It’s the middle of the working week but I’ll be busy over the bank holiday so I’ll take my downtime with Lou right now. Although she’s in the middle of a big order of silk camisoles for some American woman on Etsy. This morning I watched her sew and had coffee, and a self tape came in. Slow August but it’s like my agent can read my mind. A bit of theatre? Oh what a delight, the prospect of employment that lasts more than a week? I had almost forgotten the smell of it. A tape for theatre, hopefully a recall in person, hopefully a little jobbyjob.
It’s not due until Tuesday so I’ll work it out later. I just looked at the script today, that’s all. Fun parts to play and inside my casting. The sort of stuff I’ve been good at forever but rarely had a shot at. Comedy.
So we drove to Alfriston. Lunch at The Sussex Ox which is a great pleasure of mine. Didn’t go and see my favourite tree which is nearby, but did stop in the Ox, where much of The Goon Show was written. Something in my body was having unusual cravings, so I had chicken liver and ox heart. Organs. Protein. By the end of the meal I was in a fug of endorphins. It’s good quality there, they source it all locally and the kitchen is great. A lady had her horses in the pub garden.
Then a stroll. A constitutional. Alfriston is a crafty little town, busy with traffic, lots of pleasant little flint buildings. We struck out across fields to Berwick church following The Cuckmere Way which is dressed up in the pageantry of pilgrimage – scallop shells and crucifixes, stamps in the church. Only a couple of miles and no stern Spaniards judging you at the end of the journey to determine if you warrant a proper Compostela or just a credencial.
Through the fields and into the lovely little church painted up by the Bloomsbury group. Then an early evening stroll down by the Ouse. Sparrows and herons. The river is still crawling its way through the rushes, and the heat of summer has stressed the berries into early ripening. The bushes are lively. We are shifting from the ripening to the rottening. Beautiful but you can see the edge of summer. The storm is coming. But not today.
Today was glorious. Was birds and sky. Still and heat. Lovely Alfriston. No wonder property costs so much down this way.
