Leading line

Neatly pruned vines. Nothing more imaginative today I'm afraid.

Of course, having had ten sacks of pellets delivered yesterday, who should ring up this morning but Dilatory Wood Guy. He showed up at 2 pm with 4 cubic metres of sopping wet logs that were probably cut yesterday. Sigh. Stacking them was a demoralising prospect ... luckily our central location in the village means that often when we are stacking logs, at least one person we know comes by and offers to help. Today that function was fulfilled by M, so it took under two hours ... so much quicker with an extra person. We are now testing a combination of pellets and wet logs.

Yesterday evening we watched the very silly 1961 film What A Carve-Up! featuring Sid James, Kenneth Connor and Shirley Eaton. Its main claim to fame for us is that it forms the basis of the plot of Jonathan Coe's excellent novel of the same name. It's a spoof horror movie set in a gloomy manor on the Yorkshire moors, with a family gathered to read a will and a mysterious murderer bumping them off one by one. 

We decided to enjoy it with the lights off. At a point in the film where Sid James and Kenneth Connor are sharing a four-poster bed, they are freaked out by a black cat who slinks into the room and creeps under the covers with them. At this precise moment, Mystère landed on my lap. Later, the murderer was manoeuvring a large chandelier in order to drop it on someone ... the sound effect of shattering glass was provided by Mystère tripping over a wine glass in the dark. Clever cat!

We recommend the film for sheer silliness: you can watch it here.