The Times they are a Changing

My goodness, how my life has turned upside down!
Firstly I went back onto the full dose of the Seroxat and have felt much better ever since. I don't regret it at all.
Plus, Jenny had her baby really early, on 3 November, a lovely little boy called Tom who is just adorable. He seems to be very sweetnatured and laid back, although very hungry.
I am undecided about my next Open University course, as I would like to get going again, but I really don't see where I am going to find the time. I think I am going to postpone starting again until either next October or possibly even the following February, as some courses are ending and updated versions starting during that period and it might be better to wait for the new ones.
rafts seem once again to be taking over my life; I am knitting for Tom, trying to get a Birth Sampler done by Christmas and I also have a couple of things to make for Christmas as well. I have no idea where I am going to get the time from! I love the run up to Christmas though....

New blog

Please note that I have moved my blog to Brought to Book, to reflect my new interests in life...

Catching up

Like Joy, I spend a lot of time roaming round everyone else's blogs wishing they would post more, and yet sadly neglect my own blog except as a gateway to my blogroll. I gather blogrolls are now a thing of the past - everyone subscribes to 'RSS feeds' is it? I have no understanding of this technology at all, but if someone cares to give me a crash course, I would be more than grateful!
So what have I been up to? Well, I have confirmed to myself that I have given up stitching, and have sold all my Chatelaine kits. I still have a lot to sell - Judy Dixon's, Just Nan's, and lots of Dimensions kits and stockings. As I have no scanner and my digital camera is a little erratic in it's operation just at present I will have to wait awhile to put it all on E-Bay, but I'll get there sooner or later.
I'm still reading and going to the theatre..I went to see The Giant at Hampstead Theatre this week, which was most enjoyable, and I am off to see a RSC production of a Comedy of Errors tomorrow in Bath. I've read all the books mentioned previously and am currently reading Pride and Prejudice. There have not been many cinema visits as in the last four weeks there have only been two captioned showing, both of which were Ratatouille which I couldn't bring myself to go and see. Next Monday, though, is American Gangster, so I will be off to see that with my son.
My birthday was last week, and I had a delightful weekend with the family, including lunch with my sister-in-law in Bracknell. (SIL and her husband live in Epsom, so Bracknell is the halfway point between us). I had some really nice presents and everyone was very kind. I'm not too keen on the number connected with this birthday and think I will count backwards from now on.
I've just come to the realisation that Christmas is only 3 weeks away now, and am beginning to feel a mild sense of panic. We have far less money to spend this year than usual, and although I have now completed the present shopping I feel as though I've bought nothing. It's very depressing - I like to be generous at Christmas and penny pinching doesn't induce festive feelings in me. We are tight this year because we have a savings account for Christmas and car expenses, and the cars have cost a fortune this year. Citroen charged Ken £698 for the last service on his C5!!!
After a lot of thought, I have decided to sign up for two Open University courses for next year. Michelle has been an inspiration, and I have decided to follow in her footsteps. I'm going to take Making Sense of the Arts and Shakespeare:An Introduction. It's quite risky for me, I know, as I tried to do a course before and fell by the wayside, but that was when I was coming down with CFS, and it hadn't been diagnosed and I fell apart with anxiety and loss of confidence. It will be hard for me to work for two or three hours a night after work, but I really want to give this a try. When I chose my 'A'-levels back in 1971, I chose Biology, Physics and Chemistry, as I felt that they were more likely to lead to a job than the 'Arts'. Although I was studying science I also had compulsory General English lessons once a week. A few weeks into the first 'A'-level term, I was hauled up in front of the headmistress and strongly recommended to switch to English 'A'-Level. I refused, as I couldn't see any future with a degree in English. Needless to say, I was a complete failure at the sciences, got poor 'A'-Levels, and never got a degree. I just want to have a crack at it now. If these short courses go well I will start a full course with the OU. Please wish me luck - I will need it to prevent my anxiety getting out of control, and to find the strength to work hard after so many years of not using my brain.

Halloween

Last night my grown up-children* came home for the evening for our usual Halloween movie-fest. We always rent a couple of horror/scary movies, have a takeaway and sit in the dark hoping to be scared. I’ve come to the conclusion that nothing on the big screen scares me now, but my eldest daughter usually ends up watching from behind a cushion which provides half the entertainment for the evening.
This year the films I rented were ‘Them’ a Romanian subtitled film, and ‘Vacancy’ a recent US offering. As it turned out, they were very similar in their storyline – a couple being pursued through a building and underground tunnels by threatening masked/hooded anonymous intruders. In style, they were very different; the Romanian film was shot in colourless, film noir style, while the US offering was in the usual glorious Technicolor. I much preferred ‘Them’, I felt it kept up the suspense and tension far longer, and when you found out what was actually going on, although it was prosaic (no supernatural forces here) it was still disturbing. 'Vacancy', however, bored me after a while, although it has the potential to be far more shocking, dealing as it did with snuff movie making. There was no sense of menace; it was just a cat and mouse game between the couple and the snuff movie makers.
Not a bad evening though and we had half a dozen well behaved and nicely costumed trick or treaters with responsible adults in tow, which was nice to see.

* Why the heck, don’t we have a word for grown-up children? My husband insists on calling them ‘the kids’, which I hate, but have to agree that there is not much else you can say. You can’t really suggest that ‘we invite the grown up children round for Sunday lunch’ and it’s tedious to say ‘let’s have Jenny, Debbie, Ben and Chris round on Saturday evening’….Suggestions anyone?

Stardust

I have mentioned this before but I have been making a point of going to my local cinema each week to see films that have been subtitled, or otherwise a foreign film with subtitles. I’m trying not to be judgemental and to see whatever is available. So far I have seen Atonement, Superbad (yikes!!), Day Watch and The Counterfeiters.
Last night I went to see Stardust. It didn’t start too well from my point of view as it took about 20 minutes to get the subtitles up and running properly, but as I already knew the rough plot outline I didn’t miss too much. I wasn’t expecting much, but it was a lot better than I thought it would be, albeit a bit girly. There were some good lines in it, the special effects weren't completely overwhelming and the story was simple but interesting enough. It certainly looked good, and there was fun trying to put names to faces made up as to be almost unrecognisable. Robert de Niro stole the show as Captain Shakespeare as did someone I didn't recognise, Mark Strong, as Septimus.
I'm glad I went, despite Jonathan Ross’s constant plugging.

Heck. I've just seen next week's offering is Ratatouille. I really don't want to see this. Please may I be excused?

Amazon

Am I imagining things? Amazon looked completely different on Friday, and I showed a couple of other people its new layout. Yesterday and today, it's back how it was. What happened?

I think lots of things have happened since I last blogged, but of course I can’t remember them!
An unforgettable experience however was my eldest daughter’s wedding. It was fantastic, a perfect day. My daughter organised it, and everything went very smoothly with the help of the De Vere hotel and the wonderful photographers. The one slight dampener on the day was an hour before the wedding; the photographer was taking photos in our garden, I was walking across the lawn to go back into the house, when my shoe caught into a hole that the dog had dug and I was flung forwards flat on the ground. When I was helped up, there was a large grass stain on my cream skirt. We rubbed Vanish into the stain and it did start to lift a bit, but we ran out of time, and I ended up turning my skirt round and wearing it back to front. I was told that the stain had completely disappeared by the time we got to the hotel, so a possible crisis had been averted!
My ex-husband made a wonderful speech giving credit to Ken as a Stepfather; Ken made a very sentimental speech that reduced both my daughters to tears. The Best Man made a great speech using photos to illustrate Chris’ (the groom) life history, thus causing maximum embarrassment! All in all, a wonderful day was had by all. If you like, there are some photos here.

I’m still not stitching. I have no inclination whatsoever, and I am quite happy not stitching. What I have done, however, is try to wake up my brain. I shan’t go into what initiated all this, as it’s silly and you wouldn’t find it the least bit interesting or understandable. I decided to read a ‘proper’ newspaper once a day, and have settled on The Times. I don’t think I agree with its political slant, but I find it interesting and witty to read, plus I love that it’s available in the new tabloid format. I read it for my lunchtimes, and usually only manage to get through half of the paper as I only take half an hour, but I am hoping to train my brain to start taking in more information and start to understand more easily what is written. I have also started to read the ‘classic’ novels, and hope that this too, will get the ‘grey cells’ working. So far I have read Trollope’s ‘The Warden’ and ‘Barchester Towers’, Beryl Bainbridge’s An Awfully Big Adventure’ and have just started on Dicken’s ‘Bleak House’. I have also read
Bill Bryson’s biography of Shakespeare. Waiting in the wings are ‘Sense and Sensibility’, ‘The Kite Runner’ and ‘The Time Travellers Wife’ for a change of pace. You will note that most of the titles I have read are available in either a film of a TV production, but I thought this might help interpret the books. Certainly I have just finished watching Bleak House on the BBC, and having seen it, it’s certainly helping me persevere with the book, although I am finding the book a delight to read and hard to put down.

Another resolution I have made is to patronise the local cinema when they show subtitled films, even if they are not films I would normally watch. Consequently I have been to the cinema for the last two weeks, and am going tonight to see a Russian language film ‘Day Watch’, and next Monday to see ‘The Kingdom’. Neither are films I would normally go for but I want to widen my experience. I think my mind has become very closed over the last few years. I don’t think I will ever be able to share Ken’s love of Westerns and martial arts, though!

Whilst I was researching the availability of subtitled films, I came across something called Stagetext, and found to my amazement that some theatre production are captioned! I immediately booked myself and a friend in to see ‘Othello’ at The Donmar Warehouse in January, and was lucky enough to get a last minute seat at the Bath Theatre Royal to see ‘The History Boys’ last week. What an amazing experience! I just love theatre! I can’t wait to see more productions and wish I could do more to promote the facility and enable more performances to be available. Oh, I wish I lived in London still! When I think of all the years I lived there and couldn’t contemplate going to the theatre because of not hearing anything; it seems such a shame!

I have also completely changed my TV viewing, with the help of Sky+ - what a wonderful invention! As Ken complained so much about them, I have ditched my soaps. I have recorded lots of films that I had hitherto only heard of and not seen, documentaries that Ken would not allow on, and various other bits and pieces that are on late night or that Ken wouldn’t watch. So far I have discovered ‘Withnail and I’ (what a gem), ‘The Beach’ (beautiful and thought provoking), as mentioned before, the TV series Bleak House (which I adored) and a TV film called ‘Sean, A Life Backwards’, which moved me to tears. Oh – and ‘Primo’. I would never have thought a monologue could hold my attention as this did. There have been others too – I can’t remember them, so I think I will have to keep a diary of what I see. I’ve also been watching documentaries that I normally wouldn’t have watched or that Ken would have objected to; this week we have had ‘The Cult of the Suicide Bomber’, the incredibly moving ‘China’s Stolen Children’ and I still have a programme about Windscale to see. Oh, and of course, Stephen Fry’s ‘HIV and Me’. I am so enjoying seeing something different to the usual interminable detective/forensic shows. BBC4 is a real discovery, as is More4 and Film4. As you may have gathered, we have only just moved onto Sky digital, we only had terrestrial before. There are more of these digital channels subtitled than I had imagined too. I am thinking of asking Ken to get the movie channels as well, given my new interest in film.
So this is where I am today. Please don’t laugh at my efforts to try and ‘improve my mind’ or ‘widen my outlook’ whatever you want to call it. I am having fun, which is the main thing, and it’s certainly something I would never have tried to do whilst I was so preoccupied with my stitching. Maybe soon, I will try stitching again, but perhaps to a lesser degree, not as obsessional.