Month: October 2023

I was gonna treat myself and ride up Swain’s Lane on a Dott scooter, but the bastards expect you to be carrying your driving license on you at all times. The sweat of the walk has probably been some sort of putgative. I’m still feeling a little sorry for myself but not so sorry that I can’t spam energy at a load of strangers for a few hours. This is, after all, my jam.

I’ve ordered a sausage from the pub. Local rain looks like it’ll hold off tonight which is a relief as I’m gonna be pretty shaky.

On the way up the hill, on the right, I saw Sheelah again, just moseying around in the most dilapidated part of Highgate Cemetery. I had my hands full and time pressure. Sheelah is a well signposted local Bengal cat, Hong Kong chipped and worth two grand to anyone who can tempt her through the fence with treats and then get her back to her generous owners. The first time I saw her was mid tour on Monday with a load of girl guides. “That’s the missing cat,” one of them observed, and had I noticed the price tag I might have made it part of the tour to try and tempt her over. It makes sense of why I saw a woman there at dusk last week with a packet of dreamies and a cat leash. Sheelah apparently needs her medicine every day, but the fact she’s gone feral in the cemetery for at least a fortnight now implies that she is more robust than her keepers allow her to be.

Now I’m waiting for my sausage. If I’d caught her this evening I would probably have had to try and carry her around all evening as I’ve no time to fuck around looking for where she lives.

People are talking about our tour at the table next door. “It’s funny. It’s not really scary though. Just get drunk and you’ll have a great time.” Oh God. Friday night and I’m under the weather. Here we go.

—

Eaten half the sausage. No appetite for more. I’m in a room full of supplies in my top hat and cape, getting ready to pop out. Do I have the energy for this? Do I have the voice for this? Yes of course I bloody well do.

—

But barely. They seemed to enjoy it though. Friday night innit.

Now I’m home, toasty warm in my electric bed after a long hot lavender bath. Gonna sleep until I wake.

Everything is hard work today. Just as well I’m not working. I slept the first half of the morning, cooked scrambled egg and then slept until mid afternoon. All I had to do is assess if I had the stamina to get my ass over the river to The Affordable Art Fair. It’s in Battersea Park and my nephew is director.

At about 4pm I decided I was just about human enough to go and look at things. I texted Shama to let her know and got a saucepan out. I’ve got this “Ceremonial Grade” Cacao. “It’s just hot chocolate,” said Jack, but I’m happy to buy into the idea it isn’t. I mindfully scraped bits off and made them hot with some chili and some cinnamon. Then I put my contact lenses in which proves that I literally will never learn. And then I wept as I stirred it all up with milky stuff and fed it to myself and Frank.

Tears are close right now with the early darkness. And add to that the fact I’m bone weary. Whatever my body is fighting, it is winning as can be evidenced by the rivers of snot. But my ability and my desire to be upright and mobile is stifled in the restorative sensations brought about by the absence of striving.

Frank had an audition today and now he has the familiar tenderness. We are our own worst critic and we can attach things to these meetings. I left him to go look at the art.

Medusa caught my fancy, but is it an energy you want in your home? She has strange beauty.

I prefer the fair to last year. There’s a lot more I like in my price range. It feels very positive and alive there as a place to buy art and talk about things. I wish I was not feeling so absolutely useless. All my muscles ache. My brain is full of soot.

So I’ve put myself into electric blanketland, and there’s a glass of water beside me and I did the awful tooth thing and now I can sleep and repair until Boy wakes me up at dawn. zzz

This afternoon while everyone was working, I put an electric blanket on my bed and topped it with a mattress topper. Now it’s before eight and I’m in bed and I’ve got no intention of leaving it.

Chicken Satay this evening and I got a bit too jolly with chopping the red chili up fine. Since I cooked I’ve been experiencing all sorts of new sensations. I put some chili in my eye taking out my lenses. Got chili in my nose too blowing it. And despite thinking I had thoroughly washed it all away, the process of jamming that instrument of torture in the crevices of my toothypegs has given me an all over fiery chili mouth to boot. I would be feeling sorry for myself were it not for this electric blanket making the bed nice and toasty, plus I’ve got myself a can of lager. Lager kills chili.

I’m mostly feeling sorry for Lou. She’s gonna be working until midnight in a stormy Bedford while I’m living this life of Reilly with an accessorised mattress and the luxury to shove chili into all my soft bits. I’ll be asleep before she’s finished at this rate.

The dark and the cold are closing in, and I’ve had time to notice it. My brief excursion to the outside world brought home a sense of general drizzly greyness, and a fading light at lunchtime. I’m glad not to be working today. I can have a weekend in the middle of the week and do the cozy things that make the cold world more bearable.

Frank, Boy and I have a pretty pleasant arrangement up here in the cold. Good food and fluffy cat, luxurious soft furnishings. Definitely got nothing to complain about. My mouth hurts and I’ve got a cold. But sleep will help with these things, and I can lie in my ‘jamas in my hot bed listening to the rain on the window and thanking the lord that this evening I’m not out there in a top hat shouting stories to strangers.

Dental hygienist.

I’ve been pretty bad at going to the dentist until all this tooth stuff went off the other week. Now I’m playing catch-up. There’s gum disease and if I want them to take me seriously I’m gonna need to be addressing it. She was good enough to be patient with me, but she got the tools out. I had some numbing but I know the taste of blood by now and good crikey she found a great deal of it in my mouth. The upshot of it all is that I’ve got some long thing spikey thing that is too big to jam between my teeth and I have to jam it between all of my teeth every day and at the moment this is a process that involves grand guignol levels of gore. I should perhaps have looked after them better, but she assures me it is manageable so long as I pay attention to it, so I’ve decided to trust her. Mornings are gonna be weird for the next month or so, but I’m told it’ll get easier.

People go to the dentist all the time. I’m just being a wuss. I bought a Laksa at Pret and went home in a black cab. Ate it at the table with cocodamol and waited for the sensation to come back. It was nothing like as bad as after the extraction. But all this dental stuff is just so close to the brain. I don’t like it. It feels strange paying for it. But… prevention. We all know in theory that prevention is better than cure, but we never quite complete the connection because the things we prevent never need curing.

With my face still screaming I went to a dinner party and ate my body weight in chicken. I thought I wouldn’t be able to eat but it turned out I really wanted grub. A lovely bunch of people out in Ealing and my first dinner party since COVID and maybe I should have some people over to my flat next month and get back into the swing of all that social stuff. It felt like my friend just wanted to be sociable, and not like I was being shoehorned into things for work or romance purposes. The only actor there though so the inevitable conversation after a while.

Now I’m home, full and socially replete. Back into the routine of tempting Boy to sleep in my room so he doesn’t jump on Frank. What a delightful end to a day that started painfully.

So this evening we had an extra booking from the girl guides. Something like twenty 12 year olds from Golders Green following me around. I’m still telling similar stories to the ones I tell the grown-ups, but not as sweary and cutting the drug references. Having to find a call and response thing as well in order to make sure they feel like they have their voice, cos kids that age are gonna take their voice occasionally if they aren’t given it. I’ll never be a teacher, because if you aren’t curious you can go fuck yourself. But I’m good at managing unruly youth because I was unruly youth.

We had fun, over the Heath and into Hampstead. There were jump scares and silly stories. It wasn’t too cold and the rain held off. My rainspotter app is golden for peace of mind, or the chance to prepare.

Now I’m home and I’ve ordered myself an electric blanket and mattress topper because that’s the game coming up. If the world is gonna get colder my bed is gonna be a haven. I’m sure Boy will respond well to this innovation.

I’m over it now for the week. We had a company meal but Chloe fucked off anyway. We will try for another one, but I think she’s a professional exiter. She’ll do the job and then you’ll see the back of her head. A good habit to cultivate perhaps. My duck leg cost me twenty quid, but it was nice to hang out with the troops after an early finish. The best thing about an audience of twelve year olds is that you don’t have to make small talk with them in the pub after, so we caught up.

Now it’s bedtime again. I’ll probably play silly games for a bit as I left my kindle in the car. I’m not gonna cost myself a bath this evening either. With no blanket I don’t have any inclination to exit my bed. So here I will remain. zzz

A small group tonight. I think I might have lost one or two of them on the heath. The front runners were walking FAST and I’ve got nobody bringing up the rear. Hey ho.

It was COLD. I am now very much looking forward to my bath. The solo walk back to Bergman on my own did it for me. Half an hour through the cold dark heath. The view is still breathtaking but it starts to wear when you’re tired. I had my eyes set to home this evening. We have done this a lot now if you factor in rehearsals, and we have to do it tomorrow for children. Tuesday they are mashing my face again at the dentist so I guess I’m looking forward to Wednesday for my weekend.

All the pubs had Sunday roasts. I smelt so many and ate none despite this cold bright autumn day being perhaps the posterchild for the Sunday roast – a tradition that I’ve recently learnt is not well observed in America. We’ve had lots of American walkers so far this year, and they’ve been commenting on it today.

I’m home and cold and I should have made sure there was something I could easily make warm to eat here, as I never quite get back to the Magdala before the kitchen is closed. Boy is being vocal, so I will need to play with him plus have a damn good hot soak before bed and it’s already past eleven. Got to peak late again these days. I’m not used to it.

Sunday evening. I haven’t had a weekend. It’ll find its time. For now just the same old wind down truck, and maybe I’ll allow a glass of red wine now I’ve got the vacuum pump. It’s genius. Means you can have a glass and you needn’t neck the bottle.

By the time I get to the end of the run I’m gonna have thews like Conan. I have to leave Bergman at the bottom of the hill as a changing room. So then I’m slogging up Swain’s Lane, which is San Francisco steep, with a doctor’s bag full of costume and wearing a riding cape and top hat. “Are you a ghost?” asks a six year old. No, I’m a grown-up pretending to be a ghost.”

What a way to make a living.

On the way past the cemetery today I spotted this sign. Evidently the zombie problem in the cemetery is such that they have to make dedicated thoroughfares:

The Flask is too pricey to drink at so I’m just having a mushroom soup. Costs about the same as a pint and it’ll give me the energy I need to push out into the cold. Temperature has dropped. Every day feels closer to winter. I’m gonna want my electric blanket before long.

Right now though it’s a weekend of yomping through the streets and heath, making stuff up and mixing it with truth. Stories. Fancies. Jokes. Fun.

I left my torch in Bergman today. Shame. I almost went and got it but honestly I just can’t face slogging up Swain’s Lane twice in one day. Not until I’m fitter in a few weeks time.

25 minutes to go. Time to switch my head…

High winds and heavy rain at the start of the walk, and I was surprised how many people gathered. A man with a knife through his head was telling his friends how haunted The Flask is. I told him a little bit more about it. But mostly I was just gathering myself ahead of the first walk.

You never know until you’ve done it.

We had a full house booked, and most of them showed up. We started promptly and it was axing down. The paper maché chicken will be slimy now. It’ll need some good weather to get its form back. It is a delightful thing and well worth it even though Siwan wants to burn it. That’s something I’m beginning to understand. It’s a seasonal prop, and hasn’t been used for the last few years. This year it is back in play, but only because she has stored that huge great thing in her flat for all the intervening time. More so than my battered stovepipe hat, it takes up space and is only used occasionally. Who knows if we will do it next year, and if we do, will we start in Highgate? It’s only useful in Pond Square.

Out into the flood we went, and it was surprisingly well received. The group stayed tight, which I didn’t expect. No stragglers. And we had some Americans that tipped us. Winning. Gotta love the Americans. We’ve started a kitty. Who knows where it’ll end. Probably here.

And I’m home and the rain has stopped. 100% precipitation at the start of the walk and it still went well. It seems we have attracted a rugged and hardy bunch, and we are offering something sufficiently weird and delightful that they will follow me into the wet. Good. Hooray.

I’ve ordered chicken wings, and a beer. The Deliveroo driver will be here shortly. I’m gonna read my book, stuff my face, and pass out with Boy. Tomorrow the same again, but less rain. Yay.

Today was a down day in the flat, continuing the endless task of sorting things out. Sheets now, and making sure that the nice ones are in use and the unnecessary ones are donated. A simple task, but somehow I’ve accumulated lots of sheets. These ones went on for autumn. Others went in the pile for charity.

Boy is settling in now but he is very vocal if I don’t get up in the morning. He likes to be entertained. The headbutts started at half five and I fed him, but he wants to be entertained and I wanted a lie in. By mid morning he was whacking me every ten minutes just as he wanted to play. I tried my best to ignore him but by eleven I was jiggling around a mouse on a rope.

The slow process of sorting and getting rid of things is bringing gold to the surface. There’s lots more to do but I’m happy with what has happened so far and feeling very chilled and intentional in my space for the first time in never. There are standing lamps I’ve had forever but now with bulbs and shades making things feel cosier as winter comes. I’ll be in Jersey for December, but hopefully can get a great deal more done here before I go.

First walk tomorrow and now I’ve done it in the rain I’m ready for anything. Hopefully they’ll be a fun and hardy lot to start us into a new season. It’s a long walk this year but I like it, and I’m glad to have a distraction and money coming in as things are getting colder. I haven’t really had my summer fix, but these few warm weeks were a plaster. I fear we might be into the bluster now.

Test run for the walk. Lou was in town so she could get the first half before the train to Brighton. This dress rehearsal is always a bit kamikaze for me, and I can say that with two previous years under my belt. I know what I think the walk can be, but until there’s an audience it’s hard to make sense of it. I’m trying stuff out, scratching. “We need another 5 minutes,” I was told about a residential street. There’s nowt there but … the guys need a costume change. Improv time.

This evening I played with my group, using the truth of the fact I was filling time, joining them in the creation process. A big area that I had earmarked for a story had been filled in with roadworks barriers and a davlav. There was an Amazon delivery guy. It all ended up built into a delightful mischief story, pretty much made by the group but spoken by me. Likely I’ll use bits of it again, but it’ll never be as fresh as tonight when we were all a little unit, laughing hysterically in the rain about something as ancient as the art of making up a story in the moment, but enjoying the fact that we made it together live. I don’t remember who asked “Is the Davlav haunted?” but “I was afraid to call your attention to it, as it isn’t just haunted, it’s dangerous and let me tell you why…” There’s something about visibly flying by the seat of your pants that really floats my boat. Here with this walk I’m the point of a triangle, but there’s no right way up for a triangle and there are two more points. It’s me in my hat thinking I’m leading the way and then all the unusual humans who have decided that a spooky walk is the way to spend the evening doing interesting things as we go. They feed the material. I just have the map. And the mouth. And then some wonderful humans do their own peculiar little scenes as we go.

It’s an evening job for this month as we get used to the fact that the world is getting colder. It’s a friendship group doing something we think is fun in the belief that others will agree. It’s entertainment. I’m happy to have it in the diary.

Things are getting wetter. Maybe we will be rained on lots… My little group tonight helped me see that this walk – it works in the rain as well. It’s easy to forget it, but people havecome expecting a long walk. They get one.

Lou always had to leave halfway to get back home to the cat. We both are slaves to the fluffy ones right now. It was wonderful to have some time with her in my city. I love this place and its ways, I’m part of it now. Lahdahn. Bring on a month of leafy Hampstead evenings…

This is rushed but I’m knackered.