It’s rutting season in Richmond Park, so they’ve closed the road through the middle to cars. This made it awkward for Tristan and I. We were following a pin he has dropped leading to a suspected Chicken of the Woods. Not to take, mind you. Foraging is illegal in the royal parks and I am a law abiding citizen your honour. We just wanted to identify it, m’lud. For reasons of curiosity and personal growth through knowledge of the natural world, guvnor. Nature red in gill and spore.
We walked half an hour to the thing, thankfully without getting attacked by horny stags. It wasn’t a chicken. It was some sort of polypore but it was so old it had mostly gone black and it definitely had no desire to be plucked and cooked had we been of the inclination which of course we aren’t, your majesty. Jethro hazarded a very old beefsteak fungus and maybe he’s right. Either way it was a delightful walk in the early evening through the largest of the Royal Parks.
Back in the day, when the world was less complicated, I used to go hacking once a week through Richmond Park, out of Stag Lodge Stables. I still know exactly where my jodhpurs and chaps are and I still find myself longing to get back on the horse. It’s on my CV – horse riding. I believed it might help me get on the plane to play minor aristocracy in some BBC period piece set in Somerset and shot in Bulgaria. But I literally just don’t know enough casting directors, it seems. A minor oversight. I didn’t think it important at the start of my career
I should probably pay to do some of those “meet the casting director on zoom” workshops but it always seems to be too needy and I wouldn’t be friends with someone who paid to meet me. Still, if I get to say “Shall we go hunt, my lord?” from the back of a beautifully trained Bulgarian steed, before wheeling and galloping off into the sunset then it’ll pay for some of the lessons and be lovely and worth the pride hit. When the industry wakes up fully again.
I’ve got my small part in a Netflix coming out soon and I bloody hope I’ve got a shot or two left in the edit. If I only sorted out my dreadful showreel I might get that sunset shot. But first I need the footage so I can sort out my showreel so I can get the footage. Round and round we go.
Meanwhile Tristan and I went to Waitrose and paid money for some chestnut mushrooms, which was the plan all along and not influenced by the inedible state of the suspected Richmond Chicken which we weren’t going to eat.
We had another driving lesson, with the poor Nissan, which will be no more than a pile of scrap metal before long. Somehow I’m going to get some better wheels now. A car that people can roll their eyes about affectionately. “It’s his pride and joy,” they can say, and they might be right. Problem is it needs to be a transformer, as I want one that is an attractive sleek jaguar type number that turns into a Luton van for moving lots of things and also into a big talking robot. And a kitten. That’s what I want. I might have to compromise on something…
Who am I kidding though? It’ll come down to what I can find that’s in whatever tiny price range I set for myself.
AlBarclay 