Up and out. Van day van day van day.
I tried this job a few weeks ago and then they didn’t have the keys to the venue.
Jethro and I met by the lockup. We took all the clothes Siwan and I (mostly her) sorted in Old Street out of the lockup. We slung them in the van. Military stuff was pulled aside for use in JC. The rest to Canterbury.
We stopped at a coffee stop on Camden High Street with an old friend, then over to Shoreditch.
George has got a venue for a deli just across from box park. It’s gonna be a deli/restaurant and it should be glorious. They’re opening in October most likely and need all sorts of things. First they need to get all the chairs out, and maybe get a few settles in. Down the road, Andy has a great big pub venue and he needed to get five settles out cos he needs chairs. Alignment. So we did a swap in the Luton. George recorded it all for his socials. Then Jethro and I drove to Canterbury with a van full of clothes.
While Jethro was depositing clothes in the front of the storage unit, I was buried in wheelie wardrobe Tetris at the back looking for boots to wear as Antony. I think I found them. Then I just made sure I had the camo trousers they want, and we turned to that fucking oven.
I brought that oven down months ago, but it has always been earmarked for the Shoreditch venue. Brian had had it in a greenhouse outside Kingswood and I had to get it into the van ages ago and pop it into Canterbury. Back then in Canterbury I scavenged a pallet and indulged my new love for the pallets and it has sat there for months waiting for its big moment. That’s today.
Getting it back in the van was easy as there was a pallet truck. Getting it out and through the narrow door back in Shoreditch was… much harder. George is skinny but determined. I’m stronger than I look but tender. Jethro is thankfully much stronger than he looks. All that gardening. I tried it for one day and needed two weeks to recover.
It was Right Said Fred without all the damage getting that oven through the door. We ended up taking the knobs off, and the doors off both of the oven and the kitchen. Getting it in finally was very satisfying, no ligaments torn and hey, hopefully it’ll work or I’ll be taking the fucking thing back out again. We put the deli door back on, but the oven door is still off. It’ll make it easier to clean. If I’m not much mistaken it’s the fucking oven I built into Limehouse close to a decade ago for Christmas Carol. We put lino down in a freezing warehouse full of dogs and rats, plonked it in there, and it died on opening night so 8 of us including me as Scrooge in my nightie ended up bussing plates of food out of the local pub and down a freezing street in the rain. Into the back door, past that fucking oven, into the mouths of unsuspecting patrons. Oh the magic of theatre… I think it has been properly fixed now at least.
I’m knackered. Want to go to bed. But quickly gonna drive my homeless friend to Waterloo as he has the option of a place with a door he can close there. Three nights on the sofa here and it’ll be nice to get the living room back even if I’ve enjoyed him being here.
AlBarclay 