Gardens in September

As Alison had a few days holiday, we decided to visit some gardens before the autumn set in. We had not been to one of our favourites, Waterperry, for over a year. It was a lovely day, sunny but not too warm. The gardens were still spectacular including the hot bed in the picture above. We visited the tearooms twice for lunch and afternoon tea. Very nice. I bought two Penstemons and a Viburnum. Their plants are so good, I could have spent a fortune.

The next day we were going to find The Savill Garden near Windsor. Unfortunately, when we arrived we found it was closed because of the foot and mouth that had had just been discovered at Egham. So all that way and we had to turn round. We were getting very hungry as we had expected to have some lunch as soon as we arrived at the gardens. So we were heading for Cliveden and stopped at a Starbucks we knew near Dorney Lake. We felt a lot better when we arrived at Cliveden and we did enjoy the walk around the gardens.

1408, Hallam Foe and Atonement

The children are all back to school and the summer season of blockbusters is over. Thank goodness we can now settle down to an autumn of more intelligent movies. These three all had modest budgets, and two were amazingly British.

The exception was "1408", a ghost story that was taken to a whole new level. The special effects were pretty scary, the best of all was when John Cusack loses his hearing and the film presses the mute button. It felt like when your ears pop during an aircraft descent. And the ending was left as ambiguous as it could. good stuff.

"Hallam Foe" was exceptional for just a small British (Scottish) film. I had to go to Milton Keynes to see it and even there it only lasted a week. That is why Stephen Poliakoff only puts his films on television. He says only a man and his dog would see them at the cinema, and that was true of Hallam Foe. Which is a shame, as the photography of the Scottish countryside and Edinburgh rooftops was superb. Jamie Bell deserves awards for his performance. The story was original with good dialogue and a pace fast enough to carry a slow plot.

I was so looking forward to "Atonement". The book by Ian McEwan was one of the best I have ever read. But I did wonder how it would translate to the big screen. And then I heard the cast and thought how exactly right that was and I was right. They did not let the film down. Nor did the script, the location photography (especially that in the street outside the cafe where Cecilia and Robbie say goodbye before he goes off to fight in France), the costumes and the music. What did, in my opinion, were the gaps between the dialogue in the first half. There nothing happens. Is it meant to be artistic? If so, it failed, as the pace is already as slow as it could be. It just did not need slowing even further. I wanted to scream "get on with it". The director gets it right in the second half where pictures of Dunkirk and a London hospital are full of action. I think I knew the story and the ending too well to be too critical, but that is probably why I am.

Not So Easy Retirement

After having painted the porch and side gate, I only needed to paint the conservatory and the whole of the exterior of the house would be fresh having had the new windows and doors installed. I said only. The conservatory is hardwood that had been painted white. So after nearly ten years there were patches that needed attention, even though most of the woodwork was still fine. I had made a note of what paint they used before and found some via the Internet.

It was a much harder and time consuming job than I imagined. There are so many window panels, it was all cutting in. And the constellation's or whatever the features are at the top, I cannot imagine why we chose those. Only that they look nice. On reflection, it only took 12 hours over four days, but it seemed twice that. However, the outside is done before the autumn, and I can now start the inside any time.

Cadbury Dairy Milk - Glass and a Half Full Productions

Cadbury Dairy Milk - Glass and a Half Full Productions

(Click on above link)

This is the best TV advertisement since that for the Astra Twintop and Tigra that surfed the waves to Lonnie Donegan's "Rock Island Line". The expressions of the gorilla waiting to start drumming are quite amazing, with a final stretching of the neck before he starts. The result is a great achievement in a 1 and a half minute video to a great pop song.

Were off to Wembley

It was some weeks ago that Alison phoned from work to say that we had until 5pm to register with the FA website as England Fans and enter the public ballot for tickets to the two world cup qualifiers against Israel and Russia. I managed the registration process and a few days later we were offered, and bought, tickets for the Israel match for the Saturday 8th September.

I had wanted to go to the new Wembley Stadium ever since it was completed, and tickets for the first England competitive game there meant even more. Years before the reconstruction started I was constantly dismayed that our national stadium was so old and tired. It was just about OK in 1966 when I went to the world cup games there, but even then the views were obstructed and far away. The athletics track had hosted speedway and greyhound racing but was then a redundant gap for the spectators. So now I wanted to see where all the money went.

We were not disappointed. The exterior views of the stadium is nothing special, apart from the arch. We found our entrance and were ready for a long climb up the stairs to our position at the highest level. However, we found the escalators, and once through a short queue we were carried gently up a series of escalators to the top.

I had reservations about our seats as they were some of the cheapest, right in a corner near the top. I should not have worried. The view was spectacular. We were directly above the far left corner flag in the photograph, half way up the top level. It was so steep, we could not even see the lower levels below. And the height gave a great perspective on the play. We were told there is not a bad seat in the stadium and they were right.

And the game was good, England played well and won 3-0 with the first two scored at our end. The atmosphere was awesome. The noise was so loud I had to shout for Alison to hear me. We joined in the singing so I was pretty hoarse by the end. The journey home was so easy. The stairs down and the concourse around the stadium are so so wide, there is plenty of room and we didn't have to stop once. The route out was pretty crowded but we kept moving and once onto the main road, it was a normal walk to Wembley Central to catch trains home with hardly a wait. That all makes for a great all round experience.

These are not our photos by the way, someone who was there published these on Flkr.

Transformers, The Bourne Ultimatum and Knocked Up

The last of the summer blockbusters. Transformers did have some good action sequences with a light and funny story. Unfortunately, the talking machines made me cringe and spoilt what could have been a great action movie.

The Bourne Ultimatum lived up to its reviews. The one reason why it did not reach my maximum five stars was the repetitiveness of the fights with assassins and car chases that were also in the previous films.

I should have known better than going to see Knocked Up. It attracted great reviews, but for some reason, I just don't like American comedies. And this was no exception. There were some minor cameo appearances (the guy's father, the girl's mother and the assistant at the TV station). But the lead characters had zero appeal. The best thing was afterwards, when some of the action I found amusing in retrospect. Come back Hugh Grant.