A quiet day today. Despite this being an event, most of the people working it are still taking the weekend off. A chance to sort through things and really make sense of what’s available and what isn’t. I’m on the response team and it’s always good to know what sort of things we can get hold of easily to solve any issues. Prevention is better than cure.
I’m slowly making sense of Paris, but it’s not a great driving city. Gridlock and the French road system, and the French drivers. The system is obtuse, not horrible, but it can be very obtuse. You’re better off if you’ve looked at a map first, as it’s easy to miss a turnoff if you don’t know the name of the road or the place you are going towards.
My problem with French has always been my ear. I can gladly create a monstrous chimera of a sentence that gets my point across. But then I can’t always parse the reply, and the more I have to say “please speak slowly” the less easy it gets all round. This evening, listening to the football, I noticed my brain has started arranging the parcels of sound that before it has just filtered out as noise. Something in me is sorting and interpreting. They aren’t saying interesting things, but I’m beginning to understand them. Good. This event is in France, I’m working it. My French needs to be as good as it can be to help solve whatever the thing is I’ll need to solve.
I’m happy with the work so far – apart from the drama at Grand Palais. My job on stage is drama. I can avoid it when I’m not working surely? I usually do. I’m not gonna let myself get swept up in it next time someone tries to be a douche. There’s just too much to do. Which is why I’m surprised so many people take the weekend off. Quality of life, you say, and yes I suppose if you have a family then you need to spend time with the children. I take such an inordinate amount of pleasure out of my work, be it event work or acting work, that the work life balance thing is less relevant, as the work is the life. I do miss Lou, but she’s an event worker and self employed as well. She gets it and is similarly working hard and long hours right now.
I got paid for some invigilating today, and it did make a difference, but I can’t tell you how lucky I am this came in when it did. I was thousands of pounds out of whack and beginning to quietly panic. This will get everything back to the right side of zero in time for me to start in Stratford. My mood has always been affected by my solvency or lack of it. It’s a blessing to know that after a long stretch of hard work, I’ll be out of the red in time for Othello.
Tomorrow will be another working day, looking at supplies and finally doing what I like to do when I arrive in a new place – a full scout of the local area, filling my maps with pins to local businesses and photos of what they have. Amazon Prime lives here so the whole world is a day away, but sometimes there’s less than a day in hand. Better to have a solve in the back pocket and not use it. The quicker and more efficient I can be grabbing things and communicating etc, the less likely something like yesterday’s misinterpretation by Rk and Bob can happen. I know and care about this work, and it connects me loosely to dad who was a winter Olympian many times over. I’m happy. And tired. And there was no hot water when I tried to run a bath but I’m hoping it just runs out in the evening. We’re in a new Airbnb. Quite a lot doesn’t work.
AlBarclay 