We watched this last night. I’m afraid I dozed through bits of it, but in any case I didn’t find it as engaging as the book. Maybe I just love the book too much as it’s clearly considered a great film.
This morning I did some tidying and cleaning and accounting, all very satisfying, then went to the graveyard to visit the spot where the ashes were buried yesterday. The churchyard at St John-at-Hampstead is divided into two and is on a hillside. Downhill are the older, distinguished graves, Constable and the like. Uphill are the newer graves, and along the edges, places to bury ashes and a wall to install plaques. It was hot and sunny so felt rather arid, and the flowers left there yesterday had wilted. As we stood at the grave, a woman in her fifties carrying a watering can and looking rather wild-eyed approached us. She said, ‘they took it…’ and shook the watering can. ‘I left this thing, I can’t remember its name, and they stole it from my daughter’s grave.’ She looked down at the modest little bucket of flowers and said, ‘They’ll steal that too. They could have used it and put it back, but they stole it. And look, they brought their dog!’ There was dog excrement smeared nearby. ‘They stole it from her grave.’