We did a thing! We always planned the legal bit to happen in a little family service before the big blessing and bash in May… we just brought it forward! We got married just before Christmas, us, our parents and a massive Christmas tree.
There so much going on in tonight’s
#CallTheMidwife
I can hardly keep up! Domestic abuse, drug addiction, professional conscience, disability exclusion, the lack of agency women have over their bodies. But all played without hysterical drama.
Sorry but anybody who dares call
#callthemidwife
anything but brutal, visceral drama isn’t watching. The writing is perfect and every performance nuanced.
@helen_george
is incredible. I’m broken.
It’s moments like this I truly love the BBC
#ElizabethIsMissing
The quiet attention to detail in Maud’s timeline. Jackson’s remarkable ability to convey desperation and frustration. The soft focus background filmography.
@miss_mcinerney
I just roared “it’s not a game” across the kitchen. If I were a parent I’d be livid, as a teacher I feel mocked. Imagine if we treated pupils like this - “you have huge amounts of work to do but I’m not telling you what the work is until the deadline.”
A kind colleague, knowing I was a rugby league fan, asked me today if I had any nephews because he had some child sized rugby balls if I wanted. I told him I would love them. For my niece.
I did meet a very interesting farmer today. Absolutely passionate about the sheep farm he works, the meadows he’s developing, the birds he helps rear, the dogs he raises. Inspirational stuff. His final words “it looks like this because of what we do.”
@emily__ellis
@herdyshepherd1
I have DONE it!! Walked 1000miles in 2020. Achieved whilst most of the way round today’s super rambling exploration of Hutton Roof Crags. Feels pretty good!!
#walk1000miles
Covid still battering me a week on, Ofsted, y11 and y13 mock exams, mum in hospital (but fine) - I am so very done with this week. And then a Y12 brings me homemade lemon tart and talks me through how he made it. 😍
@KirstieMAllsopp
I think that’s part of my issue rather conversely. He’s clearly an intelligent, passionate man. But the rest of us are held to standards to which he is not being required to adhere (it appears). Offensive actions /opinions usually (should?) have consequences.
I watched
#hidden
for
@Reese_Williams
(who has a quiet intensity and sadness in this that is so subtle it is brilliant) but I honestly haven’t been this gripped by tele for ages! It’s so well scripted, shot, scored and acted I don’t want it to end!
@BBCWales
As part of my appreciate the stuff at the front door day I just watched the sun slip behind the the Lake District listening to lambs, thrush, blackbirds, lapwings and a distant woodpecker. Not bad.
@BBCTheArchers
I am so sad to read this. He was brilliant. And Lynda (Lindy) and Robert were an impeccable double act. The aftermath of the fire was truly superb radio. RIP Graham Blockey.
I’ve had the most wonderful day. Thanks to the NHS I can now walk short distances again. I made it from Grasmere to Rydal. I almost wept with the joy and relief of it. And I had a catch up with
@pollyrowena
and
@likewinterblue
while
@halekatie
did her poet thing.
@palookadeb
@KirstieMAllsopp
there is an element of truth here and perhaps some might dismiss the plentiful breast “jokes” as banter but writing about deceiving women for his own sexual gratification and calling working class stains? I’m not sure that’s ‘slight.’
Name me a single prime time drama that has knocked it out of the park as consistently as
#CalltheMidwife
- incest, immigration, homosexuality, being intersex, religious tension, infertility and on and on and on. All underpinned by love and cake. I’ll wait.
Impressive bit of writing (and delivery)
#thearchers
The muted horror in Lillian’s reaction to seeing Lynda and her subsequent unravelling. Very well done. Radio drama is so subtle and when it’s done well it’s so very powerful.
As a Cumbrian teacher I am devastated by the news about Newton Rigg. For some kids it’s a lifelong dream, it sustains them through the last few months of school. I’d say it’s unique in that sense - there is no plan b for those students. Gutted.
Lake District Monopoly with my mum is beyond brilliant. She passes comment on the planning regs, relative value of properties and her utter outrage at prices for maps and boots.
What I really love about
#TheArchers
is the long story arcs. It must be years since it first crossed my mind that Alice might end up with an alcohol addiction. And the climax (possibly) of those years tonight was incredibly sad, compelling, emotive and superbly executed.
So pleased to be reading from my piece about the Forest of Bowland at the Lancaster launch of North Country; an Anthology of Landscape and Nature. Come along!
@Eventbrite
Had all kinds of plans today but ended up spending the morning in a mounting spiral of anxiety inducing doom scrolling and was then rescued by a good friend and a snowy hill.
Just getting out of my car and witnessed my village’s version of Call the Midwife. Quad bike racing down street, woman on back cradling huge, pregnant sheep. Last heard saying “You’re doing well lass” so clearly channelling Phyllis.
If the next series of
#CallTheMidwife
is as superb as this one and it turns out it’s the last I am going to be absolutely inconsolable at roughly the same time as my 40th birthday 😱
There are tiny moments when you realise the world has shifted slightly during covid and you haven’t noticed. This morning the church bells rang for the first time in months and it stopped me dead in my tea making tracks!
We did it!!
#NC500
complete via obligatory John O’Groats sign, sea stacks, a final beach picnic and a celebration drink in Inverness. What a trip. Thank you
@halekatie
and thank you Northern Scotland. Just need to get home now! 🛤🏴
I have walked 15miles and up a sizeable hill today for the first time since covid and the resulting inability to make my heart behave. Today I seemed ok. Tired but very happy. Best day of the school year.
Boozy hot chocolate after a solstice dip in Grasmere with the Dead Cardinals. I love you all (mince pies, dressing support 😂 and best deer spotting locations) Merry Christmas to the best of people
@halekatie
@pollyrowena
@ange_harker
@likewinterblue
and Nala the Wordsworth cat.
Thrilled that my podcast “The Magic Cattlegrid” has been selected to be part of the
@Litfest
#WalkingSolo
project. It was a real joy to create. Listen to my feelings about the
#ForestOfBowland
here:
I respect democracy, I understand it needed to happen, but I am heartbroken and so disappointed. I sincerely believe we are making a terrible mistake
#leavealighton
So proud of my mum. It’s fair to say she had a tough time when I came out. And now we are here at Shibden Hall and she is championing Anne Lister and shipping Lister and Walker.
#GentlemanJack
Finished two amazing books today. Found myself surprisingly rather emotional at the end of
@AnneChoma
#therealannelister
which has to be the most engaging, well written and erudite tv tie-in ever.
I’m going to bed. Have been toying with sending my Y11 and Y13 an email to tell them it will be okay,that I am really proud of them and they have worked hard and learnt so much. But I can’t quite find the words. I know there’s a much bigger story here but I really feel for them.
After a lifetime of thinking about the Wordsworths it has been a privilege to get to know Dorothy better thorough
@pollyrowena
upcoming
#RecoveringDorothy
- I can’t believe how much I didn’t know!
#AmReading
@hollyamfreeman
I’ll never ceased to be amazed by CTM. Unusual that I am weeping happy tears at the end of an episode. Kudos to you, the scripts, the director, the casting director, the whole lot of you!
#callthemidwife
It’s just so, so good. Third time
@pandpsortof
. Still howling at every beautifully timed joke.
@isobel_mcarthur
you were right, the touring cast has NAILED IT.
Last lesson today a lad said: 'I don't understand why girls reject their stereotypes and boys don't.' I asked the class what male stereotypes they could think of; strong, powerful, brave were the first three. Female stereotypes - weak, silly, shallow.
'Oh, okay, yeah,' 💡moment
Today something magical happened (teaching is ace sometimes!). A year 7 sprinted over to me. “Miss, I got given this book and it’s the best thing ever, and I thought you’d love it too.” It was ‘A poem for every day of the year.’ He leaned in. “There’s 365 poems in here.” 🥰
I realise this is a dull tweet but when you are as hopeless as me at DIY then you can’t help a not so humble brag when things go well! Reclaimed wooden furniture set and an almost finished writing shed!
Well this place is a bit special. Here I am
@gladlib
apparently just sailing through a very tricky chapter and 1000words after an exhausting week at work!
#AmWriting
I’m really impressed by Andy Hockley as Philip in
#TheArchers
- the sinister edge that has entered his voice now the Mosses are under pressure. And his very complex characterisation feels very believable.
Really pleased to have been awarded a place on the New Writing Northwest fiction workshop programme with
@YBattleFelton
- many thanks to
@Litfest
for the opportunity. Can’t wait to get stuck in!
#AmWriting
I’ve had a completely wonderful day. Feel like my head has had a much needed reset. I look horrific in the photo but it captured a moment of joy - honest!
Book nineteen of 2022. What the trumpet taught me by
@kimmoorepoet
- a quirky, oddly moving read that’s been a friendly companion on my London trip. I like the idea that our lives are bound to traditions and routines in a way we might never realise.
#AmReading
This driverless beast has been roaring outside my window for so long I’ve pretty much mapped out the children’s story where it gets bored without its farmer and goes on adventure round the village.
Feeling very content in so many ways as the year draws to a close. I am grateful for love and friendship and support in negotiating the trials of a plague year. So much to be angry about, but much to be thankful for too. Happy New Year tweeple.
Recovering from an exciting opening night
@KendalPoetry
- Joelle Taylor was electrifying, I got to fan girl at Imtiaz Dharker and the Dove Cottage poets showed that the future is shaped like stanzas of brilliance. Bring on day two!
#Poetry
Book twenty-four of 2023 is Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These and it is exquisite. Totally immersive, began yesterday, finished this morning. Perfect treat. Powerful, hopeful, beautifully written.
#AmReading
I finished this last night; it is one of the most wonderful, funny, gently moving and beautifully written books I have ever read. Thank you
@MumblinDeafRo
for a book I can recommend to everybody and to
@Ofmooseandmen
for telling me about it!
#leonardandhungrypaul
#amreading
I read this and am incensed that our government thinks the BBC needs to “compete” with Netflix et al and that the British people are tired of spending the 44p a day. Because I haven’t seen the cast of Bridgeton on a Ukrainian balcony wearing a flak jacket.
There is not a single drama on television that has maintained this level of quality over such a long time.
#CallTheMidwife
superlative writing, acting, direction and music. Every. Single. Time.
I have had far fewer adventures this year than usual but 2019 has been important. I made the huge decision to walk away from the career ladder and I’m so much happier, devoting time to pursuits and people who make me a better person. I’m living proof that poorer can mean richer.
I am bursting with pride for my school after this morning. After slogging all weekend this morning a fully functioning covid test centre sprang up. Teachers, librarians, sports technicians etc guiding hundreds of people through the procedure. Informal staff briefing in queues.
Well that was a surprise - I preferred Martin Freeman to AB in
#ChipInTheSugar
This Graham felt so close to the edge, spiky and more sad. The scripts are just mammoth as well, at one moment I thought he was going to go right through 30mins! Big kudos to the actors!
#TalkingHeads
@KirstieMAllsopp
it’s a fair point. Yet I strongly suggest if I had EVER published an article about attempting a wilful deception/sexual assault, or suggested some kids are stains, or that allowing kids in wheelchairs in schools was not ok then I wouldn’t be allowed to teach.
Some of you know over lockdown I put my ancient teddy in the window everyday from March until September with a new activity each day. He made a comeback for Christmas and today he got this!
#villagelife