Greg Garrett’s Five Essential Films on Race in America

Mixed race relationships:

The second theme discussed in ‘MISSING, Past and Present’

The question of mixed race and issues relating to marriage of people from different religious backgrounds runs seamlessly throughout my recently released novel.  Having worked all of my teaching life in a multicultural society the came naturally to me and so it has been fascinating to see what other bloggers have to say.

Gregg Garratt writes in his vivid account of the portrayal of race in American much loved films:

“Race is hard to talk about and often conversations can become divisive, but film is one of our most important meaning-makers, and American movies have been grappling with race for over a hundred years. Here are five essential films that can help us talk about race by seeing how far we have come as a nation and, perhaps, how far we still have to go.”

via Greg Garrett’s Five Essential Films on Race in America

 

 

 

A Birthday Party al fresco in the January Sunshine

The Wee Shoppe Kinghorn

On Wednesday we went back to the roots of our Scottish adventure and our total change of life’s experience. A little bird told us that it was Moira’s birthday and though The Wee Shoppe is not usually open on a Wednesday there were whispers that there was going to be a wee celebration.

The Wee Shoppe will always have a special place in our hearts. It is where we were first welcomed into the Kinghorn community, made friends and learnt the joy of blethering.

This was a beautiful winter’s day (around freezing!), with the sun shining on Kinghorn Harbour, as we set out chairs and a table on the concrete hard in front of the Wee Shoppe. There were nine of us drinking tea, eating hot sausage rolls and birthday cake.

With everyone smiling and laughing it took me right back to those early days of 2014. Great memories. Lovely people. We are so grateful to be here!

The Healing Paths of Fife tells our story in prose, poetry, fantasy and historical background and it was where I ‘met’ renowned author Nigel Tranter and he imparted some advice to me about the dangers of writing about a place I had only just discovered.

‘What a novel idea ~ to talk to each other’ or ‘A Truly Social Media Free Holiday’

For two weeks every year I like to leave Twitter, Facebook and my blogs behind me and have a total break. I’m getting more and more content with this as the years pass. At first I panicked. I wrote blog posts to schedule automatically and tweets to appear through Hootsuite. You can do all of this if you:

a) pay an expert to do your marketing for you

b) have the time to do so

or c) just cannot bear being silent for a couple of weeks or more.

I used to ask ~ Will my followers get bored and desert me? Will I have to start again when I get back? Will the world still turn without me?

It is strange for the first couple of days. I am tempted to turn on the internet using my smart phone. You may laugh here but I have never had Facebook or Twitter or even email on my phone. Too intrusive on real life. The man in the phone shop raised his eyebrows when he saw that I hadn’t even discovered the App Store.

I resisted temptation for the first couple of days ~only just.

By the third day I started to relax ~ to forget the pull of all of these time sucking activities and then I noticed something which made me smile and frown at the same time.

At restaurants while hubby and I were learning to talk to each other again we noticed whole families who sat at their table glued to their phones, sharing the occasional joke or two they’d read from friends back home. On buses and on the beach too! By the end of the holiday we were even feeling quite smug about it.

In fact, we enjoyed talking so much that we have vowed to turn the TV off during supper each night back at home, to sit opposite each other and chat about our day. It’s been so refreshing for our communication skills and our relationship as a couple. You should try it.

What a novel idea ~ to talk to each other!