AlBarclay

The last of tonight’s fire and I’m sitting next to it with Rajah next to me. Keeping track of time tonight. I ought to be in bed in a more timely fashion than yesterday. No owl outside yet. Just the clicking and hissing of the fire. Peace.

I’ll have a week here after Budapest, but I’m back up to London tomorrow ahead of the filming. Lou and I watched Saltburn tonight in front of the fire. Another unusual and inspired British film. Cleverly cast and told so well. I really enjoyed the nuance in the dialogue both in writing and delivery. Some bright performances from less familiar faces.

Walking around this morning in a break from the rain, we found flooding everywhere. All paths led to puddles. With the January we just had this all must be wreaking havoc on crops.

This house was built on a footprint. That’s how they got to do it so deep in the wood. Likely a gamekeeper’s cottage or barn. My friend rents it now and has filled it with creatures. There’s peace and quiet. It makes a change.

On the flip side, three power cuts tonight. For the last one, everything was down for a clear minute and we were just lighting candles when it popped back on again. I suspect the rain brought a tree onto a line somewhere, but these days there are always alternatives. I did have a moment of realising how cut off we are here despite proximity to civilisation. No mobile signal, but strong WiFi. No phone line – it’s 2024. The power went and with it went all our comms. Loads of candles as our friend is woo-woo too. But even though I do workshops in schools highlighting our thoughtless dependance on the grid, for a moment I realised how much I take for granted in terms of communication. And that we have all lost an emergency band with the fazing out of analog signal. If I lived here all the time I’d have a radio set up like one of those nutjobs in America.

As it is it is all just part of an enjoyable break from the norm plus cats.

The problem with cats is they are so chilled. You can get swept up in it.

I’ve been sitting on this sofa for hours, in this quiet quiet home, and Carlos has been breathing into me as I sit. Behind me there’s an owl hooting, Lou has been sleeping for a few hours now, Rajah is out hunting again, and somehow I’ve allowed myself to be pulled into a purry little vortex of time. I can’t believe it’s suddenly past midnight, but it is. Time to write.

This is Carlos.

Carlos was sleeping all day under the duvet. Now he’s sleeping on me. He prefers warmth over breathing, it seems, and often pushes his face down into the cushions. He only eats wet food and he’s a total whore for strokes. He doesn’t care a bit about snacks.

This is Rajah.

“All ginger cats are mad,” says Frank on WhatsApp. I think he’s right in this regard. Rajah lives in the woods. He’s domesticated feral. This morning, Lou was up before me and discovered a mouse head, eyes wide open, and viscera spread artfully on that carpet – just outside the bedroom door. She was barefoot but lucky. I’ve stepped on such things before. The rain must be making for good hunting – flushing the poor things out of their flooded holes. This evening he came in with another one, small and pale, hopefully dead in his mouth. We were still awake this time and he fled back outside with his prize. I think he likes to get his meal out of the rain first. He only eats dry food, but it seems he’s eating the spoils of his hunting. I hope he doesn’t like birds too as I put a load of fatballs into the feeder. February is a bad month for naturally occurring bird food. That owl outside though is likely enjoying the flushed out mice as much as Rajah. It’s worth going out in the rain when it is as waterlogged as it is right now, so long as you eat mice.

There’s an Airbnb across the way, currently occupied but often empty. If we hadn’t gone shopping they would have been the only other people we were aware of. Who knows how the guy got planning permission for these two homes, but they aren’t on mains water properly as they are deep enough into the woods. You can drive to a Jempsons in five minutes so it’s not like I’m Joseph Campbell here. But it feels thrust away. I like it. And I’m very much enjoying the energies of the cat on my lap, the very vocal hunting owl, quietly sleeping Lou beside whom I will shortly be trying not to snore, and Rajah the ginger hunter. The log fire is dying, it’s late. I think I’ll put the kettle on for a chamomile tea.

I thought a trip to Heathrow and back from Rye on a Friday wouldn’t be such a big ask but it took me all day. I dropped Bella off with no issues whatsoever and then went home via mine. Into central London and back out again on a Friday. That was my mistake. Every queue you could imagine.

In a fit of misplaced optimism I trusted Google when it routed me through Croydon. Hours later I found myself at the turn off to Birch in Selsdon. Looking at the signs still there made me sad.

Birch was a lovely thing in theory. I got to know the one in Selsdon as I was a Panda there for quite some time. It is a vast building and the new people running it were lovely idealists. They were rewilding the golf course and trying to run a member’s club out of it. They made the most incredible swimming pool, imported a few pigs and cows and the like, slung hammocks in trees and invited a load of young businesses folk to join a gym and coworking space and so on, with bars and beanbags and restaurants building menus out of local produce.

It all very suddenly went into administration and then, shortly afterwards – more’s the pity – The House is St Barnabas in Soho, which also ran Birch – announced a sudden closure. That place was very special, but Grade 1 listed and renovations can be punishing when you have to use horse hair plaster. It was a member’s club that trained up and employed people from Soho who might have been slipping through the cracks. It always felt a little less bum than some of the other members clubs in that area. Birch and Barnabus both lying empty now, and I’m wondering what will happen to them.

There’s a little patch of Croydon that probably has rich bird life now because of what they did a Birch. Hopefully whoever takes over won’t make it into flats. I bet they do.

I’m in the woods again. Tomorrow I’ll just get to exist here with Lou. Today was spent driving, with my eyes streaming from contact lenses, I hoped, or perhaps this damn February cold.

Good food, good company, cats and recovery. Should be a great weekend.

Two cats live here. Rajah and Carlos. I expect you’ll all be sick of photos of them before long. Tonight I’m too tired. Not because of them. Looking after them really only involves keeping the food topped up and telling them how beautiful they are. They have an outside garden and they do all their stinky things out there no matter the weather. No litter tray! Inconceivable!

I’m tired just because of this atrocious weather. It was a long drive from London to Brighton and then from Brighton to Hastings with faulty wipers through an assault of sheeting vicious flood. Visibility went with the dark and it was just vile for much of the way. I knew there was a Lou half way and then a log fire at the end of it all.

India Rakusen kept me company most of the way with her BBC podcast “Witch”. Worth digging into for sure. A measured blend of facts and woowoo, and plenty of food for thought over plenty of episodes. I’ve only got two left now and I’ll be driving a good four hours tomorrow. I’m taking my hostess and the cat mum off to Heathrow so she can fly to Goa.

It’s 30° in Goa. Why the fuck am I not flying to Goa? Better by far than this unseasonal bad weather in South English February. How dare it still be winter when there are daffodils in the verges? The flat is full of cut spring flowers but there’s been so little sun they haven’t wanted to open yet. I can feel it retreating, but yeah, I suppose the rainy season is still to come. February early spring is perhaps a function of my optimism more than a reality. It’s coming though.

Lou is with me in the woods for the first few days. Once I’ve gone to Heathrow and back we can catch up here where there’s no traffic noise and two affectionate fluffy idiots. There’s an Airbnb nearby that has people for the weekend, but it is rarely tenanted at this time of year so mostly we can hang here and forget the hustle and bustle.

After the weekend I’m doing that spot of filming and then shooting off to Budapest for a wee jaunt on my own. Then I’ll be here a week or so with the cats and perhaps another friend. For now it’s late and I’m up early for the chauffeur service. Time to go to bed.

I’m shifting my base for a bit. There’s a friend of Lou’s who lives in the woods near Hastings. I know that woodland pretty well from summertime visits to a patch of woodland owned by my dear friend’s uncle. Bella has two cats and a roof over her head, but she’s pretty much in the woods. And she’s off to Goa. Someone needs to look after the creatures. A change is as good as a rest, they say. So I’m gonna go live with the cats. There may or may not be another friend there at some point. I’m pretty chilled about it all, really. I’m mostly thinking about the cats and the sunset through the trees.

I guess it means I’ll have to pack a basic bag tomorrow morning though. There’s a fair amount going on. Sure it’s only one day of filming, but that’ll be happening on the 13th and I’ll have to be on form. “I like your humility,” said the wardrobe mistress today and I told her I’d be showing off about that later. A comment that comes from someone who is flooded with people who look and sound like me but are pompous egomaniacs. Even more than I am. Writing words about my life daily. Maybe that’s a benign way for the narcissism to come out. Rather than being a shithead to everyone. But yeah, bless her. She thought I was nice.

Fuck. Maybe I am.

Nice can still be sexy. Sexy-nice. That’s me. Yeah…

She was dressing me in the most horrible clothes. And she took one photo with the jumper I was wearing. It’s red cashmere – the garment you wear when you think you’ll be spilling wine down your front. I got it on Vinted for tuppence.

Bedtime. Need to print some stuff out in the morning before I leave, and get the paper etc. Admin never stops.

I was in Walworth today attempting to get some young people to switch their heads on about energy consumption. It used to be a living but the company seems to be slowing down at the moment. Most of the people I knew who teach these workshops, they’ve all gone off to do more predictable things. Muggins here keeps his options open on purpose. Muggins had to get up early post poker.

A predicted, I woke up somewhere in Elephant and Castle with a Vanilla Latte in one hand and a muffin in the other. No contact lenses and a vehicular soup between my flat and the caffeine. I shoved my lenses into my newly caffeinated eyes and zinged the rest of the way to the car park and the big room full of youth.

They’re good this school. Last year I was there with no printouts and no screen. I’m supposed to be running a PowerPoint. The whole event devolved into theatre. The kids seemed to enjoy it. They asked for it back but this time there were tables and printouts and it all felt more official. There was even a volunteer from the National Grid. Wasn’t expecting them, they didn’t really know why they were there. I don’t think they spoke to a single student for the whole workshop. Just looked a bit fazed and smiley. Like me before the coffee.

The day did the day thing thing and time moved as it likes to and eventually I got to go home. Now it’s into the bath and another early bed cos there’s an Addison Lee showing up at sparrow’s fart tomorrow to take me up to Mill Hill and a costume fitting. I won’t have to drive or prepare though so I’ll make a coffee in the bubbler and carry it. But still, still I struggle with that bit of the morning before half seven. Thank all the Gods I’m not a schoolteacher.

These workshops are easy now. But the easier they get the less I want to do them. Maybe I really am a masochist.

Poker.

I almost took the pot. Got my stake back.

We weren’t expecting this.

Adam catalysed it all. He just casually suggested maybe Brian he and I should come play poker. It ended up being a lot more people. Brian’s business partner Louis very much wanted in on it. I wasn’t concerned about the win or the loss, but that was where the game was going to be pointed.

The excellent thing was that Louis talked us all through the betting, the blinds, the game of it. And then he took the pot. I fucked up royally on the biggest hand of the night, being convinced I had an 8 and then, when revealed, discovering it was a 5 and I had nothing instead of the winning 3 of a kind I had been playing. But the host taking the pot on the first ever night isn’t really etiquette. Louis was a gracious winner. And it was nice to see all the humans.

Jack and Adam from this year’s Carol. Louis who was there for many of the squeakier moments over the years, making it all happen, trying to troubleshoot the explosions. Brian and I, and it’s glorious having him here again. I’m thrilled about it. More humans were there too, but etiquette.

I’m working tomorrow in Walworth, at arse in the morning. Early enough that I’m gonna lay my clothes out when I’m done writing so I can ghost into my car while I’m still asleep. The good news is there’s a predictable Gregg’s in a petrol station ten minutes from my house towards work. That’ll be my wake up.

For now it is bedtime. A lovely lovely inaugural poker night for BarclayHook Towers. I’m battered and have to do unfamiliar things first thing tomorrow. Night night.

A&E in this country must be absolutely run off their feet. With all the funding cuts over decades, the gradual trickle of the glacial dismantling of the system by the implacable plastic men at the top of the system right now must be stretching our friends the care workers that CARE to breaking.

GPs now have to be booked about a week in advance. By which time the flu you had has either killed you or got better. So we all have to go to urgent care in order to get a prescription of antibiotics for a septic tooth.

I have scavenged a fair amount of antibiotics over the years, a good two courses. They are for emergencies where something definitely needs them quickly. Say it happens on a Friday night? Then it’ll save me a trip to A&E and five hours or more waiting because they have to bump the guy who fell into a vat of tapioca up the list ahead of me.

What’s the solution? More funding TO PAY THE STAFF WITH. Captain Tom knew this, but nothing that he earned walking went that way. It went to NHS Trusts, which is like Pizza Express saying the tips go “to the advantage” of staff, meaning they build a training centre.

We can clap all we like, but these people are working incredibly hard for us and everything is being defunded, including them. They make it work. just. But they do it for complicated reasons of their own. And eventually most of them are going to get squeezed out. Apart from a new government that isn’t made of plastic and lies, I’m not sure what we can actually do to save the ruins of this incredible healthcare system I’ve lived with all my life.

Lou went to A&E today to get a prescription of antibiotics for an infected bite. That would normally be a GP thing but on Friday they had nothing until Thursday. That’s a mess of a situation. Means you can only really use your GP for routine medical check ups. Anything pressing and you just have to go to A&E…

I’m at home, trying again to chip away at the mountain. Progress is being made but slowly slowly.

I’ve been saying I’m gonna get myself to Budapest for the best part of 25 years now. The amount of times I’ve earmarked a weekend for it and then something has come up … it has got to the point where my friend out there jokes with me about it. “See you in Budapest on the weekend,” he’ll say, knowing damn well I’m not gonna be there.

The opportunity came up again and it looked like a good one. Lou was gonna be working there and I wanted to meet the people and see the show having not done so yet. It’s never very near London. I booked a flight mid February with Wizz, no refunds, no luggage.

Lou’s circumstances have unexpectedly changed and she won’t be there anymore. I could bin the whole trip, but something makes me want to finally see my friend and his town. We were at drama school together, forever ago. He’s still doing this silly job. We are brothers.

I’m gonna go out, I think, finally. I’ll try and see the show anyway, and catch as much of the city as I can. It’s something to look forward to at the end of this long long winter.

Meanwhile, in America, the groundhog predicted an early spring. I like to think that the groundhog’s predictions are backed up with serious scientific work, so if it’ll be an early spring over that side of the pond, there’s no reason we can’t have one too. Maybe it’ll be springtime in Budapest.

I’m still half expecting something to happen that means I have to cancel again… I’ve got a day on set before I fly. Betcha it gets pushed to the next day…

Hopefully when we wake up it’ll be tomorrow. You never know with Groundhog Day.

I thought I’d go look at the news for a change, and very quickly established that that’s a mistake. Iran and USA going big guns at each other as another head of the hydra that started with Ukraine and will lead to Taiwan via everything. And closer to home some sociopathic children murdered someone for being trans. I’m sure lots of lovely things happened recently but those are the easiest stories to find and I’m not sure why I looked at it now. It’s all vile.

I didn’t leave the house today and probably should have. I’ve been a bit of a morlock. Snotty coldy nose isn’t helping but hopefully by tomorrow I’ll be feeling less rubbish on that front. Even my teeth hurt. I need to see the sun. Morning is the only time. So I’ve sent myself to bed. I might even have a sleepy drink and just nod off into crazy dreams so I know I’ll wake up refreshed and early enough to catch the light tomorrow.

Another week. Time just flies by. I have too much hanging over me at the moment and need to dig dig dig up towards the light. But it’s all too easy to just let the days tick past accompanied by these feelings of powerlessness. I really ought to find some legal advice. But pulling my own socks up will be a starting point. Yesterday I was so upbeat – I’ve just had a day of heady coldiness and it has ground me down a wee bit.

Weekend stretching out in front of us all. I can’t believe it’s Friday night. I’ve never felt less like going out on the town than I do right now.

My sugar craving has been fixed with a mug of Ovaltine. I’ll probably feel a little less crap in a day or two when any remaining alcohol is out of my system. Friday night? Not this week.