Oh my goodness, it’s been a bit “fresh” this week – freezing temperatures and even some snow! It’s made it a bit slippery on walks even though the frozen fields mean less or, in some cases, no mud on dog walks. Going up Plumpton Lane is a bit of an adventure but coming down even more so – an ice rink on a slope. Lovely.
The cold weather has brought all the usual problems – the central heating keeps failing and so far the plumbers, who we rate very highly, have gone through various steps to try and find a specific fault. Thus far, unfortunately, they’ve not been able to find a definitive one. One of the problems is that it works some of the time, i.e., it comes on in the morning when it should, but after a few hours it shuts down and won’t restart. Leave it a few hours, switch it off and back on again and it “might” come back on. We’ve borrowed a number of electric heaters and have bought some more of our own – as most of you know, this is a large house and especially with Nick undergoing treatment at the moment we need to keep it/him warm. Touch wood, at the moment it is working.
The freezing weather also highlighted an issue with Penelope’s new car – the windscreen washer stopped working. Now, I know that this is often the case with freezing weather – the water/screen wash in the pipes freezes. But once the temperature got above freezing it still would not work. Thankfully, the village mechanic diagnosed the issue as a blown fuse which he replaced and, hey presto! it’s back to working again (as long as the temperature stays above freezing, that is). I appreciate that this all sounds like small change to our friends and family in the great northeast but we’re just softies here, I guess.
Other than hunkering down and trying to keep the house and ourselves warm, we’ve not achieved an awful lot this week. Quelle surprise!
Even though the roads were a bit slippy, we did manage to get ourselves to the cinema in Banbury to see Hamnet on Friday. Oh my goodness, what a staggeringly brilliant film! I guess most folks will be familiar with the story – it is a novel by Maggie O’Farrell and the RSC did a stage production a few years ago. Now, it’s been made into a film. We’ve read the book, we saw the play at the RSC in Stratford and now we’ve seen the film. I guess that’s the full set – do we get a prize?
The novel is fabulous, the stage production was fantastic and the film is every bit as wonderful. Jessie Buckley as Agnes Hathaway is absolutely sensational and the grief she feels at the loss of her son is staggering – there were tears all round!
If you’ve not read the book, start there, I would suggest. Then, by all means go see the film when it’s near you – you will not be disappointed.
And finally . . .
This was from Andy Borowitz a few days ago:
LONDON—In a move that was widely hailed across the free world, on Wednesday King Charles III of the United Kingdom reasserted British rule over the colonies formerly known as the United States of America.
“In recent days, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and Stephen Miller have been advocating a muscular return to colonialism,” the monarch said. “I couldn’t agree more with those chaps.”
“We lost the colonies because our King went insane,” Charles added. “But now the shoe’s on the other bloody foot, isn’t it?”
As for what this change in status would mean for Trump, the King said, “Perhaps he could room with his old chum, my idiot brother.”
Also thought I would share this from Chris Riddell whose illustrations/cartoons often appear in the Guardian. This summer the UK will “celebrate” the 10th anniversary of the Brexit Referendum debacle and 31 December which has just passed marked the 5th anniversary of the exit finally taking place. Hmm, the “celebrations” have been somewhat muted – I wonder why?
Meanwhile, keep breathing, keep happy, keep smiling, keep exercising, be good, be careful, and keep safe. And, be gentle to wasps and bees – we need all the pollinators we can get. And, hold your loved ones close.
Lots of love to you all,
Greg