Thread 9 - TalkLair: “Russell's teapot goes on being round”

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of previous threads (thread 8).

The new lair of JTT escapees is all cosy and homey; we have truly settled here. Outside, the garden is blooming with summer flowers - should bloody well be, what with all that rain. Inside, the hearth is glowing, pictures are up on the walls, rugs are down on the floors (and assorted pets curled up on them).

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

£4.50 for the comfy chairs is a bargain. You’d definitely want a comfy seat for Oppenheimer though.

Never mind that, for a 3-hour film starting at 7:45 I'd want a meal-break!

I don't like long films. At all. I also have a recently arrived tendency to fall asleep during films. I didn't fall asleep during All Quiet on the Western Front although at times I had to fight it a little. But, Oppenheimer? I didn't even come close to falling asleep and yes, it's three hours, but it doesn't feel like it. At times it feels longer, but in a really good way, and at other times it feels shorter. I've seen shorter films that felt far longer. Please don't be put off by the three hour running time. It's worth every single one of those minutes.

I never used to get holiday arse but then it appeared and it is so f-ing annoying! My bowels are not the best but I can keep them regular by keeping note of how many times a day and days when the movements are zero. I will only allow myself to go three days max with no movement before sensibly using a laxative and a stool softner together. On holiday though. Like the OP of that thread my arse introduces itself to a new toilet by refusing to cooperate or send any visitors its way. It has nothing to do with fear of pooing outside my home and everything to do with my arse being a total arsehole.

@MouseMinge Please don't be put off by the three hour running time. It's worth every single one of those minutes.

It's not the running time, it's the 19:45 to 22:45 timing which messes with MrG's - er - somewhat rigid eating/sleeping schedule. Yes, I know, LTB!

Definitely LTB. Is it not showing at any other times? Or could you go to Chichester? I know it'll be more expensive there but you could also see it on IMAX which would be SO good.

I didn't realise we lived so (relatively) near to each other. Be careful. I might stalk you. (I won't stalk you!)

It’ll come on streaming eventually ( but would be best on the big screen). I also found the three hours whizz by, though I did have to visit the loo in the middle of it, damn my aged bladder.

Having idly clicked on the sunbeds thread when it popped up in Active last week, I have fallen down a MN rabbit hole of "other people's holidays" and am weirdly fascinated (no judgement on their choices, just genuinely interested). This one, for example.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4868940-anyone-disappointed-by-their-holiday?

@MouseMinge Or could you go to Chichester? I know it'll be more expensive there but you could also see it on IMAX which would be SO good.

Nowhere near Chichester - I only mentioned Bognor because that's where the weeny cinema chain is based. I suspect they're reading this thread because the time has now been brought forward by ... wait for it ... 15 minutes!

People pay thousands to go to 'resorts', and worry about sun-loungers? Loons, AFAIC.

Horses for courses, I suppose (you couldn't pay me to go on such a trip). Somebody on one of those threads did make an interesting point, that perhaps one's idea of what constitutes "a holiday" is something imprinted in childhood, and then it can become difficult to conceive of doing something different as an adult.

If that were true I'd spend my holidays alternating between drowning in a tent in Wales and cooking tinned potatoes in a motorcaravan with no heating in the middle of winter.

I don't.

And MrBint has never once suggested we might like to drive up to Shetland for a fortnight with relatives.

As a family we didn’t really have “holidays”, as we lived abroad and every 18 months my Dad would use his accrued leave to come back to the UK for 3 months, when if school was in we’d get sent there for a few weeks. I remember bursting into tears when we arrived at Heathrow in summer and THERE WAS NO SNOW ANYWHERE.

When I was 12 we went on our first and last family holiday, to Twywn in north Wales. It was nice but went on too long, and I wanted to be back home playing with the local vet’s horses.

For a few years in my 20s I went skiing several times a year, then got into horses again, and the only holiday I had for the next 20 years was when I brought her down to Devon for a fortnight to stay at a friend's riding school. Oh, and a free holiday to Canada, given us by my in-laws who’d won it in a competition (they kept the £500 spending money) but had “already been to Canada”. We decided to use the change of scene to give up smoking so it was 2 weeks of grouchiness and - I swear - a 2-stone weight gain, so I don’t have very happy memories of Canada. Great hotel room though, what a view!

My childhood holidays were mostly spent in a caravan somewhere on the Yorkshire coast. As an adult they've mostly been spent travelling to various foreign parts, but I never have been one for lying on a beach.

My childhood holidays were mostly spent on my uncle’s farm in Wales. My aunt and uncle are both dead now and even if they weren’t, they sold (most of) the farm years ago. Conveniently, I think there are holiday cottages on the farm now but I haven’t felt the need to go there.

I like occasional beach holidays as I’m good at doing nothing (as long as there is shade, ice cream and books to read) but these days holidays are more likely to be a trip to the Venice Biennale (I missed it last year as I couldn’t figure out how to go away given how much looking after my mum needs now, I’m still a bit cross about that).

When DDs were younger, we did have quite a few traditional-type British seaside holidays at DH's instigation. One of our favourite destinations was Filey. Buckets, spades, donkey rides, arcades. They were actually lovely holidays for little children.

We haven't done those for quite a few years.

DH hasn't tried to instigate the other sort of childhood holidays he used to have i.e. small caravan in a muddy field. (I would have vetoed!)

We were in Venice for the Biennale (OK only four days of it but still...) last year. We'd never been before and absolutely loved it.

Four days is enough to see a good amount of art and wander round Venice in a state of disbelief that it’s real. I usually try to go for longer and sometimes even tag on a day or two of beach time in the Lido (although last time I left my friends on the beach and headed back to visit a few more exhibitions).

When my Dad was posted to Beirut, he decided it would be fun to drive us all there in his new car via Europe, from the UK. I’m pretty sure that’s when we went to Italy, tried pizza and skiing for the first time, and went to Venice - the coldest place I have ever been in my life!

Driving to Beirut from the UK sounds like an enormous adventure!

Your childhood travels sound utterly marvellous @MavisMcMinty!

I know with hindsight how lucky I was, but all it meant to me at the time was always being the new girl at school, and always having to leave friends behind as soon as I’d made them. Pretty sure that’s why I’m such a stay-at-home now.

I had a similar upbringing, Mavis - 2 infant schools, 3 primaries and an impressive 4 secondaries - and am very antisocial! I was mostly fine with it at the time, though, apart from the weirdness of generally turning up half way through a term.

I still laugh at the memory of my first day at grammar school in Dorset - the only time I ever started at the beginning of the year (surely some mistake had been made?) when the class teacher, a geographer, threw out the question "Is <name of place I forget> north, south, east or west of here?" and for some reason picked on me. I simply said I had no idea. "What! How long have you lived here?" 3 days. "Well, where did you live before?" Singapore.

Yeah, if I went by childhood holidays it would be either a plane to Dublin or Knock or a ferry to Dún Laoghaire and either a train from Heuston all the long way to Castlerea. And then up to six glorious weeks running around like feral children and having the time of our lives. We also went to Roscrea where my mum's family lived but that was a shithole compared to the joys of Castlerea. It was in Roscrea, however, that I was first placed on the back of a horse-like animal. I was about four and the cousins and their properly feral friends put me on the back of a mule who was known to be a nutter. The laugh was on them. The mule was grand with me and they all got a good hiding for trying to kill me. Oh god, it was also there that we went off one day in search of Neverland and didn't get back home until it was dark. The cousins got a hiding then as well. I was the oldest in Castlerea so we were less wild there although there is film of me chasing sheep.

Actually, when we stayed with my mum's aunt in Roscrea it was fun. We'd spent time sitting in a field with a horse or building houses for ourselves out of cardboard boxes and playing on the train tracks. Readers I was nearly hit by a train and the driver gave out to me ferociously. I miss Ireland.