Last night I watched The Green Mile. It is a film I saw only once before and that was around twenty years ago but my reaction to the fantastic action and the storyline was exactly the same as I remembered it. What was different this time was that I watched it with my children.

Now I know that it is rated 18 and many of you will be squirming in your chairs as your read this but I believed there were many valuable lessons to be learned from the film and as a very level-headed mother, who better than me to judge what my children can and cannot see?

I let them watch all but the electrocution and death scenes, where I ushered them into the kitchen until the film had moved on. What they got from the film was exactly what I had hoped they would get. They picked up on the dignity of both the character Tom Hanks plays and that of the very special prisoner in his care.

And do you know what? I learned something too. I have always been a believer in an eye for an eye, a staunch supporter of harsh treatment for perpetrators but I saw a different aspect of that last night, conveyed to me by the very understated acting. I saw that justice can be done in a quiet dignified manner and that the job of the executioner is one of grace, dignity and compassion. I have to say I had never looked at it like that before.

As for the more obvious themes within the film - that all the characters got their just desserts in the end, that good triumphed on the whole over evil and that extraordinary longevity is a curse more than a blessing...these were all mulled over by the teenager and preteen who sat red eyed and weeping with me by the end of the film.

A really beautiful film and so movingly portrayed.

If you missed it first time round, catch it on DVD. If you don't you will never know what you are missing.

By the way, I am feeling a little more like myself today. Much of the swelling has gone down and although I ate through tears yesterday, due to the excruciating pain, I got something down and kept it down.


My voice [what little of it is audible] is unrecognisable and my throat still feels as if it is lined with glass shards but I will get there. Already feeling much stronger than yesterday...roll on tomorrow and world domination...

I have got to stop crying!

I have just written chapter seventeen, where one of my most beloved characters dies and I am heart broken. I didn't want him to die and I even tried to resuscitate him but his death was central to the plot and unavoidable.

And so I am grieving.

Unfortunately  this is not the only time in the past week I have cried. I watched the film District 9 the other night and it had me in floods of tears as well!

So now I have to add that to the list of film I can't watch without having a blubber. Here are my top ten...and in no particular order.

1. King Kong - I LOVE that hairy beast!
2. Truly, madly, deeply - the actors are so real and it gets me every time,
3. Dirty Dancing - I figure that's a kind of odd one here, but I cry!
4. District 9 - obviously!
5. Ghost - there's a definite Patrick Swayze theme here [ahem!]
6. The Lion King - yes I do know it's animation but when the daddy lion holds the cub up....
7. The notebook - oh my God I cried from start to end
8. I am legend - just because he is so alone [and the dog dies]
9. Schindler's list - they almost had to remove me from the cinema
 and finally,
10. Up - another animation which my children did not entirely understand in all its subtleties but I did.

There are of course many, many others, some of which have yet to be written.

But the hardest of all are the ones you write for yourself...

Have a great weekend and do something fun. I sure hope to.