Treat Therapy
10 February

As well as pussy games and shining lights, I'm continuing to try and treat myself well.

Monthly reiki, weekly Quaker meeting, twice weekly yoga and the occasional treatment at the Sefton Carers centre give a core to my routine.

Then there's food. I've perfected quite a nice little variation on the traditional fish pie which includes prawns and a couple of boiled eggs with the coley and white sauce. Ross did a very nice casserole with braising steak on Saturday night and Gillion's provided us with a couple of lamb shanks marinated Greek style. And let's not forget the treat of freshly baked bread. I'm begining to regain some of the weight I've lost in the last six months.

Then there's music. In preparation for clearing out a number of CDs, I've been listening to a lot and discarding some and retaining others. Some purchases that I liked a while ago now sound naff when compared with other recordings. I've junked quite a bit of opera that way.

One special journey has been through my purchases of English music on Naxos. I've reminded myself that I like string quartets by Britten and Vaughan Williams. I've reminded myself that I'm not so keen on chamber music by Walton and Elgar. I've rediscovered that I quite like some chamber music by Bax, Bliss and Moeran but am less keen on Bridge. I've overturned my previously negative views on orchestral works by Rawsthorne and I've fallen once more under the spell of Britten's violin concerto - the final five minutes are just scrumptious.

Then there's books. I've finished re-reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (less good second time through, it's a bit too obsessed with plot and back-filling) and I'm now getting through Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy (still very entertaining second time through though I stand by my initial impression that the first book is the most engrossing of the three).

And I've been continuing to listen to great literature such as Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone, E M Forster's A Passage to India (one of the great English novels of the twentieth century), Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, J M Barrie's Peter Pan and Wendy, Lewis Carrol's Alice Through the Looking Glass and Oscar Wilde's The Portrait of Dorian Gray. I'm so glad that I developed an enthusiasm for talking books.

Then there's films. Ross and I have taken in a couple of films. Firstly on DVD, Down With Love was a hugely enjoyable pastiche of all those Debbie Reynolds/Rock Hudson films with a modern twist. I've not giggled and laughed quite so much for a long time. There was a fast paced, wise-cracking script. The cast (including excellent performances by Reneé Zellweger and Ewan McGregor - sort of Chicago meets Star Wars) played the scenario in all seriousness but to the hilt. There were some splendid design pastiches, nice cinematic in jokes. The whole thing was a pleasure from beginning to end and well worth three stars.

Cold Mountain should have had a lot going for it. Anthony Minghella directed. Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and Reneé Zellweger starred. The whole was literate. Many sequences were well staged. Overall, though, I was less than gripped. There were three narrative strands. How would Jude Law manage his picaresque journey home. How would Nicole Kidman and Reneé Zellweger manage to tend a farm on their own. How would the bad man (the excellent Ray Winstone) get his come uppance. Over two hours felt like a long time in order to find out how these three strands would eventually come together and would it be a happy or a sad ending. I'm only going to give it two stars even though Jude showed us his tush so that we all now know why Nicole got in Sadie's way (allegedly of course).

I also want to say a little about how mild the weather has been this winter. Other parts of the country have had snow and deep frosts to be sure but, here on Merseyside, we have avoided the worst of it. So much so that Ross and I have not used the heavy flannelette sheets on the bed all winter and we have never had the central heating on overnight and we have often turned it off during the day because it was unnecessary. Even this early in the year, it has become a major decision as to what to wear. It's currently very easy to over-dress and overheat.

The garden has felt the effects of this as well. As you might expect, snowdrops and crocusses are coming into bloom. However, my early clematis is also blooming (this should produce flowers in April) and the daffodils are coming into bud. That's the pleasant side of things. The down side is that we are already spraying for greenfly and blackspot.

And later today I go to see the doctor and find out how the near future will begin to pan out.