If you want something frothy and forgettable , sweet and likeable go and see What’s Love Got To do With it? It won’t tax you too much, it will make you cry at least four times and it could have been a much more serious and far reaching movie, if it tried.
But it settled for ROM COM status.
Childhood friends Kazim ( Shazad Latif) and Zoe ( Lily James) have grown up next door to each other in an affluent London suburb. He is a serious Muslim doctor , whose only hidden flaws are cigarettes and occasional alcohol. And she is a serial singleton, filmmaker who lives on a boat on the Thames ( !)
When Kazim decides to allow his parents to assist him in finding a wife , Zoe is allowed to film the who process, a film which challenges everyone of what they think is the right way to love.
Written by Jemima Khan and directed by Shekhar Kapur, we still have to put up with the usual Asian stereotypes, but some like Asim Chaudrey great turn as Mo the Matchmaker are probably very true to life.
Once you are on a roll, things have a tendency of moving on at their own pace.
I’m thinking of the Queen Mary’s stopping length, here but the same can be thought of holes in underpants.
Last night I found a hole in my underpants .
I was in the bathroom and this sort of thing happens , so irritated I threw the underpants out of the window onto the patio, to be retrieved later to put in the bin by the back door.
Now galvanised , as I warmed to my task, I had a quick check of my undercrackers drawer and found four more gusset challenged sets all with holes in and threw them on the patio too.
This seemed sensible to me as I often throw used bleach bottles, empty shampoo bottles etc out on the patio to be retrieved later for recycling.
At 9 am there was a knock at the back door and Trevor’s gardener stood there wanting to know how he was.
Nothing was mentioned about the five pairs of underpants lying on the patio
I’m making a huge chilli for the above night do. It’s our chance to publish the TCA’s work to the villagers that don’t know what’s happening.
It’s Auntie Glad’s funeral on Tuesday . I heard the male voice choir will be singing at the Church which will be an emotional moment for all , I’m sure. It’s sad that her own Church is closed but fitting the service will take place in the bigger Church of Llanasa, the village she lived in before she was married
Bucket of coffee time is curtailed today , I’m doing overtime at work later
Last night the tutor of the level 4 Counselling course FaceTimed our group to discuss if we wanted to move forward in our training come September.
She was pragmatic, cheerful and helpful
And She has given me quite a lot to think about today.
A day that I’m feeling rough after my fourth covid jab.
I’m 61 this year.
And I’m finding the rigours of nursing just a bit too much after forty years in the role.
I have a mortgage to pay for until I am 70 and bills and expenditure is on the rise.
And so I needed a plan.
And that plan, originally, was to retrain to be a qualified counsellor.
There is an outlay for this endeavour, which I may or not get help with,
There is the academic challenge too , as well, as I know I have to work hard to get on top of all things Uni.
But then you add to this all of the doubts of self belief
Can I cut the mustard as a counsellor?
Can I do it?
The “ new” tutor clearly outlined the “ checks” in the course that ensure you are fit for the role.
In all of the 100 hours skills practice I have to do with real clients I have to pay for intensive clinical supervision every month. More if I require it.
This supervision is not cheap and is an incredibly stringent safety check of my potential competence
Added to this in year one and two I will have to pay for my own counselling experience.
A journey which is necessary if you are to practice
But a journey which has its own worries and it’s own challenges.
There are two of us, in my present group that are older students.
Both of us on journeys we didn’t expect in our sixties.
We looked at each other at the end of last night’s tutorial and smiled gently together
Oh I did enjoy my night out with Georgous Dave last night.
We went to see Owen O Neil and Dave John’s adaptation of the film The Shawshank Redemption at Theatre Clwyd and from the get-go it was clear we were watching a quality piece of theatre.
I think most people know the film, so I won’t worry too much about spoilers , suffice to say we follow the prison life of Andy Dufresne (Jo Absolom) who is incarcerated in the notorious Shawshank Prison during the 1940s. Bright and optimistic and shouting his innocence in the double murder of his wife and her lover , Dufresne strives to change his lot and the lot of his fellow prisoners by making their existence a little more humane even though the Governor, officers and two predatory prisoners all connive to destroy him and his innate goodness.
Dufresne makes a lifetime friendship with Red Redding ( Ben Onwukwe) who like Morgan Freeman did in the film, narrates the piece with similar chocolate tones but with more of an impish take on the much loved character.
From the get go the play is brutal and compelling to watch. The sets full-fill the brief wonderfully as do the small but very able cast and I loved the ending where the two friends finally meet again against a stunning and unexpected tropical sky, an ending much better than the more talky film ending
Not a dry eye in the house.
So it’s Tuesday,
College day,
Covid jab no 4
I’m cleaning Bluebell later and am making spiced sweet potato soup
I’ve just got home and heard the sadness of the death of Betty Boothroyd
She was a bloody one off
For those that don’t know she was the speaker of the House of Commons, MP , a Yorkshire woman and former tiller girl. That one sentence sums her up nicely .
Kindness has a power all of its own when it is witnessed In an Istanbul football match yesterday the crowds donated thousands of teddy bears to lift the spirits of the babies and young children caught up in the recent earthquake .
It’s a funny sound and a rare one in this house as I can only liken it to a very small person shaking a very tiny set of maracas.
Cats usually chatter at birds that they can’t reach or ambush and Albert is no different
But the chatter was in the middle of the night
And the only birds around at that time are a pair of barn owls that swoop silently across the valley from Marion Mawr.
Albert was sat in the window seat looking down into the lane with wide yellow eyes.
I got up and wrapped the quilt cover around my shoulders and joined him.
He moved over without averting his gaze.
He was watching a pair of badgers in the lane who were trotting after each other somewhat playfully.
February is the mating season for badgers.
Living in the country has its upsides and downsides. But how many people can say that they have watched badgers courting outside their windows at night?
Not very many.
The boar wagged his fat bottom as he trotted into the garden and stopped to listen as Roger sleepily barked once from the kitchen.
They pottered and played for a while like hairy pigs.
Badgers are noisy animals and grunt and snort when they explore and as I grew cold I left them too it and returned to bed where Dorothy spooned me without waking up.
I heard Albert chatter some more before everything returned to a sort of silence again
I asked my google cube what time it was
It’s now chatting as a butch man and told me in a manly way that it was 4.22 am
I asked it to play a tropical rain shower which it did and I fell asleep almost immediately with no dreams of badgers or of Pedro Pascal or of anything of note for that matter
Day off today.
A walk,
Some shopping,
And theatre later with Gorgeous Dave
We are seeing the stage version of The Shawshank Redemption
I’ve just put out the reclycling and saw a few untidy holes in the borders of the front garden
The badgers have removed many of my spring bulbs from beside the stone wall.
And tufts of grey hair can be seen stuck in the lower branches of the hydrangea that faces the West
A Netflix binge with exotic beers and parsnip crisps
Sex in front of the fire
Korean noodles
Hot sugary tea
An Indian head massage
What do I do ?
A lie down with no socks
And a well trained bulldog licking every inch of my feet
Bloody lovely
Ps this blissful scene was turned on it’s head minutes before bed as when I moved all the dogs to get off the couch the resulting growls of upset caused a fight between Mary and Dorothy
Thank you all for your suggestions in yesterday’s post. They have galvanised me somewhat for next weeks sub committee meeting which was running the risk of being overwhelmed of what we can’t do instead of looking of what we can do.
I’ve reflected long and hard over this recently .
That’s why I’m attracted to warm “ can do” personalities
The negative ones, walk to the beat of my mother’s “can’t do “ old drum
That’s why I’m trying to distance myself from those with negative energy
You know the sort….people that can suck the life blood from a lemon without really trying.
I just don’t want to deal with it .
Anyhow, Tonight I’m off to the theatre clwyd to see the play When Darkness Falls.which is described by the Guardian as being able , to leave you cowering in your seat!
Ooh arhhh
I’m going on my own , which is fine.
I need to get out tonight and can’t always rely on the company of friends.
I will leave you with the above song by November Ultra
A song which was playing this morning on the radio, when Mary was sat on my knee bumming toast crusts.
She’s getting on now, and is slower, slightly arthritic and more cranky than her pack mates.
And for a couple of minutes we danced slowly around the kitchen together to this tune ,
I am one of the trustees for the Trelawnyd Community Association which is a charity .
It’s “official remit is as follows
The TCA was formed in 2018 by a group of friends to try and enhance social cohesion and reduce loneliness in our small rural village. The aim was to provide activities, entertainment and education as well as advocacy and help for those that needed it
A recent subgroup of the charity has been formed to take on the running of the Memorial Hall, a building which given the recent financial crash , has proved to be an expensive place to run. I am a member of the sub committee which is in the process of marketing and fundraising for the hall.
One of my ideas is to make use of the buildings massive windows
There are five in the hall proper , each with 48 individual panes of glass in it.
That’s 336 panes of glass in total.
I was thinking that we could offer each of the panes out for sponsorship , in memory of a loved one and that person’s name could be memorialised on a plaque or on the window itself
After all the Hall itself was built at the turn of the century by Michael Ralli, in memory of his wife Polynmia
Sponsoring a pane for say 30£ Could earn the hall over 10, 000£
The choice of film wasn’t good this afternoon Women Talking was worthy and painful and an acting masterclass but boy was it grim .
So today, the lightest moment came from Roger
Two male blackbirds have been fighting in the garden with pre spring hormones and Roger, fascinated in the fisticuffs sat himself comfortably in the kitchen doorway to watch them for an absolute age
I photographed him and realised I love him even more than I thought I did
I gave the dogs an extra long walk this afternoon then came to Chester where I treated myself to a beef pitta, coffee strong enough to blow your tits off and a film.
The film is Women Talking .
Sarah Polley’s version of Miriam Toews’ novel which tells the true story of a group of Mennonite Women in an isolated Bolivian community, is a serious watch. A grim and talky piece with a stella cast, has the women beaten, sexually abused and degraded by their men folk.
Taking what time they have together, the women young and old have to decide whether to fight the abuse from within the community, acquiesce to it, or escape to form a new life , albeit one which is excommunicated from their community . The parallels with Weinstein’s Hollywood are only too clear.
Claire Foy shines with anger as Salome as does Rooney Mara and the powerhouse Jessie Buckley and their scenes are compelling to watch but, after a while the film feels as though it’s constrained and is what it is ….a sort of filmed play
How strange it was that yesterday , I found myself thinking of Auntie Gladys
I posted a blog about her , months and months after I had done so before
She crept into my head like she often did when she lived in the village,
Vital, and with purpose
Her milky blue eyes, smiling, unless you vexed her.
Aunty Glad’s daughter messaged me this morning. To tell me that Gladys had died yesterday just a couple of months short of 103. She commented on the timing of my post.
How strange it was.
I took a moment to take the news in.
How strange that a woman in her 80s and 90s could have such an effect on a middle aged gay man who was new to her village .
She was my friend from the day I met her and she accepted me and my husband without falseness so common in many long term churchgoers.
I remember her walking to the cottage to give me a wedding gift when she was 95 and added to it a bag of scones , fresh from the oven. Her head to one side,, looking smart in her winter coat she made her way back to her home after refusing a lift home .
“ I like to get my face to the sun” she explained “ God bless You Both”
I need to go to the village Hall now, it’s the soup and roll lunchtime
