Summertime

... and the living is easy. Some of us agreed yesterday evening that we should revive the tradition of aperos on the square, which is sadly deserted in the evenings these days. So in the early evening S and I went outside with a bottle of rosé and some crisps and peanuts. You can see what happened next. We might have let ourselves go a bit ... somehow we completely skipped dinner, and eventually I went indoors to feed Mystère, decided to have a little lie down, and was woken by S half an hour later.

On Friday evening, "cinema under the stars" was held indoors due to the wind chill factor and, yes, another thunderstorm. It was I, Daniel Blake, not exactly a feelgood summer film. I was glad to see it as I'd missed it when it came out, but unfortunately it was dubbed, and it was a bit disconcerting hearing all these Geordies speaking middle-class French. I found it too one-note to be Loach's best film, but it was after all reflecting grim reality for many people. The scene in the food bank was heartbreaking -- partly because it brought home the kindness and natural empathy of the volunteers, as against the deliberate distancing of the Job Centre staff, retreating behind bureaucratic procedure.