AlBarclay

The carpets have been taken up here. Spiky things are across the doorways. Last night, barefoot, I spun 180 degrees on my heel with my full bodyweight on one of the spiky bits and it chewed a hole in my hoof all the way to the red. That’s quite an achievement too, my feet are horny, like the cloven hoofs of deer. I wouldn’t have thought it would be possible to get to the red without a multitool so I’m impressed with myself and the chewing capacity of that fucking carpet catcher.

I unstuck my foot from the bloody sock and sat in the shower and cleaned it thoroughly. Didn’t find antiseptic but it’s not bad, it is mostly dead skin there anyway, and it only just got to the red, but just as my toe starts to settle the heel on the same foot mangles and I’m thinking the universe doesn’t want me to be going fell walking this week as was my hope. I’m not walking far at all on this as it is, inevitably, exactly where I put my weight. There’s a lot of hoof around it though so I’m just walking off balance or putting my toe down first. I’ll be fine. This is just bad luck and maybe we register these things more as we get old.

I hucked out the guinea pigs. There’s a neighbour who brings her mother’s Daily Mail newspapers and drops them off in an opaque bag at the door. From thence they go to the shed. And their next destination is under the straw. To my mind it is something of an exalted destination for such objects, to be drowned with the piss and shit of rodents. The filth of small animals going onto the filth of small animals.

—

I stopped writing because the sun started changing. There’s a sunset chair in the garden. The cat and I were sitting there. There’s something about these astral events that connect us all. We are so small. It helps us remember perhaps that we really have to cling to the things we can reach because we are a spot in infinity.

I’m off to bed, happy and tired. Have been communicating with lovely old friends this evening including Luisa from my Camino, just to check in after the quake and the idiot getting elected.

Next door the lads have started digging. That’s an organised neighbour. Liz and Luke are away for a fortnight so they brought in the digger and a skip. Who knows what they’re up to but they’re up to it now.

I sat in the window and openly watched them work over a cup of tea. The driver clocked me. I mimed pulling a ring pull and he smiled recognition. The neighbour’s kids were watching him work too. It’s interesting watching a man work a digger and he worked it with skill in a confined space.

It was cold enough at night that I’m putting on a duvet. That’s unfamiliar after the summer we have had.

So yeah. This is what I’m doing now. Looking after creatures and a home and winding down as I go.

Nothing is open in town on a Tuesday, but I drove into ALDI. “Oh here we go, look,” says an old white guy to his wife as I walk by. He ends up behind me in the queue and he is making small talk which I’m not great at but I’m trying and my accent likely pacifies him as it is similar to his but he still can’t help asking “you’re not from round here are you?” There’s no malice in it. I’ve got a big bushy beard again, I’m in the look where a renowned agent literally said to me: “Go and live in Afghanistan or you know somewhere and learn Arabic and you’ll never stop working”. I’m a benign middle class male creative currently looking after fluffy creatures in The Peak District but apparently I look like Osama bin Laden.

I have done some scouting of the local area but largely I’ve stayed put. I want the cat and the neighbours to trust my presence beard or no beard. The neighbours are right on top of us. Their kids go play on the trampoline in the evening. An old guy is growing tomatoes in the greenhouse, this is shared space , brilliantly and as it should be. And there’s no physical divide between the properties at the moment at all because of the works.

The first time I met my neighbour Jo, I kid you not, I sat down in what I thought was a private chair overlooking the garden and put my hands down the front of my trousers to adjust my bollocks – nobody wants to pull them down – and suddenly she was there looking and smiling at me as I extracted my hand from my trousers.

That’ll be all over the village by now. She pretended she hadn’t noticed.

It’s lovely being here but it is also nothing. I have learnt to be close to the job. That’s why I still persist with London. It’s so easy to be forgotten. I like it here but the machine is elsewhere.

Right now though the machine is in Edinburgh and so is my agent so… fuck it, this is a shot at stillness. I wouldn’t want to be doing Shakespeare in a garden for acorns right now anyway. I’m happy to just breathe. I needed this. I’m very happy that Liz needed someone to watch the fluff.

Four hour’s drive up here to Chinley, with the last hour mostly beautiful.

On the way up I drove past a huge great big retail complex. I was getting head-droppy and figured there’d be coffee. I also stopped into Markyparky for a fish pie. “What town am I in?” I asked the lady at the counter. “Chesterfield.”

My toe hurts less. My jaw hurts less. I’m here now and it is still and peaceful, with occasional small trains.

There’s a dependent cat. She reminds me of Carlos. She was on my lap earlier. She likely will sleep on my bed. She likes human company so if I’m not here she’ll probably go sleep with a neighbour.

There are two guinea pigs. I have very limited experience of the creatures. Charles had some in the garden at Avranches growing up, but a fox took them and we learnt never to speak of such things going forwards. I picked these ones up and moved them to their hutch. One of them squeaked at me the whole way, the other one just enjoyed the ride. I’ve given them celery and hay. I think they just eat and sleep and poo. I think that’s their jam. That’s all folks. Eat sleep poo repeat.

They’re safely stowed for the night and tomorrow I’ll put them back in their run in the morning. I just chopped up some apple for them. Their appetite seems to be boundless so they’ll be the bulk of my work, they love that lettuce. Likely we’ll get to know each other, these fluffy things and I. They’re just like big hamsters. I had a hamster once as a child and it definitely wasn’t killed by a rat, it escaped by pulling a hole into the cage through the bars, mum told me.

There’s still grass here on the lawns and it’s mostly green. That’s the advantage of being high up and further north perhaps. Most of this country is so arid this summer of drought. Lucky guinea pigs here – that they can still run on green grass.

It’s 8pm. I’ve had a fish pie. Feels like that’s all that’s left on the list for today. My bed is at the top of the house. It’s much cooler than London so I’ll be happy there, surrounded by big posters of my friend performing.

Likely I’ll just stop and rest now. It’s what I need, what my body is shouting about.

So I THINK that what I did was that I pulled the quick out of my toenail when I was assessing the damage from the stillage. I remember thinking at the time as I twisted that bit of broken nail out that “I might regret this. I might get a lot of pain for this later…” And then I pulled that bit of nail out the side and felt that crucial little bit of skin go with it.

We’ve all pulled the quick out before. If you haven’t yet I suspect you’re the exception. When you do it it feels like nothing. Twenty four hours later your finger or your toe hates you. It lasts about two days.

Toenail pulling was a well represented form of harmless torture. Start by pulling the toenails, then twisting the thumbs, then whatever you reckon is gonna do the trick – cut off the Johnson? But you don’t want to cause despair too early. Hope is the best weapon. So the continuous pain as your body puts that bit of skin back, that’s gotta be gold for your average family torture guy. A tiny thing for a big effect.

But… yeah, that’s been my day. Hating the pain in my toe. Working really hard vocally to try and encourage bravery and offers in a short rehearsal process with a load of people who aren’t professional actors. I always attack first and then pull back, it’s who I am. The Factory has spoilt me slightly in that I know people are listening and watching enough to build something together LIVE. Without that support, I tend to overpush looking for it.

It’s a lovely bunch. But fuck me, someone hits their own sides every fucking line, literally, not twenty seconds went by without a one or two arm sideslap. It drives me mad. And the PRONOUNS! Like there was always someone else about to do what WE did. No no no no it is almost always what we DID, or what we THINK we did.

So yeah, I was overpushing vocally in order that we all don’t look like we are leaning back and speaking words that aren’t ours out the side of our mouths. But in so doing I did something unusual to my jaw muscles. Now the pain in my toe is nothing compared to the pain in my face.

All will be well. I’m going up North. I don’t have to do much. I’ll look after some guinea pigs and a cat. And I’ll do fuck all for a while. All will be well. Maybe I’ll write something.

Just one more drive. I’ll try not to sleep weird on my jaw…

I wasn’t wearing steelies and I dropped a stillage on my ingrown toenail. I should have been wearing steelies, sure, but I always worry that if I get run over by a truck they’ll cut all my toes off. I own a pair of them but still I prefer to just be nimble. The ingrown toenail means that if someone blows on it I’ll scream anyway. If I’m working with more than set dressing I might get them on, or frankly if it’s not my site. In terms of what could have happened, what was risk assessed, it was smooth as you like. Two of the lads left a handbrake off (to my knowledge) when they got out of the van but neither of them killed an old lady at a bus stop. Greg and John both butted a heavy pendulum when we took a blanket off a grandfather clock but not hard.

I’m now standing on my owie toe outside stage door in Victoria to catch Lou after a show she’s covering. Her train is booked at eleven, show comes down about now. It’s the only chance I’ll get to see her, as despite my romantic hopes of a sojourn in the lovely Peak District, it doesn’t work with her schedule. This time last night I was already asleep and had been for two hours.

It’s twitchy outside here at this stage door. I’m staying pretty aware of my surroundings. There’s crack addict behind me tweaking out about how someone robbed her of a tenner and a fiver “as usual”. There’s a security guy with a big helmet on from The Keyholding Company. Black cabs with their lights on are queuing up to get people as the crowds predictably come out. I reckon it’s a good hunting ground.

Here come the actors. Autographs and photographs. This particular machine has been packing them in for so long now. It’s all very convivial, “oh my gosh you’ve come a long way! Hiya! Wow!” And sitting next to us on the floor the angry addicted lady on the pavement is looking for something inside her trainers. London. It’s not the warzone those idiots want to make it, but it has always been volatile and alive and sad and loose and mad and varied, particularly on hot summer nights.

—

It’s fun watching the cast come out. Mixture of types. Some very extroverted, others excellent at switching it off.

—

And Lou emerged. We sat in a quiet spot at Victoria Station for a snatched moment before she got on a train back to Brighton. Absolutely lovely and much needed just to be be with my exceptional girlfriend even for twenty five minutes on a balcony full of dropped chips.

I’ve been rehearsing Sir Toby Belch today up in Harrow. Only did him once before a fair few years ago now with AFTLS, so this time I won’t have to have a fight with myself. It’s another of those things I do just for the delight of it, and to keep the connection with my old school. When I was there were far had various actors who still showed up for it. Some are still around. The OH play is an institution and this year they’ve managed again to get it put on at the Sam Wanamaker so sod it I’ll go and enjoy myself because that building carries positive energetic associations for me. The lions gate. Glad I’m rehearsing something.

One final day of sorting things out and just time to drive back to London before I hit the wall hard. That’s it now for today, there’s nowt left in the tank. It’s just gone 8pm, Brian and Maddy have gone for shisha so I had a bath and walked around naked and now I’m in bed bed bed oh joyful bed.

Last night Canice and I slept in neighbouring rooms in the Keynes block of the Kent University campus. A little single bed. And student breakfast the next morning. It’s alright for £70 each. Big old plate of sausage and beans set me right up to empty the shipping container and consolidate everything into Armadillo. Next job is to get it all out in September. But this next fortnight is a time of stopping. Not that I’m capable of that. I start rehearsal tomorrow but I know the lines so reckon it should be something to enjoy.

Mid morning I posted Rhys’ wallet back to Stratford. There was a little bit more thinking and sorting to do but mostly I just wanted it all to stop so I pushed towards that and managed to get myself home early evening. I thought I’d do all my laundry tonight and maybe cook dinner and send an invoice but instead I grabbed a plate of sausage and mash with John as he had my driving license and left my stuff in my bag. No more sorting things out today. I’ve had enough.

The party boats are in full swing outside. Every time I look at something right now I assess it. Every time I hear a rattle on the road I wonder if the load is properly secured.

I haven’t had a day off for a long time now. By the time I get up to the Peak District I’ll have forgotten what resting is, just in time to do lots of it.

I’ll do some now though. Sleep before nine. That’s a win, even if I just got asked if I’m going to a friend’s party. No.

Done done done. Chairs went to charity.

There’s a great delight around working with actors. Honestly it’s fantastic if the balance works. We’ve been in digs, getting into site early. Morale has been excellent. There’s always the possibility they’ll get a job, but I’ve got enough competent friends by now that I trust it’s fine.

Sure, some employers have a swarm of people on close to minimum wage in hi-vis and gloves… I know those teams, they do get things done just through numbers and averages, but as soon as they aren’t told exactly what to do they stand around. And it is usually a horrible day.

My guys make decisions. I don’t always agree with them but I always support that they’re doing it. Siwan was listing stuff to sell online as we went. She often disagreed with my pricing and didn’t take my suggestions, but… that’s why I employed her. I haven’t got time or headspace to make all those calls, my focus is on clearance. And she’s adaptable and brilliant and can do the lifting or tools too if I ask. My team is a bunch of opinionated creatives who can all properly graft. It’s a team I’m at home with that a lot of people would suffer with just as it is FULL of personality. That’s how I like it. And I would recommend these guys to anyone, the ones I’ve settled with.

It’s down to Canice and I now, the rest I’ve sent home but they’ve gone home with laurels and that was always their job time.

Rhys is going back to Stratford. He’s been great for his OCD packing and his eye on fairness. Mark slung his tipper back too. He’s been great for morale, big and glowing and sensitive and his energetic bubble is vast. Canice is the guy I always recommend first when I can’t do the acting job. He’s nothing like me but we are both the same category of human. But he’s practical and ordered while being clever about the unusual. I work very well with him. And John, man I just love John. He was in my year at Guildhall, we lost each other by mistake for a few years during the struggle afterwards. We are reunited and I adore him forever. He’s extremely handy, knows how to graft, gets it. The way this team works now, I could absolutely run a big event with them. I’d just need Lou on her laptop or someone else as organised. Sylvia.

The only downside to actors on events is: “I can’t do the race in Chile, I’m filming for one day in the middle of it.”

That thing we actors have as our primary focus? “Acting”. It can make us noticeable to the boring people, who usually also assume our motives are corrupt. If you’ve got personality and you have an insecure manager (so many so many, the scum rises to the top), they need you to be subordinate and beiger then they are … So you’re fucked if you do my job.

I try not to let on I’m an actor these days on events or any handy jobs, or in general frankly. It’s a boring conversation even without all the fucked assumptions. Lots of people around me know and weirdly find it interesting or positive which tends to blow my cover to the people who think it just means showtunes and moaning.

…

But yep that’s the end of the job. Me and a load of handy performers and we got it clear. I would trust them all with my life, even if sometimes one of them jumps out of the van and leaves the handbrake off and runs back to it just in time to stop disaster. Twice. I’m told it’s to do with the handbrake on the van being bad… and somehow I find it very convincing… Surely nothing to do with their skillset of convincing people of things…

Tomorrow we are consolidating, Canice and I. And I’m dropping off a load of stillages on the way home. And then straight into rehearsal dammit for the OH play which I’m too much of a pushover to say I won’t do when they ask me… Plus it’s at the Wanamaker… Too much of an alignment…

Call me if you want free chairs and the earlier in the day the better.

In Sittingbourne there’s this place called Jack Crush. It’s sanctioned. I think it’s called Sittingbourne Recycling falalala. Something discoverable. And if you’ve got a van, they will fuck you oh hello how delightful please come in here we go oooooof.

Bang.

I was absolutely dreading another job in the same area having known how much it hurt the last time. They took all my carefully sorted wood as “mixed” last time. “The people who take our wood haven’t taken it so we’re full.” “This has nothing to do with me…?!” So we had to drop our wood as mixed. After all the time we spent sorting it.

Three days we dumped wood as mixed and were charged hard. I really didn’t want to have anything more to do with them after that. The amount of metal they got out of us too… We had time pressure and not much experience, frankly. But they really made hay.

It’s a thing perhaps – they’ve got a great business name so they can take the brand out on their customers. They made loads out of me back then. Loads. We all learn. There are many better options that are harder to find and need more heads. Now I’ve got someone on the team to help find those options.

Siwan is here, thank fuck.

I haven’t got the headspace for moving stuff online within this job so I booked her for partly that reason and partly just cos I trust her and know her skillset. Nevertheless when someone shows up with a trailer and buys seven stillages it feels like witchcraft. I know these things are worth money, but… this is the world: If you have space you have the time…

If I had a warehouse for free, I’d be rich. But … land land land. So I’m moving them on, and I need Siwan as much as I need the lifting sorting thinking boys. I have way too much to think about. She’s handy. She can get into the boxes with the wazzer and then she can help try and find people that want the contents.

I think she’s found buyers for some of the stuff that’s worrying me. But there are some chairs… I figured I’d send them to Jack Crush first thing this morning – trauma bonding – but they rejected them. That way, by rejecting the bulk of the load, they could leave the chairs on the van and charge me their exorbitant minimum for the rest of the load. £111.24. For a toothpick. Fuckers. Never again no matter how far people have to drive.

“Oh no we can’t take them chairs guv they might have flame retardant stuff in them guv way too much we can take that toothpick but that’s the lot guv honest guv but there’s a minimum charge”.

Pigs.

I’m still knackered. I’ll emerge from this tomorrow afternoon. But… until that warehouse is empty I’m balls to the wall.

If you need some chairs or some stillages there’s two vans going back to London tomorrow from Kent near Canterbury. Anywhere along that route.

Five of us are sitting here after a big long day. It’s beautiful. Whitstable, The Old Neptune, seats on the beach. The lead singer of The Cuban Brothers gave us his table and some local recommendations. Good lad. I immediately liked him. One of us one of us google goggle google goggle etc.

The thing that’s worrying me right now is the stillages, which are worth money but I’ve got no time to list them for collection so I’ve outsourced it and people can get as many stillages as they can carry for £30 each cos I just want them gone. A man called Chad has already bitten for six of them. It’s a mad deal. If you’ve got a warehouse or anywhere to put them you can easily move them on for much more money over time.

But this is the job. I’m finding homes for things QUICKLY. The lads know that if they want something they can have it, but they do have to run it by me and today I had to arbitrate it. There are a pair of heavy duty sewing machines and two of the lads had it in their piles. After some thought I took them out of both. They know Lou, so they get the fact I’m pulling one out for her. The other one I’m gonna sell, because despite my love for these lads I’m trying to make money here when it comes down to it and I’m paying properly.

I’ve spent so much on storage this year because I’ve been busy. If I take on a load more stuff I need to make sure I’m not being an idiot about money as usual. Sure the stillages could go for much more but if they go on someone else’s truck they go positively and not on my clock. Time is not on my side.

My head is so full though. All I know for certain is what I’ve destroyed. All the things I’ve kept? No idea what they are. But I’ve had John photograph the lot going in.

My team is perfect, I’m so happy. A group of friends and creatives who don’t do this all the time but take a similarly strange joy. Right now we are all watching the incredible sunset from the Old Neptune in Whitstable after the perfect post work fish and chips. Clouds catching the light as the sun ducks under to give us all a moment to rest. Back into it tomorrow first thing. Here we go go go…

—

Canice took a picture of me writing to you. He sent it to me as a kind of gotcha, but I’m happy to see it. A reminder that we can be in our phones and in the beauty simultaneously. This is the dumb flat face of these scribblings – I’ll often try and find a glorious place to be when I make them.

Right. So I’m the gaffer. Was it wise to have oysters? Likely not. There’s very much not an R in the month. I’m in Whitstable and didn’t think about it until I got into my flat just now. There’s way too much to do tomorrow and I’m gonna get it done so if there’s any shitting through the eye of a needle to be done I’m hoping it happens sooner rather than later. Whitstable is an oyster town. We went to a seafood place that comes highly recommended and most of my team thought the service was rubbish. But it was a pricey meal. And it was on my company. And there were oysters involved, if only for Canice and I.

I went off to my own little gaff tonight as the place I first booked can’t sleep everyone like I hoped. I’m there now with a fan blowing, but right now I’m up and down every few minutes. It’s half ten. So long as it doesn’t get any worse I’ll be fine, I’ll be empty before long, I just don’t want my body to go into poison reaction as that’s a long and extremely unpleasant process of emptying. In this heat with this job tomorrow…

Oysters were never a good idea. My body knows them, sure and I can hope towards that. I grew up in Jersey. My inner fire is extremely zealous. But tomorrow I’m the gaffer and the gaffer is gonna be much more use if he isn’t shitting himself, especially considering this warehouse is barely plumbed. If I was home I’d eat some bread. But I’m in a badly thought through flat with stickers on the glasses and excruciatingly dull art. It’s another IKEA buy to let monstrosity with adjectives on the listing that have nothing to do with how generic and soulless it is here. Despite the free chocolates.

So yeah, hopefully I won’t shit myself to death in this insincere polyester sweat trap. There’s a fan in the room. I’m gonna leave it on. The blinds were open so it has cooked in here. Very few people if any have slept in this bed. I hope I will. I’m not feeling ill. I’m gonna go back over the clam post from Camino and compare symptoms as I started that with no clue where I was going…

—

Ok good, I’ve read back over myself from that last time I had food poisoning, and by the time I was writing this I was already in full flow in both directions. Fingers crossed then. I was thinking it was just an emptying, and not the marathon that was to come where piggy pillow saved my life. In that convent last time they had real sheets and God. Everything in this adjective laden apartment is made of plastic and is soulless.

—

I bought a reciprocating saw today (distracting myself with tools now). I’ve wanted one for a while and it is a very good way to get crap sofas out of small places. It’s the closest I’ll ever get to a light saber. You don’t need a chainsaw license unless you’re determined to chop a big tree. This thing eats chairs, arms, sofas and shins.

And apparently Canice is just happily gurgling with his tummy. So yeah, I’ll just get myself to sleep on this atrocious plastic sweatbed and trust in the gods that all will be well tomorrow. I’ve been worrying for a while about this job. I’m sure the tummy bubble is just part of it.