The Froome Valley

Yesterday, four of us met up at the Daneway Inn for a walk up to Pinbury Park and back via Dorvel Wood. We saw a trip of goats (all black), a rag of colts (destined to be polo ponies, and waiting for the vet to geld them), and a bevy - there must have been a dozen or more - of roe deer, showing us a way into the woods. There the wild garlic reminded me of the bärlauch on so many menus in Germany and Switzerland last month. (My photograph shows the sign I followed when looking for a bed in Märstetten - and very comfortable it was too.)

The new service station on the North-bound M5 near Gloucester is "Hofladen" (farm shop) writ large: we stopped there for (very expensive) petrol en route home from supper with Edmund in Bristol last night. On the one hand, I can't conceive of any reason beneficial to the environment why more commercial outlets should be needed: on the other, if you are going to have motorway service stations, they might as well be on this (the Westmorland Tebay) model.

Today, I've been in amongst my not-so-wild garlic. (Only the weeds have gone wild, but they pull out readily after the rain.) And this evening, we went to Cineworld (along with half the rest of Cheltenham, it seemed) for the National Theatre's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. This, with its dizzy-making camera angles and Pirandellian roots, hugely benefited from the big screen relay. Fabulous drama!

The Habit of Smart (phone users)

Five old friends came to lunch yesterday, and we talked about death, illness and travel, as one does. Caroline's bread and butter pudding was a triumph. I'm stuck for a segue to the scaffolders' visit today, to complete their spider's web, now surrounding most of the house at prodigious expense. And to the next item also.

"The Habit of Art" by Alan Bennett was relayed live from the National Theatre to cinemas three years ago, but I guess we were away. So we took the opportunity to view the recording they showed at Cineworld last night, part of the 50th birthday celebrations.

What a great play! And how did Bennett get the initial idea? Better than any Pirandello. There was one snag: Auden or Britten being strangers to me, I was perfectly happy to see them played by non-lookalikes; but it was different with Humphrey Carpenter, whom I had known quite well from his period directing our literary festival. Adrian Scarborough is nothing like him. This however was only a minor blip to set against some excellent acting, especially from Frances de la Tour.

Another snag arose in the form of a neighbour with her smartphone screen lit up. My request that it be turned off elicited a fusilade of invective, which was renewed in the interval. Yes, OK. I suppose I should be more tolerant in this day and age, but...

"Even the rain"

It's our youngest grandson's fifth birthday today, and Laurie's effort at photographing the photographer (in April this year) came to mind this evening as I watched the Film Society's latest offering: it's a film about filming an historical epic in Bolivia; and one of the few female characters videos the filming.

Pirandello would have admired this layering effect, and more so the echoes between the historical exploitation (being filmed), the location's "current" (1999-2000) water wars and the exploitation of the film extras.

Not a bunch of laughs, but a very brave film, and a tribute to the difference a film can make.