “ oh bollocks “ under his breath. It was a euphemism for what have I got myself into ?

I think he enjoyed the session.

Anyhow I think we sounded better than the original to be fair . 

I’ve talked before about the power of singing in a choir and  tonight I was reminded of the special camaraderie shared voices generate . 

The good humour and the kindness especially .

The younger man sang rather well, and it was lovely to see many of the choristers going up to him at the end of the class to tell him so.

The face to face kindness and good humour I mentioned have reminded me that some of the negative and indeed nasty blog comments received recently have really been inappropriate and unfortunate………and bad habits of internet life.

And I’m tired of them and it..toxic and sad as the whole experience has become

My Laburnum

 

I’ve spent most of the day cleaning away the dust and mess from ten days of workman. 

Four loads of washing hang drying on the garden walls, my gates and the field gate and the carpets have been shampooed with hot water and hints of lemon juice.

I had smoked salmon for lunch, eaten with long green beans cooked in garlic. 

And had a break in the Churchyard where the blue Alkanet frames the yellow Welsh poppies in an Ukrainian flag display .

Exactly a year yesterday I planted the baby laburnum and when  I visited it today I was happy to see it had flowered well and looked straight and tall and healthy.

Choir Later

Taaaadaaaaaaaa!

The new bathroom is finished,

A few minor tweaks need to be done, what with a new shower head and the like but it’s finally done and dusted and finished.

I know it’s just a tiny bathroom, in a tiny cottage, but having the final room in my home changed  remains a sort of landmark for me. It’s me, finally putting, my stamp on my home, in my way.

The final ghosts of it being a former marital home, chased away a little more.

It also underlines my a certain balance in my financial independence - and just to think only a few years ago, that independence was in question as the cottage was on the market.

And so here it is, all six foot square of it. 

I’ve seen posher

I’ve pooed in posher

But this is all mine

And it’s made me very happy.

Will it, won’t it?

 It’s like the end of Eurovision,

There’s a tension in the air 

Will the bathroom be finished in time? 

Time will only tell.

We’ve had a problem with one of the glass panels,

And I’ve just had to help with the positioning before sealing.

Mrs Trellis popped her head over the kitchen wall to see if things had progressed.

I’ve dropped CBM a curved ball by presenting him with more shelving

It’s humid and we are expecting storms.

Upstairs looks like London during the Blitz

Dusk Sky

 

While I was at work my sister had replanted the back garden with flowering shrubs and plants and flowers. It’s an early and very welcomed birthday gift .

She left instructions for me to water them all in when I got home and so with due diligence I soaked the dry flower beds as the girls ate their dinners and a dog fox barked loudly from down the Felin.

Jo ,a blog reader from Coventry sent me some gifts for the new bathroom which was kind and fun and my nephew Leo sent me a selfie of himself and his new girlfriend grinning wide at the camera…..and feeling suddenly good humoured I found a bottle of Peroni in the fridge and took the girls over to the field to lie down on the damp grass.

Mary and I looked up at the sky

As Dorothy and Albert just mooched about 

I chugged the beer 

And as the fox continued to call 

We watched the clouds until dusk