How fortunate we've been while others have suffered from Storm Desmond over the past few days! It's been a bit windy here, and there's been a drizzle or two of rain. We've had it on good authority that Kantara's not been exposed to much either. David, aboard NB Wreyland, has tweeted about the wind, but actually I think it's been fairly light compared with how it has been there in the past.
Grace and I have had winter breaks in the Lake District in past years. We won't this year. We'll go somewhere drier. We were shocked by the photo of a familiar building on the Keswick side of Derwentwater.
That was on Saturday. This photo is of the same building back in January, when the water was only "high".
Jess was away over the weekend, at the British Folk Music Festival with Said the Maiden. In Skegness. Yeah, I know it sounds a bit... Skegnessy, but it was a huge event, and the Maidens thoroughly enjoyed it. Their performance on the Friday evening won them first prize in the public vote for best performers of the day on the 'starting stage', the prize for which is to perform next year on the main stage. They got invitations to several clubs and festivals next year, and had to turn down the offer to support Fairport Convention at a couple of their tour venues. Jess will be in Iceland on those dates, but they were told there would be other opportunities for them to support the Fairports.
It's odd, being back at the house. It always is. But there's plenty to do, so time won't drag. We've seen a few films on DVD over the week.
Third Star was rather dark. We'd never heard of it, but it was in the DVD player when we wanted to watch something, so we gave it a go. It was good. Powerful. Very well acted, particularly by Benedict Cumberbatch, who had the hardest role; a man in the final stages of terminal cancer.
"James and his three closest lifelong friends go on an ill-advised trip to the stunning coastal area of Barafundle Bay in West Wales. What follows is a touching and comical adventure dealing with friendship, heroism and love."
Another dark film was one I bought, having seen the trailer. Candy. The film was much more grim and depressing than the trailer let on.
"A fatherly chemistry professor (Geoffrey Rush) indulges two young lovers (Heath Ledger, Abbie Cornish) in their ever-increasing heroin habits. Eventually the pair, an artist named Candy and an aspiring poet named Dan, become caught in a harrowing downward spiral of drug dependency and failed efforts to get clean."
The first four episodes of the original TV production of The Lone Ranger (first shown in the USA in 1949, some years before I saw the programme weekly as a child in the UK) were very amusing, simply because of their age and the stiltedness of the script and the woodenness of the acting. But as a kid, I missed the first episodes, and these told some important stories which became the context for the whole of the rest of the series. These four 30-minute episodes were worth watching for that reason, if nothing else. They were fun. And the nostalgia can't be denied!
And then there was Red. We saw Red 2 trailed recently, and it looked good, so I bought it and its predecessor. Which was a lot of fun. One of the reasons I had to see it was to watch Helen Mirren play the part of a gun-toting baddie alongside Bruce Willis who's so used to it! She did it with panache. Of course. The rest of the cast were pretty good, too. Of course.
"When his peaceful life is threatened by a high-tech assassin, former black-ops agent Frank Moses reassembles his old team in a last ditch effort to survive and uncover his assailants."
We still haven't hibernated the boat yet, so we're off to the marina on Wednesday to do it. Let's hope it's not snowing.
