Flying high

It was cold this morning, and Jeremy and I had to halt a chilly while on our walk up the sunless valley to Tresham while pheasants were being slaughtered. Beaters moved North-Westwards through Knight's Grove putting scores of birds up to fly high over the Guns, each with his (sic) loader. Thus Downton Abbey lives on in Beaufort country, save they now arrive in their Range Rovers, and use magnet-tipped walking sticks to collect the empty cartridge cases.

We warmed up once we were up on the ridge road back towards Alderley, Newark Park peeking through the trees to the North, across Ozleworth Bottom. From Tresham, we watched two mechanised sheep dogs rounding up the flock in order to sweep it down below Furlong's Brake.

We can recommend the pub at Hillesley, now owned by a community cooperative. On a grassy patch adjacent, I saw something yellow: a daffodil is in flower.

"Parade's End"

While Caroline has been in Bristol on granny duty, I have been catching up on BBC2's adaptation of Ford Maddox Ford's "Parade's End". After the first episode, I wasn't sure I wanted to persevere with it, being rather put off by what I thought was Rebecca Hall's overcooked performance. But returning after a break it seemed to get steadily better. Cumberbatch - as everyone agrees - acts his pants off, but there were numberless fine cameos from others, notably, Roger Allam's General Campion. Altogether, its baroque brilliance made it a substantial main course in comparison with the tasty snack that's "Downton Abbey".

The leitmotif for me was "falling out". Our hero falls for Sylvia, and thus falls out of his behavioural straightjacket. He then falls out with her because she bolts, but not until the "Fall out!" at the end of the parades - post-November 1918 - does he admit that his "parade" is a charade.

Early one morning, last week, I cycled along The Parade, Pembroke, which runs below the mediaeval town wall (still some of it in evidence). From its end, I looked back towards Monkton and took this photograph: Landmark Trust's "Old Hall" - where we were staying - is the large stone building on the left. Its rather secret garden (to the right) gives an unexpectedly grand view. The massive Priory Church of St Nicholas and St John (you can see its tower only) is another surprise.

What's on

The last seven days have involved a fair amount of sitting and watching. Last Thursday, the National Theatre's hit production of One Man, Two Guvnors came to us via Cineworld relay, a brilliant evening of comedy. You forget how exhilarating farce can be, when done well. Getting back late meant I had to catch up on Friday with the final episode of The Killing: Nordic noir couldn't be more of a contrast, yet this has been just as exhilarating in its own unique way. Dare I get immersed in the second series? It's at the extreme scary end of my spectrum.

Another contrast (on Sunday evening) was the opening episode of Series 2 of Downton Abbey. You don't want to like this, I find, but you can't help being won over; and that must be to the credit of Julian Fellowes, whom I can't say I know, but recall meeting more than 40 years ago: he had hair then (see photograph).

Finally, last night there was The Secret in their Eyes at our Film Society, another brilliant evening: it won the Oscar last year for best foreign-language film, which is no surprise considering its masterful script and combination of humour, romance and hair-raising suspense.