2011 — 8 April: Friday
This photo of Christa and Peter dates from 1982; I like their smiles.
Having spent the evening idly watching a couple of films1 if I don't get some sleep soon I risk oversleeping and missing tomorrow's planned walk. G'night.
Some hours later...
... it's a nice, sunny morning. Let's see how good a cuppa tastes. My super-duper atomic clock suggests it's 8:58:45 (give or take). I'm not convinced I need quite such precision, which is in any case a couple of seconds adrift from the "Internet" time that BlackBeast checks itself by from, erm, time to time.
I'm amused to see that the only film I was ever forced to leave2 by walking out of the cinema before it had finished is about to be released on DVD again — 40 years on — in yet another "Director's cut". I bought my DVD as soon as it was available and it, too, claims to be a "Director's cut". (Link.)
I have 17 titles that begin "The Last...", not that anyone needs to know that.
I didn't consciously set out...
... to write about the grief I felt when Christa died, but doing so certainly helped me "come to terms" with it in some ways and very probably stopped my head exploding. This is an interesting article.
Meanwhile, the sun is still shining, the sky is blue, my neighbour assures me that his osprey was overhead hereabouts yesterday, and I have a packed lunch to prepare before setting off to Mike in Winklechestershire after calling in on my chum Brian who will be joining us today. We've identified a "nursery slope" to give him a taste of our retirement hobby of walking in the Hampshire countryside. We hope he likes it.
Some further hours later...
... after a very pleasant stroll (of either 6.7 or 7.7 miles depending whether to believe Mike's hand-held Garmin GPS or Brian's Google App on his Android phone) around the rolling hills of Wherwell, I'm back to be greeted by official confirmation of dear Mama's snailmail redirection (to me) and by a most welcome £25 prize from Mr ERNIE. A quick shower to make myself vaguely fit for company, another cuppa to bring my brain back online, and then I'd better think about a quick supplies run if I'm to have any food this weekend.
My atomic clock says it's 3:24:47 and counting.
London (80) Gigapixels
Brian also sent me this link to a 360 degree hi-res "tour" of the city I spent many hours in over the last 40 years.
Memory is a tricky beast
Quite why a quick blast of this newly-remastered lump of prog rock...
... should have left me with a musical theme3 from Vangelis wandering through my head while I was wandering through the aisles of Waitrose a few minutes ago is puzzling enough. But for it to take nearly the whole time I was there before the name "Vangelis" actually popped into my head is just mystifying. Derek Jewell, the former popular music and jazz critic of the Sunday Times, regarded "Close to the Edge" as a masterpiece. He's not far wrong. But I still don't have a clue what the lyrics mean.
The two DVDs also thrust into my Venetian blind postal collection mechanism will have to wait until my return from Roger and Eileen.
[Pause]
Just (21:12) come to the end of today's Kermode and Mayo BBC Radio5 Live film review podcast. It featured Catherine "Twilight" Hardwicke and Max(imilian) Irons from the newest variant of Red Riding Hood. I'm looking forward to seeing that.