Dusty Rose

Rose Bear has languished for several years in an open box, to which the last group of teddies from the bottom of J's bed were eventually and belatedly evicted several years ago. I pulled her out and dusted her down because I've embarked on a portrait in pink of some of J's remaining things from her childhood and teenage years, as well as the smaller but still significant pink collection in current use. 

J fell in love with Rose at a school Christmas fair, where a number of bears hand made by a volunteer were sold for ridiculously small sums. She was named after Dr Who's first companion, played by Billie Piper, in the post-2005 revival, which J has followed from its first episode, and over that Christmas I was instructed to make her a scarf to protect her rather thin and wobbly neck. 

I pulled Rose out and dusted her down because I've embarked on a portrait in pink of some of J's remaining things from her childhood and teenage years, as well as the smaller but still significant pink collection in current use. This won't come together quickly, but will be fun as well a useful source of rainy day blips - and this was a very rainy day.

For our Thursday movie night, J and I watched The Last Bus, starring Timothy Spall and currently on BBC iPlayer. It's a sweet, touching, sometimes funny and often sad film about a recently widowed man in his nineties who leaves his home in John O'Groats to travel with his bus pass to Land's End. Past and present intertwine, but it's only at the end of the story that we fully understand why he felt compelled to make this difficult journey. It's low key and fairly slow (as befits a journey on local buses) and was not particularly well-reviewed when it came out in 2021, but J and I both enjoyed it.