Milky Way ....

.... or barnacled bottom, you decide.

Dull, wet, grey - Himself has gone off in search of new walking boots and I'm pottering.

We're venturing out later to see Philomena, starring Judi Dench. Guaranteed to be fury and indignation-making for it's another desperate tale about 1950s Ireland and the appalling treatment of unmarried mothers by the less than compassionate Church and State. Unmarried mothers and their illegitimate children were a source of massive shame and were packed off to Mother and Baby Homes, or other grim institutions,  where neither flourished. During the 1930s, a quarter of all illegitimate children died before they were one year old. In 1948 in one Mother and Baby Home 47% of all babies died. In another 60 out of 120 died in their first year. They were buried in unmarked graves. A few babies, like the one in the film, were sold, without the consent of the mother, to families from America and elsewhere. Today, over 30% of all babies born in Ireland are out of wedlock. I'm already fuming and I haven't even seen the film yet!