These 'phew' days

It’s been hot recently. It’s October so we didn’t really expect it. Yes, there were weather forecasts for an Indian summer but, honestly, who totally trusts the weather forecasters? I can see how it is by looking out of the window. Predicting how it will be is a different matter and they sometimes get it wrong.

Phew! It’s been hot. Hot and sunny. Occasionally hot and humid. Here ends the weather forecast or whatever the opposite of forecast is because they do like telling us how it was as well as predicting how it will be.

I don’t think I have detrimental MS effects due to heat. I may not think so or rather remember so but in fact I do. I get tired. I dehydrate quicker which has very bad effects on me. The trouble is I love being out in sunshine.

The excellent Multiple Sclerosis Resource Centre http://www.msrc.co.uk/ put this on Twitter recently: @MSRC Heat Intolerance Page You may find this page of use over these 'phew' days. http://bit.ly/nyOuXk

I may be easily pleased but I liked the use of ‘phew’. I hope there will be more days of sunshine. After just a few my spirits feel lifted. Perhaps next year I’ll even get the chance to wear a bikini. No, maybe not. I’d need severe body shape changing first.

For the Longest Time

It’s that time of year again. I’m not there but I have hugely fond memories of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. I went about six or seven times in consecutive years. Four of those years were with productions rather than just going to see other people’s shows.

When I was at university going to the Fringe was a major summer focus.

We were all-singing, all-dancing in the days before most companies were out on the streets publicising their shows. We were organised. One year I was the company administrator and I remember having to get people up after our late night binges to go out and drum up audiences. We had good audiences.

In 1985, the LA Times witnessed our routines in front of the Fringe Office. We got a big picture in their newspaper – it’s crumpled and blurred but you can still make out our striking T-shirts through the rain. 

I regret not being able to find my ZTC T-shirt now. I probably had cut off the sleeves from the start – that was the fashion then. I may have used it for painting in since. Perhaps it got splattered. I don’t know where it is. Not that I would wear it but it is a reminder of the songs we used to sing. Like For the Longest Time

We changed the lyrics to include show titles and venue names. The songs became our publicity vehicles. I still hum the tunes even if I don’t remember all the words we used.

Recently, at a friend’s 50^th birthday celebrations, another friend and I started singing some of our bastardised versions of the songs. It seems like the tunes will be in our heads for the longest time. I know we performed at a venue called Celtic Lodge perhaps there was one with chapel in its name which would have lead to a version of this song: Chapel of Love

My memory of recent events may be bad but some of my memories from years gone past are the sweetest things.

(NB Nothing to do with this but I quite like the video! - Sweetest Thing)

What the future holds...

who knows?! 
You may have long term plans. I don’t. I never have.

I very rarely plan anything ahead. I don’t have a personal five day let alone five year plan.

There are exceptions. My diary is now littered with hospital appointments. I am hosting a Cake Break in aid of the MS Society in exactly three weeks’ time. This forward planning is unusual.

My normal response to invites to future events I would like to attend is either

a) a regretful ‘No, I am already booked for…’ or

b) a tentative ‘Yes, depending on work. But I am currently available’.

For me, work comes first. By work I mean acting commitments. Over the years, friends and family have had to get used to me dropping them in favour of jobs. I missed my first cousin’s wedding because of a theatre tour. I only have two first cousins. My family were not at all impressed.

In 2005, I agreed to go on a going-abroad-holiday with a good friend. I rarely have holidays. I am reluctant to book ahead for things in case a job comes up. It is a common phenomenon for an actor to get a great job as soon as a holiday flight has been paid for.

This holiday was to mainland Greece to join in the celebrations for my friend’s Greek friend’s wedding. My friend wanted to go for at least 10 days. I only had 7 before a good theatre job started rehearsals.

I suggested my friend could stay for longer than me but she felt it would be simpler to book us on the same flights and accommodation so we just went for a week. It was a fabulous holiday. We saw amazing places like Epidaurus, Mycenae and Olympia.

In fact all of my (very few, all bdx) going-abroad-holidays have been excellent. They have often been booked at very short notice because I rarely commit to things in advance. Many castings come at a matter of days or hours notice. Jobs get cancelled or rescheduled. There are no certainties.

In 2000, I went on a Nile cruise with my then boyfriend booked less than two weeks before. It was a fabulous holiday.

The Greece trip was my last going-abroad-holiday. That’s nearly six years ago.

I’d quite like another and now that I’m not injecting it would be a lot easier. Although I don’t want to travel alone, at least I wouldn’t have to consider potential complications of taking needles and non-oral drugs onto a plane.

I don’t know what my future holds but a holiday would be good.

One Royal Wedding does not a Summer make

It’s the UK. It’s Spring. (I know it’s officially British Summer Time in that the clocks went forward on 27 March but climate-wise I think it’s Spring.) I recently saw a commercial about Springing into Summer. It’s a bit early for that. Especially when the weather here is so variable. And when it’s still only April.

I wonder how many days of summer there’ll be this year.

I am a huge fan of sunny, summer days. I can spend all day outside reading. I probably get through more books in the summer than at any other time.

I can’t focus on books when I am in rehearsal, learning lines has to come first and sometimes the words of a book can crowd out a script. When lines learning, I will sleep with my script on the bed next to me in the hope that the words will somehow creep off the page into my head whilst I sleep.

I am good at learning lines and roleplay briefs. I find it easy. Or perhaps I used to. I remember one summer learning the whole of Lady Macbeth for a production that was to be rehearsed over the course of a week or so and then toured for many weeks after that. I wanted to be off the book (lines learnt) by the time rehearsals started because it was going to be a tall order to get them all crammed in otherwise. I did it. It was a bit of a nightmare job but I think I was a good Lady M.

I used to be a reader in bed at night but over the years that has become very intermittent. I do sometimes now listen to audio books which I never used to enjoy. I still prefer to see the words in print as I have a visual connection with things which is probably stronger than my aural one. And I’m a voice over artist!

The remaining constant in my reading pattern is the sunshine devouring of books and, to some extent, magazines.

I missed summer 2009 because of my dx coming in June. I missed a lot that year. I think there was sunshine. People would visit me in hospital wearing summer clothes and the sun out of the ward window beautifully lit up the neighbouring cemetery. Nothing like knowing where you might be going.

I don’t exactly remember what happened to last year’s summer. Perhaps we didn’t really have one in the sense of lazy summer days. Perhaps I was too depressed to notice.

Now I want to experience every moment of summer I can. I want to be outside. I want to read whilst lazing in the sun. I want to have picnics, bbqs (vegetarian for me), strolls by rivers and canals, visits to the seaside. I feel like I’m owed a summer and I intend to have one. Once Spring is over.

(Whilst we’re waiting - Here Comes the Sun)