Unbelievably I didn’t get up till 11.00. this morning.
The weather did not entice me out of the bed. My only excuse is that I didn’t go to bed till very late having been energised by MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG.
It’s a terrific production. The cast are strong, the direction slick and the audience up for it. The show works backwards. Three friends – in show business – relive their lives in retrospect back to the 50’s.
It’s Mr. Sondheim at his most cutting.
When they get to the last song, full of optimism and dreams I cried. All their joie de vivre having been sapped by the industry.
Squeezed past the applauding Japs in row ‘J’ before running to get the 10.30 train from Charing cross.
Rescued an Evening Standard from under the seat and managed to do at least half a dozen of the cryptic crossword clues.
The old git was waiting in the station car-park. I didn’t recognise the car since he’s had new wheels put on it. so I waited outside the supermarket whilst he was waiting the other end.
When I finally got up I did my Tibetan Five, meditated and went downstairs to a breakfast prepared by the dawter, who is recovering from living the life of a 26 year old. We ate guacamole, bean salad and a big green bowl of leaves.
At 11.00 this evening I realised that I hadn’t fitted my run in so tomorrow it will have to be up with the lark.
We drove to PLAWHATCH to take the milk bottles back, buy raw honey, and delicious organic brownies, NOT FOR ME, then stopped on the roadside to pick some wild garlic. The flowers are out now.
I was meant to be going to Johnny Phang’s book launch of THE PEPPERPOT CLUB a beautiful recipe book. It was in West London but I didn’t finish my work in time to get there. I would have been reunited with the Food Network and the lovely Barry, who I haven’t seen for ages. He is heading up a new telly channel and is chained to his desk most of the time. Felt rubbish that I’d let Johnny down.
I made dinner of griddled salmon ( I only ever cook it for 8 minutes. Knowledge courtesy of Mitch Tonks, most fish only like 8 minutes max. ), with those wild garlic shoots cooked in olive oil on a high heat, oyster mushrooms with garlic and cracked black pepper on a low heat and sweet potato mashed with a tiny bit of organic butter from Plawhatch. The orange, green and pink looked lovely on the plate. I passed on the mushrooms.
Jim went off to his ukulele rehearsal and I did my thing before sitting down with the girl and talking about life, art and why I’ve unsubscribed from most of Sky.
I am thinking about the next Potty Politics – please check out all eleven of them, although numbers one and two are dreadful we didn’t know what we were doing – but I have a speech to finish before I get to it.
I had another idea today for a tragic comedy, after talking to my lovely cleaner. I nicked some of her life and promised the names would be changed to protect the innocent.
I want to reveal it but it’s too soon. Joanne Harris uses twitter, and all her thousands of twitterererereres, to try out ideas on. When she writes her novels they become part of her process. I’m not sure the telly world is quite as generous. One whiff of a great idea and thirty three thousand vultures will steal it in broad daylight. So when It’s commissioned, or bought or scrapped I’ll share it with you.
Talking of stealing we have a visitor. MR CAT. He’s moved in next door. He’s old with arthritis, and a gentle temperament BUT we have had to resort to locking the cat flap.
He slips in, under our noses, and silently eats Emmy’s dinner, or whatever he can find on the work surface. Cat tins get knocked over and licked clean. The cat biscuit box gets knocked over and the contents crunched. He peers in the cat-flap, if he catches our eye he disappears, but when we aren’t looking Mr. Cat creeps in shiftily and licks Emmy’s dish clean. She hisses, he squeezes out the cat flap and she runs up upstairs. She spends most of her life now sleeping on our bed. Which would be okay but everything is covered in fur and paw prints.
It’s a game of cat and mouse…..
It’s 1.35 a.m. and I have a full card tomorrow so I had better get to bed.
At 4.30 I am gong to my beautician who will set about making me look young with whatever machines she has to hand. I will be battered and bruised for my debut show on Friday.
It’s a good job it’s radio. For all my Kentish bloggers. You’ll be able to see me in the studio if you come to Tunbridge Wells, and peek into the BBC studio window. You’ll recognise me by my black eyes, swollen cheeks and turban……