The last week was spent in the village and as the weather was not particularly brilliant, it was spent mostly indoors. It being January, quite a few TV series have returned, so we were stuck to the screen a lot. Sherlock was absolutely brilliant at the beginning of January, but I got onto quite a few others since, which took up a bit of my time. In the dim and distant past I used to watch Silent Witness, long before it became fashionable to love forensics on the TV. Amanda Burton was pretty good, but recently I found the series again, and Emilia Fox is just as good, if not better. It is the 17th season of it, and I also like that young Northern Islander, David Caves as well.
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| Emilia Fox |
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| David Caves |
Birds of a Feather are back and unlike many old comedy series, which date very quickly, this one is as fresh, funny and downright hilarious as it has ever been. It is interesting to see how both Pauline Quirke and Linda Robson managed to lose a lot of weight for their return and look a million dollars into the bargain. Not that I care about that, it is the writing and the acting that are superb. Another interesting point is that Lesley Joseph is the one that has aged the most. Perhaps it is better to be plump if you want to stay young.
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| Pauline Quirke, Lesley Joseph and Linda Robson |
Now, I wonder if you have noticed the combination of DVD's and television in the title of this post? It relates to The Bletchley Circle and Call the Midwife. I don't know how, but I managed to miss both of these over the years, but recently Heather had drawn my attention to them and was she right?! She obviously knows me well in guessing that I would love them. I managed to pick up the previous series of both these on Amazon for very little and spent the last weeks catching up. Now I am all up to date and can watch the current seasons of both. Not only I found the scripts, acting and attention to period detail exemplary, but I must admit there is another aspect that is refreshing and much approved of by me in these programs. Namely, the not too often seen fact that they are both about women. It is not very often that female actors are given the chance to shine. Both these series delve into women's lives and the central characters are all women. Beautifully acted, especially in Call the Midwife. Roy, needless to say could not stand the graphic birth scenes in Call the Midwife, but even he appreciated the period detail and its amazing authenticity. I hope both series will carry on for ages yet.
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| Call the Midwife cast |
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| Sophie Rundle, Anna Maxwell Martin, Julie Graham and Rachael Stirling |
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The other great event of this last week was that finally the palinka had been distilled from the four large barrels of rotten fruit and arrived back from the still in 8 large 5litre containers. This year's yield was 37 litres which Roy had already bottled in 51 glass bottles of various shapes and sizes. He calls it dragon fuel, which is about right. Fortunately there are still plenty of bottles left from last year as this year's hooch is pretty fierce and needs 4-6 months to mature in glass.
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| 5litre cans in middle, glass bottles all around |
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You may recall that I complained in the last post about a long gap in Stephen calling. Thank goodness this week we managed to see our little monsters and below I include a few of the snapshots that their father managed to take of them with his new camera. Admittedly there is only one of Elian, but in the long run this usually evens out on the picture front. Xander had also had his first paid photo session as a pretty baby, so I think it is his turn to dominate the photographs! :-)
Tomorrow we are off to town and will probably not be back for a week or so. Two concerts at the weekend and an opera performance next Thursday. There is also a day of geocaching again with Andor, a visit from a really interesting writer lady whose book on one of my ancestors fascinated me and a chance that she might get me in to have a look at the old villa where they lived. I also have to have a bloodtest and X-ray for my cough, so we'll be busy in town, as usual.
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