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Effortless welcome day of nothing. Think you did fuck all? I’ll raise ya.

The wedding last night ate all my thinking. The first one where I had collated the material. Was it gonna work? Was it gonna land? Would we remember it? Venue fuckery made me want to turn in a blinder. Client was lovely. We nailed it. Then I walked home through late night London and stopped briefly under millennium bridge to dance with the guy outside the salvation army shelter who likes to make his vicinity into a little portable rave courtesy of a gargantuan backpack speaker and a bicycle. It puts me in mind of the “ghetto blaster” thing in the eighties. Largely, portable music is stigmatised. I sometimes like it when people break the social contract on purpose. I made an Instagram reel as it felt old school and somehow redolent of youthful freedom. I associate dance music with simpler younger times.

Today I lay on a bed with cats. I only really got up to make coffee. Ordered curry for dinner. Had eggs on toast for breakfast. Pretty much any effort was off the list, I really couldn’t be bothered to do thinking things, practical things, anything things. Didn’t even watch anything on telly. Played a bit of magic the gathering, stroked the cats. I’m a teenager again! Bedtime now and I don’t deserve it, but it is almost eleven and by rights I should have been asleep hours ago. I’ll drink a bottle of water and switch myself off, curl up with the fluffpots and see about being a little less of a nothing tomorrow. I did have a little walk in the evening. Wandered up the road, cut through the Chelsea streets, saw an old friend. And I’m knackered. Honestly, the idler we get the more tired we feel. This is a strong argument in favour of exercise.

What a lovely evening. I’ve been quietly nervous about it for a while. It’s another first. Client wanted a Midsummer Night’s Dream themed wedding entertainment. Couldn’t afford to pay for writing fee or costume. So Ffion and I worked for our basic. But we still had to write it.

Thankfully Ffi and I have been around the block by now. Between us we know a lot of material and we both have confidence with it as well. I collated things I knew we knew, she objected and rewrote, we both disagreed and then agreed, and we ended up with what the client wanted. “Themes of love, and Cupid’s meddling”. We had specific out of context bits that we needed to shoehorn in for him. So… we did. And it was good. It landed. And we made a new thing. From many plays.

Good people, getting married at The Globe (the swan) because they fucking love Shakespeare. Really lovely, and anyone who knows us knows how lucky they were that it was Ffi and I organising their Shakespearean wedding entertainment. The right combination of love and experience. It’s why I’m trying to hold firm with price for future work – sure they could save some money, but why not offer the client a good experience? I’m not desperate enough to engage in this race to the bottom they are catalysing. Let us be the expensive option for the client, they’ll get it back in feedback.

There’s a disconnect between the corporate, the education and the stage departments in that building. I would never mention in an audition for main stage there that I did this work for The Swan – there’s unnecessary division between the branches. But… despite that I know that I’m turning in respectable work with integrity that meets the client’s needs. I’m really fucking proud of the level of skill Ffi and I have got to with this event Shakespeare stuff. It’s perhaps largely venue specific, but we’ve got enough now that we could do it anywhere and it would land well. And it’s nice being good at stuff.

I haven’t been able to see past today for at least a week. The client is in events, so actually there’s loads of alignment in our lives, and the best man is also in the same game as me. We probably walked past each other at VSM in Paris, the client and I, or BCY. I would’ve been carrying a load of screws, he’d have been worrying about condensation on projectors. That crazy summer. But yeah.. different strands and yet we both know events and we welcome the madness that they entail.

A happy small event. Onwards now.

Powerful day today with a Shakespeare workshop. Amy was leading, this is a new company for me. She showed up in a branded tracksuit with a Frantic Assembly workshop and it was brilliant to see what she brings. I’m still building my workshop for this company. It’s not a high paid gig, it’s something for the gaps. Being part of her workshop today was very revealing.

I first met Amy when she was still at Guildhall and she thought I was German. She’s Irish. I had been drafted in to replace an actor in her year that had a breakdown and didn’t show up for the third year. I played the German juror in 12 Angry Men. She’s brilliantly reactive and her mind was blown when she discovered I wasn’t German. I wasn’t being method, she just wasn’t in the same play as me and assumed. My years in the German part of Switzerland likely helped my accent. I’ve occasionally had amdrammers query my German accent on stage because it is correct and not demonstrative. I’ve spent a long time with people who are German speakers but are using English to the best of their abilities. The key is about exploring the bits they’re good at and the bits they aren’t thinking of. Observation is better than generalisation. Ja ich bin Cherman is only gonna be spoken by people who aren’t trying, and the majority of Germans speak English better than the idea of them do. Bad emphasis, unusual sentence structure and lack of nuance is much more honest than any of that WW2 crap, but ignorance is pervasive in audiences as well as performers.

Amy ran a strong workshop and I’m very happy to have been included. Maybe a few minutes beforehand to work out what we were gonna do would have been good as maybe I could have run a voice workshop as part of it. But frankly, they got a cracking time of it from Amy. She’s very much about physical theatre, and brought in Frantic Assembly stuff. She hasn’t made the connection between Shakespeare and modern theatre, so is looking at the themes in isolation without yet noticing how these dusty iambs are extremely redolent as soon as you’ve cracked the initial language barrier. But for a devising workshop, she ran it super strong. I guess I would have liked to have got a tiny bit of the actual language in. But she quite rightly calls out to have more accessible new writing available in this industry. It’s true. We need a big melting pot for that. Maybe it’s time to drive one.

Up and out to Kentish Town. Clutch went with one of my P/Ace Van Hire vans recently and it could’ve fucked a very important day completely, but they’re treating it like it’s my fault! Kept the deposit. I’m “waiting to hear”. I was expecting an apology or a partial refund for the dicked clutch – Rhys messaged me immediately about it but it took most of the day to die completely. Perhaps they are reserving their refund for now because another of the vans had a fucked shutter. Either way, not good business practice. So I went to H&H which aren’t so well located but, having recommended Pace countless times, I’m very much unimpressed by their entire handling of this so far. I’m going back to my old standard. I’m tempted to go to one of the bigger companies as I kinda really want a flip top door for the extra two inches of room to pull in a tall flight case wardrobe, and the fact that all the shutters are fucked. Here’s the van when I took it.

The job was largely favours. Christine’s stuff needed to go from me down somewhere safer so now it’s all in Canterbury. The whole contents of her flat. She was evicted. My downstairs neighbour. I’m trying to help. Hopefully I won’t have it all for too long.

Then to Kingswood house to pull a huge great big oven out of a greenhouse. We wrestled it onto the tail lift and it came down with us, now it’s in Canterbury too for Brian. I’ve got big storage units while I look for a warehouse. I can do this stuff for people.

Then off. To Kent where an alien sarcophagus needed moving with a bunch of heavy boxes from Faversham to Canterbury where now it sits and will start to cost me until I find a damn ground floor warehouse space, 1-1.5k sq foot, maybe an office mezzanine, maybe plumbed, in my budget. I’ll find it, I’ll have to, but it ain’t gonna be easy with all the other shit I have to do and the fuckery of estate agents.

I’m back in town now, van went home no trouble, maybe Pace will pull their socks up here but so far the only communication we’ve had has been driven by me and I’m not happy about it.

Up and out to Brixton. Grabbing back a bag of body armour that isn’t going to be used by a Scottish play that I’ve helped to costume using my large haul of sexy free clothes.

I left Lou to it after slinging the sack into Bergman but suddenly found myself sleepy. I think my body is used to meat. I had a power nap and then back out and over to Ffion in order to work towards a wedding we are Shakespearing up at The Swan. It’s weird, they know we do a good service, but they kinda don’t want to pay us to provide it so this might be one of the last ones I do there and that’s just the way of it. I’m determined to do a good job of it, so Ffi and I hammered out some cuts and changes in order to make it all a bit more palatable to a wedding crowd. The client doesn’t want things to be crass so we are folding in much more lyricism than either of us are used to, and Ffion even less than me. If she had her way it would only be about a minute long.

We won’t be in costume for this one, it seems like it would be too showy and actually it’ll be nicer to look and feel like wedding guests but to deliver lots of lovely poetry. This is why he’s chosen The Globe for his wedding. I’ve done loads of lovely things up in that room and to a large extent Ffion is right, less is more, but I’m not gonna turn in fuck all, it’s not in my nature. Gotta get better at invoicing though. And tech in general.

I was at The Globe last night for a workshop that has resulted in me getting asked to be in a cue script Henry V at a festival in Wiltshire later this summer. I’m actually quite excited at the prospect – it’s people I’ve run alongside for so long it is almost impossible that we haven’t done things with each other, but we haven’t, so now is the opportunity. Festival Shakespeare, back to the bones of The Factory but older and wiser and marginally less likely to get my kit off. We shall see. I’m supposed to be playing a Welshman. “Never stop challenging yourself,” said Al Barclay. And frankly, I can’t do Welsh for shit. It slides alarmingly towards a nineteen eighties attempt at Bangla. I’m gonna have to be very careful, but thankfully Rhys has offered to help with the phonetics. A new skill by the end of it, look you. Or I fall flat on my face. And that, my darlings, is my favourite performance binary. Take the big risks. Try and succeed. Behave like you have. Win.

I can’t quite make sense of the fact we woke up this morning in Foston on the Wolds. But we did.

I got my 4kg of frozen Chicken of the Woods into a thermal box. We cleaned the place and changed the sheets back and did all the things one is expected to do at end of tenancy. Bergman was loaded up and we were on the road after just one more walk around the garden. That was a treat, that whole trip up north. I’m thrilled it ended with a licence for Lou. But… the south was calling.

We stopped briefly in the local town, horrid by comparison, and bought a burnt northern latte from a friendly kiosk. And then we absolutely burnt it back down south. “It’s good we aren’t in a hurry,” Lou occasionally mildly observed as Bergie and I ate the miles. I needed to get back by five. We were home at half past two.

The Chicken of the Woods was still solid so now it’s in my freezer and can be parceled out should anyone want some, and if not will very gradually dwindle over a long long period of time as I get better at recipes with it. It’s a complete protein and apparently comes with all sorts of health benefits.

I went into town. The Globe again, but unrelated to recent and forthcoming visits. There’s a festival show coming and I might be involved. Workshops today. Very very elucidating. I’m always happy to geek out about craft and these seem to be good people to geek out alongside. Joy and bombast and as ever I went in with both feet.

I’m tired now though. Got back home about half an hour ago and ate lasagna. I’m writing on the sofa as I don’t want to disturb Lou, she’s been asleep with earplugs in for a few hours now. Normally by this time I’d be in bed these days.

I’m gonna act on that and put myself down for the night. Much to do.

Thank God for that. Lou passed her driving test.

She booked this cottage for a week in Foston on the Wold. I’ve been driving her in for her regular lessons with Adam in Bridlington. She emailed eight to ten driving instructors a little over a month ago when she realised she wasn’t gonna be able to change her test cos the DVLA website is literally atrocious. Of the instructors, four were on holiday, four couldn’t be arsed to help her, Adam came up trumps. She had only booked the test up here thinking it would be possible to change, but change wasn’t possible. So we came up. It would’ve been an expensive downer if after this lovely week she didn’t pass. I turned down a lovely audition. Lou paid for the whole week here in this cottage.

It’s got a big garden, pretty well sheltered, that catches the sun. When we got home today I was happy and relieved, Lou was ecstatic. I got in the shower, scrubbed up and then went out and just lay on my back stark naked in the sun. When you spend all year moaning about the cold and dark you have to take advantage of these days when the light is full and the world is warm. I’m feeling a little closer to the tan I’m supposed to be. Just a few more weeks or months of days like this and better please, oh universe.

I’ve carried some work here, but this week has been Lou’s week and I deliberately cut back a bit. I’m glad of it, things are moving out there in the world. I wanted to take this opportunity and I absolutely did, even if it involved having to cancel some things. I managed to honour one job without even being on it myself. I’ll go back into the madness now and see where it all lands.

Oh lord, there’s a lot to do in the world. But for this evening I can be here and share in Lou’s happiness, and feel how the sun has been on me and know that there’s a lot of summer left.

Living in the countryside this week, once again my cycle has shifted so I just want to go to sleep with the daylight. There are owls outside just starting, but the day birds are still calling as the blutac colour in the sky still fades away to darkness.

I’ve left Lou to sleep on her own tonight as I don’t want to be snoring her awake the night before her driving test. She’s likely to be restless anyway and this way she gets to flail around and I don’t need to restrict my movement. This week has been building up to tomorrow morning. I’ll drive her in and then hang out and maybe have a coffee while she goes around showing someone how thoughtful and safe and competent she is now at the old driving malarkey so he can give her a certificate that lets her drive however she wants. Plenty of people get them who shouldn’t be on the road. She’s got the skills now. It’ll be good in her life. I’m happy to be here to support her.

But yeah, even though I’ve done very little today I’m ready to crash. We watched Life of Pi on Blu-ray and honestly I don’t know how we have let go of this thing of owning our movies and music so easily. You can get DVDs for peanuts now. Sure they take up space, but this thing where we pay for a licence that can be revoked at any time and everyone loses access when we die, that sucks for everyone but the people running the platforms. It’s not really an issue storing DVDs and pulling one out of a box and sticking it into a slot. It all works fine. I don’t like streaming. The same with games… My great big steam library will get locked eventually even if I give someone my password because it knows my age and it won’t let it still be accessed if I’m supposed to be 120.

The sky outside the window is oil black now. Just a touch of light still spilling back to us and it’s ten to ten. This is late for me these days and the cottage is silent now, no big roads nearby, very few houses. We went for a little walk through a secret door this evening. It’s bucolic and reasonably remote here, twenty minutes drive minimum for a coffee by someone else, although there’s a pub up the road by the river. For now I’m enjoying living here, I’m getting up to date with my admin. Before long I’d probably start getting bored, but not for a while. There are plenty of books to read, films to watch, trees to hug. If I lived here I’d go riding twice a week and be much healthier, and I’d rarely if ever see midnight.

Gonna slide to dreams.

I bought some art for Lou the other day. Found it at a local shop, it immediately jumped out at me.

When we drove down the lane to where we are staying, here in Foston on the Wolds, we both saw a hare through the window of the car. You don’t see them often. Lou has business with them, spiritual business. I saw a simple image in a shop but it immediately called to me for her. I’ve never bought any art so quickly.

An old German riddle reads thus: “Drei Hasen und der Löffel (or Ohren) drei und doch hat jeder seine zwei.”

“Three hares and their ears three, and yet each one has only two.”

The answer is a picture. A variant of this picture wot I bought Lou:

Loffel can mean spoon or rabbit ear hence the Alsatian variant with Ohren.

The image is circular. Each of three hares shares an ear with a neighbour. The hares are linked by the loffel.

I start with Germany, but this is older than that riddle. Throughout Devon and the South of England the motif is common in medieval churches, not restricted to edges where the makers marks are, but prominent. Often they are called “Tinner’s Hares”. Tin. We were selling tin globally, it’s what put us on the map. The Phoenicians were trading with us since forever. It’s why we think Joseph of Aramethea might have come here, perhaps with his apprentice Jesus, although that’s pushing it. AND DID THOSE FEET etc. Sure the thorn bushes in Glastonbury from Jerusalem, holy blood, holy grail etc etc. He gave his tomb and he was in tin… And hares are tangled up with resurrection and even virgin births through Eostre and various other mythoii. The Eostre Bunny comes when nature comes back from death, laying eggs.

Three hares three ears but each have two.

You’d be surprised how far back it goes, how widespread it is, this image.

Three. Think of triskelion and triquetra in Celtic myth through paganism and Hinduism to Christianity. Land sea sky. Mind body soul. Pitta Vata Kapha. Father Son Holy-Spirit. Maiden Mother Crone. Three three three, intertwined forever in this dance, all interlinked, bound together forever. Round and round and round we go.

You’ll find these hares in synagogues, in Islamic temples in Iran, in pagan and Celtic places of power across the world. They’re in the Yungang grottoes, the Mugao Caves, all over the art of 6th century Buddhist caves in China. Three and three and lucky lucky rabbits. Did they come to us down the silk road? Or did they just rise naturally? However it happened these little interconnected beasts have been hammering away at the edge of our thoughts for such a long time it is hard to contemplate how long. It is a satisfying symbol, and boy oh boy it really has been chasing round for time and time and time.

Like so many of these things I’ve probably seen it, been aware of it, never thought about it until just now. Now I’ve realised I won’t get to the bottom of it with the internet which is mostly copy paste and present as fact, where the citations go round in circles. There are whole books on this symbol, and loads of people laughably trying to tell us what the symbol means. Symbols defy meaning it’s why they’re fucking symbols, they mean many things all at the same time otherwise you’d just write it down in words. We are all so desperate to have everything fathomed.

Three hares, three ears. Round we go. It only works in a circle so they have to run together forever linked forever round. I have no idea what it means. Lou is driving. Wheels go round. Gotta be some lucky hare lucky luck stuff there, right?

Good old Roscoe.

I’ve been going to Woldgate Trekking Centre. They are just outside Bridlington. I found them online and rang them up a few weeks ago. “I need to raise my confidence on a horse again as I keep getting asked if I can ride by my agent and I don’t want to say yes and then look like a prat.”

Becky has taken me out a couple of times now, and man she really knows her horses. It’s a glorious thing to spend time with truly skilful people. She has a lifetime of care and understanding with horses and it really shows. I’m in good hands. Not like with the expensive chancers I gave up on in London. Under her observance it is all coming back.

Roscoe is his own boss and he isn’t very used to doing anything but plodding, but we seem to be getting on. He trotted a bit with me on top of a hill this afternoon. He’s only little in some ways – he’s short with a stubby neck. I feel much further forward than I’m used to. His little fluffy ears are quite eloquent and he’s an absolute fucker for trying to run my head into low branches so I gave to duck so it’s harder for me to rein him off the tasty morsels at the side of the road. I’m wise to his ways now, but he’s clever.

Just cos it’s the modern world we have to be on roads a fair amount. Cars that have to wait respond in a variety of ways, but about one in three they just sit there looking pissed off and won’t make eye contact. Friendly old Yorkshire and still the old “should” comes in, like those yobs that roadrage cyclists. “This unusual thing exists and my behaviour has changed as a result so now my latent rage is finding a target with the unusual thing.” “They shouldn’t be on our car road those horses.”

We were mostly on bridleways.

I’ve had a great day but mostly in the fresh air and lots of persuading Roscoe to trot. Just had a hot bath but I’m whacked out with the country air and it’s barely 9pm. Feeling good though, and very glad to be back on the horse. Next time Becky says she reckons I’m good to take him for a canter. Will he canter? He’s got long legs despite his little stubby neck… I’m up for having a go with him. Can’t tell the casting director I’m back on the horse unless I’m back on the horse. And once this week is over I’ll have to find somewhere nearer to home to tick it over maybe once a week. A bit of regulatory, I love horses, free exercise and it could help me get a decent job. Win win win.