In news that has nothing to do with anything else going on in my life, I had the privilege of seeing 'Testament of Youth' yesterday.

Alicia Vikander was STUNNING. She totally made that film. Even better, she made Vera Brittain into someone relatable and understandable, whereas I didn't really like the Vera I met in the book. Alicia is so good that there isn't a moment where you spot her acting, if you know what I mean. The supporting cast were also superb. In fact the film's weak point, I think, was Kit Harington. He played a very good pretty young poet, but he didn't at all convey the charisma and the natural leadership which the real Roland must have had. He seems to have been almost worshipped by his friends, but that didn't really come across.

Some things were exaggerated for dramatic effect, but they didn't really detract that much - in fact I think most of the poetic license taken was quite acceptable because it helped get across the point they were trying to make. I know it wasn't entirely true to the bare facts of Vera's story but I think we mustn't forget either that Vera herself intended her story not just as a lament, or a memory of four young men she loved who were lost, but as testimony to the futility and utter waste of war. If a bit of dramatic exaggeration helps bring that home, it does its purpose. And I must say, it did.

Colin was, naturally, wonderful and lovely. He didn't have too many scenes but he made the most of what he had, especially managing to get across the mixed resignation and bitterness of Victor's wounding and the prospects of life blinded. Also, he was briefly topless and he has some damn fine muscles in his back :)

The film really did manage to convey the sadness and waste of war. We were in a theatre full of nattery people but you could have heard a pin drop during practically the entire film. It was a good job.

I've been having some interesting feelings about all the fan reactions I've seen to this photo of Colin Morgan for the filming of Vera Brittain's 'Testament of Youth'. There have been lots of "OMG war injury! how can I bear it! I'm going to cry" etc etc comments. I find it tremendously funny. I've never had problems looking at Colin (or any other actor) in injury makeup or getting faux-hurt on screen (it's acting! acting!) and I suppose I find a lot of the reactions very melodramatic. Then again, most of them are probably teenagers, and so everything is infinitely more intense and dramatic. I hope they're teenagers. Otherwise, how do these people bear living in the real world?

One of the most pleasing things about this is that a whole lot of those fans say they're going to read 'Testament of Youth'; those who don't know much about the war's effect on Western society will learn some context. I was a bit shocked the other day when I saw someone asking on Reddit why everybody is obsessed with WW2 but nobody ever speaks about the First World War and got a shock. What do you mean nobody ever talks about the First World War? And then I realised they were probably American, and I don't think the US has such an emotional connection to WW1 as it does to WW2 where they had much greater involvement. Here, of course, WW1 is more in the national conscience because of Gallipoli and the ANZAC thing.

Speaking of the lovely Colin, I am still waiting to see Quirke properly; the downloads were fairly crap quality and while I have the DVD on order it hasn't shipped yet. I've read the Quirke books. I enjoyed them although they also irritated me, mainly because there seems to be utterly no reason why Quirke has so many women falling all over him. He doesn't say much, he's not charming or affectionate, we're given no indication that he's particularly attractive, so why does he get so much casual sex? In the 50s, no less? Hmph.

I am sitting here with my beautiful Oliver on my lap, knowing that we may not have that much longer with him. He's quite old (at least 17) and has several things wrong with him; arthritis, hyperthyroidism and kidney disease. He's on medication for all of them, but last week we found out that the kidney disease has progressed further and he's now on borrowed time. He's lost half a kilo in two months - that's a lot for a cat. He's also deaf, and he's got kitty dementia, which makes him yowl a lot, forget what he was yowling about, and for some reason be totally obsessed with Knocking Over All the Things.

On the bright side, he has decent quality of life still; he eats his tucker with gusto, he purrs a lot, he likes sitting on his humans and he's interested in the outside world, although we don't let him out much any more since he's gone deaf.

He's our special little guy, part of our family for 16 years, and while I will miss him, I am also proud of the home we've given him. He knows he is loved and cared for. What more could a pussycat want?

My god, is it over a week into January already? How time flies.

Happiness is having a friend like gaminette who will go and see Mojo and buy me a programme and send it to me <3 <3
(I only wish we'd been able to see it together, as we did The Tempest... Damnit, London, why must you be so far away?)

We have been watching Coast Australia, which is the Australian edition of 'Coast' starring Neil Oliver of windswept long hair fame. When we did the Great Ocean Road last year, we saw the signs and trailers round by the Twelve Apostles saying they were filming Coast. I didn't catch a glimpse of Neil (or his hair) then but it's fun to watch it saying "We were there then!" :)

This brings up the notion of another holiday, although we don't know where or when, or how long for. Alas, the Aussie dollar has done a nosedive against the pound, meaning that the accommodation which cost us the equivalent of $140 a night in May would now set us back about $180. Ouch. We might have to delay London for a couple of years, and then I suspect it will be part of a Glorious European Holiday. London, I love you and miss you.

I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is livejournal facebook tumblr all kinds of blogging, really.

OH COLIN. You silly boy. Everything about this photo, from the ridiculous outfit to the belly-skin to the expression on his face, is fabulous.

Did I tell you that I've managed a fair bit of knitting lately?

Here is a lovely warm vest/short-sleeved jacket that I finished last month ( under the cut )

It's not lopsided... it's the way I am standing :)

The pattern is called Ardara, from a book called Contemporary Irish Knits. It's knitted in a lovely limited edition yarn by Bendigo Woollen Mills called 'Harvest' which contains wool, alpaca and bamboo. It really didn't take me long, and it's tremendously warm. I have developed quite a thing for cables lately - I've always liked them but lately I've become obsessed with them. The buttons are made from repurposed Tasmanian forest wood - I bought them while I was in Tassie last year.

I'm now working on a big ol' comfy sweater pattern with the charming name 'Tea with Jam and Bread'. Another lovely warm one, knit in one piece. I've finished the body and have just begun on a sleeve, and am delighted that the body fits perfectly.

Have just realised how long it is since I posted anything, apart from today's amusement.

I am busy! I now have two pieces of consulting work on the go. It's challenging and exciting! Also, the giving circle I am involved in is really taking off. It's a great concept - 100 people who each contribute $1000 and that means you can make one big grant to a small charity and feel like a big donor with a relatively small amount.

Colin Morgan missed the last few performances of The Tempest due to illness and rumour has it he's in the hospital on an antibiotic drip, poor lamb. I hope he gets properly better soon. Sad that he missed the last performances when the last night is usually fun, and it was so obviously something that gave him such joy. Cue happy Colin curtain call photos). Not to mention the rest of us.
(Thanks as always to rodneyscat for always finding and posting the best Colin shots).

(I love curtain calls. There was a time when I got tearful at every single one I saw, just because everyone always seemed so happy and lovely. I do find myself caught up in big swirls of crowd emotion, sometimes).

In genealogy and history news, I went to the State Library's Family History Feast, which is a free one-day genealogy seminar series. This year's Feast concentrated on WW1 ancestry. The opening speaker was absolutely amazing - his grandmother had told him never to become a soldier, because her uncle had been a soldier and had gone missing after the Battle of Fromelles. He did become a soldier, and he got together with some friends and through diligent examination of aerial photographs before and after the battle, as well as German photographs taken of the mass burials, they identified the likely gravesite and went there to excavate. And they were right. One of the first objects they detected was a Good Luck medal given to a soldier by his local shire, and they worked out by a process of elimination that the only person that medal could have belonged to was his great-uncle. Eventually the Army got involved. They have now recovered 249 lost diggers, and identified 124 of them, one being his great-uncle, and his grandmother got to say goodbye to her beloved uncle a month before she died.

He showed us an aerial photo of the battleground, and where the different units were, and pointed out that one of them was a unit formed in the part of South Australia which had been mostly settled by German immigrants - so young men called Schmidt and Blücher were firing at other young men called Schmidt and Blücher, for such a pointless war. It was a story told so simply and with such down to earth humour, but so moving. I got tearful, and I bet others did too. You could have heard a pin drop in there.

Peter Marks is the Washington Post's theatre critic. Via F Yeah Colin Morgan.

My Colin love still knows no bounds.

And now for something completely different; Things I Like!

1. Opening night of The Tempest fan comments. YAY YAY YAY I AM GOING TO SEE THIS TWICE.

2. 17 Sundays. If you are a lady of curves living in Australia (or even overseas, they ship worldwide) check them out. Their clothes are extremely cool and extremely comfy, and not expensive for what they are. They've also got a range called 17 Sundays Basics, which is cheaper. You can also buy them at The Iconic, which sometimes has a bigger range. It's odd but they have completely revised the way I dress and the way I feel about my body, and how self-conscious I am. Today I am wearing their Snake Eyes wet-look leggings and the Mercy Belt, which is a big three-buckled waist belt, and I feel like a million dollars in them. I can also highly recommend their dresses and I just got this jacket in which I feel like another million dollars.

(This recent shopping frenzy is, unfortunately, mainly due to me thinking every couple of days "I've had such a crappy day, I deserve a present!")

3. Discarded Images - a tumblr full of awesome little images from mediaeval manuscripts. Did you know people were just as obsessed with pictures of cats in mediaeval times as they are now? I particularly love the many cats licking their bottoms which appear in margins of Gospels and the like. Not to mention the plethora of mediaeval fart jokes and surprisingly explicit nudity.

Hello you lovely people! Rohan and I are ensconced in a motel in Hall's Gap in the Grampians National Park and a freaking enormous kangaroo just bounded past our back door. It's awesome.

Everything has gone smoothly for us so far. We headed down the Great Ocean Road, to Lorne (which is as far as I've been before) and then on to Apollo Bay where we spent the night, then onwards to see the Twelve Apostles and London Bridge and all the other groovy coastline sights. It was stinking hot - 38 degrees. I got sunburnt in the few short minutes I had my hat off (because the wind at the Twelve Apostles threatened to blow it away!) Then we went on to spend two nights in sweet sleepy Port Fairy, after cooling off in the ocean until we were all prunified. And there was drama! We had to call the ambulance for a poor old gent who tumbled over while crossing the road in Warrnambool - I don't think he was too badly hurt but he bumped his head and his knuckles were all bloody, and better be safe than sorry with a head bump in the elderly.

Also in Warrnambool, I bought a book about the immigrant experience on the voyage to Australia and - unbelievable but true - the book contains a diary kept by an English girl who emigrated on not just the same ship but the exact SAME VOYAGE as Rohan's great-great-grandmother Anastasia. So we now can find out a bit about her journey!

Now we are in Hall's Gap watching cockatoos and kangaroos from our back door. It's awesome. Sadly we are on mobile bandwidth and I can't upload everything yet, but here, have some pics of the first two days. ( Under the cut are many pretty places )