Up The Rams

Another lie-in, this time to midday. L wanted to give her ankle a break (of the unbroken kind) and this is clearly the best way of giving it a rest, doing something not load bearing.

I tentatively suggest that this is perhaps also a good chance to stretch the wheels of her bike (puts on tin hat). So later L cycles to Harvey Hadden, does the bike track there and then the gym.

I walk the boys on the park, again and again without balls. They are seriously starting to wonder if something is up.

In the evening we head to Broadway for our second film in two days.

Now here's a quirky one. Rams is a snapshot of life in a remote Icelandic valley, an environment so harsh that seemingly only sheep and stubborn bearded old men can survive there.

The stubborn bearded old men are two brothers, Gummi (Sigurður Sigurjónsson) and Kiddi (Theodór Júlíusson). They live in neighbouring farmhouses but have not talked for forty years. Their only form of communication is the occasional written note which is delivered by border collie.

The film starts with them going head to head in the competition for the most highly-prized ram.

Kiddi wins with Gummi coming second. Kiddi’s celebrations are brief though when it turns out that the winning ram has scrapie. The outcome being that all the sheep in the valley will have to be slaughtered.

Kiddi refuses to comply with the slaughter. So he is arrested, his flock is forcibly destroyed and he goes on multiple drunken benders. Twice we see Gummi reluctantly forced to save his brother when he finds him lying motionless in the snow, drunk and about to freeze to death. On one occasion he scoops him up in his tractor's front loader and deposits him in front of the nearest hospital.

Gummi meanwhile kills his sheep himself against regulations, so that he can secrete a few ewes and his prize ram in his basement. At first he gets away with this but eventually they are discovered by the authorities.

When Kiddi learns what his brother has done, they start to become reconciled. Kiddi helps Gummi re-hide them and then when that doesn’t work, the two of them combine to drive them off into the mountains during a blizzard. A plan which doesn’t go too well due to the inclement weather, this time leaving Kiddi trying to return the lifesaving favour and attempt to save Gummi.

Quirky but excellent. Well worth seeing.


Afterwards we go for a few pints (rather appropriately maintaining the sheep theme) in the Golden Fleece on Mansfield Road, which has recently become Flipside’s second pub. Then it’s the traditional Sunday Indian.

(Sunday 28^th February)

Rolling Back The Years

There are black clouds gathering above Manchester as the morning of the Great Manchester 10k dawns and we head up the motorway. The dogs and I are supporting, L and Daughter are running. The things people agree to when their guard is down.

Daughter has promised not to swear (much) but even so L arrives with her ‘tin hat’ at the ready. Oddly no one seems to know what a ‘tin hat’ is, simply assuming L is doing the race in VE Day themed fancy dress.

Daughter manages to park us in a single carriageway alley right in the middle of Manchester which we totally block but apparently this is fine because she works there. It proves to be fine.

The girls are in one of the later waves so don’t trouble the likes of Betsy Saina, Gemma Steel, Stephen Mokoka, Bernard Lagat or the great Haile Gebrselassie. They all get a head start.

The rain holds off (it wouldn't dare) and the support crew head out to do some serious cheering (and barking) at the 1k point and then the 9k point. Daughter seems to be grimacing a smile as she passes.

Doggo manages a jog from the 9k point, you can see him rolling back the years (in his mind at least) and I reckon he could have probably kept going all the way to the line on Deansgate had Daughter not shot him an evil look that dared him to overtake her. We’d also have probably had to administer CPR to him.

We rendezvous afterwards by ‘the man with the tin foil balloons’, unfortunately we’re at different balloon sellers but we get that sorted eventually.

We head to the Stoker Arms for Sunday lunch, where the guest ale is from Nottingham in the form of Navigation Apus.

When we get back home I calm L down with several OP's in the Peacock.

(Sunday 10^th May)