Review: The King's Speech

Well. We had an extremely awesome extended-date on Saturday. John had to do some work in the morning, and I slept late and rang the bells for a wedding in Stowmarket. We met up back at home in the early afternoon, and John suggested an outing to Ipswich for dinner and a movie. Woot. We booked tickets at IFT for The King's Speech (more on that in a bit), and hopped on the 3:30 train.

We walked along the waterfront to the Dove Street Inn for a drink. The last time we were there, with my brother, I had an amazing Adnams Bokbier, a Dutch-style lager. I was hoping for a repeat, but there wasn't any left. I tried the Black Sheep Best Bitter, which was definitely tasty.

We then walked over to Karlsson Design to pick up the fabric that I had ordered. SO pretty.

And we couldn't leave the store without these dishcloths (they soften in water). LOVE the birds.

After we left Karlsson, we made our way into town for some supper. We walked past FlyGirls, who had a big "eyebrow threading" sign in the window. SQUEE! I've been hunting for a non-London, non-NYC threading place for, oh, 5 years or so. Apparently they've been there for 2 years, but it's not a street I walk down often, so I wouldn't have noticed. And they did walk-ins and it was only £4.99 and I'm extremely happy that I don't have to go 12 months between threadings.

Anyone would agree that this all sounds like more than enough excitement for one day, but after dinner, we went to the Ipswich Film Theatre for our "...and a movie." I definitely recommend the theatre - cheaper than Cineworld, fewer previews, NO adverts, and really helpful staff. Also, we tend to prefer indie films anyway.

I was a little worried about The King's Speech, since it had been so well-reviewed and there has been so much buzz. I shouldn't have been - I loved it. Colin Firth was spectacular, as was Geoffrey Rush. Helena Bonham Carter was delightfully non-Bellatrixed, although I kept waiting for Winston Churchill (Timothy Spall) to nibble his fingers and snivel "Yessss, master." Can't think why Alan Rickman couldn't have been found a part to play, since Michael Gambon was there as well. I really enjoyed the interactions between Bertie and Elizabeth, as well as those between Bertie and Lionel. Fab movie!

Fetching cowl

The non-needed yarn is making a rather lovely cowl. Ravelled, here. Made quite a bit of progress while watching The Girl Who Played With Fire last night (left John to watch the last 10 mins by himself...too scary!)

Really enjoyed the movie, though.

Lazy weekend

I woke up on Saturday morning feeling like I wanted a proper breakfast. We had some extra eggs, so John made poached eggs for us while I fried some bacon and mushrooms. Mmmm. His new-and-improved egg-poaching method involves a shallow frying pan, a kettle of boiling water, a pinch of salt, and some vinegar. I've always been afraid to poach eggs - it seemed like such a lot of things could go wrong.

The method: boil the kettle, add some salt to the frying pan, with a low flame. When the kettle boils, pour the boiling water (slowly!) into the pan. Turn down so the pan is just simmering. Add a splash of vinegar. Crack the eggs on the side of the pan, and drop them in, gently. The smaller pan and shallower water will mean that they don't spread. NEATO!

Last weekend with Pav, we picked up my Christmas present from Wibbling Wools. A KnitPro Symfonie Interchangeable knitting needle set. LOVE it. I had seen the KnitPros on various websites, but I was not in love with the somewhat psychedelic rainbow-coloured wooden needles and didn't really want metal or acrylic ones. The Addi bamboo ones were SUPER expensive, which made me sad.

I was really excited when Wibbling Wools had this "special edition" set - the needles are rosewood and really beautiful. And they come in fancy box. They're slightly slippery, but I'll get used to them. I was getting really frustrated with never having quite the right needles for whatever project I was doing - now I don't have to worry about it. And apparently I can add more/thicker/thinner KnitPro needles in whatever material I like to the set - they'll all fit.

Oh, and we rented Ponyo this weekend. I really like Miyazaki's movies (except Howl's Moving Castle). However, Ponyo seemed a little weird. Maybe it was the dubbed American Disneyfied version (although I also generally quite like Disney, too), and I would have enjoyed it more with subtitles. Not sure. It seemed a little disjointed and slightly camp. Anyway, not one of my favorites - I won't be watching it again!

Review: Up In The Air, SuperSize Me, Star Trek

We've watched several movies lately. John and I took advantage of the £1 for 1 week awesomeness on the DVDs at the Stowmarket Library to watch Star Trek again. We both loved it as much as we had in the theatre. Plenty of action interspersed with some Actual Dialogue and a little bit of kissing. Really, what more could you want? I've seen maybe one Next Generation episode, and John has an alarmingly complete knowledge of the original series. It didn't matter - we both thought it was great (although I'm sure I missed all kinds of inside jokes). Leonard Nimoy stole the show, and had some great one-liners.

Despite the fact that they've cut down the hours at the Stowmarket Blockbuster, we managed to grab a copy of Up In The Air. I can't say that I think it was as amazing as everyone seems to think it is - John barely got through it and I thought George Clooney was playing the same aloof character that I seem to always catch him in. Oh well. Not funny at all, either, despite having "comedy" emblazoned on the front. Maybe we just didn't get it?

Then we watched Super Size Me (which I'd never seen) with James. The box said it was a "12", which should have been fine. There was no nudity but there were a few descriptions of what happens to Morgan Spurlock's love life as a result of all the fat/salt/sugar that he's eating, which were a little graphic for our semi-resident 12-year-old. And his dad and stepmom. Ahem.

In any case, he's announced that McD's is now "horrible", which I imagine will pass. However, I can't see him ever being tempted to over-indulge. Yummy. I'll happily admit that I do not feel guilty about my once-a-year McD's egg mcmuffin at JFK airport. When Edward and I were in high school (and I was playing on the tennis team and he was on the rugby team), we had McDonalds probably more than we should have - maybe once a week for a while. It doesn't seem to have done us any harm, although we WERE both running several miles a day.

As it's now definitely summer (and we're having an unseasonably English but very much appreciated warm summery stretch of weather), I'm on to iced coffee on weekend mornings. I know I'm supposed to make the coffee stronger before I ice it, but John doesn't like iced coffee, so I just use the regular stuff out of the pot. Mmmm....coffee....

I've started in on yet another baby quilt. This one uses most of the blues and greens from my Moda Verna jelly roll, and was inspired by this stacked coins quilt and this one. I've also used more of the off-white linen-y material from Halfpenny Home that I used in this quilt. Pictures soon!

And then we watched some movies

In the last week, I've caught up on all the kids' movies that I'd wanted to see.

We've watched:

How to Train Your Dragon (cute, and fun, but not as amazing as the interwebs would have you believe)

Eragon (not as terrible as the interwebs would have you believe)

Flushed Away (hilarious - how did I miss it?)

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (very cute, with a great Al Roker cameo)

We also watched the new Matt Smith Doctor Who. Great writing and a super-spunky sidekick. And even though he's NOT David Tennant, I think Matt Smith can stay. Which is good, because I'm pretty sure that the BBC have already decided that.

I bought a pillow form last weekend - my plan is to make a quilted pillow for the couch, inspired by this beautiful (and sold out) one made by Manda of TreeFall. There are also some really inspiring ones on flickr, here. Especially this one. 

I think some of these might make an appearance...

Oh, and Moose made me post this one. He likes the quilt. A lot.

When's my movie?

So I'm no longer the only person on the planet who hasn't seen Julie & Julia. It's finally out on DVD in the UK and we rented it this afternoon. And I LOVED it. I was Julie...I was Julia...I was Julie again, then back to Julia. 

::sigh:: 

There was a lot of criticism that the movie was overly schmaltzy and that Amy Adams was wooden, but I thought she was the perfect combination of neurotic, repellent, and endearing. And of course Meryl was fabulous. John thought her Julia Child accent was annoying, but I thought she nailed it (and I forgot about it after 5 minutes).

And then we saw Frances Sternhagen (who of course stole the scene she was in) and John had his first "HEY that's Frannie and I know her and she's in that movie and she came to our wedding and she's great and isn't that cool??!" moment. I've been having them for years, and yes, it's cool.

Continuing the New Yawk foodie theme, John picked up some Italian spicy sausages at Waitrose last week, so we had penne with sausage, fennel and tomato sauce. It was exceedingly tasty and very New York Italian-tasting. I just needed the glass tumbler of parmesan with the metal lid and the experience would have been complet.

I spent yesterday with the Ladies' Guild (Eastern District) for the annual district meeting and four bell towers. We all thought his spindly rope holder was really cool, and I'm glad this picture came out as well as it did.

This was taken a few minutes before, during the ringing.

So when are the publishers and Hollywood-types coming to make a movie of my blog? Huh?

The curse is broken

The women in my family have a problem. It's Yorkshire puddings. They either come out as pancakes, crumpets, or fail completely.

I, however, with a little help from Good Food, successfully made Toad In The Hole (sausages in Yorkshire pudding for the trans-atlantics in attendance) this evening. And, my yorkshires were pronounced "almost as good as mum's and grandma's" by the resident sm. boy.

I'm going to try not to let the success go to my head. I would, though, like to take this opportunity to pronounce the Hile Yorkshire Pudding Curse broken. James did mention that it might have something to do with the fact that I married into a non-cursed family. We'll have to see.

Before the Y.P. extravaganza, we all went to see Avatar in 3D. I was a little worried about it - I tend to get headaches with 3D (and 3D glasses), but after the first somewhat queasy-making hour, I really enjoyed it. A total popcorn movie (a little romance, a little blowing up, a little moralistic preachyness), and lots of fun.

New Scarf

I can't remember who pointed me to the link, but I'm really psyched to have started in on the Palindrome scarf by Kristin at Silver's Place. I'm knitting it using the leftover skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca that I bought in Rhode Island two years ago. (I finished the sweater and decided it was too big for me, so my mom has it as a dog-walking sweater.)

I'm still trying to pick a pattern for my next sweater project, and there are a few on Ravelry that are strong contenders, but in the meantime, it's knitting season! I think this is going to be really good on the chilly days at work - it'll look great with a white shirt.

I started it while watching Coraline with the boys last night - it was spooky, a little trippy, and quite close to the book. We all really liked it.

Burt Reynolds in Suffolk (well, almost)

We rented A Bunch Of Amateurs this weekend. The general premise is that Burt Reynolds plays a washed-up Hollywood actor who ends up coming to "Stratford" in England to perform King Lear. He thinks he's going to Stratford-upon-Avon to perform with the RSC, when in fact he's in the (fictional) village of Stratford St John, performing with the amateur drama society. And where have they put this village supposedly at the end of the earth? Suffolk, baby! They didn't actually FILM it in Suffolk (which is silly, since the style of house-building here is completely different from the houses in the film).

John and I both thought it was pretty funny - Imelda Staunton was really good, and Burt Reynolds was well-cast as the no-longer-leading-man. They were both entirely overshadowed by a supporting role from the Suffolk Mobile Libraries van. Too funny.


I can FINALLY blog about this, since the gift has been given: I made a baby quilt for my friend Liz's new baby, Gabi. Both of Gabi's parents went to the University of Wisconsin, so my initial thought was to knit a red baby sweater with a big W in it.

I think everyone is glad that I abandoned that idea once I found some Wisconsin Badgers fabric on the web. I ordered it, had it shipped to England, matched it up with some polka dots, and started in. I intended to make a small-ish crib quilt for her, and then went a little overboard when I was cutting my squares. Pattern? Me? Naw! It ended up about the size of a twin bed, FAR too big for a newborn (even if she IS tall like her dad). I had some leftover fabric, so I made a stroller blanket as well.

Here she is, modeling it.

There are a few more scraps left (a yard of Wisconsin fabric goes a very long way), so there will be a few more UW items delivered when I'm in NY next month.

Non-horizontal horizons

We've been letting James take pictures with our SLR. He has his own camera (my trusty Canon Elph), but he doesn't always have it with him.

He has a really good eye for composition, and he's always coming up with really unlikely angles to shoot from, but we've found that about 80% of his pictures list ever so slightly to the right. As if the pressure of pushing down the shutter button tilts the camera. Teehee.

Here are two. I'm an evil stepmother and have left them "au naturel" (i.e. a little slonchwise):

These were both taken at Snape Maltings, after we fled Aldeburgh on Monday. (Aldeburgh? On the May Bank Holiday Monday? With scattered showers? WHAT WERE WE THINKING??)

My garden has been coming along (to the detriment of the blog, I think). Here are some seedlings (some that I started myself and some that have been adopted - thanks, Janet!). The ones in the foreground are sunflowers, and the first one has just popped above the soil this morning.

I'm completely obsessed with Gardener's World on the BBC. Who else but the Beeb would film and air a gardening program for n00bs like me, detailing exactly what to do, when. It was their idea to plant the sunflower seeds in POTS - apparently slugs (::seething hatred::) love to munch on freshly-planted sunflower seeds. Can't get 'em up here, bitches!

Oh, and this was a "plant in a basket" that Michelle gave us back in January. It was supposed to last two weeks. Ahem. It's happy as a clam on the windowsill...

After all my evangelising about how awesome the library is, John has discovered that they have a fairly extensive art movie collection. £2 for a week, per movie. Can't beat it!

We watched The Science of Sleep (another movie featuring a naked Gael Garcia Bernal - does the boy not like to wear clothes?), which was suitably surreal but quite enjoyable.

Evil Stepmother Of Doom

We took James to the Abbey Gardens yesterday afternoon, and he had a blast with the SLR. This was far and away the best picture.

We've...um...also turned into Boy Racers. All of us. Our v. nice Citroen C5 was coming up for its 90,000 mile service and some extremely expensive repairs, so we sent it to the great big racetrack in the sky (well, we traded it in), and bought a Mazda3. Sport edition. HOT. We didn't MEAN to get the Sport version, but they had pre-registered it and it had 68 miles on the clock and was waaay cheaper than it should have been and they're releasing a new design in May and wanted to get it off the lot and we drank the Mazda Kool-Aid and it zooms. And has tinted windows in the back and a bling-y stereo. It will also eventually get about 45 mpg, which is a fair improvement over La Voiture Francaise.

John and Travis stripped and re-varnished our front door this weekend, which meant that we were sort of tied to the house (we had to leave the door open until the varnish dried). Obviously, the only sensible thing to do was to hand-wash and wax the car, and vacuum it. Because there were at least three specs of dust on the carpets and two dead bugs on the front (they're gone now).

After we finished all the varnishing, lawn mowing, and car-washing, John made a movie.

Leftover chicken a la Stowmarkate

We had the in-laws over for Easter and roasted a chicken, which was extremely tasty. I then made stock from the bones and veg, but had a fair amount of chicken left. We also had a few cherry tomatoes and some creme fraiche from an attempt at Scrambled Eggs A La Gordon Ramsay (which was very tasty).

Leftover Chicken A La Stowmarkate

Ingredients:
Leftover chicken (duh)
Creme fraiche (or sour cream)
Tomatoes (or peas or whatever veg you have)
Some just-cooked pasta (with a little of the pasta water)
Dried tarragon

Mix all the ingredients together in an oven-proof dish, then heat under the broiler on medium for about 5 minutes.

Nom nom nom.

And, patience has been rewarded. Here's one of the videos the boys made last week - the rest link from this one!

[UPDATE: The subtitles on this one came out sort of small - if you make it full-screen you should be able to read them].

Coveting: Bike Hod

This was my breakfast last weekend: a bacon and egg sandwich, grapefruit juice, and Eclipse. Heaven. We don't usually have bacon at breakfast, but there was some left over from a Valentine's Edition of Leek and Potato Pie the night before.

We had a v. chill V. Day - I rang bells for two weddings (and earned £30), and then had dinner in. I came across the world's most unfortunate bridesmaid's dress at one of the weddings - it was a strapless number worn by a 4ft x 4ft bridesmaid and there was some overspill at the back. And not just a little. MY EYES! A perfect place to use the only Dutch phrase that our family retained from my Mom's "Learn Dutch On Tape" course in the '90s: "het is geen mooi zicht." (For the non-Dutch speakers in the room: "It is not a pretty sight.)

James and I went to see Bolt today - it was really cute and had some laugh-out-loud moments. Very Pixar, and very well put-together. We inadvertently went to the 3-D version, which was very clever and zoom-y (not a word, but you get the idea). However, both of us were ready for it NOT to be 3-D about 2/3 of the way through - the glasses were a little uncomfortable. Here they are in all their Disnificated glory.

We stopped at Waitrose to pick up some groceries on the way home. This bike was parked in the entrance. It turns out that they're launching a new scheme where you can sign up to borrow one of these to do your shopping. COOL. I'm not 100% clear on how long you can keep it (i.e. do you have to run your shopping home and then bring it right back or are you the temporary owner or what? The press release is here and doesn't really explain. A little googling has found the supplier company: they are called Bike-Hod. WANT. ONE. OF. THOSE. But £275 is steep!

I should start a BikeHod fund and put spare change in it. In the spring/summer/fall we like to do most of our shopping at the farm shop, about 4 miles away, and we've found that we usually have a bit more in the way of groceries than we can sensibly carry on the bikes. This would totally solve the problem.

OMG I'm a teenager again! LOL.

There's no hope for me now. I finally managed to get to the front of the library queue for Twilight and my copy came in last weekend. I was a little apprehensive - I'd heard some mixed reviews and I was definitely NOT into Buffy in high school.

I shouldn't have worried - within about 20 pages I was completely hooked. It was the most absorbing book I've read in quite some time - I found that vast chunks of time would just slide right by as I was reading. I think the "date in the forest" scene has become my favorite book-date scene - I can't think of any that I like better.

I (along with the rest of the female population of Earth) now have a book-crush on Edward. I think the last literary character that made me want to jump into the book was Lupin (Tonks has the right idea), and before that, Logan from the Babysitters Club. The whole thing made me feel 16 again. I was a huge dork in high school - I knew all the 'cool' kids but never really got to hang out with them. Maybe I should have moved to Forks.

To continue the madness, we saw the movie at the Stowmarket cinema on Saturday night. I don't remember Robert Pattinson being particularly compelling in the Harry Potter movies, but he was completely captivating (and indecently attractive) in Twilight. Granted, Cedric Diggory is one of J.K. Rowling's flatter characters, so he didn't have much to work with in HP. His American accent in Twilight was AWFUL, though - I'm not sure why they didn't just leave him with his normal Brit voice. There were very few replacements of scenes from the books with unrelated 'movie' scenes, which I appreciated. (Do you hear me, directors of His Dark Materials and Harry Potter?).

I also need everyone to acknowledge how hip (and ahead of their time) my parents were: my brother's name is Edward and my middle name is Isabel. After 25 (and 27) years, our names are now cool.

I've joined the seemingly interminable queue for New Moon at the library, although I may just cave and buy the whole series. I think I feel a re-read coming on.

Movies

Before I got sick, John and I rented WALL-E and Couscous from Blockbuster. I really liked WALL-E (I missed it when it was in theatres) but I think I fell victim to over-hyping. Yes, it was really clever, and super cute. And I found the lifestyle on the planet where the humans retreat to be bizarrely attractive. Does that make me a bad person? But I'd been told that it was the BEST. MOVIE. EVER. I'd put it in my top 50, anyway.

 

Couscous is a French movie about an immigrant family (subtitle alert!). John picked it up on the strength of the DVD promo - it was billed as "one of the best food scenes ever captured on film". The first half of the movie was brilliant - quick dialogue, yummy-looking food, great acting, and general enjoyableness. And then, at about the 90 minute mark, the plot just sort of stopped. And there was another hour to go. We kept waiting for something to happen (along with the characters in the movie, which in hindsight was quite clever). And then, after much fast-forwarding, there was an exceedingly abrupt ending and the credits rolled. John and I were really disappointed.

 

If you watch it, enjoy the first half, then turn it off when they get to the restaurant. Then email me and I'll tell you the ending. You'll save at least an hour of your life. The more I think back on it, the more it makes sense in terms of the 'artistry' of the film - you find yourself waiting impatiently (and bored) along with the characters. But it's like watching paint dry.

Pirates, Buttons, Cairns and Whos

After the fabulousness that was The Graveyard Book, I've had a few clunkers.

I attempted to read "The Pirate's Daughter", a fictional account of Errol Flynn's escapades in Jamaica in the middle of the 20th century, by Margaret Cezair-Thompson. I should have read the New York Times review first. The characters were flat and uninspiring, and while the story was mostly believable, I gave up a little over half-way through.

Basic plot summary: Flynn indulges himself and the girl who has had a crush on him for years by sleeping with her, and then ignores her once she becomes pregnant. The first part of the book is leading up to this, and then moves on to what happens to the girl (and the baby). By that point I'd stopped caring. Errol Flynn is a distinctly unsympathetic character, and the girl isn't really bright enough to make smart choices. It was a Richard and Judy Summer Read, which should have meant that it was a swashbuckling romance (which is what it said on the cover). My overall impression was 'mundane soap-opera', sadly. Feel free to correct me if you've read it and it improves in the second half!

On the recommendation of some interwebbies, I got another of Neil Gaiman's YA books from the library: Coraline. It's about a girl who gets fed up with her parents and ends up getting going into a parallel world, where she has to destroy the universe's 'Other Mother' and save her real parents. I didn't think it was as well thought-out as the Graveyard Book, and I'm not going to put it in James' "to read" queue (he loves Graveyard, btw), but it wasn't bad. [Update, after writing this I've found the trailer/website for the new Coraline movie (warning - sound) and it looks much better than the book!]

I'm reading Elizabeth Goudge's "Middle Window" and had a funny thing happen. About 10 pages into the book, "Sarah" is introduced as the main character's "black Cairn". Her introduction comes with the description that she had 'eloped with the butcher's boy for 4 days' and had only just been found and brought back. Somehow this caused me to assume that a Cairn was some kind of turn-of-the-century English word for a particular type of maid. There is a brief mention of how she'd spent a lot of time eating sausages and was feeling rather worse-off for it, which is followed by a scene where she snuggles up to the main character's fiance during a long and dull car journey, both of which I thought were a little odd.

And then, somewhere around page 60 (while I was wondering where this mysterious black servant had gone to), Sarah appears again, curled up in a ball on the foot of the main character's bed, dreaming of chasing rabbits and as a result, emitting muffled barks in her sleep. "Ok," I thought, "this is one weird servant...WAIT A MINUTE...(madly flipping pages)...she's a DOG!"

For those of you who don't know, this is a cairn terrier. I think it was the use of the word 'eloped' that got me.

***

To get my David Tennant fix while Dr. Who is on hiatus, I rented the 2005 BBC "Casanova", an exceedingly camp miniseries about the famous Italian. As it was written by Russell T. Davies (who has also written the latest series of Dr. Who), I think I was expecting Dr. Who minus the aliens and with a bit more romance. It was...er...not that. I agree with some reviews on IMDB that the music was quite annoying - it seemed to be accentuating the camp-ness of the movie while not actually adding to it. And DT does NOT look hot with a mullet. REALLY not hot. Peter O'Toole was enjoyable as the Older Casanova, but I had trouble connecting the two Casanovas together. The miniseries was enjoyable, though, although I'm glad of several things:

1. I did not have to watch it with my parents (I love you Mom & Dad, but it would have been weird)

2. I did not have to watch it with commercials

3. I had my knitting (and am well on my way up the "left front" panel as a result of three extra hours of knitting)

4. I only had to pay £2 to rent it from the library (althoug this comes with the rider that BECAUSE it was a library DVD there was an epic scratch at the 4:30 mark that rendered it unwatchable and meant that I had to skip to "Chapter 2" and miss 5 minutes of backstory. As long as it was not Hot David Tennant Backstory, I'll be ok.)

5. I've now actually seen it and can move on to something else.

Oh, and Rupert Penry-Jones who I thought could slip into 'Ken-doll Evil Character' at any point during The 39 Steps, was the PERFECT Ken-doll Evil Character (as Casanova's nemesis). Muahaha.

If I had a Quarter for every time...

Well, that's it. My life is complete. I rang my first quarter peal on Saturday afternoon. We did some St. Simon's, some Grandsire, and finished with Plain Bob Doubles. I rang the treble (and should be able to give you more details about how many of each method we rang but I can't).

The 'band': (l-r, below) Morris, Leslie, me, Richard, Jo, and David. My overwhelming thought during the quarter was "Are we there yet?", replaced by "Phew, we DID it!" when we finished. The whole thing took about 45 minutes. I was surprisingly nervous, which made it more difficult, since I was pulling the bell too hard and making it really heavy going for myself.

I also made brownies for the band - I figured we could either celebrate with or drown our sorrows in the chocolate, depending on the final outcome.

 We rang at Finborough - the weather was glorious and it's a really pretty church. The bells are hung a little strangely, though - they're really creaky and the ropes fall in more of a caved-in hexagon than a circle.

After my bell-stravaganza, John and I went on a date!  Dinner and a movie!  I know!!  We went to Bury for Pizza Express (yum), where the service was a little slow but the food was tasty. We had plenty of time, so we didn't mind. Then we went to see Burn After Reading, which I had no expectations for. I'm not a huge fan of Coen brothers movies - they tend to be too dark and gory for me, and I find them distinctly unfunny. I woudn't have even suggested seeing the movie, except for the fact that they filmed part of it in Sutton Manor, where I grew up.  If you've seen the movie, the house where George Clooney's character lives is about 3 minutes walk from my parents' old house. They filmed it right after I visited last summer (I could have met George Clooney!!), and I really wanted to see the neighborhood on the big screen.

It turned out to be a REALLY funny movie - John and I chortled our way through it and I was psyched that there were lots of Sutton Manor shots.

Sunday, I did more bell ringing (normal Sunday morning stuff - my blisters were pretty intense from Saturday), planted some bulbs (thanks, Mom & Dad!), and read The Penderwicks On Gardam Street. I loved this Penderwick book as much as the first one - Jeanne Birdsall has to write them faster!

Way more reviews than anyone really needs

Ok, I need to not save these up for too long. It's torture for everyone involved!

John and I have been going on lots of bike rides and not a whole lot else. The weather here on Saturday was glorious and sunny - I sat in my crazy creek on the picnic blanket out in the back yard while the laundry dried on the line and read for HOURS in the afternoon. A little sunburnt but TOTALLY worth it.

My dad has sent a bunch of slides and pictures that he's scanned, some that I've never seen before. So far I've only been through the ones of me and my brother - there are lots more of my mom as a child that I'm saving up as a special treat.


I guess I got started on reading early (I think I'm about 3 months old here):

 Right..here goes.

Listening to: Jay Brennan
I stumbled across him on Facebook (of all things) in an ad that said, "Like the Indigo Girls? You'll love this!" And hey, presto, they were right. He's from NYC and touring the UK but not anywhere near us. Sad.

Watched recently (in order of preference from favorite to least):
The Diving Bell And the Butterfly - about the book that the former editor of French "Elle" wrote (with his left eye) after he had a stroke and suffered from locked-in syndrome. Fascinating and not mushy at all. I want to read the book now.
The Kite Runner - not as good as the book but still REALLY well done. The boys were superb.
Happy-Go-Lucky - this had some really funny laugh-out-loud moments but we both found the main character EXTREMELY annoying. It was also pitched as a feel-good movie. I found it more like Billy Elliot and The Fully Monty - maybe feel-good if you're super-depressed and have nowhere to go but up, but otherwise a bit of a downer. A very London-y movie, though (Liz, I think you'll at least like the scenery).
Waitress - meh. I love Keri Russell and this movie has gotten rave reviews and the director was tragically murdered (?) in NYC and everyone loved it. Except me. And John. He couldn't even sit through the whole thing. Too slow and really forced in places, we thought.
Oh, and John watched Be Kind Rewind . I couldn't bear to watch it but he said it was pretty funny and quite clever.

Can you tell that our movie vouchers from Blockbuster expired on the 31st of August and we didn't realize until last weekend?

While I wasn't watching, I was reading (in chronological order this time):

The Septembers of Shiraz - I'm sorry if I'm an insensitive bitch, but I'm done with the books about Iran, Afghanistan, and the Taliban. There are only so many beatings and arrests and escapes that I want to read about. I know the stories need to be told, but I'm not the one to tell them to. Wow, I really am an insensitive bitch. Oh well.

The Penderwicks - I saw a display for this in the Barrington book shop, and knew I had to read it. A little Famous Five, a little Little White Horse, a big dollop of family adventure. And there are more!

The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas - a 'teenager' book that my college roomie told me to read (and to avoid all Amazon entries and not read the back of the book). I caved and read the back and really liked it. Short, and made me think. I could imagine being assigned it as a middle-school summer reading assignment and hating it, but as a grown-up it was really thought-provoking.

A friend from work loaned me the latest Jodi Picoult: Change of Heart. It was a little more fence-sit-y than I wanted it to be, but it was definitely a good read. I'm always worried that I'm going to hate her books and then I like them more than I think I should. Fair warning, don't start with this one. It references Keeping Faith a few times - if you haven't read that, read it first.

I between the multimedia extravanganza, I saw these today. They're cards that riff on the "Keep Calm And Carry On" poster that we have that's now totally overplayed - apparently it was even in Oprah magazine. Gah, the masses! Anyway, I loved her idea and will definitely be making our own using the color printer and Scribus.

The final book is more of a work-in-progress: The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follet. It was "thrown" at me on Facebook by Lizzie, and I never would have picked it up on my own. I LOVE it so far - I'm about 100 pages in and am worried because there are only 850 more.

Golf Pros

We've seen two movies recently: Juno and Prince Caspian. Juno was not as good as I was expecting it to be, but still reasonably entertaining. I thought Allison Janney stole every scene she was in, and that it had a very witty script. We saw Prince Caspian with the small boy two weeks ago. I didn't like it as much as the first movie, but it held all of our attention for the full 2 1/2 hours (not easy).


We've both been wiring our way through the Dresden Files books, having watched the series on DVD. The books are fun, especially having seen the series - it's like getting a whole new set of episodes that we haven't seen!

J and I went to the Suffolk Smallholders' Show today at Stonham Barns - it was pretty cold for July (we were glad we had our jackets) but the usual sheep, sheepdogs, geese, chickens and tractors were all out in full force.

We were pretty much smallholder-d out after an hour and a half, so we walked back to the car. As we went past the driving range, I suggested we hit a bucket of balls. Instead, we played 9 (little) holes of golf. Fun times. Except for my experience on the first tee with the group behind us watching when I sliced two balls into the pond in quick succession. Luckily, we had some extra.

John won, by a few shots (he's had more lessons than I have!) and we had a blast. We were enjoying the spectacle of the guys in front, too. We were both playing with somewhat beat-up rented clubs, and I was wearing flip-flops. They were dressed to the NINES and had the full set of clubs, fancy bag and trolley, and all the required accessories. And they STUNK. Balls in hedges, over fences, in the sand, onto greens other than the one they were aiming for. Teehee.

Rainy Weekend

The hubby has been working in London all weekend - blech. James and I had a fun Saturday - the weather was glorious and we went to the Little Orchard Railway, which John had found on the web. So cute. It's a random model railway built in the guy's back yard. Train geeks are lunatics, truly.



I'd missed bell ringing on Friday night - the logistics of picking up the boys from their various places and feeding them etc was too much for me. I took James with me on Sunday morning, and figured that he'd be fine to sit and play his Nintendo DS while I rang. Every time I looked over at him, he was watching the ringing and ignoring his DS. Here he is, chiming the bell at the end. He said that he really liked it and he wants to learn to ring. He's a little small to start on the Stowmarket bells, but he'll be fine in a year or two. Another one, hooked!

Since the weather yesterday and today has been so completely appalling, we went to see the new Indiana Jones yesterday. It was insanely campy but very entertaining. It was the perfect rainy-afternoon popcorn movie. As I was on my own on Saturday night, James and I went to Blockbuster in the afternoon. I rented Enchanted, which several people had recommended but I hadn't gotten around to watching. I loved it - it was a really clever combo of Disney send-up/Disney love letter/New York love letter movie. Fab.