October 5. Day 277. An interesting Segway

My mother, bless her, once claimed that I must have been dropped on my head as a baby as no-one is naturally this unco-ordinated. Well, mum. Nice try. It's genetic.
Today we rode Segways around the Rock. It was fascinating. Ten kilometres at the base which revealed itself to be far more intriguing and detailed than pictures would have suggested. Segways are easy to ride. They are the perfect vehicle for a ride around the rock; unless you are me. I fell off. But it gets worse. Oliver fell off not once but twice. Yay us. But a few bruises and a couple of scrapes are a small price to pay for an awesome experience. And, of course, we can't help it. Our genes are deficient. Anyway, that night we went to the Field of Lights, the most extraordinary light installation in the desert. It has to be seen to be believed. It was dark (despite 50,000  solar-powered lights). And yet we didn't trip. winning at life.

October 4. Day 276. Rock on

 So my mum said "let's do a family holiday". Seems simple enough. Not with our family. Nothing is simple.
I've been dying all week. Coughing up not one lung but both. My GP said "stay home and rest". I considered that but decided against it. I could rest in a fancy pants hotel room as well as I could in my own bed, right?
So I decided f*** it, I'm going. My sister Lisa wasn't so lucky. She couldn't move so she was out. Don had to stay home and look after her. Mum's friend Laurel was too ill to travel. We were falling like flies. But 10 of us made it to the airport (three only just). Ten of use boarded that flight.
And 10 of us reached the rock. Yay us. First impression. My God, it's huge. Far bigger and with far more character than I had imagined from the pictures.
You have to be there, right?

October 2. Day 274. Somewhere over the rainbow

Start writing that acceptance speech, Renee.
It worked for Rami Malek,  Gary Oldman, Eddie Redmayne, Daniel Day-Lewis and Colin Firth not to mention Meryl Streep and Olivia Colman. Yep, the Academy has given a lot of love to performers in biopics in the 2010s.
So standing out in that crowd means doing something special and you are that special something.
I mean a bio pic is a bio pic. It's a colour by numbers approach to story telling which gives the film-maker only so much wiggle room. Flashbacks are inevitable, because we don't want to wait through all those formative years until the star in the titular role appears on screen.
But Judy was a star and so is Renee. She doesn't try to be Judy but she sure captures her essence. And this film looks beautiful. You want to watch. I cried in spite of myself even though we all knew how it was going to end.