It is almost midnight and I am just starting to write this.
We have not been working. We have had an adventure.
We have been all the way to Manchester, in fact to Stockport.
The reason for this was to go and see a film.
It was not Frozen Two, nor even the sort of film with a knife fight in the car park at the end. I would not have liked a knife fight really, but it would have given us something to talk about for ages, it is always good to have had some Life Experiences to trot out at parties. Also we could have blamed the politicians that we do not like anyway and used it as an excuse not to vote for them.
In comparison to knife fights and Disney being mysterious about the sexual orientation of its characters, the evening was fairly quiet, but we had an absolutely ace time all the same.
It was not just any old film. It was a premiere, a real First Night, the sort which would have had red carpets and high heels if it had been in America, although fortunately we are English and boots were fine. The exciting thing was that it actually really starred a friend of ours. Two friends really, because his girlfriend was in it as well, although less starringly.
It was being shown in a real cinema in Stockport, and the person who had made the film had very kindly provided glasses of wine as well. We were glad of these, because we had had a terrible rush to get out, and there had been lots of accidents and roadworks all the way, which made me terribly anxious. It all turned out all right in the end, though, although we almost had a disaster at the last minute. This was whenMark, who had been calm and tranquil through all the endless queues and traffic cones and flashing blue lights, went to pay for the car park and the machine swallowed his money and refused to issue a ticket, and he got cross with it.
This was all right as well, because the phone number was on the machine and the man said that it would be all right. We dashed off and were not late after all, and the glass of wine soothed everything marvellously.
The film was fifteen minutes long and was about a sad farmer who is building a dry stone wall.
Mike, who was playing the farmer, had a bit of dry stone wall practice with Mark in the summer, although this largely consisted of Mark telling him that the most important thing is to keep your fingers out of the way. Indeed, in the film, the farmer had a very realistically blackened fingernail, which looked just like Mark’s when he has been dry stone walling for a few days.
I was a bit anxious about going to watch it, in case I laughed in the wrong places, or in case he built the wall wrong, but I didn’t, and he didn’t, so it was all right. Well almost all right. When the final credits started to roll the leading man’s mother, who was next to us, said loudly: “Is that all of it, then?” and I did accidentally laugh then, but nobody noticed.
We thought that it was a really splendid film. Imagine the difficulty of doing that, of making an actual film, we were lost in admiration. I had worried that it would be too short to be interesting, but Mark said afterwards that it had been like a poem, where every little bit counts and tells you something else important, and I thought that he was right.
It is going to be taken to him festivals now, and entered for film-making competitions.
I hope that it wins something. It would be very thrilling to be able to say, airily: “Oh yes, we were at the premiere, you know.” Also it deserves to, he mostly built the wall very nicely, although the farmer spent too much time drinking tea and eating sandwiches for my liking, I would have had something to say if Mark spent his days like that.
I shall tell everybody that we are the sort of people who get invited to film premieres. It was a brilliant night.
We went to see my parents afterwards, rather to their surprise because we had not told them we were coming in case everything had gone horribly wrong and we had had to change our plans. This happens sometimes, but it didn’t tonight.
It was rather splendid to round off the evening with a cup of tea in front of their fire, and they very kindly sent us on our way with a bottle of Baileys as a sort of early Christmas present. We like this very much, it manages to combine alcohol and sweeties and pudding all rolled into one.
They are putting their Christmas decorations up.
I ought to do ours.
Somebody else took the picture but it is such a good one that I have borrowed it, I hope they don’t mind.
