We have been watching the films about Tolkien’s Middle Earth on the new television.
They are spectacularly splendid on an enormous screen with a deafening speaker. Exciting things are the very best sorts of things to watch like this.
There were blistering fireballs and a brilliant dragon, and lots of the sort of swooping through the sky scenes that make you feel as though you might really be flying, like a dragon, only in your armchair.
We watched the last one tonight, which was the final episode of The Hobbit. It has taken us ages, because we never have time to watch a whole film all at once, and films have to be split into two, or even three episodes.
We do not mind this. It spreads the excitement over a long time. When we switch them off we like to have a bit of time to talk about it all before we watch any more.
I still like the books better, I think. I love the thrilling pictures on the screen, but they are quite a different thing to the lovely slow, measured rhythms of words on a page.
In any case, the makers of films always seem to feel that they can improve on a perfectly good story. This one included an entirely irrelevant young woman included simply in order that somebody could fall in love with her, which in my opinion was a nuisance in a perfectly good plot. I do not see why makers of films always have to have people falling in love with one another, as if nothing else interesting ever happens in the world. This story included dragons and battles and wizards and was quite sufficiently exciting without needing people to gaze longingly at one another to the accompaniment of violins being played slowly on the sound track.
Tolkien did not have women in his stories, and a good thing too. They are a tiresome nuisance when you are trying to get young men to concentrate on battles and dragons and wizards.
I would just like to observe here that I am struggling terribly to write these words this evening.
The ends of my fingers have split in so many places that typing has turned into something of a challenge. Indeed, my hands have got so many logging cuts on them that an encounter with vinegar whilst making mayonnaise this morning turned out most unhappily.
I have smothered them in Sudocrem, which is leaving greasy smears all over the keys of the computer, and which smells of nappies.
I think that my fingers have started to get sore because of the exceptional cold blast we are having at the moment. Today was so unspeakably cold that even the dogs shivered, and they are in possession of their full winter coats and look like small ginger sheep.
We will clip them when the birds start nesting again, not long to go now.
I went to cut more firewood, and somehow today it was not very nice. The skies were ashen-grey, and a hollow-sounding polar wind swirled around the farm. It was as cold as ever I have known it, and my fingers ached even through my gloves. My ears and nose were raw, and my face is hot and pink even now, from its icy blast.
I had forgotten to take my phone with me, which was an uneasy feeling, because if you accidentally cut your foot off then it is handy to be able to reach into a pocket and use it to summon help, you can hardly stroll down to the farm and ask if you can borrow theirs. This absence made me even more cautious than usual, and believe me, I am always keen to retain my limbs, but I felt oddly small, and isolated under the darkening sky. I was glad to scuttle back into the wood-laden taxi and hurry back home.
I was surprised to discover from the radio on the way home that it was Saturday, because I have stopped keeping abreast of current affairs lately. This was a pleasing moment, because it meant that tomorrow we will have a day off.
I do not know what I want to do with it. Nothing sounds to be my favourite option at the moment.
Today I made mayonnaise and yoghurt, washed sheets and towels and fed children and Mark. I have emptied the dogs and split up firewood and sewn the turn-ups of my trousers, ready to wear them in the witness box on Wednesday. I cleaned the bathroom and made pizza for dinner, although this was easier than it sounds because the bread making machine does the kneading bit, and I don’t need to bother.
Hence, I like the idea of doing nothing very much indeed. With a book in front of the fire would be good.
The picture is taken from the log store at the farm. Those who are following closely will realise that it was not taken today, because obviously I had forgotten my phone.
I took it yesterday.
It was colder and greyer than that today.
