Wuthering Heights and all that....

People say strange things to you when you move to the back of beyond. 

What do you do with yourselves? (Answer: mostly we chase the sheep.)

Don't you get bored? (Answer: only when the sheep won't play out.)

Isn't it just really miserable when it rains?

I find this last one hard to understand. I have lived in various places around the country and none of them have attracted me because of the marvelous way they just come alive when it pisses down. Hackney, inner city Manchester and the suburbs of Bradford deserve a particular mention for their capacity to induce suicidal feelings after days of endless British drizzle.

 

Tonight it has been drizzling, or mizzling, as we say around these parts, which is a particularly persistent form of drizzling. I couldn't watch tele because we had no reception. I couldn't listen to the radio because we had no reception. I couldn't surf the web because we had no internet connection. I couldn't chase the sheep because they won't play in the rain. 

In the absence of any other amusement I sat on the balcony and watched the mist roll round the tops of the hills before meandering aimlessly down into the valley. The sheep were tucked sensibly behind the walls, and the mizzle was mizzling for Yorkshire. 

It was bleak. It was dour, grim, stark and forbidding all at the same time. It was positively Wuthering Heights, if Wuthering Heights were an adjective. I couldn't think of any place I would rather be. 

In a not-at-all-clunky-or-contrived link, there is plenty of Wuthering-Heights-induced excitement around these parts at the moment. 

The local news reported this week that George Clooney and Johnny Depp are in the area, for yet another remake. A quick google search indicates that La Jolie, Natalie Portman and/or Sienna Miller are also involved. That's the local B & B full up then, unless the girls decide to bunk up together in which case you might get a room if you book quickly. 

A film crew in the neighbouring village, however,  turned out to be filming the new ITV adaptation of Wuthering Heights. I am fond of Sarah Lancashire, but Angelina Jolie she is not. 

Stray wouldn't let me ask the film crew if anyone famous was hanging around (Ms M, please, no....) or even what they were filming (I said no!) or if they needed any extras (at this point she started to rock.) She used to be on the tele-box, so is way cooler than me when it comes to meeting famous people.

I have, however, discovered that Jean-Luc Picard lives about five miles away. Don't tell Stray, but I think I can track him down. I have the sheep on the case.