THE GREEN DIARY :                                            Limbo and beyond!

Strange times to say the least. As far as health goes Tony is in a sort of waiting room of indecision on the part of everyone concerned with his intended prostate surgery! The surgeon does not want to operate until the Neurologist has been visited and some sort of definitive diagnosis is made – does he have Parkinson’s or does he not? But the Neurologist isn’t available until November despite the urgency of the situation! Its another case of the one hand in the NHS does not know what the other is up to; we go around in circles.

So…a sort of limbo you could say.

My own health is very much improved and apart from residual bowel discomfort and a tiredness that comes over by mid-afternoon, all is well. TMI, Friends!? But spectacular weight loss what with the strict dieting required by this Diverticular syndrome! That is nearly 30lbs in old measurements.

We are hunkering in Mistley. Trips to London have usually been to see doctors or set up the flat for the imminent arrival of Grandson Tyger who will be living in the flat for the next three years while he completes his PhD at Queen Mary’s. Subject? Wait for it – “ an Investigation into Proto-planetary Discs” a subject that as far as Tony and I are concerned is so rarefied that our minds boggle.

I guess A Star is Born could explain it?

We looked it up after he had explained it and are still boggling :

A protoplanetary disk is a rotating circumstellar disc of dense gas and dust surrounding a young newly formed star, a T Tauri star, or Herbig Ae/Be star. 

Make what you will of that! Anyway, he has to do it from our flat because Student accommodation is now so expensive in London as to be mind boggling as well! His grant simply won’t cover it.

The Baker’s Wife at the Menier Chocolate Factory is the only show we have seen since our hunker here started. Very disappointing, I am afraid. Based on the 1938 French film of the same name by Marcel Pagnol and Jean Giono, it pleased only as a tuneful moment in history and as a

well performed production; but it is astonishingly out of date and its inherent sexism while probably funny (and palatable) back in 1938 is hopelessly out of kilter with modern views, to the extent that it actually succeeded in embarrassing many in the audience, including our little party

of six, apart from Tony and myself, all women.This all succeeded in spoiling the simplicity and melodic narrative and we went away grumbling rather!

Limboland is the best place to catch up with binge-television and this we have been doing in spades! Breaking Bad has been revisited, all 62 of them, and we discovered that neither of us could remember any of them.

But it reminded us of Jimmy McGill alias Saul Goodman and that neither of us had ever watched Better Call Saul – another 63 episode marathon nearly completed.

But please help me here, Friends, those of you that know these series, what on earth happened to Kim Wexler?

I did a little research and was devastated to learn that after signing their divorce papers, Kim departs Saul’s office and meets Jesse Pinkman. Kim rejects her share of the Sandpiper settlement and moves to Titusville, Florida, where she lives a mundane life with a new boyfriend and works a boring desk job.

Jesse Pinkman is inherited by Saul. Such a dreary end for such a sparky character. Wow.

And in the end dear Jimmy gets put away for 85 years. What an end.

We are also hooked on Vienna Blood not only for the labyrinthine story lines but also for the locations in Vienna. Beautiful production values there even though some of the plots are a little far fetched. Each episode is film length at 90 minutes and it is a race to see whether we can stay awake despite their thrill since round ten-ish we both start nodding.

Books? Just finished Amore Towles’  Rules of Civility which I enjoyed very much; he evokes New York City in the 30’s beautifully in a good story with intriguing characters. I like his books.

Just started Robert Harris’ Precipice telling the riveting story of the affair between Herbert Asquith and Violet Stanley in the run up to the Great War, 1914 through to Asquith’s resignation. Really enjoying this too as I have done all his books.

Otherwise? All quiet on the Essex Front and we follow our Albanian Fellowship through the vagaries of that journey from which we were forced to withdraw. Looks like a beautiful place.

c’est la vie

PEDRO

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