Senior screen, pink azaleas, badger cull and too much cake!

     Not the best week really.  Weather was lovely last Sunday and Monday, and we did lots of gardening, but it has been dull, cold, wet and grey since.  I have had sinus trouble – I don’t know what is causing it. It comes and goes, but never seems to clear up completely.    
     They told us on the telly last night that this has been, officially, the coldest spring since 1962, and that

Our eye-wateringly bright pink azaleas

temperatures etc. had been below average for the last 12 consecutive months….. all the time we have been living in this house. Still, the azaleas on the bank at the front have gone mad – the previous owner was very fond of pink. I don’t actually like them so much – they hurt your eyes, but couldn’t face getting rid of them.
     On Tuesday it was a very wet morning, so we decided to go down to the 11am Senior Screen at the Hastings Odeon.  It only costs £3.00, including free coffee, cake and a raffle!  We were astonished how popular it is – the place was full.  We saw ‘The Impossible’, about the 2004 tsunami.  It was watchable, but neither of us were impressed – we felt it was very superficial and overly-sentimental.  Naomi Watts as the mother was OK, but Ewan McGregor as the father was not.
     After that, we went to our current favourite, the Havelock, for lunch, before driving to Battle to view the picture sale at Burstow and Hewett.  I left a bid on a pretty, but inconsequential little painting of a 1920s Italian contessa on the steps of her palazzo with her little dog, but didn’t win it – it went for £180.00, which seemed far too much for what it was.
     I have been doing a lot of desk work this week – writing a poem for the next Writers’ Group competition, and sorting out the contributions for the animal anthology.  Have struggled to get the poem done – and consequently have called it ‘Writers’ Block’.
     Went to a Women’s Institute Coffee Morning today – ate far too much cake. I am beginning to feel I will have to get into womanly arts like baking, but it would take me years to get to the yummy standard of some of the others….Then, sun finally came out and we went down to the Avocet Gallery at Rye Harbour – when we were in Berlin Philosopher took a photograph of Checkpoint Charlie with the Avocet cotton bag in the picture too, so we took the guys a copy. Stayed for lunch and then went for a short walk.
     I read that the badger cull is supposed to start this week. I am against it, even though they are a bit of a pest round here.  It seems just to be pandering to those farmers, inhumane, and like so many current government initiatives, not well thought out. I saw this picture of two badgers in the sale at Burstows.
     This is just a quick up-date – am currently planning a blog post on best local garden centres, which will take a bit of sorting out. – I like to do a new post every five or six days.