the holiday

I’ve just finished watching The Holiday. Kate Winslet is lovely. But I can’t bring myself to care for Cameron Diaz and I find Jude Law incredibly pompous and irritating – in spite of that rather touching display of affection in his penultimate scene. I would have turned it off, Winslet notwithstanding, were it not for this. Huge chunks of the film bore a striking resemblance to my life. The good, the bad and the ugly (Eli Wallach pun intended).

I remember all too well the pivotal breakdown. The trying to cope with not having the relationship I thought I needed. Leaving my own country, on a whim, to clear my head in another. Falling madly, deeply. On a two week holiday. With a country and a man.

I was Cameron without the fancy home. Driving very badly on the wrong side of the road and sleeping in a cottage lined by cobbled streets. An accidental meeting with a handsome foreigner. Yup. Me too.

And Kate, who spent three years loving a man who didn’t love her back. Who didn’t want her to stay but wouldn’t let her go either. More me.

But that’s another story.