Last night I watched a beautifully and sensitively filmed and acted DVD. This was ‘Resistance’, directed by Amit Gupta who collaborated in the scriptwriting with Owen Sheers, author of the acclaimed novel.
The theme is based on the fantasy that the Second World War D-Day Landings failed, and Britain was overrun by the Germans. Set in a bleak Welsh valley during the winter of 1944 and spring of 1945, it was a dream for the cameramen. Struggling as I was to get warm in my stone house which lacks central heating, and mindful of the snowbound forest I had just left, the freezing bucolic setting in which the film opened was most appropriate. Their snow, however, was fake.
This was a different kind of resistance than that to which we are accustomed in similarly themed films set in occupied Europe. It is not largely about fighting and espionage, but rather the developing relationships between the besieged women left at home by their menfolk and the struggles of a proud people to resist the genuine help of sensitive soldiers determined to keep the SS out of the valley.
Mainly gently paced, it was nonetheless enthralling. Andrea Riseborogh and Tom Wlaschiha were compelling in the lead roles, and it was fascinating to see the brilliant Michael Sheen in an, albeit minor, straight part in which he was not playing a famous person. I thought the film was stolen by the beautifully ageing actress Sharron Morgan whose expressive face perfectly portrayed her conflicts.
Unusually for me, I watched the whole of the credits and extras, gripped by the haunting music of Lyndon Holland.
More by luck than Judgement, I timed today’s walk to perfection. 
Turning right at the cemetery, I took the La Briaude loop back into Sigoules. After early rain we were treated to scintillating sparkle by the strong sun.
Swollen streams and ditches; rainwater and melted snow from overflowing fields ran down the rough roads whose pitholes were filled with the ochre liquid.
The roar of one stream which had been almost dry last summer could be heard long before I reached it. A new one flowed past a tree and down its sloping field.
As I approached the village square a car driven by a man using a mobile phone happily mounted the pavement before veering off it, reversing across the road, and vanishing into a driveway.
Rain returned as I inserted my key into the front door. Sunshine and showers was the order of the day.
Lunch at Le Code Bar consisted of two bowls of onion soup such as I have never tasted before; a most unusual ham salad; succulent pork cheeks; then a moist coffee eclair. I’m not sure what cheese the soup contained, but it was one of the type Jackie likes to cook with. The generous thin slice of ham was filled with a creamy pulse salad. The pork was served in a delicious tomato-based sauce with pasta. This was accompanied by a quarter carafe of red wine. Anyone wishing to read about my evening meal will be disappointed. I couldn’t eat one.
The television news was full of items about the problems caused by snow.