Big, Quiet Skies
10 September

I've been off work this past week on holiday and glad of the break.

The atmosphere at work has not been good. On the Friday before the holiday, I ran the course on "Understanding the recruitment process" which I've been developing with our unemployed learners over the years for our own group of soon-to-be redundant colleagues. The course itself went well but it was interspersed with all of their anger and bitterness and frustration.

All three of them felt that the company was about to fold and fold soon. It was difficult to remain unaffected but I also remember that all those people who left us three years ago said something similar. I also reminded myself that they were talking solely about the high tech part of the business not making money and, whilst that is true, they quite clearly haven't acknowledged that the training side does make a lot of money in compensation.

And we could make more, of course. I've suggested that we run that course on a commercial basis but the suggestion has, like so many that I've made over the years, evaporated into vapour without so much as an acknowledgement.

So, I was indeed glad of the break.

Ross and I caught up with a lot of films. Ghost Writer for one. Effective. Quite slick. Directed by Polanski although his name was more or less written out of the finished product owing to his ongoing legal difficulties. I just didn't warm to it. That's all.

I think that Tim Burton is a genius. Alice in Wonderland is a visually stunning film. The cast came through despite the battery of elaborate visual effects stacked against them. But again, I just didn't warm to it. That's all.

The Time Traveller's Wife did grab me, however. I had enjoyed Audrey Niffeneger's book five years ago but had felt that the ending was a let down. No such reservations here. I shed a tear or two. I felt that the emotional core of who knows what and when was much, much clearer.

But the grandaddy of this bunch was Inception. It was truly jaw-dropping, a real tour de force of cinematic excellence. Director Christopher Nolan was also responsible for Memento and The Dark Knight.

The cast also were excellent in their rôles. I enjoyed watching Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy and Cillian Murphy are also exceptionally easy on the eye. The costume department seemed to take a particular delight in squeezing young Joseph into delightful form hugging trousers.

My only problem with the film is that its theme of multiple layers of reality and what you can trust chimes in exactly with how I know that I would go mad so there were a number of moments which were very uncomfortable for me to watch.

There has also been one TV programme to note - Secret Britain - which has graced our TV screens on a Sunday night and has taken us on a tour of out-of-the-way parts of our crowded island. The presenters, Matt Baker and Julia Bradbury, have been very personable and Ross and I have firmly fallen in love with Matt Baker who is just a poppet and a half.

Matt Baker Apparently our Matt has done all sorts of stuff all over the BBC. Blue Peter, Country File, The One Show. He's now in the frame for Strictly Come Dancing but not even he, with his insouciant manner and deeply sexy County Durham accent, could persuade me to watch that programme.

Despite all that media, I have been getting out the house.

And it's been lovely to take advantage of some of the sunny times to sit in the back garden and to lap up the heat and the quiet. I love the way that our neighbourhood retains its basic quiet during the daytime. (Oh, and by the way we have neighbours again next door - I've met the upstairs lot and they are rough diamonds but pleasant enough)

And the sky at the moment is big and blue and totally empty of swifts so its all gone quiet there as well.

Onions I've been very homely of late.

I week or so ago, I made my first ever batch of chutney (rhubarb) to a recipe from my National Trust cookbook. And whilst my chutney making practice will no doubt improve over the years (I think I over-cooked it so that it is a bit gummy), I'm still a very proud little bunny.

I've also harvested this year's novelty crop out of the back garden and, whilst the onions didn't all swell to ripe perfection, they are tasty and have been disappearing into the cook pot over this last week.

I've also begun clearing the patch for what will become the raised Vegetable Garden at some point. It will occupy the end part of where the demolished outhouses used to be.

Actually it's where the old coal bunker used to be. We had this confirmed when I started clearing away the accretions of earth and rubble only to hit a Victorian brick floor stained black with coal dust. We've decided to leave the brick there as the rain obviously drains through so it should mean that water retention will be less of a problem than in the rest of the garden with our sandy soil.

Vegetable Garden Once the excavation was complete, it looked quite good. Time Team would have been proud of me. It almost seems a shame to build on it now.

I look forward to our first home grown produce. I have just finished making my first ever batch of chutney (rhubarb - using a National Trust recipe since you ask): I'm wondering if WI membership beckons and this raises concerns. Although I would be honoured to be considered worthy of membership of such an august organisation as the Women's Institute, I doubt that I would be required to don a frock. No, no, my only reservation would be that I might be required to expose my bosoms for some sodding calendar. And there I draw a line.

And, of course, out in the garden Jemima had to get in on the act. There is not show without Punch.

Jemima in the garden

I had, once again, confirmed my feline status as "Blessed amongst the humans" by feeding Nutkin cat with some meat off the carcass of the weekend roast chicken. This status was soon lost by not continuing to access the cold, white room in order to feed Nutkin cat with chicken. Such is the fickleness of felines.

Ross, meanwhile, has begun a long term re-potting project.

Ross in the garden