Cliff Galloping

Somehow the current series of Poldark has not grabbed me - pity as I was looking forward to it.  Demelza is very well cast - perhaps too well, in that Ross' passion for the patrician Elizabeth doesn't make a lot of sense now. 

And his ravishment of her -  leaving her unmarried and pregnant - does not play very heroically either.

And there is an awful lot of cliff gallop-ing - Ross on his steed, George on his.   That is another odd casting by the way. George is supposed to be on the rough side - the son of a Blacksmith (I can see Hyacinth Bucket shuddering) who dares to aspire to marry into the Gentry i.e. the Poldarks, who frankly come across as a pretty hopeless lot.   And Ross is supposed to be of the gentry - a cut above.  Yet its George who looks rather delicate and patrician.

Mind you, he is blonde.  And doesn't that automatically makes you either a baddie or "dumb" in these days when we are so anti-stereotyping? 

Still not sure why it is such a terrible thing to be the son of  a blacksmith yet dare to make yourself equal to a Poldark - but I expect Hyacinth ("I haven't a snobbish bone in my body") could explain it.

Anyway, after the first series, which I did enjoy, it seems to go like this:  Cliff gallop, cliff gallop, cliff gallop,  emote, emote, emote (that is Ross and Demelza emoting at tedious length about their relationship), Ross opens a  mine that fails, Ross takes shirt off,  Ross takes shirt off again, cliff gallop, cliff gallop, Ross opens another mine that fails, Ross ravishes Elizabeth (probably taking his shirt off in the process, I had stopped watching by then), cliff gallop cliff gallop, lots more tedious emoting about relationships - though what relationship I have to ask, given what has happened re poor Elizabeth, cliff gallop, cliff gallop, mine opens, mine closes, Ross' shirt comes off...

I will say this for George. He keeps his shirt on.  And he isn't nearly so flaky as poor Ross, who always seems to be about to visit calamity on his family.

I have done no cliff-galloping at all during the last couple of days.  We have no cliffs for a start. And pebble-dashing is not nearly swashbuckling enough

Plus I am not at all well  - rash getting more painful and spreading - and the Captain has been struck down by a Back Attack.  He is suffering a lot, and had to cancel an early morning butterfly outing with Mark. Which tells me just how bad he is feeling.

It is still HOT with apparently the HOTTEST day of the year tomorrow...   I plan to shop early, driving Miss Jackie, who asked for a shopping trip. She is not too well either - does not enjoy the heat any more than I do. Then I hope hope hope to be at home all day, keeping as cool as is possible.

There are some thunderstorms promised, but not necessarily here.   We desperately need rain, but would prefer not to have another lightning strike, if possible.

And I hope that the thunderstorms arrive in Greece, just where they are needed. There has been a calamity there - such a fierce fire that it seems there was no escape from it, it moved so fast.  And many many people have been killed.  The pictures from there are frightening. 

We need rain.