The Language of Kindness - Christie Watson

The biography section is filled with books written about doctors and I enjoy their slant on the world of medical writing.  I often feel though that their stories are a little disjointed, for although they talk about the care of their patients, I always wonder at how much they get involved when they only see them for minutes each day.  In this book we meet Christie Watson, a nurse with over 20 years experience in medicine working in both mental health and pediatric Intensive Care.  It is her stories that I have found more compelling - the sitting by bedsides, singing to patients, cleaning them, reassuring them, laughing and crying with them and their families that makes this a great book to read.

Nurses in our country are about to strike to get better pay after years of being fobbed off by managerial committees who continue to keep them understaffed and underpaid.  They should all work a week in the wards and pick up this book and read it before they next negotiate.  4/5

Music Monday - Florence + The Machine - Big God

There is something hypnotic and primal about this beautiful video that makes me want to watch it over and over.  Such a talent and nice to hear something original and unique.

Paul McCartney Carpool Karaoke

Oh my gosh I just watched this one.  Pure joy, and it did make me a bit tearful too.  I have a deep love of the Beatles music but it has been some time since I listened to their music, but it makes me want to listen to more.  How lucky were those people in the pub? 

Middle Aged Lady Movie Night - The Commuter

Well my friend Liam, you look a bit tired/sick/old in this one, and I am glad it was set on a train so that you didn't have to run too far and could sit down every now and then.  I didn't really know what was happening, but I guess it was a rough day or you.  You still managed a few stunts that let you looking a bit stretched at the end of the movie.   A few of the scenes looked like the team spent their time with too many model trains, but I guess they are expensive to blow up and throw in the air. 

The thriller drama bit seemed all a bit far fetched to me, but I guess it this is the art of the modern story telling.  All action and pained looks seem to fill up most of the movie. Still I am glad to have splurged the $8 itunes price to watch it - as it is under half the price of the overpriced movie tickets. 3/5

Letters to Iris - Elizabeth Noble

I was drawn to this book by the blurb and the cover and enjoyed this bit of lady literature.  Tess is in a relationship with Sean with everything running smoothly and spending some of her free time visiting her sick grandmother Iris at her care home.  There she meets Gigi, a midwife who is also visiting her father in law and they become friends.

Then things change, as they do, and both women face new changes in their lives.  I did expect to learn more about Iris and her life through the war years, but felt a bit let down that there wasn't so much about her life.  Still it was an enjoyable read for cold winters night. 4/5

Music Monday - Nothing Else - Angus & Julia Stone

I like Angus & Julia Stone, and regret I didn't get to see them when they toured recently, but felt that I might have felt like a pensioner in a room full of young hipsters.  When I listened to this song I definitely felt like it was a Greys Anatomy song, that type of music used to fill in the background of those types of shows.

The Fresh Prince - Manurewa High School

We saw this on our news tonight and read it in the paper as well.  This is an Auckland High Schools Dance for a competition.  They did a tribute to The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.  They got a shout out from the shows star Will Smith.  Nice to watch something that makes you smile.

Game Night

Really?  Is this the best you can do?  I don't know  this movie didn't do it for me.  Although I like Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams in it, I found the story a bit weak and not particularly amusing.  These two play  Max and Annie, a competitive couple who  host a games night with their friends.  When Maxs older brother Brooks arrives in town, he decides to make it more exciting by setting up a fake abduction that then begins to take a serious turn.

Like many comedies that follow the formula of then trying to turn dramatic they begin to lose my interest as both seem to do neither genre well and it just feels like a boring muddle.  There was one funny scene with the dog and the first two minutes were sweet.  Beyond that I struggled to keep watching. 1/5

Dogs With Jobs - Laura Greaves

I picked this one up of the shelves and was charmed by all the stories of the varieties of jobs that these dogs do around the world.  From assistance jobs, working in hospices, on board boats to working in airports Dogs have proven themselves as hard working assistants to the people who care for them and in some instances are life savers saving their people from danger or alerting others to when they need life saving medical care. I couldn't help but smile as I read the stories and looked at the pictures. 3/5

The Paris Seamstress - Natasha Lester

As the German Army marches into Paris,  Estelle escapes leaving behind her mother and a handsome stranger that she runs into never thinking she will see him again.  Finding a new life in New York, she tries to get a job using her fashion design skills, but the Americans only seem to want to make copies of French designs.  Instead she has wants to give women simple flattering dresses that are practical, and economical. 

We also get to meet her grand-daughter Fabienne 70 years later.  Living in Australia, she comes to visit her Grandmother who is ailing, and tries to discover the family secrets before it is too late.

While I liked both main characters, somehow I didn't get sucked into the story as much as I would have hoped.  Estelle, Lena and Fabienne were all great dames but the men seemed a bit wooden and too perfect or too evil and horrid.  Somehow I couldn't picture the story in my head even though I wanted to envision 1940s New York and Paris.  3/5

Music Monday - Perfect Symphony - Ed Sheeran + Andrea Bocelli

Just Magic.

Circe - Madeline Miller

Well this one was a bit of a whirlwind to read, and it did take me a whole week to devour it, but I found it so intense that I could only read a couple of chapters each night.  Circe is the daughter of Heios the sun God , and she dwells in his halls taunting nymphs and causing trouble.  When she becomes jealous of a nymph who has set her eyes on her boyfriend she casts a spell and incurs the wrath of her father and other Gods.  Banished to a remote rocky island she is forced to survive by herself and it is here that she truly comes into herself.

This is the story of Gods and mortals from Classical Greek tales and I was surprised by how they all linked together, and were related and linked in ways I had not understood before.  It seemed a good book for these times, a strong woman who stood up to the men in her life who tried to keep her down, and was able to thrive without having to rely on anybody else, even when everyone threatened her.  5/5

Middle Aged Lady Movie Night In - Get Out

Chris is a young African Ameriacan photographer who is heading home with his white girlfriend Rose to meet her parents and brother in this little thriller/horror movie.  From the first day of arriving in the house things feel odd for Chris, from the odd questions from the parents to the strange housekeeper and groundsman.  Poor Chris this isn't looking like it is going to end well?

I quite like a little thriller and this one kept me guessing, even though I was reading the Wikipedia entry while watching it.  Then I thought to just put down the computer and watch the movie, even though it was beginning to scare me.  I hope I sleep tonight.  4/5

The Trick To Time - Kit De Waal

I quite enjoyed this little quiet book.  It tells the story of Mona, who has just turned 60 and makes a living in her little English seaside town making original wooden dolls.  She has only a small group of friends and in telling us about her current life, we also learn about her past, her great loves and great losses. 

We get a lot of novels about 20 and 30 somethings, so it was refreshing to read about an older woman and the journeys in her life.  I felt like I understood her and the way she moved through the world, the way she is treated and how she tries hard to please others often sacrificing her own happiness. 4/5

Music Monday - I Said Hi - Amy Shark

I'd never heard of this artist, but youtube directs you to new songs to discover which I enjoy.  I have stopped listening to the radio a couple of years ago - too many ads, so find the internet is a good way to find new songs.

Friday Movie Night In - Lady Macbeth

It is a cold and wet night tonight, so time for a simple dinner and to watch a quick movie before heading to bed.  This is a film festival movie, that I didn't manage to see, so was glad to see it pop up as a 99c special movie. 

I am a fan of the period drama, but I guess we have a tainted  view of the nicer side of the time period enjoying  the crinoline skirts, candles, carriages and parties that are often shown in historical movies.  This movie is a bit more of the grim reality of what it is like to be married to a man twice your age,who has little love for you, trapped in a grand house in the rural English countryside and  to be told you are unable to leave , with no friends except the servants.   Katherine then has little choice but to befriend a maid as her only friend and finds love with one of the grooms, until she is found out by her stern father in law.  3/5