meltdown 8 November 2009
I have calmed right down, my dears. Sleep deprivation led me to quite a heightened week just now and whereas I felt okay for most of it, and work was great, any challenges that might normally have been easy to despatch were mountainous and I overreacted to a few a few too many things. It reached a head on Friday when I got to Manchester airport, having missed the flight I should have been on, and was told that I would have to buy a whole new ticket…for 235 quid. It was the straw across my camel’s back and I went into meltdown. Indeed apologies to the airline staff if they actually saw the full force of it, though I had kinda moved off by the time that happened. I did try to reason with them and point out that I am a VERY frequent flyer with the airline and have enough points to get several FREE flights from the company on the back of that, but to no avail. In the end of all I just couldn’t bring myself to pay that sort of money (I had thought it’s be the 35 pound change of flight fee) and I phoned Richard, upset, to say I was going London-home, not Dublin, because I felt it morally wrong to fork out such a huge amount for a one way trip. There is also the factor that I was going to have to turn around in less than 48 hours and make the return journey and I am fairly sick and tired of airports right now. And I have had a quiet, solo time here in Soho and feel the better of it. Hey, I even got some sleep (and therefore am puffy-eyed and wretched-looking because of me facial muscles relaxing – eek!).
I think there are a lot of reasons why this has come to a head. As you all know, I live in a hotel most of the week and as lovely as it is it’s not exactly home, I have been sleeping badly, I suspect the old perimenopausals are trying to get hold, I am under huge pressure to deliver a book by Christmas (and it is vastly complicated and ambitious and I am terrified of it a lot of the time) and I’m holding down a (lovely) tv job…and all without what I might consider a quality of life to show for it most days of the week. And no beloved G cat to advise me on how to progress. It’s something I will have to have a good look at and also a situation I cannot let out of control – I’ve got to be in charge of this one – all over it like a cheap frock (no better woman in that department, surely, I hear you mutter – cheap frock? oh yes). And, thinking about it, I wonder if I mightn’t get a section of novel out of it??? Hmm, things just got a whole lot more interesting…
cream 7 November 2009
I love a product and can surprise myself every single time I believe I have found a Great One. The latest is a face cream that promises the earth, but mostly to diminish the lines and wrinkles on my face. Why I think this one will be any different from all the others I have tried over the years I don’t know, although in its favour I will say that the man who sold it to me (not off the back of a dodgy lorry or anything but at a wonderful skin clinic in Manchester – the Castlefield Clinic) uses it and his eyes in particular are remarkably unlined for a man of 60. I’ll let ye know, though I would love to think that it’ll be apparent when ye see me on tv again…though if that is to be the case I will say that it’ll be the final episodes of the next series of SHAMELESS as I have only just started using it.
11 5 November 2009
In FATHER TED, Mrs Doyle’s faourite number was 11 – she was done out of a raffle prize when Ted decided to use that number as the hoax one. Now it’s stalking me as I think I have had that many hours sleep in 3 days (have stopped watching clocks as that’s SO depressing and makes a bad situation worse). Feel okay on it but it must stop it tonight – am TIRED and letting sleep take me away, and me and it SO WANT it…
wee small hours 4 November 2009
2.49am – nuff said. Lay there, having checked the time (a new low of earliness so thank goodness I had gone to bed quite early too) and when I knew I wasn’t going back to sleep anytime soon I got up and pottered. Eventually scored another hour (I think – too afraid of disappointment to look at the clock then) and got up early, having had some good book thoughts. As with yesterday, I don’t actually feel too bad…yet…but if this persists I will I just know it. EEK!
And tomorrow is an extended day at acting work (as opposed to the ‘normal’ 11 hours on camera, with an hour for lunch).
At the moment, the day, which has been a tad challenging for Yours Truly (cos I am a little hard of thinking to be honest – probably a by-product of the sleep deprivation) is about to take a turn for the worst. We are moving out of the (very cold) studio and into the pouring (very cold) rain. SO not looking forward to it. Showbiz/Glamour – you can’t have one without the other? Oh yes you can, Oh no you can’t (and on and on into Pantoland*…which is generally a warm place I hear…)
*NO relax, I am not going into Panto now or ever
dark 3 November 2009
Well, me amis, it was dark when I woke up. And just to soften a curiosity I looked at the time – 4.12am…so, back to the stupid sleeping regime, then. Ah, well. I think I may in fact have dozed into a half-sleep state for a further hour but then I just lay there, eyes closed, pretending the worst hadn’t happened and eventually got up a tad earlier than I had intended to. Thing is, I didn’t feel too bad on it and didn’t let myself get depressed or uptight about it (or crazed, frankly, like you all know sometimes happens) – it just was what it was – and I was grand all day and enjoyed my day’s work and even got some (fairly decent) writing done just now. All is ‘well’, so far. I am tired enough to have a good stretch of sleep tonight (I hope) and if not sure we’ll deal with it tomorrow – worse things in life, eh?
But I so will be waking some of you with a blogrant if stupid-o’clock happens in the next few hours…
I am spottier than a very spotty woman, by the by = not GREAT.
There is a full moon out there in the clear Manchester sky – can I blame it, at all, for EVERYthing? let me know…
churchill 2 November 2009
Just saw Brendan Gleeson’s award winning portrayal of Churchill on tv and it was FABtastic. The man is such a good actor (and all round great guy, I have to say). It was all the more relevant for me as I’m writing part of the latest novel during the Blitz in London and then a few years after the war. I like to think the very fact this was shown now is some sort of good omen and it was certainly useful for consolidating some thoughts I’d had about the period. The show was directed by the wonderful Thaddeus O’Sullivan, in whose house I have enjoyed fine food and company, so I am all the more pleased as a result. Hooray all round. Oh and, as if it needs saying, Janet McTeer is a goddess.
Am back living in a hotel again…this will be my life for another year, it seems, off and on. Need to flick the button to that setting as I will only hanker after ‘a life’ otherwise and that would surely begin to make me sad. It’s an odd time, but must be done, and I am making good new friends and love the work. Strange, though, for a woman of 47, or is it? I know no other way, so….
Only hope the hotel sleep has settled down as I don’t want to get back into all of that disturbed/not sleeping crap…ye’ll be hearing from me in a few hours if all goes tits up!
up 1 November 2009
I know I have said I hate fireworks re halloween and all they entail – I probably should have prefaced that with talk of my fear of being close up to said firecrackers with eejits (us) in charge. Ain’t nothing more fab than controlled municpal displays – though it has to be said that all of the countries myself and Himself find ourselves in over New Year’s love their sparklers and care not a jot how close you are to ‘em.
In the old days, by the by, when I was but a pup (and before the tractor was invented) Halloween had no such AMericanisms as Trick or Treat and you basically flung on a cheap cardboard mask and went from door to door BEGGING – again, ain’t no other way of describing it.
Am massively proud of one of my godchildren, Miss Emily White, who last night went about her neighbourhood dressed as the house from the movie ‘UP’ (balloons and all) – what a BRILLIANT thing to do! She is a singular gal and one to be watched.
Had a bit of a fit of melancholy today as Himself took off for the other home – too many goodbyes, and you all know how I avoid those wherever possible at my advanced age. Anyhow, shook it off by going to present a TMA award at the Lyric in Hammersmith – top night out celebrating all that was good in the regional theatres last year – and all was veh veh good indeed. So, theatre saved me = hooray! Thanks to Michael Cregan for asking me out to it and delivering such a good time to all.
ipswich town and halloween 31 October 2009
My role as Lucky Charm for the home football team continued today when I went to a game at the legendary Portman Road and, if i do say so myself, gave Roy Keane (ex Irish International and now manager of Ipswich Town FC) his first win in charge. It was Himself’s idea – as much vaguely random as it was an experiment to see if I could carry my Superpowers with me. We did the corporate end of things which was lovely and the stadium is a very buzzy one so that was all a total success too. Also there is a big connection with the late Sir Bobby Robson who was one of the Greats and a great gentleman of football and it can still bring a tear to my eye that he has left us. All of my Villa mates feel that it is incumbent upon me to go to every Aston Villa home game for the rest of the season as I was lucky for us last time out (and we have been drawing league games since, which is not good enough to leave us in ANY sort of contention. Mind you the recent Cup match was a winning thriller) and I have also brought wins for Manchester City and Ipswich when I have attended in person (as I usually do if I go to a game..erm…yeah). It could be a busy old Rest-of-Season for P Mc…
I am delighted to have missed most of Halloween. I hate fireworks, don’t much like dressing up in costumes unless it’s for work, and town (London, this weekend) is packed and uncomfortable. Am sitting in my Soho hovel looking out on the street and glad to be incarcerated. Must go to bed now as I’ll be awake at 4.30 am on the dot and have decided to give into this persistent nuisance on the morrow, get up and write. Yup, if you can’t beat ‘em and all that…oh, perhaps I’ll write in a Halloween ‘scene’ in the buke then – not the WORST idea I have come up with in the last while…
prime mate! 30 October 2009
Apparently I am in the Irish Daily Mail today standing up for animal rights on the back of the baboon piece on this blog – good – and I am glad I am quoted as calling AA Gill a knob for his horrid and needless killing of a defenceless animal and one undeserving of that fate. Now, here’s the thing – I am a meat eater (though would love to be a vegetarian) but the meat I eat is, wherever possible, organic and free range and I am against cruelty of any sort (all join Compassion In World Farming, please). I have tried to bolster campaigns against fur farming in Ireland and cruel pig pens (sows confined horribly while weaning is one awful example) as well as the welfare of chickens (I eat a lot of chicken). Just a bit of consideration, eh? and the world could be a better place…And that’s before we even start on humans – though we are such complex creatures and willfully terrible at times…
new episodes 29 October 2009
Today is one of the more exciting ones on set as we have a readthrough of 2 new episodes after filming is complete. These are always VEH VEH interesting as none of us actors really knows in advance what’s going to happen in them. Exciting and nail-biting all at once.
I should point out to those across the various ponds of the world that AA Gill, who I wrote about yesterday, is a British journalist and restaurant critic. The lovely Joyce in Embra, who is as disgusted as me at his needless killing of a baboon, has suggested that every waiter who serves him from now on or anyone who cooks him a meal should spit in it as retribution for his gross act. It would be a small act but potent.
As a coda to the animal behaviour thing, I read some interesting stuff about bears yesterday. They are a helluva lot less aggressive than they are taken for and would always prefer to run from trouble rather than confront it. Also they’re not that keen on honey. Humans are far more dangerous animals. According to statistics one black bear out of a million kills somebody, with grizzlies it’s one in 50,000, whereas among humans it’s one person out of 18,000 that kills someone. ‘nuff said.