Day 19.144: An odd cycle of movies

With Exile #4 going back to Massachusetts tomorrow, tonight the five of us completed a little cycle of movies. We often watch TV series together but there wasn’t time to start a new one so we decided to do some stand-alone film watching and it turned into an interesting little film festival. There wasn’t any planning behind it until we realized how we could bring it home tonight. 

We started with Project Hail Mary (2026) (featuring Ryan Gosling - this will help us close the loop later). Next was Remarkably Bright Creatures (2026) (small town feel-good), then Fargo (1996) (small town with murder), then, for the first day of Pride month, Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) (secluded location, more murder) then Companion (2025) (secluded location, strange girlfriend, more murder). 

Tonight, we brought it all together with the charming Lars and the Real Girl (2007) featuring Ryan Gosling, small town and a strange girlfriend. Exile #2 and I had watched in many years ago - near the start of the Exile but I’d forgotten what a gem it is. 

Day 19.124: Rainy drive to…line dancing?!

Exile #4 and their friends had arranged a pre-graduation gathering at a line dancing club for visiting family. Exile #3 decided against it but the rest of us went and had.a great time even if the volume of the music was not conducive to actual conversation with the other family members. 

Day 19.076: Group photo

There were various comings and goings over the course of a week to celebrate Dad's 90th birthday. We still managed a group photo thanks to some semi-careful planning and photo editing:

Not perfect, but pretty good in my opinion.

Day 19.074: UK birds (outing)

On Sunday, we had an outing at least partly to see some birds. We visited Blithfield Reservoir in a couple of places. This is some of what we saw:

Eurasian blue tit

Long-tailed tit

Redpoll

Eurasian siskin

Dunnock

European robin

Common chaffinch

Coal tit

Common chiffchaff

Common buzzard

Eurasian wigeon

Eurasian wigeon

European robin

Greater scaup & great crested grebe

Great cormorant

Black-headed gull

Common chaffinch

Dunnock

Great black-backed gull, European herring gull & lesser black-backed gull

Great cormorant

Eurasian kestrel

White (pied) wagtail

Great black-backed gull

Eurasian siskin

Again, most are additions to the 2026 list and the siskin, redpoll and wigeon are new for the life list.

Day 19.073: UK birds - incidental

Today is my dad's actual birthday - and although we're missing that, we celebrated well for the three days we spent there.

Here are some of the birds we saw when we weren't really trying (at my sister's house and near the property where we stayed):

Eurasian jackdaw

Coal tit

European greenfinch

Eurasian blackbird

European robin

House sparrow

European goldfinch

Reed bunting

Carrion crow

African peafowl (maybe feral or effectively a farm pet)

Collared dove

Red-legged partridge

Crows in the mist

Ring-necked pheasant

Domestic chicken in the back courtyard of the house - she quickly found her way back into the next-door farm.

Also seen in this way: magpies, wood pigeons and feral pigeons, common chaffinch, 

All of the wild birds here apart from the house sparrow and feral pigeons are new for my year list and the partridge and coal tit represent their first record for my life list.