Misbehaviour

Miss Grenada Gugu Mbatha Raw

A few months ago I listened to the BBC radio 4 programme The Reunion 
It brought together several characters involved in the 1970 Miss World competition , the televised event that featured  MC Bob Hope ,accusations of cheating  the pageant's first black winner and a show stopping demonstration by a women's rights group, and the subsequent revisiting of the story proved to be riveting radio.
The film Misbehaviour is a comic drama which explores multiple themes relation to this now defunked and archaic spectacle.
We follow disillusioned history student Sally ( Keira Knightly) as she joins in with a radical London feminist group in its efforts to disrupt the show at the same time as we follow three of the contestants of the pageant itself.
Miss Sweden ( Clare Roseger) is bored and rebellious of the constraints and treatment put on the girls and wants to study where as the newer black contestants Miss Grenada ( Gugu Mbatha Raw) and the token black South African ( Lorrie Harrison ) are just grateful for a new experience to travel and take part.
Add to the mix a womanising Bob Hope ( Greg Kinnear) and his somewhat strained relationship with his long suffering wife Delores ( Lesley Manville).A tragic and sexist Eric Morley ( Rhys Ifans) whose power lies in his soft spoken wife Julia ( Keely Hawes), a woman who realises that lip service has to be played to the black consentants on show and top heavy black biased judging panel.

As you can see, the film has a great deal to say , not only on feminism , but on racism and relationships in general and provides a facinating snapshot of a place in time, a place that feels sometimes( but not always) a million miles away from today

The disruption of the show, somewhat over shadowed the fact the two black contestants won first and second place, black women of spirit whose lives were inhanced by their success.
Indeed Miss Grenada ( Jennifer Hosten) in her gracious review of the competition in the radio some forty years later had only good things to say about the event and interestingly she went on to become  the Grenadan High Comissioner to Canada .

The cast , as you can see , are a dream bunch , and the performances are top notch .Ifans and Manville  almost steal the show with their tiny but very telling parts, Knightly is as good as she always is, but it's a very still and subtle performance by Gugu Mbatha Raw that impresses the most

It was lovely to be back in the cinema again
Social distancing kept chatting to a minimum and the Storyhouse in Chester had organised everything quite wonderfully 

Flabbergasted


I am in Chester just over the border
The city is busy, well it feels busy post lockdown
I'm having a take out coffee from my fave cafe
Then off to the storyhouse cinema
Hardly anyone is wearing a mask!
I cant quite understand it

A Constant

Sheffield triplets mike Jane and me 

Jane is a constant in my life
A former girlfriend from our joint salad days of 30 years ago
She had stood by my coming out with typical Yorkshire alacrity  and with true Sheffield pragmatism
She became one of my best friends of thirty years

I love her dearly

Now Lockdown has given us a what's app forum for conversation and We talk every week on line and laugh like children when we do so

She is as necessary to me as breathing x

What Ive Got

It's almost the end of my holiday.
And all but one job on my now slightly dog eared to do list have now been ticked off.

But I still have a few wants, a few objectives to complete once I save up enough money.
I have a dreadfully old fashioned bathroom which needs completely overhauling
The bed mattress still doesn't quite fit my bed frame and the carpet in the spare room is a total disgrace
The living room Carpet too is in need of a change and my bedroom needs an upgrade........

I want
I need
I haven't got

But let's get things in perspective
Let's look what I have got

I have this!!!!!


28

Sheffield  circa 1990 my sister is holding my cat Joan

I was 28 in this photo, it was sent to me this evening
Apparantly 28 is the age , almost everyone feels that they are no matter the actual truth
28 is an optimum year.....supposedly
I met my Samaritan friends this afternoon
We all sat on the beach with flasks of coffee and ice cream cones and we talked
Chic Eleanor was minus her signature pashmina which seemed odd.
We laughed and joked and talked about dating, and sex and life and work.
And we talked about being single
I was single for much of my twenties into my early thirties
Ten years alone all told apart from a lovely few years with jane
The photograph underlines many things but it certainly proved that
Singleton days forged  me friends for life

Joan died in Trelawnyd some 20 years later



Showroom

I'm on the last leg on my holiday
Just five more days left!
The next three days I am seeing different friends each day
It's face to face ( ish) meetings
More walks on the beach, coffee in flasks and windswept hairdos
But Saturday, I am doing something different
The story house

I am going to the cinema!!!!
It's been over four months since I last went and I am venturing over the border to Chester to Storyhouse
Ok I am not going to any pub and I will keep away from the shops
But I am going to socially distance inside my most loved cinema
And I will shed a tear at my return to this, most loved of treats!

Last night it was my choir's sixth birthday and as a surprise for Jamie ( and his 1940s RAF moustache) we his choristers made homemade posters declaring our affection for him
He was very moved and we, his choir ( mostly people that are old enough to be his parents) were happy that we had indeed made him happy!!


Talking Heads was a disappointment last night
Martin Freeman's portrayal of a mentally ill gay son carer of an elderly Yorkshire mother in A Chip In The Sugar had too much light and speed to it to be effective and Rochenda Sandall 's 
powerful performance in The Outside Dog, although undeniably well acted , remained a bleak study of an obsessive woman's gradual awareness that her husband was a serial killer, was totally devoid of Bennett's signature flashes of humour and light.





Beach Bitch Time



I wrote a worthy and rather indulgent post early this morning which I pulled
It was important to write but not to post if you get my meaning
Those that have already read it, will understand I am sure.
Now I post a photo of myself and the girls
Indulgent me!?
Naw!
Anyhow it's Tuesday, I think
Yes it's Tuesday .....Choir night !

I took the younger girls on an 8 mile beach walk and timed it well enough to meet an old friend for proper coffee overlooking Liverpool Bay

Yesterday, I found a heart shaped pebble tucked away on a book shelf
It was no larger than a postage stamp and it had been there perhaps 16 years
I painted it a cheerful yellow and wrote on it stay safe
And left it on the head of the ever growing covid snake which stretches from the lytch gate towards the church



Bryn Euryn

Mary decided she was friends with Ben
Lovely afternoon
My work colleague besties and I met up with our gaggle of dogs and had a walk up the ancient hill fort Bryn Euryn which is tucked behind the town of Colwyn Bay

Ruth and her dog Max

Big Skies over Conwy




Ruth made me somesocks which I'm wearing right now. My right knee is aching badly with all the climbing but it was worth it.
Friends lighten the heart

Trelawnyd Pride



I organised the photo but the velvet voiced Linda ( front far left) organised this set of Trelawnyd villagers as a total force for good during the covid crisis
Here are the Trelawnyd Street Volunteers , well most of them to be sure, and. amid the ranks are well known characters such as Hattie, Bunty, The Affable despot Jason, Tim bright and not dim and yours truly with Mary right at the back !
This is only a work in progress as Boffin Cameron needs to spin more magic on the images
But it's a start
I'm so very proud of us all 

Gay Pride Weekend


Trolls

Trolls, commentators with little emotional intelligence and spineless anonymous commentators have been trying to shake us bloggers recently.
Some bloggers of old have resorted to a blog holiday just to escape them
All three types just get on my tits
Arseholes all!!


I've spent the afternoon in a park with a friend
We dodged the showers , ate sushi and fruit
And talked until it was time to go home
I had a date!



Therapy


The girls have spent most of the day watching various items of clothes, old duvet sets, bald towels, a plethora of holed underpants , three bin bags of crap, one small side table and wooden duck fly past the living room window onto the lawn.
By hour number three, they didn't bother raising a head, even when I got overly excited and bunged  out an old standard lamp which crashed onto the concrete path by mistake.
It's been a totally therapeutic day
It really has!
I really feel that I have turned an important corner in my life today
I shall discuss this more in detail at some stage
But that's not for today
Hey ho!!

Knickers in the air

Hey Siri what day is it today?
Bloody Friday already!
So what does today hold for me
Shall I go down to the beach with all of the mindless stupid people who are following that Oaf Boris' instructions to "Get on out there!!" ?
Or should I get pissed and drugged up and hold a rave party down Cwm Road in the hope of injuring a couple of policemen?
Hummm?

Well I'm actually clearing out my wardrobe
It's entertaining the neighbours!!!


Hot


The pace of the holiday has matched the pace of the mini heatwave and slowly I have cleared out my new bike shed and re organised the garden shed which now has neat lines of gleaming garden tools in it as well as a newly buffed up mower.
Not content with the outside sheds, I made a start on some unsorted bedroom cupboards and cleared out a load of shite as well as carrier bags of old books and photographs all of which I have therapeutically thrown into the bin.
I bumped into Mrs Trellis when I was returning Jason's power cleaner and both agreed to attend the photo session of the Street Wardens which looks as though it's happening on Sunday evening
Mrs Trellis is buying a computer soon , so impressed she is with on line shopping.

Trendy Carol ( in a baseball hat inspired ensemble today!!) stopped to chat as the lone cockerel stopped by for his tea as he made his way back to the Churchyard.
I feel for the bird who looks and acts incredibly lonely
I caught him yesterday standing on the Church wall listening to the crowing of a cockerel at the livery stables only 1000 yards away.
So near but so far away.

The bulldogs have spent their day with nipples against cold shady concrete

Thunderstorms are on the way 

Documenting The Present


This photo can be seen on my sister blog http://trelawnydhistory.blogspot.com/
It features all of Trelawnyd volunteer Wartime force and was taken outside the memorial Hall
I like the fact things are documented
I've suggested that we organise a socially distant " Group " photograph of the Street Warden initiative organised by Velvet Voiced Linda from Well Street
Ok it may be a bit like herding cats 
But I think something that has worked so effectively should be documented and celebrated
I've put the request out on the Warden's App and Cameron has agreed to take the photo!

Siri.....what day is it today?
Oh it's Thursday already is it? Bloody hell.."..
I'm sat at the kitchen looking at my list boxes
Seventeen ticked off already!!!
I will drain my bucket of coffee soon and will go and clear out the shed
Eighteen ticks by lunchtime!

It's a lovely day,

I will leave you with a short tribute to Margarita Pracatan who died yesterday



The Great British Sewing Bee


Well with a few crikey and Crumbs  comments the lovely, slightly gauche , 1940s Claire won the Sewing Bee.
She wasn't a hugger
She didn't shout or cry or  emote very much,
She just kept prodding her specs and got on with the job

But her mum loved her so very much and her best friends were people from work that respected her

Serendipity and Bluebell

I thought I would share a story with you today.
Well, to be honest Going Gently is all about stories...but this one is true and is one I couldn't quite share at the time it happened.


I'm sat in a park in St Asaph.
St Asaph is the " city" where I was born.
The cathedral bell has just rung a sombre 9 am and I'm sipping coffee at a picnic table.
The sun is shining!
The city, is infact the size of a large village and I'm here waiting for Bluebell to have her brakes repaired at a nearby garage

My story starts two years ago.
I was in a very bad place. My husband had just left me ...I had no job
He had taken the car we both used and so I was reliant on friends like jason who loaned me their cars to catch up on the basics .
More importantly I had no money.
No money which to buy a car and certainly no money to pay a solicitor

My solicitor is based in St Asaph
Right next to the cathedral
I remember the day when I saw her for the first time.
She was full of  very Welsh sympathy, had an elasticaed waist on her pants and offered constant cups of coffee....
Welsh sympathy often means repeating the word " Bechod!" In a supportive way

Anyhow, I digress.

She informed me that the divorce could cost me a small fortune and I remember thinking at the time how the fuck was I going to afford that as well as financing a new car which I so desperately  needed.
It was a very bleak day indeed!

Then serendipity reared her fortunate head, as she has done so many times for me these last couple of years!
I returned home after that first consultation to a phone message...a phone message from a solicitor's firm in Manchester. A solicitor that specialised in PPI
I had requested a PPI review several months before and had totally forgotten about it, but the message was real
" you have a claim  mr Gray " it said " several in fact going back into the 1990s!"
Even the clerk sounded excited
I rang back and told her I would kiss her on the lips if what she said was true
She told me it was true with a titter!

That money paid for Bluebell
Outright!!!
It also got me onto my feet

Bluebell was my saviour. Under her steam I found a crappy job which boosted my self worth and with her I managed to sort out vet runs for poorly dogs, solicitor meetings and my independence.
Bluebell and serendipity have been good friends to me
I won't forget either of them x
Ever x
Bluebell sleeping in the shade of the church elms today


Covid Snake and Talking Heads!


As lockdown draws to a slow end the vicar has started a bit of local art in the shape of a multicoloured covid snake .The village children and indeed everyone have been asked to add to the snake by decorating a pebble and laying it towards the Church.
I laid mine a few minutes ago ...
Well why not?

I've ticked six boxes from my list today. Fitted in a beach bike ride, Mary's trip to the groomers, the clearing of the drive of weeds, a collection of a load of plants from Meirion Jones's prize winning garden and just managed to join in with the last few songs of Zoom choir before settling down to a much looked forward to Alan Bennett on BBC 1

Beneath the chintz , and the cardigans and the perms and the brown furniture, Alan Bennett's Talking Heads , ventured into the darker side of the life of  the  1980s Northern middle aged, with studies tinged with the effects of mental illness, loneliness, sexual abuse and exploitation, grief and alcohol abuse.
His humour shines through quite wonderfully though and cushions the monologues and the protagonists lack of awareness of their own motivations.
A Lady Of Letters is perhaps one of his most uplifting pieces. Originally performed by the powerhouse Patricia Routledge , this is an up to date study of a lonely and mentally ill woman who communicates with a world through an obsession with writing letters and has the wonderful Imelda Staunton in the lead role. Staunton excels in this initially tragic tale and unlike Routledge she plays her character more unsympathetically.....so when, Irene ,eventually finds some unexpected happiness she breaks your heart in it's telling .


The second monologue is a new piece with a rather dowdy looking Sarah Lancashire in the lead. This is an all together different bleak study and has at its core a mother's incestuous feelings for her 15 year old son, a monologue that would never have been aired back in the 1980s
This was a harder piece to sit through, given the subject matter, but Lancashire gives Gwen a tragic depth as her character  decends into mental illness


Bennett is the king of the monologue that is a god given fact  , and there is 10 in the series to enjoy , most of them  centred around middle aged women with little to do.
Perhaps that fact dates Bennett somewhat......which is a shame.

Lists

Horse post repair!!!

My first day of holiday was today
At 9am I sat at the kitchen table and made my list for the week
A to do list
The first hour, I sipped at my bucket of coffee and made four list headings which I added words to when they entered my head. This took two hours, three cups of coffee ,one play for today, downloaded from radio 4 and a nasty moment when Albert knocked the hind leg off my pottery horse!!!
I was pleased as punch with my lists when finished even though it wasn't comprehensive

Finance.                Home.                  People.                 Misc.

Registration.         Clear drive.          Nando.                 Mary haircut
Bills.                     Back Garden.       Polly.                    Strim Field
(Numerous.           Car brakes.          Gorgeous Dave.   Daily bike rides
Lines re                 Paint Hall.            Eleanor                Paint bookcase
different bills).      Lino in bathrm.    Ben/Ruth.            Start making Chess set
Sell old bike.         Clear shed.           Colin                   Box set BroadChurch and Killing Eve                     
                              Clean garden shed.                           Sell unwanted crap
                              Paint back of cottage                        Get Grandfather clock working
                              Repair gutter.                                    Flowers          

Each line has a box drawn after it and by the end of the morning I had already ticked six off, which included selling my ex husband's bike which he had left unclaimed in the kitchen shed for the past two years!
The money paid for my nursing reregistration, Mary's Haircut and a new pair of shoes for me!!!!
Result!!!
I met my Uruguay friend Nando and had tea and long chats in the grounds of the hotel he runs.
Spanish speakers swear in a musical way , especially when they say fuck .....( which is pronounced Fook)
It makes me giggle

I bought flowers for the cottage and was home by seven
I ticked off three more boxes after I'd got through the door

I love ticking those boxes !!!

A Head On A Shoulder


I grew up with parents that never showed physical affection
I was never hugged as a child.
I remember one moment at my grandmother's funeral where my mother rested her head onto my father's shoulder
The gesture was slightly awkward and just that little bit sad in its rarity

The recent photo of Prince Charles and William was anything but awkward
It is warm and comfortable and with Charles in the subservient role, it is rather a moving study of father and son.
A father who has finally found a way to show his feelings