Royal integrity

I woke up feeling exhausted this morning. Owain and I talked until well after midnight, and then as I was getting ready for bed I heard the sound of water dripping and a wet floor in the bathroom. It didn't take me long to find that the joint connecting the hot water pipe to the tap was leaking. I got some tools and made an attempt to tighten the joint, but another nose bleed started, due to the awkwardness of the position in which I was bending over to do this. 

Fortunately Owain took over and slowed the leak from one drop a second to three drops a minute, so it was safe to leave with a bucket underneath it to catch the drips. Fortunately too, the nose bleed didn't last for long, the lesion is closing progressively, I just have to be careful about bending over, and my sleeping position. I went to sleep sitting up, around one fifteen, and slept poorly. It was ten by the time we all surfaced for our Saturday pancake breakfast, and afterwards I returned to bed and dozed until lunchtime. I didn't fully recover until I'd walked in the park for an hour and a half.

Owain left us before lunch as he had engagements later in the day back in Bristol. After a chick pea curry for supper, we three watched 'The King's Decision' on BBC Four. I think the last time I watched it was on Channel Four. It's a powerful film, beautifully made about the Nazi occupation of Norway, and the refusal of King Haakon to deal with Hitler without consultation and the agreement of the legally elected government. 

He was the first monarch to be chosen by citizens after Norway regained its independence from Sweden in 1905. His sole sovereign intervention was a threat to abdicate if the cabinet agreed to negotiate with Quisling, the author of the Nazi coup d'etat in Norway. His role as king, he believed, was to uphold the democratic system which chose him as head of state. The royal family took refuge in the USA for the rest of the war, while the king and his entourage got to London and from there worked to support the Norwegian resistance campaign. It's an impressive royal story by any account, and interesting to set alongside recent revelations about the role of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. They had their own  network of relationships with Europe's royal families and made use of them independently of the British government to gather information from abroad and feed it back into the war effort. Because there were a few Nazi sympathisers in the royal family before the war, Hitler was convinced the King could be won over. The reality was different. The fool who thinks he's king is not the one who is called to be king

After a coast walk, a thoughtful movie

Clare made pancakes for breakfast again, then late morning we drove to Cold Knapp for lunch at the excellent Mr Villa's Fish and Chip Restaurant. But first after parking above the marvellous pebble beach, we walked around the headland and back. After lunch a walk along the clifftop to Porthkerry. 

The climb from the car park up to the continuation of the Coast Path is steep - 115 steps and then a further climb up to the top, as rise of about 150 feet. I was surprised at how stiff my legs became as I climbed, despite going up and down thirteen stairs at home a dozen times a day. I had to stop and rest several times, to avoid getting utterly breathless. It made me realise that the thousand odd miles of keep fit walking I've done have all been on the flat, so there are some leg muscles which have had far less exercise, and need working on. And, I need to work on exercise that will raise my heart rate too, in order to retain as the cardiovaascular condition possible. We live and learn. If we don't we die.

The weather was overcast, and a shower of light rain dampened our return journey to the car, but we covered five miles. That's the furthest Clare has walked for some time, so it did us both some good.

In the evening BBC Four treated us to a marvellous, beautifully crafted Norwegian movie called the King's Decision, all about the role of King Haakon in the run up to the Nazi occupation of Norway in April 1940, when Quisling's coup d'etat took place. 

I hadn't realised Haakon was the first Norwegian King to be elected. He saw himself as a champion of Norwegian Parliamentary democracy. Hitler wanted him to endorse the Quisling regime, but rather than do so he abdicated and went into exile in Britain, returning only when the war ended in 1945. 

Hitler rose to dictatorship by exploiting populist sentiment. The King believed firmly that only a Parliament freely and legally elected by its citizens had the right to govern his country. Showing this film when the British Parliament is under attack from populist fervour whipped up by right wing  movements and tabloid newspapers couldn't be more timely. I wouldn't be surprised if the BBC now gets castigated for its selection and scheduling of a European movie of such thoughtful quality.