Book & Film Review: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Normally on a Saturday I watch a film to review, recently it's been the Lord of the Rings trilogy but as I spent last Saturday making Welsh cakes I didn't squeeze in The Return of the King, so I figured I'd review the film I watched while I was in Wales. And as it's based on a book, I'll review that at the same time and kill two birds with one blog post. P.S. Mum, if you've not read the book yet, you might not want to read this post. There'll be spoilers!

I've had The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel by Deborah Moggach on my bookcase for quite a while. I was so desperate to read it that I actually picked up the film cover edition of the book in a charity shop (I normally avoid those ones, just in case people think I'm just reading the book because of the film, because I'm a snob like that).

Previously published under the title These Foolish Things, the book follows a group of British pensioners, each with personal struggles from Muriel who is stuck in a hospital waiting for treatment for days, to Evelyn who is suddenly alone and broke, to Norman who doesn't realise just what a burden he is on his family. A couple of cousins come up with an idea to help ship them off to India to a low cost care home there, and so not only do the group of elderly characters collide, but so do two entirely different continents.

As I said, I had this on my bookshelf for quite a while but my opportunity to read it came when I needed to find a book for the Reading Challenge which was set in a country I'd always wanted to visit. I had plenty of choices of countries and I'll admit my top choice probably would've been New Zealand or Canada, but I didn't know if I had any books in my collection set in one of those countries, so I decided to work with what I had. India is one of those countries that fascinates me, so The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel ticked that box.

Once I started it, I didn't want to put it down. I started it on the 24th of July and finished it on the 27th, that included a couple of times where I read late into the night because I just didn't want to put it down. It's a fairly gentle kind of story, it builds up gradually. You're introduced to the characters one by one and then each strand joins together to weave the main story. It's a clever way of telling the story because even though there are people you might not care for, you can't wait to see what the other characters make of them.

Obviously this storytelling technique meant that I developed favourite characters. My favourites were Evelyn, Dorothy and Douglas. At first Norman made me cringe but he really grew on me as I went on. I ended up feeling really sorry for him as the book went on.

Given the subject matter, elderly people living in a retirement home, I suppose I shouldn't have been shocked by the fact that people died in the story. But I was surprised. Or rather, the people who died took me by surprise. I thought that all the people in the story would get their happily ever afters in India and that just wasn't the case. Especially Norman, poor, poor Norman.

As my copy had the film poster on the front cover I couldn't help but try and imagine who would be played by whom in the film. I got Judi Dench as Evelyn right, but I think I was wrong for most of the others. Norman struck me as the type who would be best suited to be played by Bill Nighy; I was imagining him as the sort of character he played in Love Actually with hints of his character from The Boat That Rocked. In the film Nighy actually plays Douglas. And the fantastic Maggie Smith played Muriel; I'd imagined her playing Dorothy (who wasn't even in the film at all).

I guessed that there would be changes between the book and the film. It was obvious from the fact that the hotel in the book is run by a fifty-year-old man when from the trailers I knew he was being played by the definitely-not-fifty-year-old Dev Patel. But there were quite a few things that were different.

Some I was expecting. The book has quite a slow build-up. I think the book is about a third of the way through before the OAPs start moving to the hotel, whereas that's glossed over quite quickly within the first few minutes of the film. Dorothy and Graham are merged into the one character and there's a romance for the younger viewers as well. Others came as a surprise to me. I was waiting for Norman to kick the bucket and then Graham hit it instead. Jean was a bit of a cow right from the very start, instead of half of an adventurous couple.

Despite it being a different sort of film to what I might have expected from the book. I still loved it. The different storytelling medium just meant that some things had to be changed. The changes made sense and I very quickly got absorbed into the story. You wound up routing for the characters, for the couples, for the hotel.

The way it was filmed was beautiful as well. There were times when you just wanted to pause the film and look at it like a pretty picture. I've only seen it the once and I've not seen the second yet, though as Mr Click is yet to see both of them, I suspect we'll be getting them on DVD soon.

Yes, it was different from the book, but it was funny and clever and touching. When certain characters hugged or looked at each other it gave me those little butterflies in my stomach which I get when I care about the characters. I laughed A LOT while I was watching it. I didn't even do any colouring in while we were watching it.


So I would recommend both the book and the film. I'd suggest you read the book first, because that's the way that these things should be done, but see the film too. It's the same, but different, and so, so good.

Chapter-by-Chapter: Twilight, Chapter 24

After a brief hiatus (owing to my trip to Wales) I am ready to get on with wrapping this book up. Technically I could have finished it once and for all today, but after slogging through this chapter I just couldn't face another page of it, so I've decided to hold off on the Epilogue until next week.
In the last chapter, which we read a couple of weeks ago now, Bella was found badly injured and Edward had to suck out the venom from a vampire bite inflicted by the tracker. It was a very short chapter which was clearly just building up to this much longer one.

On with Chapter 24: An Impasse.

What Happens?

Bella comes round in hospital to find Edward there. Her parents have been fed a line about a nasty accident and Renee has even come to see her. The tracker has been disposed of, Renee and Phil are moving to Florida and Bella announces her plans to stay in Forks. She has an argument with Edward about whether or not he'll turn her into a vampire though in the end they agree to disagree on this one.

Thoughts as I read:

I've heard things about the next book and about Edward not being in it for a fair bit (which is a plus point for several readers) so I'm guessing something will happen in this last chapter which means he has to go. Perhaps sucking out another vampire's venom has done something to him. Or perhaps the tracker isn't actually dead yet and there's some sort of stalemate going on; perhaps he's agreed to leave Bella alone if he gets Alice back or something.

It wouldn't be a proper chapter of Twilight if it didn't begin with Bella coming round:

My eyes opened to a bright, white light. I was in an unfamiliar room, a white room. The wall beside me was covered in long vertical blinds; over my head, the glaring lights blinded me. I was propped up on a hard, uneven bed – a bed with rails. The pillows were flat and lumpy. There was an annoying beeping sound somewhere close by. I hoped that meant I was still alive. Death shouldn't be this uncomfortable.

Did you get that? It's bright. And white. And there are lights. Did we mention it was bright?

She's clearly in hospital. And Edward's there. Do her parents even know what's happened to her yet?

Over the page Edward answers my question. Alice called Renee and Charlie. Of the two of them, Renee came. Does that mean Charlie's not yet forgiven Bella for the way she stormed out? I can't wait to hear how they explain just how Bella came to be lying in a hospital bed with a broken leg and minus several pints of blood.

"You fell down two flights of stairs and through a window." He paused. "You have to admit, it could happen."

Hehe, he does have a point.

Bella, at least, is on the mend now. Despite the blood transfusions that made her smell wrong to Edward. That's a nice touch actually because I suppose if it's the smell of someone's blood that you're attracted to, a transfusion would make them smell wrong. I want more stuff like that in these books. I wonder if that would mean vampires could be like sniffer dogs for things like leukaemia and diabetes.

Bella doesn't find any of this fascinating. She wants to know how Edward did 'it'. I guess she means, how did he not get carried away when he was sucking on her hand. Well, he claims it was 'impossible' and yet he managed it, so clearly now as impossible as all that then.

There's an awkward moment because despite being happy Bella is now conscious and not dead or anything, Edward's kind of peeved that she tried to well and truly leave him by getting all dead and eaten. This doesn't last long because then Bella changes the subject to ask what happened to James, who is the tracker who they've avoided calling by name for something like the last eight chapters!

"After I pulled him off you, Emmett and Jasper took care of him." There was a fierce note of regret in his voice.
This confused me. "I didn't see Emmett and Jasper there."
"They had to leave the room… there was a lot of blood."

Ugh. We're getting answers without any real information. It's all. 'I fixed you', 'we got rid of him' without any of the hows or whys. That's so frustrating. We also find out that Alice knows James created her, but we don't get any of the reaction to that either. I actually wouldn't have minded the book being longer if that could've been included here. I really hope we see more of Alice's story in the future books, though I seriously doubt that we will.

After this Edward mocks Bella for not liking to have a needle in her hand but feeling fine about facing certain death in the form of a vampire who wants to eat her. He does have kind of a point, though when I was in hospital for my egg retrieval I wasn't all that nervous about the actual op, but getting the needle in my hand before it freaked me out, so I can't really comment.

Changing the subject slightly, Bella quizzes Edward on what she's supposed to say to her Mum. It sounds about as plausible as you'd expect:

"I came to Phoenix to talk some sense into you, to convince you to come back to Forks." His wide eyes were so earnest and sincere, I almost believed him myself. "You agreed to see me, and you drove me out to the hotel where I was staying with Carlisle and Alice – of course I was here with parental supervision," he inserted virtuously, "but you tripped on the stairs on the way to my room and… well, you know the rest. You don't need to remember any details, though; you have a good excuse to be a little muddled about the finer points."

Personally it sounds like a cover up, perhaps for something like Edward flipping out and throwing her down the stairs when she refused to get back together with him.

Bella meanwhile is distracted by the lack of corroborating evidence, but no fear, Alice has handled all that.

When Edward touches Bella it makes her heart monitor change. That's kind of a fun game to play next time you're hooked up to one of those monitors; picture different things (I'm talking relaxing scenes, people, not getting felt up by a vampire, but y'know, whatever floats your boat) and then see how it makes your heart monitor change. Personally I've never imagined making out with a vampire. Just as well really because one kiss from Edward seems to stop Bella's heart!

Then he hears Renee coming, so pretends to have a nap. Bella has to reassure he mum everything's okay, because that's how the parent-child relationship should work when you're a teenager. Bella's been out of it for a while which has given Renee ample time to get to know Alice and Carlisle.

Renee has some news for Bella; Phil's been signed for whatever sport it is he plays (is it golf?) so they'll be moving to Florida. Of course Bella now has no plans to move anywhere, she's going to be staying in Forks.

Unsurprisingly Renee is shocked by this news. After all, Bella hates Forks, she said as much to Charlie right before she left. But now she's got Edward back and he's changed her mind. There's a discussion about how Bella loves Edward and he obviously loves her. Renee makes out that she's all worried about her daughter, but then hurries off because Phil's due to call soon. So worried about her daughter, but husband gets top priority. Fair enough.

Before she goes Renee does mention that she's not too keen to go home because there's been an increase in crime in the area; like the dance studio that was burned down. Aha! I was right!

With Renee gone, Edward and Bella can chat again. Edward seems to have changed his tune all of a sudden. Bella tells him he couldn't have gone to Florida because of the whole sparkling in the sunlight thing, but Edward says he'd have stayed away so he couldn't hurt her any more.

Bella makes Edward promise he won't leave, which he does, calms her down and then points out that he's kind of the reason she's in hospital. This is sort of true, though by the same token, what's to say that the tracker wouldn't have found Bella when he came to Forks anyway, and that would've put her in a worse situation because she wouldn't have known anything about vampires. Instead Bella just reasons that he's the reason she's alive, but he's also the reason she needed saving in the first place.

Seriously Edweird, what's with this mood swing? A minute ago he seemed happy and was smiling about Bella coming back to Forks and now he's got his panties in a knot. Part of the problem appears to have been the whole 'sucking Bella's blood to save her life' thing; he wanted to keep going. And that's set off another mood swing.

I have no idea how all of this has escalated. They do keep talking though, presumably because neither of them are in a position to storm off and leave right now.

Bella starts on about why Edward didn't just let her turn into a vampire. There's something here about how they need to save each other. Edward's always saving Bella but he claims Bella has saved him. He's also pissed that Alice actually told Bella so much about how vampires are made.

This is all because Bella has decided that she actually wants to be turned into a vampire so she and Edward can truly be together forever. Needy girlfriend much? I think I sense a break up coming on. She claims that she could handle the pain and fobs Edward off with something about how her parents would deal with it. He's still refusing. Stick to your guns, man! If you turn her, you'll be stuck with her FOR-E-V-E-R!

Now Bella is annoyed because she's getting older. Edward is annoyed because he's not.

Time to try a new approach; Alice might do it for Bella. This just makes Edward angrier. Apparently one of the visions Alice saw was vampire!Bella. Of course it doesn't necessarily mean anything because she also saw dead!Bella and these things can change. Alice's visions have a touch of the Mirror of Galadriel about them, don't they?

And so we come to the title. The pair of them are at an impasse. And just like that the argument is over and Edward is ordering Bella more pain relief. At least they have finally stopped the arguing and despite the earlier conversation, Edward's promising to stay. Still, Bella gets one more dig in before she passes out:

"I'm betting on Alice," I mumbled.
And then the night closed over me.

I'm really disappointed that we didn't get more fall out from the tracker thing, especially with Alice. Unless that comes up in another book, I think Stephenie Meyer missed a real opportunity there.

And also, why do Bella and Edward have to argue about every damn thing?!

And now for today's questions:

• Do Bella's parents know what's happened to her? Yes, or rather, they know a made up Cullen version of what happened.
• Has Charlie forgiven Bella for what she said before she left?
• If vampires can smell changes in a person's blood, could they be used in the diagnosis of cancers and illnesses like diabetes?
• Just how did the vampires get rid of James?
• How did Alice react when she found out what James did to her?
• What sport does Phil play again?
• Why all the arguing between Bella and Edward?

Shaun Spotting

I mentioned on Monday that I would do a dedicated post on my trip to Bristol when we went on the trail of Shaun the Sheep. Well here goes.

I've seen these trails in other cities in the past, but I've never had the opportunity to actually go on one before. When I found out that the Shaun the Sheep trail was going to be in its final weekend when I was visiting my Mum and family in Wales, I had to make a request. It didn't take much selling to convince my Mum and stepdad to make the trip.

Before I actually went to Wales I spent a fair amount of time on the Shaun in the City website looking up all the different Shauns. There were seventy of them in Bristol (previously there were fifty of them in London). Each one was decorated by an artist and then placed around the city for people like me to find, photograph and check off the list. Now that the trail is over they'll be brought together for one last public appearance before being auctioned off to raise funds for Wallace & Gromit's Children's Charity.

The day before we went, I downloaded the Sheep Spotter app onto my phone. It was £1.49 and that was definitely money well spent. The cost of the app went to the charity, so I felt good for doing my bit, and it gave you all the information you needed to track down each of the Shauns. This included various trails you could follow to take in different bits of the city, a running total of the number of Shauns you'd found, information about who designed each Shaun and trophies you could collect along the way.

The trophies were actually really good fun. There were the ones you would expect for things like finding five or twenty Shauns, then there were some slightly more random ones like finding a Shaun between 12pm and 2pm, or walking backwards to find a Shaun. It was cool seeing them pop up through the day.

We started our trail just round the corner from the Aardman Animations offices and found our first official Shaun in person (prior to this we'd driven past three other which I'd ticked off on the app because I'd seen them and therefore I figured it counted). The app was handy here too, it recognised when you were within range (providing the GPS was turned on), occasionally it was a little hinky and didn't register you were there so there were some helpful codes provided on each Shaun's plinth so you could check them off on the app that way.

Because I'd already looked at the Shauns online, I had a mental list of some of the ones I wanted to see. I was kind of expecting to just see a handful, but my stepdad got really into the hunt. That coupled with the fact he had worked in Bristol before meant he was the perfect person to get us from one Shaun to the next. We ended up seeing thirty-one Shauns, twenty-eight in person, plus one mini Shaun (the mermaid one).

I did get my photo taken with all the ones I was most desperate to see (The Pirate Captain, Bagpuss, Baa-wulf, Knitwit and the Woolly crochet one), plus I got loads of photos of all the others. I took a lot of photos.

We also walked miles. According to the activity tracker on my phone we walked roughly seven miles and over the course of the day I took somewhere in the region of 18,800 steps. I definitely felt it the next day!

I really hope that they could do some sort of similar trail around Glasgow in the future. If it was a little closer to home I'd probably go on multiple occasions to try and see them all. Especially if there was an app like the Sheep Spotter one to help me check them all off. I'm a sucker for getting awards of any kind and that was right up my street.

Wordless Wednesday: Perch

Book 2 of 2015: The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin

When I started the Reading Challenge this year I decided that I wouldn't let it interfere with my other planned reading, so I aimed to alternate between a Reading Challenge book and a non-challenge book. It's not really worked out quite that way in the end because some books take me longer to read so there's no time for a non-challenge read, and sometimes the challenge book is so short that I've got room for several non-challenge ones after it. I suppose it averages out.

The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin was my first non-challenge read of the year. It's a detective fiction book, from a set that I bought for Mr Click. In this one we see Gervase Fen trying to solve a murder which has rocked a theatrical company after an actress is found dead not far from Fen's office.

I found this a fairly quick read which slotted in nicely between my Week 1 and Week 2 Challenge books. Back when I read this I was still trying to average two books a week, so I started off getting through it very quickly, slowed down so I wouldn't finish it too soon and then had to pick up the pace in order to finish it before the start of Week 2.

One of the things I regularly complain about with the Inspector Morse books is that you aren't given enough evidence in order to solve the crime yourself. I like to be able to solve the crime right alongside the detective. The Case of the Gilded Fly was not one of those books. It bugged me a little but I was still able to enjoy the story, despite not being able to prove my detective skills as I read.

It was a little frustrating though, especially as Fen has a habit of telling people things that shock them, but not letting the reader know just what it is that he's said. So you know there's been something big coming to light, but it's another couple of chapters before you actually get to find out what or how it affects things.

In a way it reminded me of the Sherlock Holmes stories, particularly when you compare the relationship between Holmes and Watson with Fen and Nigel. It was that aspect of the story that appealed to me and I suspect that at some point I'll go back and read some of the others to see if they give me the same sort of vibe. Mr Click wasn't as impressed though and found it a more difficult read than I did.


Oh, and there's one other thing I kept meaning to look up the whole way through the book. There's a character called 'Yseut' and I kept on forgetting to look up how to pronounce it until after I'd read it. It annoys me when I read a book and I can't say a character's name, I did eventually look it up, but it wasn't until after I'd finished it.

Trip to Wales

It was a very long journey down, leaving Glasgow at 11pm and arriving in Cardiff a little before 11:30am the following day. I was expecting to find it very tiring but it wasn't actually that bad.

I had spent some time before I went putting the Lord of the Rings audio play from the BBC onto my Kindle. It turned out that this wasn't such a good idea because it is kind of creepy, especially once you get into it and Gandalf starts talking about Gollum. I'd imagined falling asleep listening to it. Not so much when you've got Gollum being tortured at Barad Dur as your soundtrack to sleep.

I wound up plugging into my mp3 player for a while then switched to listening to music on my phone (since National Express helpfully gives you a socket so you can charge your phone whilst on your epic overnight journey). Thank goodness I'd put some music onto that before I left.

At one stop coming down the motorway I decided to get one of those squishy neck pillows, figuring it would help me sleep. I was foiled though. They had fleecy ones, or squishy ones for children with animal heads on them, but no plain squishy ones. I was about to leave the shop when I realised they had colouring books, one of which was Johanna Basford's Enchanted Forest on 'buy one get one half price'. So I bought colouring books and colouring pencils instead.

Back on the coach I set to work on my 'portable' sized copy of Colour Me Calm. In semi-darkness. Using my charging phone's backlight to illuminate my page. Only to discover that I'd actually very carefully coloured in a section in white instead of light blue like I though. I'm enjoying this one actually, its nice small size means it fits into my bag nicely, though at some point I will crack on with Enchanted Forest (and I'm going to treat myself to Secret Garden as well).

I arrived at Bristol early the next morning and had a wait of just under an hour before I was on the move again. Despite feeling very awake I felt ready to fall asleep once I was back on the bus. Of course I didn't have long to doze and soon I was meeting my Mum and strolling across the aptly named Bute Park.

That Friday we crammed in a trip to What! where I bought green yarn. I wish we had these shops in Scotland. They just sell everything and have an impressive craft section. I could've spent a fortune but I was very restrained and limited myself to just two balls of wool. This was only because of my limited space in my luggage and not because of any kind of personal strength. A couple of days later, when we went to Hobbycraft I impressed myself by not actually buying anything. That was really hard, especially as I found no less than £60-worth of stuff I wanted to bring home; because I couldn't decide what I wanted I just left it all, then kicked myself for it later.

Over the weekend I managed to walk around fifteen miles (seven of which were around Bristol on the Sunday, and three were around Cardiff on the Saturday). Saturday saw a return to Bute Park for a family lunch together and then some wandering around the shops. I was very tempted by some clothes but as my Mum had sorted through her cupboards and given me loads of stuff to bring back (ZOMG! I have the prettiest dress and now I need to find pink or purple shoes and a bag to wear it to something).

I'm going to do a whole separate post for what I got up to on the Sunday because that was the day we went Shaun hunting. Check back for that on Thursday. Be warned, there's going to be a lot of photos.
And on Monday we went for a family picnic at Castell Coch, where I spent a lot of time playing with my Aunt and Uncle's dog, Mabel, (and watching her teaching random tourists how to play fetch when I got too boring for her). After eating we wandered around Castell Coch which was really interesting as it was rebuilt by the Marquis of Bute. In fact it was his wife who set aside the dowry money which we received when we were married.

There was an awful lot there which reminded me of Mount Stuart house. And it was also used in a couple of episodes of Doctor Who so I have to admit I spent quite a while looking around trying to see if I could recognise which bits those were. In the end I figured out that I recognised some of the place from the Vampires of Venice episode.

That day my Nan also taught me the basics of crochet which I picked up quite well (if a little wobbly). I've had another go or two at it since I got home and I can do it, though it's going to take a lot of practice to get it looking as neat as my knitting.

And that was it.

The next day I had a very early start and a (not quite as long) journey home, getting back onto the island about an hour earlier than I'd anticipated. And yeah, I was a bit tired, but I had a good time away and I'm already planning when a good time to go away next year will be.

Weekly Rundown: I'm Back!

Hello! I've returned from Wales!

I haven't done a huge amount of anything this week, at least, not since getting back from Wales on Tuesday evening. It's made it a bit of a funny sort of week since I only had three days before it was the weekend again. Even though I've been pretty tired from all the travelling, I could easily get used to that.

I'll tell you all about what I did in Wales tomorrow.

Except for one thing.

Last Monday my Mum taught me how to make Welsh cakes. They're like flat scones and are cooked on a griddle (or frying pan). They are incredibly more-ish and I defy anyone to make a batch without eating a fair number of them before they've cooled.

Well, yesterday I decided it was time to teach Mr Click how to make them. I'd brought some home with me from the batch we'd made for the picnic, but they were over a day old by the time I shared them, and they'd spent at least ten hours squashed into a bag in my backpack.

Mr Click procured all the ingredients, as well as a few other necessities (like a sieve and a rolling pin) which we didn't actually own until this week. He even got us aprons.

And so we got to work on them yesterday morning. Having made them under direction previously, I took charge and got everything going. There was a slight moment of worry when my mixture was very sticky and didn't seem to be coming together into a sort of dough, but a bit of flour soon solved that.

The first six we made were a little bit too well-done, but we figured out we should turn the temperature of the hob down slightly and the other thirty-eight came out beautifully. We ate about about eight of them before we'd even finished the batch!

I'm yet to pick up my knitting again since I got back. I've played around with crochet a little bit, but I've also been doing more colouring in (something I'll be getting back to once I've done all my blog posts for the week). I bought a couple of colouring books while I was away and I've been feeling a bit too tired of an evening to concentrate on my Nativity scene, so colouring in is nice and relaxing busy work.

Oh, and one other momentous even happened this week. I reached the last page of my book journal. I started it on January 1st last year. Back in March I realised I was getting near the end of my current one, so bought a new one. It's just taken me a little longer than I expected to get to the end. This one's got more pages so I imagine it'll keep me going until around 2017!


I'm getting caught up on blog stuff again now as well, so expect to see some more regular posts from me again.