I’m sitting under a tree in Stanmer Park near Brighton. Lou is in a little village in the downs today working, and I thought rather than sod off back to London to sleep on my own sofa, I’d pick her up after work and spend one more night in earshot of the waves and in her good company.
It’s the perfect English countryside moment in the modern world. The ring necked parakeets are fighting with the starlings as they have been for just over half a century now. They seem to think, like we do, that impossible territorial disputes can be solved if they just shout at each other for long enough. If I tune it out I can hear the wind in the trees, the calls of the calmer birds, the lowing of domesticated animals nearby, the barking of dogs as happy as I am to be loose in nature on a day like this. But it’s an involved battle, and it’s right over my head.
Tomorrow I’m going to recall for an audition tape I sent from The Mornington. It went in a rush on the day I checked out so I condensed the scene to make it fit my purposes, cut all the other voices, sent my first take and didn’t disguise the fact that I was still laughing at myself when I recorded the ident. Sometimes recently I’ve taken twenty versions before there’s one I’m happy to send and then I’ve had nothing back. I guess there’s a lesson somewhere about how much time we can lose on these things trying to perfect them, when we don’t need to. “What’s for you won’t go by you,” I think is the saying. It’s not mine yet of course – just a pencil – but I’ve got a feeling about it. Probably the old truth that the more you need the job the harder it is to even get close to getting the thing. But yeah, I’m not sure when I’m going to recall yet tomorrow or what it’ll involve but it means things are slightly up in the air as always. I’ve only been back a day in England and that old unpredictability is right back. I’ll put up with it. Not a glory job this – a money job. My character name will involve a number. It won’t be going on the CV. But it’s good to tick over for me and for my agent.
London is most likely a furnace right now, and my top floor flat even more so. I was thinking of going on a mission for some of those sexy new fans for Tom and I, but when you think of it is never when you should get it with that sort of thing. Sexy fans are gonna be best to buy in December. Right now they’ll be thrice the price – although if I get this job I could buy ten of them. It’s only hot in this country for seventeen and a half seconds, so I reckon I’ll just enjoy it and have strange dreams.
For now though, I’m going to get up and engage the old calves. I’m gonna stump around these ancient tame woods, and then this evening Lou and I will get to stretch out on the dusky hillside at ditching beacon just a week before solstice, and get to be together in this blessed period where the days are filled with light and even the heat enthusiasts are thinking about buying fans.
AlBarclay 