A supposedly nice lunch and film

This morning was spent doing housework and general house maintenance, and as a treat for James, I made him a very nice lunch consisting of bagels spread with cream cheese and topped with smoked salmon. I first suspected that something was wrong when I noticed James pulling faces and sucking his teeth in a disapproving manner. Needless to say I ignored this behaviour, and after a while James was forced to vocalise his feelings. "That was the worst lunch you have ever made me."  he declared mournfully. It turns out that he hates both cream cheese and bagels, and finds the combination particularly disgusting because allegedly it sticks to the roof of his mouth (as if that was a bad thing - I like it because you can savour it even more as it gradually disintegrates). "Next time just give me the smoked salmon" he moaned.

Later we had a few errands in town and found ourselves at the GFT at 5 p.m. just as a showing of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's "Sunset Song" was about to start. We had been deliberating about going to a movie in the evening but I had my doubts about seeing Sunset Song; I know the book very well and have also seen it performed on the stage and on television. It's not that I mind seeing a film of a book that I have read; it's just that I know this one so well that I knew there would be no surprises at all and that I was likely to take issue with some aspect of the interpretation. However James seemed very keen to see it and I felt quite touched because I assumed that this was because he knew of my love for the book. As I had predicted the film didn't quite live up to my expectations although the acting was all good. I didn't think that it adequately captured the hardships of Chris's life, it missed out a lot, and way the ending was filmed really disappointed me, because the book's ending is much better. All the same, I enjoyed it and was glad that I had seen it. James on the other hand absolutely hated it. I hadn't realised that he had never read the book or seen the play or television series so he had had no idea what to expect and found it very drear. So I thanked him for watching it with me - and it turned out that far from indulging me, the reason he had wanted to see it was because he had heard that the scenery was good while listening to his favourite radio programme "Out of Doors". And to think I thought it was for my sake! James has certainly blotted his copybook with me today!

Update on Sunday morning - James says that going to see the film WAS for me as well as the scenery!