Thought I'd share a picture or two from a delightful trip to Old Portsmouth last Thursday. The day started out with a ceremony at the Square House...
And finished with an eye catching view of The Spinnaker Tower.
For the bits in between, you'll have to wait for the bride to tell her tale when she gets back from the marrymoon with, erm... Ah! Me finks I best leave it at that in case I get meself in a pickle about what the best man said.
Ok, so I love living at the seaside, but for the last 2 days I've been enjoying vivid images of curly haired farm hands driving shiny red tractors and yanking damsels in distress outta of their welly boots.
"Just when I really need a hay barn..."
Ooh er! Kerr-wivering in me furry slipper booties, I was!
"Patience Woman", he said...
You gotta be kidding, I couldn't wait to get to that bit.
When I was just a wee little lass, I was hugely inspired by Granada Television's World In Action series, 7 Up.
Back in 1964, World in Action looked at the Jesuit saying: “Give me the child until he is 7, and I will show you the man“, or woman, and they did.
My introduction to the Up series of documentaries was through school, with
much of my "O" Level Humanities coursework based on watching the
programmes made in the sixties and seventies. It is still, without a doubt, my all time favourite documentary. Even though I have been but a mere trespasser in those peoples lives,
each and every one of them has encouraged me to open my mind and
appreciate life from different perspectives.
Today, much of the increasingly popular reality TV is nothing more than a
centre stage to emulate illusion and delusion in a wannabe fame seeking
section of society with subjects morphing into media marketed beings.
I guess everyone is entitled to their 15 minutes of
fame, but the 7 Up programme started something very real and truly
special, in my humble opinion. Something that many reality producers and stars may not even comprehend today.
The series mapped out changes in
our society, highlighting how preordained projections based on
stereotypes and social status may make assumptions that do not always
materialise, for many different reasons. The snippets of those different peoples' lives have shown evolution and individual growth according to an ever changing world
of challenges, opportunities, circumstance and personal abilities, not by media hype.
Every 7 years I have eagerly awaited an update, and despite knowing
that an instalment was due to be aired this year, I missed it. Thankfully, I was able to catch
up on 56 Up - Part 1 on ITV Player
Real people inspire me. I appreciate the insight that life is not always about what you have, or don't have, but what you do with those variables. And with that in mind... I'd like to thank all the people who took part in the Up Series over the years, in front and behind the cameras, for being a big part of my real life education.
Doesn't time fly when you're reigning on the throne?
To some, it doesn't seem that long ago. Although, living in a digital multi-media playing era we've certainly evolved, for better or worse, since Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, became our ruling monarch.
Congratulations, Ma'am, on maintaining one's head through the highs and lows of British evolution.
Seeing as I’m now acquainted with more than one published novelist, Patsy Collins being one, I couldn’t let World Book Night slip by without mentioning the book I picked up: The Time Traveller’s Wife, a first novel by Audrey Niffenegger. It was the Evening Standard’s recommendation on the front cover, “Here’s the next The Lovely Bones… A rare book”, which caught my attention! You see, I read the Lovely Bones only a few weeks ago and was swept into the eyes of a child who told her tragic tale from a world beyond the physical. I read it from “My Name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie” right through to “I wish you all a long and happy life.”
It was a real treat to attend a literary event, on both Shakespeare’s birthday and St George's Day, and it set me a pondering as to what books those two boys would have picked up! Me finks George would have been lured by I Capture The Castle, by Dodie Smith, and there’s much a do with Roald Dahl’s Someone Like You, for William to peruse.
