Home

I have become reluctant to plan - certainly not to plan more than a month or two ahead. This is probably what's behind my failing to book singing with the Robinson choir types for the 18th April for AGES. It was too far away to commit to. I've been living a shifting life for a couple of years now, and I half resent closing down options. I should pick it up again though. I have holidays to organise!

For someone who doesn't like change very much but who has been rollercoastering around life for the past 5 odd years, I think I'm doing ok. It took a bit of doing, but I think I succeeded in transferring 'home' from being a place to being a state of mind, or an atmosphere, generated by people. I can keep in touch with them wherever they are in the world, and so I need never feel as completely alone as I was when I was uprooted from physical places I felt attached to. I love Cambridge, don't get me wrong. I'm comfortable here; I know where to find things and I know the shortcuts and there are beautiful places that I go to when I feel the need for them. But all of those things are not home, in themselves. The fact that I see people around all the time does start to make it home - the whole place takes on the feeling of a shared house; somewhere to keep stuff and feel comfortable. An old coat with huge pockets.

Maybe nobody creates home as an adult in the way that children do when it's the place that they've always known. Maybe one never recaptures the pure affection for somewhere in the same way. I adored Ashwell. It was an idyllic place to grow up. I wouldn't want to live there now, and I was in the end glad we moved to St Albans. I fused myself to that place, after initial resentment. My life revolved around the city, and I barely left it at all except for actual holidays for 8 years. It tore me apart to be told I wasn't going to have that base any more. Now, though, it's not friendly any more. It's dirty and smelly and old and I have to be someone I'm not when I go back there. I changed and it didn't feature in the change, and neither did any of the people who live there, so now we're not in sync any more. Like a couple that have split up in difficult circumstances who come back together later, hoping to find a little of the spark that had led to them being close in the first place, only to find that they really have nothing in common any more.

The people who mean home to me now do not necessarily live nearby, but they're always at the end of a phone or an email. I locate home in the airwaves, somewhere? Perhaps I do. If they were around, and some of them are, home is easier to pin down. Safe and comfortable.

Café day.

The man on the next table sat down, wrenched open his bag and snatched out a thick book. Not cheap crime fiction, this, but something altogether weightier. You can tell by the paper. He sat on the edge of his seat, leaning forward over the little plastic table, and ripped it open - still wearing his outdoor clothes. It flopped to reveal a Tweetie Pie bookmark in purple and yellow, and he impatiently pulled at the pages, throwing Tweetie aside and finding his place. Then, twiddling his glasses restlessly, he began to read.

I was envious of him. I have had that feeling myself; the urgency and need to read, to know, to understand. To be so involved with a story that the everyday world feels faint - the words on the page become so much more real. Ah. He closed the book: it is revealed as War and Peace, which I've never actually read. Never really felt inclined to - very long, C19th serialised novel in translation? All turn offs. But berhaps now I'll pick it up, having seen the effect it had on someone. Ha - this guy's fickle. He put down the Tolstoy and picked up Words of Mercury by Patrick Leigh Fermor, of whom I've never heard but who sounds interesting from the Wikipedia article. It seems he is erudite. Which is hardly surprising in this city. Slouching over his seat and peering over his glasses, he'd be an attractive Cambridge arty type, if I found Cambridge arty types attractive. The slack-jawed vacancy of his reading face and the uncontrollable fidgeting offset the self-conscious brown cords and tweed jacket and make him altogether more likable.

Christmas mania.

I love it and all, but Jeez I'm tired now. Lots of cooking things and pet time and singing. It's been fun. I suspect I'm mostly sleepy because I seem to be intent on reading ALL night. This is an error, even if the book is brilliant.

I found another old diary of mine the other day, one I'd forgotten I had. It's probably the darkest of all of them, from my last year at school. NOT a particularly happy time. Odd to read about Ellie and Katy and Angharad and Steve and the way we were. Things were already changing then, and I was doing self-destructive things. I read it all the way through (it's quite a short one). I've been reading through my other diaries a bit piecemeal. The ones from my earlier teens are less important. The ones from uni are long-winded. The one from my last year at school is concise and made me squirm because it is so direct and unfettered. I had to struggle to remember some of the events - they aren't things that come back to me with great ease.

I'm not sure why it was so unpleasant, really. Change had a lot to do with it. I'm not very good at change. There was the whole 'we've bought a house in Cornwall' thing, but that's a different story. But everyone was growing up, and where we'd all promised one another that things between us would never change, that we'd love one another for ever, things were already changing. Of course, we all made new friends and were fine, but I still slightly regret the loss of the four I mentioned in particular. One made a conscious effort to shed the friendship, one I found had drifted and two became so wrapped up in one another that there was no longer space for me. I don't begrudge the last two their happiness, but I did feel sad to lose them; I was upset that one didn't feel that our friendship was worth the effort of keeping (but this one I look back at differently in hindsight - if we had carried on being as close as we were, we would have reached a cracking point); I was and probably still am angry with the first one for the way she found it acceptable to behave (to herself, to me, to others). None of these feelings is all that intense anymore - I have new people around me who mean a lot - but they are not non-existent.

Maybe other people don't feel the desire I do to hold on to that kind of friendship in the same way. People who have known you a long time and been through a lot with you are important; they keep you grounded and they remind you that who you were is part of, and responsible for, who you are. They give you continuity - they prevent a fragmentation of self and a disintegration of history. I do have that, still, with a few people. Eleanor, mostly. She and I know so much about one another, about how the other one thinks and sees the world. Those ways are so different, and I'm pretty sure that we don't necessarily understand one another's point of view all the time, but we do know it. In some ways we're not close at all, but familiarity makes us so. I mean that, were we to meet one another now, I'm not sure we'd be drawn to one another in the way we were when we were 11. I think that's partly why there were patches of time at school where I avoided her (for which I'm sorry). I appreciate her now. At the beginning, we were the clever weird ones. Then I tried to join some sort of Popular clan, and things were weird. And then I got more used to my own skin, I guess.

Blah. This is the sort of reason I don't like this time of year - this kind of maudlin reflection creeps up on me. I think I'd do better without any sort of anniversaries (birthdays and New Year in particular), they always bring about too much dwelling on time and its passing, with which I am already too much obsessed.

I have half a sonnet written. In fact I have several half-sonnets written, but only one that I might finish. I like the structure of sonnets, because they provide an easy framework with which to force words into a tight linguistic structure, but I think this particular piece of writing would be better if I allowed myself to be a bit more free and was a bit more inventive with the versification. But that requires more thinking, or at least thinking of a different sort. Out of practice.

If your 'Hazel' stops working for any reason, or fails to give satisfaction, please return to manufacturer with original packaging, and a replacement product or full refund will be forthcoming. This does not affect your statutory rights.

Life ok. Job reasonably interesting. First meeting with clients on Wednesday. Meh. Should know what I'm talking about by then. Erk. Might have joined GSM choir. Not sure. Bit hard to tell. Will find out Wednesday. Rescued Carl from A&E yesterday, where he was because he hurt his wrist. Christian in States, so am animal sitting, and occasionally scrounging the double bed. Am actually spending Time at home though. Eating shit. Always do when it's just me. Run out of money. Can't pay Feb's rent until I get paid for Jan. Crap. Went running yesterday, because it was gorgeous - stiff as a board today. Went for AGES, rather than just being unfit (am that too, but it's not like I've done no exercise at all the last few months (coffee shop job on feet all day, fair amount of cycling)...if had gone for the normal 15 I'd have been fine, but went for 45...), but still.

/ramble

New Job.

Since the last post, Andy has deleted himself from the internet. I suspect I managed to imply that I thought the whole thing had been a waste of time from the beginning, which I didn't feel at the time at all. It's just that now, it's clear that it was always going to work out like it did. But we had to try and make it work in order to find that out. I understand why that might come across as 'I wish I'd never started it', but it's not exactly what I meant. Anyway. It.

New job's quite good. I spend ages in Excel un-mangling box office data and making it readable and understandable and then turning it into graphs for PowerPoint presentations. That sounds really dull, but it's actually quite good. At present, anyway, it's pretty interesting. I hope when I've learnt how to use Excel properly it's not going to get boring, but I don't think it will, because hopefully then I'll have started going to meetings and talking to clients and that kind of thing, and it'll be interesting in a different way. So yes. It's good. And disconcerting similar to what Melissa's doing at Merrill Lynch, and being paid Lots for. Ah well. She won't get to wander into interesting theatres, and I don't have to stay at work til 4am several times a week.

I think Christian was feeling guilty this week, cos he bought me flowers AND took me out for dinner at the Vietnamese place on Magdalene Bridge. Both were awesome. Maybe he was just feeling nice, but it was still great. He had no real need for guilt - he's just been really busy, which I understood, even if I would have rather he was around...

Kate, Melissa, Lee and Graham T and me went to the Natural History Museum yesterday. Was FANTASTIC. I had bullied them all there to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, which was absolutely brilliant. It's made me keen for sitting in hides waiting for birds and things. I'll keep my eyes out for beautiful days and pretty places to go, I think. I'm also likely to negotiate for a decent camera from one of the two friends I've got who have spare digital SLRs... The NHM is the kind of place you could go to every week for 3 months and not go through the same room twice - I'm quite keen to go back AGAIN, despite the fact that this was the second time in about 2 weeks (I went the week before very briefly with Eleanor when we went shopping on Oxford Street and got caught out by the 'you can't use cheap tickets in rush hour clause'). I'm also keen on the Science Museum AND the V&A, and am planning a champagne picnic in London Zoo in the summer. Will be fantastic. I know it's expensive, but I don't mind donating money to the zoo, because they do good stuff with it. It's like paying for the Eden Project.

I got to see Graham's new flat, too, which is lovely. Doesn't have the view of the previous one - which was about 10 feet from the south bank of the Thames. This one looks down on a panorama of Elephant and Castle. Not so pretty, but still a great flat. Also really near a rather nice indian, which was dinner. Was nice to catch up with everyone, and enjoy the book I bought from the NHM (Extreme Nature - I KNEW I wouldn't be able to go back without buying books. I also bought Darwin's account of the Voyage of the Beagle, which looks pretty cool.). I'm going to see them all next weekend for Leigh's birthday evensong at GSM, which I'm looking forward to. I'm tempted to ask Leigh if I can join GSM choir - they have adult female altos, which is something. Would give me a chance to find out what's what in Cambridge singing, and I'm going spare with nowhere to sing.

Well. I came home for chillis and red onions. Off again now. I nearly have housemates again. I've decided that it's less weird that I'm back in this flat, and more that Will and Tom live here too...

New Year.

I hate New Year. I say this every year. I think it's mostly because I'm shattered by the holiday season by the time we get to it, and this year was definitely no exception. The yukky antibiotics (second installment - better be it) didn't help, it's true. In some ways, I really ought to feel quite pleased to be seeing the back of 2007 - there've been some pretty horrible bits to it. There were some awesome ones, too, like RTTFP and getting a choral award among others. I never feel quite content admitting things are over, though. It's supposed to be pretty childish to cling on to things when they're finished, but I always do. I guess this year it's partly the fact that I have the new job to start after Christmas, doing something I know very little about, and, for a change, which I care about doing right. I don't usually care about the shitty little jobs I get in order to pay the rent or feed myself or whatever, but this time I do. I think. What if they don't actually LIKE me? What if I can't do what I'm asked? What if I just sound really stupid? Meh. This sounds really pathetic written down, but it's probably still true.

I'm trying to look at the New Year as a way of erasing the bits of last year that made it so bad. I'm not talking about Andy and me, the relationship, though I do mean the way that things ended. Contrary to what I'm fairly sure he believes, I do feel sincere regret for the way things turned out between us. The regret I had is that I badgered things into starting when I should have thought more honestly, right at the start, about how far I could see things going between us. I don't mean that I thought even then that we wouldn't have a future, but I do think I should have taken it more seriously. I was (am?) in a place where relationships are more fun than serious, but I think I put over the opposite message. I don't know. I have a suspicion they need to be both, but that's pretty hard. I don't really mean that I regret we ever started, because I think if nothing else we both learnt a lot in that relationship and that we supported one another through some bad things. I do mean that it would have been better that nothing had happened than for stuff to happen and then leave us both where we are. I think, anyway. But if it hadn't happened, then neither of us would have learnt what I think we have, and I, at least, wouldn't have found a relationship that I'm happy with. I wish, really really wish, that Andy could let things go. Just allow that they've happened, and that such things are complicated, painful, and necessary, sometimes. Then he'd stop tormenting himself, and by proxy, me. Some of the things he's saying now prove how badly he actually knew me. Stuff about deliberate cruelty, for a start, which I completely resent. I would almost mind less if he thought it was unwitting, but he doesn't appear to. Is it selfish to believe that I have never, or very very rarely, been guilty of deliberate cruelty? Unthinking, possibly, but I'd be mortified if I ever found anything like that out about myself. I don't think I lack self-knowledge, but that maybe wrong. Anyway. I really didn't start this to talk about Andy. I've been avoiding the subject because I still don't really know how to talk about it, not, as he seems to think, because it matters that little to me.

I was going to talk about New Year's resolutions. There's the standard 'lose weight and get fit' one, to be achieved by cycling to work every day. Shouldn't be an issue, I hope. Having spent a considerable portion of my life playing sport, the fitness thing is not something I really find difficult to engineer, but losing weight is always harder. Other things include 'join a good choir' and 'make some effort'. Generic and dull. Sorry.

Christmas.

Christmas was quite good, actually. I had fun singing - my voice has been enjoying a break and so was really rather nicely responsive when I came to use it for high descants. Unfortunately, this didn't last for long, because the 6 hour drive down in the car with my dad, who had a streaming cold, meant that I ended up snuffly. I made it just about to Christmas lunchtime though, by which point the singing was over, so I guess it could have been worse. Me and the brothers took the dogs to the beach at Perranporth. I tried to take some pictures of the Christmas tree someone had put up on the rock that's in the middle of the sand, but they didn't really come out. And then Kiri fell in the swimming pool. It had muck in the corner, and she thought it was solid and tried to walk on it. She felt a bit silly.

We had beef for Christmas lunch, from the farm up the road. Properly fed, properly looked after, properly killed, proper beef. It was absolutely lovely. It's not often I rhapsodise about meat on here, for the sensibilities of the orthodox vegetarians who drop by, but this was really lovely. It's ok. I'm stopping there. Presents was good too. I had a watch from my parents, which I must go and get shortened, probably on Friday, and a proper ice blender for making smoothies and crushed ice, among other things. My brothers bought me rat things and a plant. My parents seemed to approve of the things we got them, and even my brothers seemed reasonably pleased with the things I'd got them, which I hadn't been sure about. Ooo and I had glasses made from half wine bottles in my stocking. Really nice.

I enjoyed being in Cornwall this time. Kiri was really upset when I left. She hates watching you pack the car and goes all sad and pathetic. I actually found myself wanting to be able to stay a bit longer. I headed up country on Boxing Day though, with Rocky in tow. He was much admired at the dinner party Christian had that night, and then came up to Derbyshire with us the following day. We had a tiny little cottage that looked like it had once been a stable, right on the edge of Bakewell - it was lovely. Sadly, the weather was less so when we tried to go for a walk the next day. We managed about half of what we'd been intending to do, but we and the dog were so cold and bedraggled that we gave up and went home for curry.

Christian decided he was brave, or foolhardy, enough to join in my mum's family's Christmas in Coventry. Not really sure what he made of it, or how much gossip we've now created among my somewhat peculiar family, but it could have gone worse. Rocky, however, loved it. LOTS of people to play with, yet another new house to explore, AND a big game of football to impede. Auntie Helen kept up her usual tradition - she gave me what I believe is called a 'snood'. In the last three or so years she has given me a pair of gloves, 2 scarves and a hat, as well as the 'snood', which is a cross between hat and scarf... All very nice, but I do find it rather funny. Could have been worse, I suppose.

Then we brought my brother Ed back, so he could meet the rats. He liked them. Then I finished moving house. I'm now back in Cambridge, in a room that at least feels homely. And somewhat full of stuff.

Sad.

Andy and I broke up last week. I haven't blogged about it because I haven't known really what to say. It seemed to have become a bit of a shell, and I was feeling like I made life harder rather than better for him, and that his feelings about me were lukewarm. He tells me now that this wasn't the case, but I didn't feel that at the time. I could probably have gone on living with the frustrations I had for quite a while, but it would have ended up with a more bitter break up than the one we've had. Stuff happened with someone else while I was in Cornwall, and I suddenly realised how many things had been missing from me and Andy for so long.

This all sounds horrendously callous, and all the worst possible reasons for ending things, but I've cried enough in the last 2 weeks, and right now I don't want to go into real details. I've agonised over it, and tried to work out the right ways of doing things and do them as much as possible. I'm not sure I succeeded though. Meh. I really, really hope he and I will stay friends, because I think if we can get past this we'll still have an awful lot to offer each other. I'm massively sorry for what's happened between us. There were amazing bits of our relationship, and it's sad that it's over.

I spent my weekend singing for Salvador's ordination in Portsmouth. Dramatic. Had good fun on Saturday rehearsing the Byrd Mass for 4 Voices and some motets. I ended up singing soprano with Sarah Lambie, which was actually really nice. I had been intending to sing alto, but the girl singing alto was really good and I was more use singing sop. We headed down to London on Saturday night. At 6am on Sunday morning, we discovered our tenor wasn't coming. GRRR. VERY rude of him. So I ended up singing tenor, typically. And we had to cut the Byrd Mass and just do the motets. Very annoying. I got paid to sing though! Yay! And proved to myself that my sightreading isn't as bad as it might be. The place was very weird though - Traditional Anglican Communion. Scary lot of people. I've never been to a mroe formal service, and the last mass I think I went to was a Catholic one in Milan, of all places. There were more clergy than congregation, for a start, and all of the clergy had lace on. And there were TWO bishops, for one ordinand. Madness. Lots of bells and incense - and about 5 small boys to do it. I had fun afterwards baiting the priest in charge. Very odd.

Drove them all back to Cam on Sunday night, and then helped Will catch some fish for his tank from Fish's tank. I eventually stayed in Fish's empty house, because I was KNACKERED by this point. Headed back here yesterday in time to clean the house for my dad.

OOOO - someone's given me a job interview! Not for a job I massively want, though. Well, the job itself is nice enough, but it's part time. Grr. 2.5 days a week isn't enough for me. My dad was looking at the description last night and saying he thought it must be a job share, looking at the duties. Bah. How irritating. Anyway. Whatever I decide, it's my first interview, so it doesn't matter too much.

Short Fringe, and other stories.

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Originally uploaded by hazelsheard

Edinburgh was fun. Fish and I drove up on Friday night, eventually, after I persuaded him to stop working for any length of time. Even then, he drove and did a conference call at the same time, despite the fact that he had me next to him insured and ready to drive his car for him so that he COULD work. I'm insured on his car for a whole year, because it cost a pound more to do that than to ensure me for a few days. This will mean that during Minack in Cornwall next month, I will have the choice of five cars to drive. Comedy.

We got there about 12:30 on Friday night/Saturday morning, and kicked off early the next day. Stuff bullet pointed is show reviews, the rest is 'stuff I did'...

• Carl, Christian (also known as Fish, for those that don't know), Nikki (randomer loosely associated with Carl/EUSOG), and I went to see Little Red Things: The Boy Who Wouldn't Listen, by Gomito at Bedlam to begin with. Carl and I always see the Gomito show when up, and this was its last day. They're a great company, with fantastic physical work and magical storytelling. The whole experience is usually one of delight in what they're doing in front of you, and it's regularly my highlight of the festival. This year was not disappointing from that point of view, but I felt that they hadn't been as imaginative as they have been in the past. The show was a sequel to last year's sell out Little Red Things, and that allowed them to do more of the same, rather than thinking further and showing us new things. It was still good, but I was slightly disappointed by that.
• We followed up Little Red Things with The Quest for the Divine Bottle, a piece put together in association with Gomito (there's a link to the Divine Bottle page from the Gomito link above) and based on the work of Rabelais. He was a particularly dirty French medieval monk, and this gave the group plenty to work with. I actually preferred this show to LRT in many ways, because it had the freshness and strangeness that I look for in a piece of theatre, continually making you see everyday things in a different way. The plot did certainly, as Fish puts it, lack cohesion. It felt very dreamlike though, jumping about from line to line and being difficult to follow, and I felt that that was no bad thing. Less polished, perhaps, than the previous, but still thoroughly entertaining.
• I wandered over to PGP to catch up after that, and saw Melancholia by the Latino Theater Company. The stagecraft was excellent, and I was thoroughly engaged by that aspect of their work. However, the bare anti-war agenda of the play was a little annoying after a while - it was aimed explicitly at the Iraq war, which might be fair enough, but just saying 'war is bad' is not really profound enough these days, especially at the Fringe. It lost marks for being slightly trite, and n0t recognising, for example, that Iraq is different from any other theatre of conflict.
• Sweeney Todd was next up. This was a Cambridge show I'd been planning on seeing for ages anyway - it's by Fitz Theatre (and Sondheim), who seem to have a holding site instead of a website...job for you, Hugh? It was good, don't misunderstand the following - I think I judge musicals more harshly than other things. The music has to be spectacular, as does the singing and the acting in order for me to really enjoy it. These guys did great, and I could see why so many people were saying it was fantastic, but it didn't completely bowl me over. Reasons for this included the lack of full orchestration that meant that some of the texture was lost, dodgy high notes partly due to the fact that it was last night, and a Joanna who needs 6 months of lessons after which time she'll have a voice blended across the registers. She was good, but missed out on being REALLY good.
• Rounding off the day was Jesus: The Guantanamo Years by (Elaine's ex) Abie at the Underbelly. I was knackered by this time, and Fish and I were both pretty drenched, so I was not in the most receptive of moods when we went to sit down in the steamy damp cave that passes for a theatrical venue to the Underbelly (I LOVE the Underbelly). However, the writing in this was fantastic. The general premise is that Jesus returns to the stand up scene after 2000 years and tries to get past US security, as well as moaning about the Monty Python spin off. He's a bearded Middle Eastern guy prepared to die as a martyr, and is convinced that his mission is a holy one. Ends up in Guantanamo, strangely. Very well observed and very well put together - what you'd expect from someone who makes his living mostly as a journalist. Prevented only from being my pick of the Fringe by the fact that Abie is not a performer, I don't think. What was needed was for the audience to believe in the character they were watching, rather than just laughing at and being enlightened by what he was saying. It was a shame, that. All the same, thoroughly entertaining, and I was in a much less horrid mood when it was finished than I was when it started.
  

This concluded Saturday, and we'd made good inroads into the weekend's shows. I only saw two shows on Sunday, preferring to laze, chat, get fed by relatives and get drunk with the PGP/EUSOG crowds.

• The first one I did see was The Gently Progressive Behemoth, again at least loosely Cambridge show, put on by Luke Rogers and Nadia Kamil. They did Staggered Spaces in Greyfriars last year and it was great - silly, poignant, honest comedy. This time, it was mostly silly. Quite fun silly, but definitely not as good as before. We did share the audience with Jimmy Carr though, and as he left he said that it was 'kinda fun' and he had 'had a giggle', so their careers are continuing upwards - they have quotes from Daniel Kitson in response to Staggered Spaces...perhaps I should try and pass that on to them?
• Then it was time for The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, the floor of whose flat I was sleeping on. I was actually very impressed by this, having gone not really expecting great things from a kids' show with what was considered a bad script. The performances were universally great though, and I really don't think they could have done more with it.

This was my last show for the Sunday, and I had dinner with Uncle Nick, Auntie Alison, Theo and Evelyn afterwards, and tried to introduce them to the Fringe a bit. I then met Fish for a drink before we left for the PGP end of week party at the Bedlam in the company of the EUSOG rabble. Very entertaining. Too many photos on Facebook.

I met Jacqui (Company of Ten old friend) for breakfast at the Elephant House, 'Birthplace of Harry Potter' as it is now, on Monday, and then went to see:

• Smile and Say Thanks at Bedlam with her. This was a typical Bedlam show; new, sweet, and with a few corners not yet cut off. It was loosely about random acts of kindness, I suppose, each characters telling different stories that eventually came together in interesting ways. Very entertaining and enjoyable for first thing in the morning, though there were definitely bits that could have been cut. They had badges. Always a good deal.

I was going to see the Harry Porter Prizewinner (more Cambridge) play Coat that lunchtime, but was too keen on eating and not rushing around too much that I didn't.

• I saw Can of Worms instead, which was a play about torture, but very funny and very entertaining performances. I met up with Rachel there, by accident. She's writing a play on contemporary theatre, and I like contemporary theatre a lot, so we tend to run into each other. She felt that, like Melancholia, its message was a bit lacking in depth, which spoiled an otherwise thoroughly excellent piece of theatre. That a piece doesn't have a particularly profound moral does not prevent it being good art unless it has set out to do so - then it fails on its own terms.
• Next was Mouse; a piece along a similar lines, I guess. It was a monologue, set in a garage where a second, silent character is committing suicide with a car due to the manipulations of the speaker. As an example of its type, it was great. The performance was strong and the story quite interesting. It just wasn't really new - we've all done monologues, and they always go the same way, with the audience discovering more about the character than the character realises. Robert Browning did that to death 150 years ago. Still good, but not new.
  

Next came dinner with Fish and Mr Linford at the awesome Wannaburger. I love that place...have a look at the menu!

• My final show of the Fringe this year was Eurobeat. It had a pretty good reputation by the time Fish and I saw it. It's in the Pleasance Grand, one of the biggest venues on the Fringe, and as such it doesn't really feel like fringe theatre. It was supposed to be a spoof of Eurovision, taking the mickey out of that institution. The thing was, Eurovision is universally acknowledged as a really silly event in any case. They didn't take their mick-taking far enough, I think. There were a few more dirty jokes and entertaining mistranslations, but frankly there are actually quite a lot of those in the contest itself. It missed an opportunity to be absolutely hilarious, and instead didn't do much more than just put the Eurovision on stage.

And that was my Fringe, really. Slightly odd to have family up there, but that HAS happened before, even if not since about 2002 when I last did a show. It was nice to get to know Fish as well, as a person and not someone on the other side of a computer screen. I can nearly think of him as a real person and not the goldfish he has as a userpic on MSN now... I was very glad he was there actually, or I'd have spent a lot more time on my own. I don't think I really assisted him in his attempt to work while he was there, but I think I did manage to drag him to some theatre he wouldn't otherwise have seen. I get the impression he's mildly impressed with my dragging him to see Little Red Things straight off, because he keeps hearing people talking about it and saying how good it is, which is quite gratifying. I'm becoming a Fringe veteran though - this was my 6th since 2001. I may well have spent more time in Edinburgh than I have in Cornwall. Weird. Not working was PGP was a bit strange this year, but I did hang around and stuff, which was sort of nice. I even turned up to the brand new kitchen in the bowels of Augustine's and made them lemon cake yesterday morning, just to get the full Fringe experience. And to make myself feel I'd earned the free ticket to Melancholia Jeff gave me half by accident because he thought I was working. Train back was dull, though I was glad I managed to persuade Carl to get my train back. In Cambridge for a couple of nights before the next theatrical adventure starts in Cornwall tomorrow. New cats on Friday! Woohoo! Need to see what can be done about llamas, too...

Summertime...

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Originally uploaded by hazelsheard

Must be just over a year since I took this picture, somewhere in the Brecons I seem to recall, on my way to Andy's house on the Llyn Peninsula in north west Wales. It was pretty and summery and I thought it fitted with a few days lazing in the sun in Cambridge.

I headed up on Wednesday, eventually. I discovered that my brother had put an enormous hole in the left hand front tyre (is that 'off-side'? I never know) by hitting the curb at break-neck speed the night before. This meant I spent about 40 minutes sitting on the drive changing the wheel, with the help of the resident black cat, who gave the car a thorough going over inside and out before sitting down to watch and pester. She's a lovely creature - she wouldn't get out of the car, though, when I wanted finally to leave. I had to push her unceremoniously out of the car and then chase her off so that I didn't run her over. Needless to say, the brother is not currently in favour. My dad's going to pay for the replacement, thankfully, which I'm getting done in Cambridge since it's frankly just as convenient to do it there as here, and easier to find a garage up there because I have a better network of people to ask. I've been telling everyone I've seen over the last few days that I changed a wheel all by myself though. Moderately proud of that feat. Shhh. I KNOW it's not really that difficult. Let me feel pleased with myself anyway.

Cambridge was great - the weather was beautiful, and I did all the catching up I wanted to as well as spending a considerable amount of time curled up on the lawn of 4 Adams reading. Hugh and Rob and Kate and Carl and Andy and I went to see the Simpsons movie on Wednesday. It was hilarious - definitely more a long episode than a film, but what else could they have done? We saw an early showing and then went back to Hugh'n'Rob's to make fire - all in all a lovely evening.

I met Fish for lunch on Thursday, and we ironed out all the Edinburgh arrangements. I also swapped my too powerful fish bubble making machine for his one, which is at least adjustable and only has one nozzle. I was thinking, if I get another tank and put it near enough THIS tank, I can probably aerate the two of them from the one pump. Would be a bit chaotic in this house though. Gah.

Went BACK to Newmarket Road on Thursday night to watch The Bourne Identity and cook a veggie tartiflette. That turned out a little more like mashed potato with bits in than anything with any texture, but I can rectify that next time. I think the answer will be to make it more like a gratin than a frittata thing. All the same, it was nice. Andy was very excited because he'd bought a whole keg of Heineken. *rolls eyes*. Methinks he likes me having my car around... Definitely fair enough though - he's done all the driving for AGES. Rob and Kate ventured in from pool later on, and then, completely randomly, Salvador turned up. He was really quite drunk and pretty miserable, due to man trouble in Edinburgh. More or less the first thing he did was ask Hugh to play him Jeff Buckley's 'Hallelujah', which he sang (loudly for the space, but certainly nicely). I wanted to show him Graham's version (not work/ordinary public safe), but Hugh didn't have a copy. Everybody should have a copy of that. It's awesome. Salvador didn't seem to be in a good enough mood to be permitted listening to the Jeff Buckley version on repeat though - I sent him the other version with the express instruction that he was to learn the words to THAT before he learns the original words.

I met Davina for lunch on Friday, which was lovely. Haven't seen her since my exams ended and it was good to catch up. Have offered her and Neil a bed in Cornwall on their way to Minack - my house is going to have certain hotel-like qualities over that week, but it might as well have a use.

Salvador mentioned on Thursday that he's still missing two female and one male chorus. I'm debating auditioning...I know I have another role, but I suspect that it's not really critical and could be managed if required. Things have been like that since I took that position deliberately because I might have to pull out. It would be sort of nice to do some singing and stuff, but I'm trying to work out if I want to. I'm still feeling a bit fragile, and if it went badly I suspect I would be in a bad way. Meh. I don't know how long I've got to think about it. The other thing is, there's a very very very slim chance that the SM may decide not to go due to personal dramas, in which case, I suspect I'm the logical second choice for that. It's unlikely that she won't go, but there's still that possibility. Have to decide what I fancy...

I spent yesterday in London with Graham and Jenny and Melissa and Kate. The latter two have more or less found a house, so were very excited about that. Melissa went off to New York today for her Merrill Lynch induction thingy, and she's away for 5 weeks before starting the uberjob she's got herself, so it was nice to see her before she sinks into high-powered exhaustion. Kate's around, but I'm in Edinburgh/Cornwall so probably won't catch her before they move in and her law course starts. Sitting around the table at the curry house yesterday, I was feeling very jobless and vaguely hippy scrounger. Meh. Still don't want a job though, even a job that I'm going to like. I need to do something soonish about that, but I still don't really feel any urgency to do so.

Nearly every blog post I've written in ages ends with a job worry. Maybe it's bothering me more than I thought?