What This Week #15

This week there have been birds. Blue tits nesting in the box on my fence fly in and out, in and out. They are tucked deep within an overgrown shrub, but after a ninja manoeuvre with a pair of garden shears, my sightline from the kitchen window is uninterrupted (begone branch hiding the hole like the feather on Princess Anne’s dressing-up box hat hiding Harry’s Coronation Day face from the world’s outrage-hungry lenses). Looking forward to impatient little beaks and then full fledglings appearing from within in the coming days and weeks.

This week there have been bees. Not the huge drowsy buzzers of early spring hovering low over the lawn, but their slim brown-furred pals bouncing repeatedly off the window panes. My neighbour wonders aloud if they’re residing in the nest box on my fence again this year. They’re not. It’s full of birds (see above).

This week there have been birds and bees. Another milestone conversation undertaken and logged in the parenting memory archive. Bemusement (her—it’s a lot to process), amusement (me—well hidden, fear not), dinner very much delayed.

This week there have also been books and films and TV shows.

Watching:

Blue Lights (BBC iPlayer)—I didn’t dive straight into this six-part Belfast-based police drama—we’ve already been served up so many cop shows this year, varying in quality from ‘epic’ (Happy Valley, naturally) to ‘don’t bother’ (warned off Better by multiple sources), via ‘ok, but mildly disappointing’ (sadly pretty much forgotten Unforgotten already). But when Blue Lights started being repeatedly referred to as “one of the best shows on TV”, FOMO got the better of me. And I’m glad it did! Blue Lights follows three rookie patrol officers as they work through their probationary period, learning on the (incredibly stressful) job. Grace has retrained after a career as a social worker and brings her compassion and determination to ‘fix’ situations into a partnership where her counterpart, Stevie, refers to his job as ‘catching shit in a bucket’. Tommy is nervy and fast-tracked, trying to apply his academic theory to messy reality, with Gerry (the best human ever) his teacher in pragmatism (and musical taste). Annie is young (hungover) and eager (always knee-deep in the action), and finding it hard to come to terms with the impact being police officer has on her life outside work. On top of the day-to-day call-outs, there’s an ongoing organised crime situation to be dealt with (headed by John Lynch, channeling Eric Cantona), a danger-shy nepo baby constable paper-shuffling back in the office, and many added complexities from Belfast’s troubled past. Blue Lights has warmth, humour, tension, emotion. I laughed and cried—my gold standard for excellent TV.

Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (Netflix)—I also really enjoyed this six-episode delve into the past of the doyennes of the Bridgerton universe. The Queen, Lady Danbury and Violet Bridgerton feature in both a ‘current’ timeline (which appears to be set just after season two) and a backstory timeline—the main focus of the series—sharing the history behind how Queen Charlotte and Lady Danbury became the formidable women we know them to be. I liked that Shonda Rhimes positions Queen Charlotte as very much part of the world of Bridgerton, while also giving it space to be different. It’s not so raunchy (I mean it’s not not either, panic not!), it’s not quite so hyper-colourful, and it’s definitely tonally different, it has more emotional depth. I loved spotting all the nods to the main series—lines repeated, characters mentioned, situations explained—but undoubtedly the love story between Queen Charlotte and King George takes centre stage, focusing in large part (and hopefully this is not a spoiler!) on how they cope with his mental health issues. This is dealt with well—it does get quite dark (particularly by Bridgerton standards) and is also incredibly moving. All the new actors portraying younger versions of established characters do an excellent job—I was particularly impressed by Arsema Thomas (Lady Danbury) and Corey Mylchreest (King George). I’m still not entirely convinced that we needed ‘the great experiment’ to explain the diverse casting of Bridgerton’s ‘ton’, but I do remember the foundation of this being laid down in a Lady Danbury/Duke of Hastings conversation in season one. Queen Charlotte is a highly watchable (and quickly bingeable) series, and stands alone so you can enjoy it whether or not you’ve seen Bridgerton.

Honourable mention for Girl with a Pearl Earring (paid to stream on BFI player), a rewatch after a reread, in the name of research (Vermeer deep-dive in the offing).

Reading:

My wonderful podcast buddy

THE RED FERN 🌿 By Helen Redfern

put

Austin Kleon

’s Show Your Work on my radar a couple of years ago, then very kindly bought me a copy for my birthday. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Kleon is an artist, so his thought-provoking and encouraging ideas about sharing the process behind our creative endeavours are also presented gorgeously—I love his style. I took lots away from this read and see that it works very well with the role Substack can play for writers, to enable us to offer more of a behind-the-scenes look into our writing life and works-in-progress to interested readers. Substack Notes also offers great potential for ‘showing our work’. Without preplanning, Helen and I referred to Show Your Work repeatedly in our latest podcast episode, and I’m very excited that it’s the focus of Helen’s most recent newsletter (revelling in all the ‘smug student who’s already read the set text’ vibes). Thoroughly recommend this inspiring book as an addition to any creative’s library.

The Four Points That Really Inspired Me from Show Your Work by Austin Kleon

As a huge fan and repeat reader of

Katherine May

’s Wintering, her new book Enchantment was always going to be high on my reading wishlist, and the library bus delivered it into my eager hands last week (first borrower—always something a little magical about that). May returns to what she does so well, being honest and vulnerable about her state of mind and exploring how to shift a sense of inner ‘stuckness’ by slowing down and reconnecting with the outer world more thoughtfully and intentionally. Her story is very relatable, describing the overwhelmed, underprepared self that came out the other side of pandemic. I loved the book’s main premise of returning to a state of wonder at what’s all around us—stepping back, taking a breath, noticing again. To remember we are part of something so much bigger, and way more magical, than the cyclone of worries and to-dos that we allow to cast the awe-inspiring into the shadows. Her elemental approach is reflected in the book’s structure into Earth, Water, Fire and Air, with related essays and experiences shared under each. Reading a single essay with a cup of tea, I couldn’t help but slow down, drop the shoulders, refocus. May never tells us what to do, how to live, how to ‘be better’, but through her beautiful words and her authentic search for magic and meaning, she reminds us that there’s more out there—reminds us that we used to know enchantment but we allowed life to distract us and dilute it, until we just forgot it was there at all:

I’m beginning to understand that the quest is the point. Our sense of enchantment is not triggered only by grand things; the sublime is not hiding in distant landscapes. The awe-inspiring, the numinous, is all around us, all the time. It is transformed by our deliberate attention. It becomes valuable when we value it. It becomes meaningful when we invest is with meaning. The magic is of our own conjuring.

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So what this week for you? Let me know any recommendations I can add to my watching and reading lists. They are genuinely always welcome.

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Extra reading credit:

Always interesting to read Shonda Rhimes’ words. She’s a creative powerhouse. Here she is on Queen Charlotte: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/apr/21/bridgerton-shonda-rhimes-on-race-royals-and-romps-meghan-markle-netflix

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(Includes affiliate links to Bookshop.org, an excellent bookselling website supporting indie bookshops)