end of term dementia

We 're all hurtling towards the holidays... " Morning... how are you?"

  " oh fine"... manic laugh... " nothing a holiday won t fix"

 "going away?'

 " Oh yes... usual... you know...." manic laugh, followed by " Jack will you  PLEASE GET OFF MY FOOT!!!!!" manic laugh.

 Children have wild eyes and odd socks. More bed head entering the school gates than ever.

  We ve got England holiday things planned. Involving sussex, wales, edinburgh, london... and 13 year old spending a week in spain with a friend. I start rehearsals for a play at the very beginning of next term. A seven week tour followed by a west end run. I am trying to train myself into being positive about it... into being positive about not putting the children to bed for a potential 6 months... apart from sundays... I get a fretting feeling in my throat if I think hard enough about it... so try not to. Instead I lift chin and think about the many actresses that would be so happy to get the job, and think of the lovely people involved, including my mother bizarrely.... Not many women of 43 head off on the road doing a show with their mum, apart from in the circus world...mind you, I have a line that says I m 31,  and while audience are processing that I appear pregnant in a cassock.. so ?! What am I doing? Could be at home, pottering, 'training' with Ray, having coffees, laughing with friends, taking up gardening, bickering with Easter... who from now on will be called Him or He, as the Easter Island statue expression has thawed to almost normality... bad back on mend... hooray!!!!!!

  But I suppose, most importantly, I will be earning, and contributing, not least to self esteem. I am determined to be sensible with theses earnings, not fritter them away on' on the road comforts' , but really make a contribution to us all. 

 Will daresay feel better about it when childcare is sorted for that time, though thought of another au pair is ghastly!!!!! lovely as they can be, all that ; here is the cereal, there is the post office, what is Toulouse famous for? has lost its shine over the years.

   I must go and pull up trillions of weeds that arrived with the rain last week... trying to keep garden clear for transformation from lunar landscape to designer garden planned for this summer...it will be a miracle if we do it, but we ve taken first steps, a design by a clever mum at the school, and 3 quotes for the actual creating of it, all so much higher than expected, but we ve alot to learn. Who d have thought that digging and wooden things would cost thousands? 

Roll on end of term, 2 days left... then it s bed head every single day... Hooray!

Leonard Cohen

   Saw Leonard Cohen last night. In concert... what a remarkable , glowing, powerful living LEGEND. In his words... I LOVE THE COUNTRY BUT I CAN T STAND THE SCENE.

  also.... THERE IS A CRACK IN EVERYTHING. IT S HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN.

All said with a wry yet glowing full faced smile. He thanked us for braving the awful weather... it was an open air concert... he told us it was an honour to sing to us... he saluted his backing singers and musicians when they sang and played to him, by bowing his head and taking off his hat to them. They looked at him with love... and love shone out of him... a glowing trilby-ed, beautiful faced slight figure of a man, glowing out 30 shades of grey. Quality, power, warmth, humour, beautiful resignation and confidence. Gravity of a lead paper weight.

   Easter Island man was supposed to come with me...But his back was too bad. No improvement... I knew when I was in that audience last night that several hundred, if not thousands of them had bad backs. An awful thing to have ... wrecking your life from the centre. The pain is starting to show on his face, please let it lift soon... he will go mad... and I may be revealed as the nastiest, most intolerant partner of all time.  Us insecure ones like a smile or two, to tell us we re on the right track... and smiles are impossible for him right now. Another Leonard quote... HERE' S A MAN WHO'SE STILL WORKING FOR YOUR SMILE. So he chases them too.

  Hello....  morris minor outside, dog at feet, looked down upon by an oil painting of someone, who by rites should be my husband, but is actually my fiance of 12 years.. though the sapphire has recently dropped out of my engagement ring, ... bit of rain from an inky sky over south west london... about to have a bath, having just got in from what is optimistically called a 'training session'.. 16 of us in Richmond park, being tortured by Ray, ex military. 

  The oil painting is at work... he s playing a conductor in an episode of a police series.. loving it, but bad back, when he s at home he has the expression of an Easter Island statue... having had to smile all day at fellow actors, the director, make up ladies trying to tame his locks. He comes home, eats standing up, forces down our newly discovered thing... a vodka martini, waves his arms around a bit with a baton, then collapses gingerly onto bed, muttering something about feeling old. Bad backs make you feel old. Praise the Lord my back o.k.... due to military torture... I do have to contend with a bosom the likes of  not seen since my sensational Nanny Bristol swam in the Portishead open air pool in 1976... I never stop being surprised at the size of it..

   I must take my bath... I ll be back