Favourite tree looking glorious in the morning sun
Birdwatch: Saw my first swift of the year in the park this morning. Yet to see the house martins return to the terrace though
Finished reading: Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro 📚
Should have trusted my judgment and skipped this one. Me and Ishiguro don’t get on. The start was promising but after half way I was just waiting for it to be over.
Managed to score some tickets to next year’s World Championship snooker. Already looking forward to it 🤩
Finished reading: Ghost Town by Patrick McGrath 📚
Not really much to say about this collection. The stories clipped along but didn’t really move me in any direction.
Excited for the big showdown in the women’s Six Nations today. Think it could be close 😬
Chungking Express, 1994 - ★★★½
I don’t quite know what to make of it. In the first half I felt like I had no clue what was going on and couldn’t make any real connection with the two central characters. And then it shifts and my experience changed completely. I wanted to spend more time with Cop 663 and Faye.
There’s a lot to love about the film making too, of course: the use of sound, the humour and the attention to detail.
Finished reading: Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr 📚
I really enjoyed this. The evidence is how fast I read it - just a couple of weeks is record breaking for me for a book over 500 pages
We received two huge Easter eggs in the post with no note to say who they are from. I’ve got it into my head that I can’t eat mine until I know who it is from. Now I’m in a battle with myself. Who will win… my stubbornness or my inner chocoholic?
Taking some time off over the past week has given me some space to think about what each of my blogs is for. Not being clear on this is one of the many reasons I've not been publishing much lately. Think I've got it sorted now and I'm looking forward to getting into a bit of spring cleaning
We took advantage of a break in the clouds this morning and beat the rain. I think Aggie enjoyed her first visit to Rising Sun Country Park too
BPM (Beats per Minute), 2017 - ★★★★
This has been on my list to see for some time and now it is certainly going to sit with me for some time to come. At times it felt like a documentary and at others a love story set against the realities of the 1990s AIDS crisis. By the end I was bawling my eyes out. Necessary viewing.
Finished reading: The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper 📚
Took me a little while to get into this. Lining it up for a re-read later in the year, feel the arrival of Spring didn’t fully allow me to get immersed in the atmosphere of midwinter.
My Days of Mercy, 2017 - ★★
It's the chemistry between Page and Mara that makes this film. It's clear what the film wants to be but it fails to either unlock the complexity of the relationships (between all the characters) or explore the conflict between the opposing sides at the death row protests within its 100 minutes.
Day 22: insect #mbmar
Day 21: tiny #mbmar
Picked this collection up on the beach a few weeks ago
Day 20: houseplant #mbmar
Not many to choose from - I chose this because it’s the only one that looks remotely healthy 😳
Day 19: analogue #mbmar
