‘Well,’ said Heather on Good Friday evening, as the credits rolled to signal the end of the film ‘The Whale’, ‘what was that all about?’
Going to see it had been a bit of a spur-of-the-moment decision. The cinema was only a quarter full, and around us, people were wiping away a tear or two as the main character, Charlie, stepped into the light, as it were. Not so Heather and I. We were merely a tad bemused by it all.
It’s not a barrel of laughs, this film. In fact, there was only one moment when I laughed, the result of an unexplained joke about a haiku, which, being English teachers, Heather and I got. The rest of the audience seemed oblivious. Apart from that, I guess the best way to describe ‘The Whale’ is ‘gritty’, ‘emotional’, ‘nauseating’, ‘sweary’, ‘frustrating’, ‘shallow’, ‘judgemental’ and ‘prejudicial.’ Driving home, neither of us could quite put our finger on what was lacking in what could have been a good drama. Personally, I didn’t care for any of the characters, and the plot verged on the point of contrived. It seemed to be all about blaming others for how crap your life was, wallowing in self-pity and being angry at the world in general. Note to self, then: next time I feel grumpy and miserable, remember ‘The Whale’ and get a bloody grip.
Yesterday was a far more cheerful affair! We took Nell to Puppy Hour where she met two newbies - Mollie, a tense Springer spaniel, and Newis, a cheerful border terrier. Nell is an old hand at Puppy Hour now, and I was so proud of her and how welcoming and respectful she was. We then went on to meet up with Heather and Ollie to visit a walled garden where we had fully planned to have a spot of lunch.
However, it soon became clear there would be a problem with lunch. We went into the little cafe and there was a man complaining about how two soups had arrived for him and his friends but they had ordered three soups and one hadn’t arrived, and two soups had now been consumed and was there any danger of the third soup arriving before Christmas, or could he get a refund? The flustered lady running the cafe immediately apologised and offered a refund. The grumpy man said he’d rather have the soup which made me wonder why he’d pressed for a refund. There was a prolonged exchange along ‘soup or refund’ lines; things grew a bit tense. Too tense, really, given it was just soup and worse things happen.
I felt sorry for the cafe lady because she’d already said they were very short staffed when I’d previously ordered a pot of tea for me and a coffee for Andy whilst we were waiting for Heather and Ollie to arrive, and she said sorry, the coffee was off because they’d forgotten to switch on the coffee machine and it took AGES to heat up, and I said, that’s okay, I’ll have two pots of tea, then. Anyway, we retreated from Soupgate and went and found a pub instead, where we sat outside in the sunshine and enjoyed a jolly good lunch! Nell was brilliant, settling under the table and occasionally moving around to get cuddles and ruffles from us all but especially Ollie because Ollie is a natural dog-person and Nell has honed in on this and adores him!
In the afternoon, I made this:
…whilst Nell did this:
The cake is chocolate fudge cake topped with those little chocolate cornflake nests one makes specifically at Easter. It is very chocolate loaded. Possibly to the point of queasiness. It’s for pudding today as we are at Heather and Ollie’s for Sunday lunch and I said I’d do pudding.
All round, a rather nice Easter weekend!
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