apocalypse 6 September 2009
Finished reading a thriller about apocalyptic climate change today and did so to the howling of wind and the lashing of rain against the house. I regret to report that I have the heaters roaring also as it has been COLD all day – not good for the planet I know but I couldn’t stand the misery and knew I would use it as an excuse not to write so, on balance, I decided to feck the earth up but ratchet up the word count. I’ll get my karmic comeuppance, just you all wait and see. I am about to buy some flights now just to put the icing on my evil cake of destruction. Not good…Sorry…
On the plus side WAKING THE DEAD is back on BBC1 starring my mate Sue Johnston. Love it (and her, as you all know).
Tonight the G will be confined to the kitchen area (which is quite large, don’t worry) and I am hoping she likes that (and notices the litter tray is now by the back door so there’s no need to pick some corner of a room or much used human pathway for her ‘business’) She has taken possession of the chair my mother likes best and there’ll be a power struggle when next those Oldies spend time alone together here – could get ugly and I wouldn’t like to bet on one above the other as they both have generous amounts of individually tailored evil superpower going for them, just different areas of ‘expertise’. We are about to enter ‘interesting times’…
country 5 September 2009
Saw a quote slagging off those who like country music today on a website – basically someone saying they didn’t denigrate people who liked country music while explaining to those people that denigrate means to put down – funny. Then the champions of country kicked in and you’d have to agree with them that a good country song (they’re usually about love and/or loss) is a great thing. I began to remember lines like ‘take your tongue out of my mouth, darlin’, I’m kissing you goodbye’ and one champion brought up one that I think went ‘walk backwards out the door so you’ll look like you’re coming in’ – unbeatably good.
Ireland won an important football match tonight (World Cup qualifier) = phew! We look VERY ordinary though, I’d have to say.
Rotten old sore throat and slight upper chest infection going on…tedious…
Bed early = getting elderly – tedious also…
Got new pair of jeans, a size smaller than usual = not so tedious = hra!
Swings and roundabouts, my friends = fun in life’s playground, so…
moon 4 September 2009
Such a mixture of weather today – cold, very windy and often wet in Manchester (havoc with the hair for all and my lined old forehead totally on show – so much for wearing a fringe!) and then landing in Dublin to a dark but clear bright sky and a full moon. I was reminded of a play by the wonderful Geraldine Aron, SAME OLD MOON, which was my break into professional acting proper with the magnificent Druid Theatre Company. Druid was an amazement to me when I was at college in Dublin cos it was happening in my old home town (after I had left) and when I was ready to go pro (as they say) I nearly didn’t get the part in Ger’s play cos i had lost my Galway accent. Got there so PHEW! There is a line in it that says ‘it’s the same old moon shining down on you wherever you are’ – well ain’t that the truth…
Other thing to strike me as fab was reading that one of the great Irish statesmen, Garrett Fitzgerald (who was also Irish leader for a time) used to say to his civil servants ‘yes, it works in practise, but does it work in theory?’ – brilliant!
maudlin 3 September 2009
I am trying not to get too sentimental about the cat going a bit gaga – it will come to us all in time. In particular, I am trying not to recall a poem about a 14 year old convalescent cat I have read a number of times in which the ‘owner’ dreads that final visit to the vet and wishes another glorious summer for the cat – every time I see the G enjoying a stray sunray or two I get all uptight – mind you, the weather in Dublin doesn’t afford her that many right now so that kinda staves off any maudlin thoughts from Yours Truly. Today she did lie outside in a curve of the abandoned watering hose and made the best of what little we got in the way of a Summer. She has also taken to drinking rainwater from a large black and white teacup-and-saucer planter that I have not yet filled with soil and flowers (and am unlikely to now) and it’s funny to see a little furry animal apparently enjoying a large cup of tea outdoors.
Back in Manchester via London and the football tickets have not yet arrived at the Soho flat so I’ll be back on that trail tomorrow…never a straightforward transaction anymore, it seems…wearing…
banjoed 2 September 2009
The neck is done in but good. I had a stiffness on the left side for a fews days just now but it was more annoying than anything else (am thinking the mad mix of pillows due to the several places I might lay my head these days due to work in Manchester and visiting Himself and The G in Dublin not to mention the London home). And then this morning as I turned, fairly innocuously, to get out of bed the other side WENT – eek! Painful. I still did my time on the treadmill but the rowing machine actually was best as it worked the muscles and relieved the pain a lot. Since then it has been heat packs and moving about like an aul wan…tedious.
To match this awkward day the weather in Dublin has been truly SHITE. I even put the heaters on I was so cold…er, where is the balmy September we were promised?
Rang the football club and spoke to a lovely young woman who told me the tickets were probably on their way by post by now but they’d reissue if I didn’t get them on my fly-by of the London flat tomorrow and then she said ‘or just turn up on the day’ – the seats are mine and if I can prove who I am we are in – huzzah! Though I’d still like to hold the little beauties in my hands – to be sure, to be sure, as we Irish (apparently) say…
My Mum found an article in a cat magazine that leads us to suspect The G may be senile now…everything she does is symptomatic of the same, from the peeing and pooing in strange places (we have tried to accommodate this by placing a litter tray there but she likes to poo in it and pee around it) to night wailing and a lot more in between. She’s still my honey, of course, the old doddery slight wee (and poo) mite!
bizarre 1 September 2009
I tried to buy some football match tickets online tonight and ended up having to talk to a real person..which had it’s own set of challenges. The site in question was happy for me to register as a member/fan and even let me reserve 2 different sets of tickets (there are only a handful left for the fixture) but wouldn’t let me actually buy/pay for them. I resorted to the telephone and after some talking at cross purposes registered Richard also (no choice but to, it seems) and then bought one set of the 2 tickets I had reserved which had returned to the system as free after being held for me by my earlier efforts. I paid and mentioned that I would like to collect the tickets at the ground in Manchester on the day as 1) the postal strikes are really affecting my London post and 2) I am working in Manchester full time till the match. This threw the lad on the other end of the phone into an irreversible tizzy and he told me to phone customer services tomorrow and get them to deal with the collection issue (you’d have thought that would be the most simple thing to organise when actually buying the darn things, wouldn’t you? well, seems not…) Now I know I am quite a bit poorer and I have no idea if I will have the tickets in my mitts for the game and I am worried that we may not actually get into it…bloody sorry I ever tried the whole manoeuvre as I am now officially stressed out by it all and there’s tomorrow to ‘look forward to’ still…
lake 31 August 2009
A lovely day and no mistake. The Husband had to go for an early flight this morning and because I had a late start (albeit in Manchester and we were in Edinburgh still at this point) I had the great joy of turning over and going back to sleep – bliss. Then a nice hotel breakfast and off to the train. I got a bit of writing done and while I was allowing myself a bask at same I chanced to look out the window and discovered we were travelling through the Lake District – a most magnificent place I have never been before. Crikey it was GORGEOUS. It reminded me a lot of the moors in Devon which you know are so dear to my heart since JAM AND JERUSALEM came into my life. And the weather was of just the right sort for me – dark clouds hanging over the higher of the rolling hills and the light making the green of the grass and trees so vivid you could practically taste it. And all of those traditional stone farmhouses settled on the side of the hills. Bloody AMAZING. Am thinking I’ll put in a request to be brought there for staring and leisure purposes (might be controversial as they don’t speak much Russian in them thar hills and youse all know what Himself is like on that front).
We stopped outside Bolton for a while waiting for another train to clear and I saw the first butterfly in ages – a lovely red chap who was perched on a buddleia doing his thing – I am assuming he was a Red Admiral? though he/she wasn’t very big or anything.
And then onto Manchester and some SHAMELESS activity – am loving it. What a job! I cannot shake the feeling that I may wake up in the morning and find it was all a dream…but if so, it’s such a nice one I don;t think I’ll mind…
humour 30 August 2009
Fay Weldon is in a bit of trouble for saying it’s usually handier and quicker to just pick up The Husband’s socks, etc, off the floor than spend ages browbeating him into it – I can see where she is coming from and can I say that I do it myself a lot of the time. I don’t think it means she has betrayed feminism – it’s just sharing a bit of truth from her life and shedding a bit on the way some of the rest of us live too. Every so often (actually quite regularly, now I come to mention it) I take Richard to task on the issue and then there’s an improvement for a while before inevitable slippage and we return to me picking stuff up and so the cycle goes on. She talked about this in her My Week item in the Times today but I thought more interesting, for me, were her thoughts on people being annoyed that she smiles so much. I have this problem also – and can be thought of as scatty as a result – I just would prefer to be happy than sad but each comes along with regularity and I deal with them accordingly and I don’t think anyone wants to be bombarded with miserable photos of me or anyone else too often. She thinks the fact that her books have jokes in leads some types to dismiss them as not quite literature as a direct result. Again I can relate to that in as much as when you make people laugh in a novel (although you may also move them to tears elsewhere) it is somehow perceived as frivolous by certain sections of self-confessed Intelligentsia. Their loss, I say. Life is a mixture of all of these elements and we need laughter as much as we experience sadness. You can’t have one without the other, as the song has it. And I know that I would far prefer a book that delivers me both rather than a serious or poefaced presentation of a story. To end her item Fay Weldon said the problem with literary prizes is that the most boring book so often wins – bet there’ll be a bruhaha about that too…
Lovely to take part in the Book Festival at Edinburgh today. Earlier we had a reading for Amnesty International of Tibetan writers and then I did a event with Paul Torday, who is a wonderful writer (and a man who didn’t start any of that till he was 60, so let that be an inspiration to all). Great to see Joyce Watson there who is a regular visitor on this site. She has recommended a sleeping aid and I will try it and let you know how it measures up.
Also why can’t London and Dublin have as many consistently good and funky restaurants as Edinburgh?
festival 29 August 2009
London looked amazing this morning as I was in the car to City airport. The sun was shinng brightly from early on and it was interesting to see the people mobilising, particularly around Trafalgar Square. A group who must have just had a friend get off the plinth were taking pictures with a charity banner, as was the person then on the plinth for his hour. The police were loitering. But mostly I noticed how many homeless people were preparing for their day, rolling up their sleeping bags ands strolling on to wherever – some were just sat letting the sun warm their faces and they looked like they were savouring the weather and their city for just a moment.
I met the gorgeous Christopher Biggins at the airport today and he too was headed to Edinburgh (for the TV festival which is currently running) so I had a lovely journey in his company – he is such a happy spirit and a joy to spend time with.
Edinburgh is packed and busy. I really don’t know how the performers last a full 4 weeks – there have to be casualties all over the place that we don’t see…it’s just way too much fun and too social. Of course many are genuinely pickled now, I imagine, and shored up against anything the world and, in particular, this city can throw at them. After a mere 3 shows today I am wrecked and I was only watching them, not taking part. And it is LONG after my bedtime…I get into totally different hours of ‘engagement’ with life when filming. It will be interesting to see if the late night has a bearing on when I wake up tomorrow (or later would be more accurate at this hour) and this is a tablet free night (not that I think they are working at all anyhow). Bet I’ll be alert from EARLY whether I like it or not…
jerusalem 28 August 2009
I cannot believe it nor that I am actually admitting this but it has taken me till now to see the final episode of JAM AND JERUSALEM (I knew what happened, obviously, so I wasn’t awaiting an outcome, as ‘twere, but that’s no excuse cos I love and enjoy the series so I blame another great one of those SHAMELESS for keeping me occupied filming and wanting to get to bed early) – well, I was delighted with it. What a great show! And, as you all know, I am a woman who has a bit of trouble making a statement like that especially, and particularly, about something I , if I wasn’t in this show I would love it anyhow.
Edinburgh tomorrow…see yez all there – especially Joyce + 1, on sunday