Increasingly Autumnal
29 August

As Gill remarked on her visit here last weekend, there is already a sense of autumn coming on.

I've felt it in the morning dews, the closing in of the nights and the mornings, the ripening of the plums in our garden and the sounds of geese on the air.

During Gill's stay with us, we took a trip out to Martin Mere near Ormskirk, one of the Wetland Trust's properties. It's one of those places I've been meaning to visit for many a long time and it was a pleasure to view the startling abundance of plumages. They too have begun to see the early signs of autumn.

You know that autumn has arrived when the Swallows begin to roost in the reed-beds on Top Mere. This week 500+ were in residence at dusk.

Gill's time with us also took in a visit to see the Antony Gormley's, some Quaker silence on Sunday morning and a session watching Bad Education, which was just as good on a second viewing.

The following day, Albert and Grace came for lunch and we managed a picnic on the waterfront so that they could see the Antony Gormleys as well. They nearly lost out as the higher autumnal tides coupled with a wind which drove the waves in off the Irish Sea all but covered them. We finished the lunch off back at our house with a plum and apple crumble which Ross had concocted from a Delia Smith recipe.

Delia came in useful this weekend too as we had Mitch and Laura round for a meal. This was a return match for the meal that they served up for us last December but also served as a farewell to Mitch as he has left Connect for a new job. Ross was a devil in the kitchen and came up with a lovely cold chicken pie and and apple and almond tart for afters.

In such like we have continued our summer of conviviality. However, I must put in a leavening note of feeling quite wearied by it all.

Elsewhere, there's news of Robert who is in Switzerland in Lucerne avoiding floods but hemmed in by pouring rain. He's working a six day week and enjoying it. There's talk that his work with Troika Ranch may bring him to Liverpool next spring.

I've also taken steps towards a trip to Barcelona in November to see Juan Diego Flórez perform in Rossini's Semiramide at the Liceu. Theatre tickets are booked as is my flight and hotel. I've also done the deed for a performance of Puccini's La fancuilla del West with José Cura at the Royal Opera House. Again, theatre tickets, travel and hotel are all booked.

Other treats in store for the autumn season are Welsh National Opera performances of Die Lustige Witwe and Don Carlos, Opera North's concert performance of Nabucco and the National Theatre's production of Alan Bennett's The History Boys. We'll be rounding things off nicely in December at English National Opera with a performance of Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd.

I've polished off a couple of so-so novels lately.

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver took on the phenomenon of teen school slayings from a mother's point of view. Though it was a courageous and intrepid attempt, I just felt throughout that a little more love and a little less analysis might have helped and a little less emphasis on material ease. And, to be perfectly honest, I just couldn't get on with the prose style which seemed to me to be right up its own arse.

Gill put me on to Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs, which is sort of Scarpetta territory without the overblown Hollywood-style sensationalism. I wasn't blown away but I did like the ordinariness of some of the observations which made the horror of the slayings all the more poignant. I suspect that I shall return to this series when I need travelling books.

I've left the best until the last.

I've been looking to see Vera Drake for some time. I've heard exceptionally good reports of this Mike Leigh film. However, typically of me, I resent and resist being told how good things are. In this instance, I needn't have been afraid. It is a magnificent achievement. Basically, it is the simple story of a woman in the 1950s who, whilst being a loving mother and pillar of the community, helps out women in trouble (as many a wise woman throughout the ages has done) by inducing miscarriages. In tabloid terms, she is a back street abortionist.

However, the film is not sensationalist. I can imagine the subject in the hands of a soap opera script writer and all I can hear is shouting and screaming. There's is hardly a raised voice throughout the film. Everyone is simply trying to do their best in an age when abortion is illegal. Even the police are sympathetic. I was absolutely bowled over and Imelda Staunton's performance is quite outstanding.

The moment when the police arrive a during a family celebration is heart-rending. The camera holds on Imelda Staunton's face whilst, out of focus, there is a range of surprised and outraged reaction in the background. Across her features flit all of the knowledge of what she has done and what that means for herself and, more importantly, for her family. It is a great cinematic moment and superlative acting.

I have no hestiation in awarding this film five stars. It is a great, great film. However, I do know that I am setting myself an impossible task come the end of the year as I try to judge whether this or Bad Education is my film of the year.