Friday's Film Feast - Number 1.

Friday's Film Festival

Not quite as simple as it sounds, I assure you. Every Friday (hopefully!) I plan on choosing a film from my modest collection of DVDs but there will be nothing so straightforward as a review/summary/synopsis/critique. I plan on drawing inspiration from it - either a direct experience or memory associated with watching said film or perhaps something less direct... We'll see how it goes!
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This week's film...could easily be dismissed as a slushy rom-com. But hear me out.

I have a huge problem with online dating and computer match-making. On the one hand, it makes sense: logical, thorough, efficient. Everything that appeals to my scientific brain. In pursuit of the right career, the best-performing car, a good builder, why not use a computer system which matches your 'wanted' criteria with 'offered' criteria and advise of the results? Brilliant.

Why can't we apply the same process to meeting the right person? We just can't! How many people end up with someone who would actually fit their 'wanted' criteria? How many people go on dates with the perfect 'on-paper' partner and find that there is a chasm between them? It is as if we're hoping that, by process of elimination, we will eventually sift through the world's population until we are finally left with that one person who is The One! Only 7 billion to get through - easy.

I suppose it could work. But in reality, the head has no place in matters of the heart. That's the whole point. That's why we fall for people we meet at University, at work, through mutual friends, bumping into them in Starbucks every lunchtime... For me, there has to be an element of romance to it all. It doesn't have to be the Disney fairytale - all sweeping off feet etc... That almost never happens. But just sometimes you get the feeling you were meant to meet that special someone.

Serendipity. "...the accident of finding something good or useful while not specifically searching for it."

Exactly my point. Everyone knows that when you are actually looking for something, you won't find it. Stop looking and you're bound to fall over it! To me, I think it means that it's written in the stars (feel free to puke at this point but there is a little science in my sloppiness!) The word 'seren' means 'stars' in more than just the Welsh language. Not got much to say about the 'dipity'.

Watch the film. It's a lovely story. And it somehow eases the blow when you really thought it was going to work out with someone and, for whatever reason, it didn't. Maybe that's just because it wasn't the right time. Maybe it will happen, but not yet. Perhaps what happened was exactly what was meant to be - you were supposed to be friends and nothing more. They were supposed to play a 'bit part' rather than a 'recurring character'. Some people may not play the role in our lives that we had expected, predicted or desired. That's no bad thing. It should give hope that 'things' will work out in the end. Somehow. Even when they seem to be going wrong, perhaps they're taking you one step closer to 'right'.

Buy it on Amazon for £6 - Can't argue!

Happy Friday! Have a good weekend Ponderers.
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A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words...

Sarah Grimwood (c) Taken 27/07/2008 @ 16:21

They say a picture speaks a thousand words...so welcome  to Thursday's Thousand Words!

I figured it would get boring if I just rambled away all the time so Thursdays are now photo days. Not entirely word-free, you understand.

So why this pic, you ask? Hmm... First of all, I took this photo. Secondly, I am extremely proud of it. To a proper photographer there are undoubtedly countless flaws but as a hapless amateur I have the advantage of being able to simply revel in my simple-minded appreciation of it.

One of my favourite things about this picture is all the things it doesn't tell you. Things you wouldn't even guess.

• This was taken in the UK, despite the tropical sky in the background.
• Nope, not Devon or some renowned beauty spot but Wythenshawe (Manchester).
• And I didn't visit the nearest botanical gardens where dahlias like these are tended by horticultural manicurists every five minutes
• These belong to my best friend's Mumsy who grows them on her allotment.

See, told you you'd never guess.
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Wednesdays, I Love Wales?

Yes, there is a question mark.

I spent the first 27 years of my life living in England (well, except for the travelling overseas I did whilst at Uni but for argument's sake...) I considered myself British and lived in a lovely little bubble whereby I believed all Brits thought of themselves as British and that frictions between the individual countries which make up our 'Isles' were non-existent. (Except, perhaps, between the English and Scottish which was based purely on an unpleasant experience whilst in Paris when the World Cup (1998) was on and the Scots had invaded the City of Light to inflict mean-ness on a young English girl - more about this in a Travelling Tuesday post to follow soon...)

Anyway, 8 years ago (can it really have been that long?!) I found myself separated and in need of cheap (free!) childcare for my little girl so circumstance found me moving from the Motherland to Wales (to lean on Mum & Not-da-mama). No big deal...I loved visiting them in Wales and had spent many a weekend in enjoying the mountainous terrain and monstrous weather.

I managed to find a teeny-tiny house right at the bottom of a mountain which was nothing special at all...and I loved it. Spectacular views, whatever the weather. Exhilarating driving up and over the mountains wherever I wanted to go. Starrier skies than I can remember seeing before or since. Being snowed in (something I would never have believed genuinely possible before). Enjoying every show the local brass band had to offer. Adopting the word 'cwtch' - a favourite with my daughter. I was falling in love with this place.

As the years passed however, that love has faltered. Died, perhaps. It became painfully clear that there are some very nasty Anti-English currents running through Wales' green Valleys and they, amongst other things, have taken their toll on my sunny outlook. I find myself disenchanted. Not just because of this animosity (which, by the way, is bound to reach its annual peak in the coming weeks with the Six Nations Rugby now underway - great!) It should also be pointed out that I haven't had much luck with the local men either. That makes it sound as though I've tried to mount any Welsh farmer within a thirty mile radius which, despite a few alcohol-fuelled weekends in Cardiff, I am almost certain I have never done. Not that I can claim enormous success with English (or French) men. If I had, I wouldn't have been moving to Wales post-divorce. But still, I'd managed to have my heart broken by Wales' answer to Charlie Sheen, swiftly followed by a love that was promised and yet (with hindsight) most definitely unrequited (in any real way).

So, why not move? (Or perhaps the Welsh reading this will be urging me to bugger off if I don't like it!) Well, I would have. Only, while I was busy finding the wrong Welshmen, my ex-husband and father of my lovely daughter had gone and found the right Welshwoman. Relocation would have had to have been a team effort and that just wasn't something I could have proposed! Stuck. Trapped. Perfect conditions for resentment to set in and grow...and I think it has laid down some fairly firm roots.

So, why not just be miserable about Wales and bitch about it every chance I get? Call me a glutton for punishment but I somehow ended up getting involved with Welshie III and, who knew, it would seem this is third time lucky. Four and a half years later and we are going strong. And I don't want to hate my man's homeland. And as if that weren't enough, I am now the proud joint-owner of a beautiful half-Welsh baby boy. Not to mention that my daughter has lived here since she was 18 months old. My parents live here full-time now. My brother and his family have followed.

Here's what I propose.

I'm going to endeavour to force myself to fall back in love with this nation. Is it even possible? I don't believe we can force ourselves to fall in love with a person. In fact, that song about "if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with" angers me greatly! But perhaps we can nurture a little seed of affection for the country we live in... Maybe all I need is to find that seed.

Where love is concerned, I am certain it is the little things that count. So, I think I'll start there. I'm going to make an effort to notice the little things again and, who knows, maybe we'll be in love before the year's out.