I have to confess.

I have never GOT Harry Potter.

I have spent the last few years avoiding everything to do with the speccy t**t.

I have long suspected that the whole thing is a hugely hyped crock of poo.

I will admit that anything that gets kids to r-e-a-d rather than push buttons is a good thing but that's as far as it goes. The Redwoods were always trying to convert me & I resisted stoically. The Tanners had a more direct method.

Last night whilst I was on the phone, they tackled me en masse, bound me hand & foot, stuck a chloroform gag over my mouth & nose & propped me within inches of the tv whilst they played the video to indoctrinate me.

Well, as good as. Michelle baked home-made pizzas & poured red wine, both were left strategically in front of the tv & next to slouchy couches. I admitted defeat & sat down to watch. If you are a Potter fan skip the next paragraph.

I thought it was awful. Precocious child actors have always left me cold. The only exception being the kid in Jerry Maguire & Haley Joel Osment or is it Joel Haley Osment, I can never remember ? (sp?) By the same token I always call Tommy Lee-Jones, Tommy lo-jeans (inadvertently) The kid playing Harry seemed only capable of one facial expression (gormless) the girl was eminently slappable & as for the gingwah ? Need I say more ? What does puzzle me is how they persuaded so many good actors to take part. Filthy lucre I suppose.

Still, all was not lost. Michelle & I swooned every time Alan Rickman spoke & tried to explain his attraction to Eric who doesn't fancy him at all. The girls don't get him either, I explained it will come with age, like a rite of passage.

The whole Potter-experience has left me wondering if I am really compatible with my new family. Maybe they will put me into care now ? Still - they aren't LotR fans so I suppose we will just have to try & understand each other's funny little ways.

I had long chats with both Mike & Mal yesterday.

Mal has taken a fall after catching his trouser-leg on a trailer tow-bar. They suspect broken ribs but his idea of convalescence for a 78yr old is no time off work & some pain-killers. They broke the mould with that one. He is glad to hear I am happy & was very tactful about his references to Trish.

The other bad news is Geraldine, Chris's elderly Mum has fallen & been admitted to hospital. She was always lovely to me on Tuesdays when I took Genevieve to visit & I asked Mal to pass on my best wishes through Chris.

Mike cheered me immensely by telling me that the ponies have only been exercised 3 times this week, which means they stood idle for the other 4 days. He also said that the girl was having problems with the 'evil yellow one' who he saw 'acting about & tossing it's head whilst the girl was trying to exercise it in that square thing' (Mike's description of the dressage arena) It seems that Sally, one of the former nannies who had helped for a week had disappeared again leaving Trish to do everything alone.

Oh dear.

The woman who was supposed to cook & clean never materialised which means Trish must be running the household single-handed. Hopefully she will have lots of time to think whilst doing all those menial chores ?

Don continues to progress, now learning to drive sheep away rather then just bringing them. Ginger Tom rules benignly over the humans & Chum is making 'steady, sensible progress'. Mike has had to do 2 caesarians on dead/dying ewes but lost both lambs involved.

Well, the veg plot beckons, where Michelle is toiling. The girls are having a 'Who can hold their foot in the cold pool-water the longest ? competition & Eric has just finished making 1/2 a tonne of home-made sausages. I told him they looked almost as good as shop-bought. he wasn't in the least bit impressed with my compliment.

Anyone else old enough to remember that very funny 'Generation Game' when they made sausages ?

Cx