Gina G - Ooh Ahh... Just A Little Bit Eurovision performance
A Hot Village & Greenberg
It has been hot, hot, hot today!
The village seemed deserted when I took the dogs on their walk this afternoon, but as I walked up High Street, I did spy Auntie Gladys (right pic- oh and just to let everyone know that Gladys is called "auntie" by everyone that knows her!) She was having a quiet sun snooze outside her house, which is one of the oldest in the village. At 90 she remains a stalwart on the flower show committee and single handedly has sold almost 300 raffle tickets!
I didn't wake her as she looked so relaxed, sitting there in the sun...I thought it was a lovely and awfully intimate scene of relaxation.
This afternoon we had a bit of a break and went to see the movie Greenberg at the Scala. As it turned out we were the only two people in the cinema on one of the hottest days of the year so far.....It was blissfully cool inside the cinema....pity the film was so bad.
Greenberg is Noah Baumbach's tale of modern Los Angeles and centres upon the realisation by a small group of friends that they are indeed "past their prime" now they have reached their forties . The central character is Roger Greenberg, a prickly 40 year old no hoper who after being discharged from a psychiatric hospital, is house sitting for his successful LA based Brother.Greenberg ( a dreadfully haggard and sad looking Ben Stiller) is a difficult character. He is overtly angry, emotionally unstable, and is a rather unlikable man who has not quite dealt with the hand that life has given him and amid this background of thinly veiled depression he meets his brother's PA, Florence.(Greta Gerwig). Florence is a similar personality but is young enough to make something out of herself, and the two start a fraught, unstable love affair, overseen by Roger's world weary but ultimately more stable old friend, Ivan ( a good performance by Welshman Rhys Ifans) I am sure Greenberg has a great deal to say about the awful shock it can be when you realise that you are middle aged. It also in its own Annie Hall (ish) way discusses disillusionment,the death of hope and broken dreams.....and does so quite sucessfully in a bleak and souless kind of way....however, in the end I lost interest in what the movie had to say, and this I put down to Stiller's character, who is so awfully unsympathetic that I couldn't bare watching him for another minute longer than the 107 minutes that the movie ran for.
5/10
ps Finally caught up with Nu on the phone this morning......she was in Harrogate going to a wedding....."Just thought of you Jonney!!!" she yelled....."I have just bought a fat bastard from Bettys".........I will tell you the story of all this tomorrow!!! It was lovely to catch up
pps. I spied the Fox tonight in next door's field!
Winnie and Jo
Forgive the "newsreel" feel of the video, but both goslings were rather rumbumbtious this morning. They remain a complete delight!
It looks like another very hot day!...I will be downing the diet cokes like mad......not just for hydration...I have been "peeing" along the field borders all yesterday....Human urine is supposed to be a good fox deterent!.......I have not been caught by anyone yet!!!
48 and still having teenage crushes
http://www.jon-richardson.co.uk/Shows/Aug10.html
Before & After
Anyhow I have just had time for a glass of wine, a brief blog and a bath and me and the dogs are off to bed...Chris is working away again.I bet he is happy to be away to a fox free zonePoor George
Do dogs grieve?It is a question I have been asking myself when observing George since Maddie died. Generally the little chap is quieter than normal, less bouncy, less confident and certainly less "verbal",however , I think it would be easy to push the "human" trait of grief forward as an explanation, after all the emotive scene of George alone on his walks, without his constant companion sniffing at the things he is sniffing at remains one that pulls at your heart strings.
Does George actually miss Maddie?......hummm... I really think that the question is irrelevant, as I believe George's behaviour is really a result of the imbalance within the pack dynamic. The Welsh terriers are and always have been a close pair of their own. They walk together, they play together and they joust together. George has never been an active part of that...ever.
Because of his size and slowness compared to the others he and Maddie by default would walk together on every walk; because of their ability to accept the poultry both Scotties would be allowed free range in the field, whereas the Welsh would always be tethered.
With Maddie dying, his position in the pack does have a certain sense of isolation about it.
Chris especially has also changed the balance of the pack by showing George a little more attention than usual. Now I know just how easy this is to do and it may help Chris grieve for Maddie but I think it causes more issues between the dog pack as a whole. George has always been lowest in the pecking order and both William (who is wonderfully good natured) and Meg will just not allow that fact to be changed.
I think we do need to get George a companion of his own, but getting the right one will be, well, a bit of a challenge......hey ho..
Remembering Ivy
This is the view from our living room window and I am presently sat here waiting for the water to heat up for a bath (the goslings have relieved themselves all over me on our early morning garden bonding moment)Iris' comment tickled me. She remembered a post that I made ages ago about a somewhat wayward set of underpants
http://disasterfilm.blogspot.com/2009/06/underwear-embarrassment.html
This morning I remembered another embarrassing incident that happened to me almost 26 years ago now to the day!,
I was a student nurse in those days and worked in an old Chester asylum (they were asylums in those days!) . I was placed on a long stay ward, where most of the institutionalised patients had been there for most of their lives. The surroundings were austere and functional, but the patients in those final days of hospital based mental health care were well looked after and for the most part happy.
One day I was asked to take a long term schizophrenic patient called Ivy into Chester city centre for some shopping.
She was a neat, sweet looking elderly lady, who smoked constantly and spoke little, so I had no real worries taking her out. Like a grandson with his gran, we ambled arm in arm around the shops, had a coffee and bought Ivy her weekly "treat" to herself of cigarettes and sweets. Throughout the jaunt, Ivy remained polite and appropriate and seemed to be enjoying herself immensely.
Before we caught the bus back to the hospital, Ivy asked if we could have a browse around Browns of Chester ( the flagship department store) so we walked in to the busy cosmetic department .
Almost immediately a plastic looking sales woman came up to Ivy and with a perfume tester in hand asked "Would madam like to try some of this new fragrance?"
Ivy smiled broadly, she loved the attention of strangers
"Oh yes please!" she replied holding out her wrist to be sprayed
The saleswoman gave Ivy a "squirt" which Ivy inhaled with some relish
"That's lovely" Ivy said "what is it?"
The plastic saleswomen smiled, obviously hoping for a sale and said "Poison!"
There was a pause
I stiffened somewhat worried at Ivy's response....
Ivy nodded and sniffed her wrist again
"It is nice!" she said cheerfully
Then added sweetly
"I knew Adolf Hitler you know!!!!........he had a HUGE cock!"
Have a nice day everyone