Chickens, film making and Carnival Row

Hello! How are you? Hope you’re all well and having a good week. I’ve had a mixed bag of a week recently, but it’s been mostly good.

The chickens continue to thrive and are producing three eggs between them every day. There was one day when there were four eggs, but that was a fluke. I don’t know which one isn’t laying, but that’s okay, I’m sure she’ll get back into at some point. If not, there’s no problem. I bought them as pets, the eggs are just a bonus. * just back in from rescuing the chickens from a pesky magpie – as I was writing this I was aware that one of the chickens was going nuts about something. I went out to investigate and saw the magpie fly off. Oh, she was not for having it around the coop. She’s quietened down now and is happily scratching about. *

So what have I been up to over the past week? Well, I did a bit of training last week with our local Business Gateway learning how to do videos on my mobile phone. It wasn’t just a case of pointing the phone at something and filming it. We learned what to do, and then were put into groups to produce a film. We were then tasked to produce a two minute film on a subject of our choice. As we were doing the training in The Bridge, the community centre attached to Helensburgh Parish Church, my group decided to do something about the church. We interviewed a church elder, a lovely lady called Mary, and took some cutaways of the church itself. Then we put it all together using a special app, which included doing cutaways and captions. Our film actually turned out really well. We were all so pleased with it. It was a great course and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The thing I have not been doing this week is writing. Or my OU, for that matter, but the latter is fine as I was already two weeks ahead anyway. Got back into it this week. I was busy finishing off the boy’s room which included drilling the bed together and putting up curtains and shelving. It would look great if he’d only tidy it up!

Watched a really lovely film starring the lovely Andrew Scott (I will watch anything that man is in, he’s a fab actor), Jessica Brown Findlay (Lady Sybil Crawley from Downton Abbey), Tom Wilkinson, Jeremy Irvine, Anna Chancellor and Eileen Davies. This Beautiful Fantastic is the story of Bella Brown who must fix her neglected garden in order to remain in her flat and makes friends along the way. There’s a lot more to this film, obviously, but I’ll not spoil it for you. I will just say it is a gentle piece, with a lovely storyline and a great cast. I liked it and would defo watch it again.

Oh and I must tell you about my latest passion: Carnival Row. How good is that series? It’s on Amazon Prime and stars Cara Delevingne and Orlando Bloom and it’s brilliant. It’s beautifully shot, the storyline and script are great, the acting is fab… it’s got everything someone like me, who loves fantasy and Victorian melodrama, loves. It’s basically about a war that sends mythical creatures as refugees to a city called The Burgue. The story follows the tensions that rise between the indigenous human population and the newcomers, who include Fae. Added to the mix is a series of brutal murders which Bloom, as half fae police detective, Philo, must solve. NB Delevingne stars as the fae, Vingnette. Watch it, it’s brilliant.