Sunday Expressions: C2C Edition

I've been learning a lot about Yorkshire, thanks in part to Last Tango in Halifax and also due to my recent read of Amanda Owen's memoir The Yorkshire Shepherdess.  I will be doing a post on this book soon, but I digress.

The other day I stumbled upon a beautiful blog called Four Walkers on Walking Places.  The four walkers in question are four grandmotherly-types who walked the Coast to Coast trail in 2010.  I highly recommend this blog for their amusing account of their experience, as well as stunning pictures.  It is quite a bit of inspiration as well.

This week's Sunday Expression was discovered on their blog.  Heather, the blog's author, writes, "An early start of us, so it was a cat's lick and a promise as far as getting washed was concerned..."  I thought that was such a great expression for those times when you know a shower or bath is just not in the cards.  So thank you, Heather, for this week's "Sunday Expression".

Do you have time for a proper bath in the morning or evening or do you have to get by with a cat's lick?

xo,

Amy

Sunday Expressions: The British Banker Edition

Trying to be all adult-like, I made several appointments with my local bank to try and sort out things like oh...retirement and funding the children's education.  You know.  Minor details.

So of course my Banker would be from England.  And just in time because I needed some authentic Sunday Expressions.

I was treated to several HOURS (lots of sorting needed) of British expressions.  I seriously wanted to take notes, but I supposed that would have been too weird.

So my Sunday Expression:  The Banker Edition is "Wait a tick."  This expression was used when I attempted to chatter while he was adding up my sums (or lack of), when I interrupted him while he was on the telephone sorting out my various messes, or needed me to clarify some financial nonsense I was spouting.

Any Brits out there use "Wait a tick"?

Last Tango in Halifax - No Spoilers Here!

Ann Reid and Derek Jacobi as Celia and Alan

Luckily, due to my job as a school librarian I have the summers off.

Unluckily, due to a bout with Mono (that's glandular fever to you Brits), I spent about three weeks of my summer vacation on the couch.

Luckily, I discovered Last Tango in Halifax to get me through.

In my feverish state, I happened upon the current episode (at the time) of Last Tango in Halifax on my wonderful local public television station WETA UK (p.s., they have a lovely little blog called Telly Visions).  I was immediately hooked but needless to say I was a bit behind - by about 19 episodes or so.  So with a major spoiler under my belt...I backtracked courtesy of Netflix and watched all of the episodes I'd missed.

If you don't know the premise, here it is in a nutshell.  Alan Buttershaw and Celia Dawson are widowers in their 70s who are reunited after 60 years courtesy of their FaceBook-savvy grandsons. Alan lives with his sheep-farmer daughter, Gillian and his grandlad Raff, while Celia lives with her Headmistress daughter, Caroline and her grandsons Lawrence and William.  But of course, that's not all and the series bursts out of the gate with much ground covered in season 1, episode 1.

My favorite actor in the series is Derek Jacobi who plays Alan Buttershaw.  He's just so believeable, so natural - he's an absolute pleasure to watch.



Here are a few things that I enjoyed as I laid dramatically on my sickbed:

1) Last Tango is a perfect drinking game if you binge watch the episodes.  In my case I hydrated (I was sick remember) as so:

a)  A car pulls in or out of a drive (sip of water)
b)  A character says "I'll put the kettle on." (large gulp of water)
c)  A character exclaims "I'm cooking!" (drink the entire glass of water)

2) Inside jokes...

I'm sure there were many more that went over my head, but I loved when (no spoiler) Alan Buttershaw says, "Now heaven walks on earth..." and then wonders if that's a quote from Shakespeare.  Quite so, and I love that it's from Twelfth Night in which Jacobi starred as Malvolio.

3)  Subtitles

Because I'm all up to date on LTIH, I'm watching the episodes again...this time with the subtitles on. Getting lots of smart dialogue that otherwise got lost in the shuffle.  Any favorite expressions from LTIH that you've picked up?

Well, I'm off to put the kettle on.

xo,

Amy