Days 100-105 April 15, 2012

You would think that someone on Easter holidays would manage to find a moment to blog…but my week has been full of people and places: cramming two weeks worth of ‘catch-up’ into one week, more than took care of the time allowed to me.

The highlights:

100: that coffee became lunch in one of my favourite places, with a friend who makes me laugh and that my Tuesday night was about the friend who visited, the stories told and a drink in my local rather than my continued fascination with the TV characters I usually depend on for Tuesday night company.

101 & 102:
Team D are my therapy. They have the grace and generosity to include me in the daily details of their lives when I come to visit. My friend G apologised that my visit was mundane, trips to Tesco and prescription collection, play parks and feeding the ducks: but he forgets that his company, that of his wonderful wife and his changing with enchantment by the second daughters, make their mundane my privileged special. In the two days I was there, I got: an Irish history lesson, and one on the bombing of Dresden, endless beer, great food, a favourite movie, hooked on a book, the promise of a night in with Matthew McConaghy and too many moments of genuine love and friendship to do them justice to in a continuing list.

103: lunch and a afternoon with a favourite friend in her truly idyllic little corner of a world. There was endless and entertainment from her 4yr old daughter and snuggles from her bubba son; there was wine ( which I managed to knock across the wonderfully pretty dining table and all over my non-drinking friend) … And there was enough sunshine, flowers and calm in her garden to make summer seem a promised thing.

104: I needed a day at home. I’d decided post London et al that school had claimed more than enough of my free time this Easter (and all of my half term) so I cleaned and scrubbed, folded and ironed, tweeted and text.

And I wondered what I’m supposed to be doing with or at the National Theatre. Sometimes a book, a song, a word, a person keeps presenting itself to you; fate or the universe or whoever is on charge demands that you give whatever it is some attention; and rarely, very rarely it’s a place.

I got the same feeling walking into the National as I had when I first stepped on the quad at Queens and into the apartment I now call home. It’s a sense of belonging: a premonition of significance. I dismissed it as my regular desire/ feeling as a wannabe lovey but then I read James Corden’s autobiography, in less than two days.

(an aside: I’m supposed to be reading Religion for Atheists : a book I suggested for book club, in the hope of pleasing my soul sister Belle, igniting discussion and quite possibly continuing on my quest to prove to the others that despite all appearances, I do have a brain. And because part of my whole: join a book club thing was to read things I wouldn’t normally give head or shelf space to…
But I’m hating it, no that’s unfair, I’m just not getting it- at all. It’s become homework. Something I have to do. I am not doing it. And, I stubbornly refused (until M insisted I read James Corden) to allow myself to read any other book until I’m done… So I read magazines, I watch TV, I deny myself the pleasure of ‘real’ writing as a punishment for being too ignorant to appreciate non-fiction. I will read it. I must. But next time, I will pick a page turner piece of popular fiction and enjoy it.)

Back to JC and the NT: he wrote of the theatre and his experiences there with passion. He wrote of its significance to him personally and to British drama. He accepted his role in the award winning ‘One Man, Two Guvnors because of its director and that it was a National Theatre production.

Maybe I’m meant to see something amazing there, and it’s that simple- although it has been fun this past week to imagine, a play I’ve written or am staring in opening there, or a career and/ or a romance there. A girl can dream, especially when given such an inspiring and promising place in which to dream in.

105: and so it’s Sunday night; and school, coursework marking, the exam cram, the AS performance, endless paperwork, the annual timetable battle await. Today, I had coffee and a walk with Mum at Mount Stewart in lieu of dinner at home. I told Mum I’d stuff to do for work and I do. I just knew I wouldn’t do any of it. I tweeted, I blogged and I watched TV: fighting of the Sunday night blues.

It’s been a great Easter: filled with people and places I love. May my summer be seven weeks that are just like this one.

Days 93-98 April 9, 2012

So it’s been a while…a whole week since I bemoaned my privileged existence to the faithful few who indulge me and me blog self.

This time last week I was in London with two of my best friends and 28 hangers on. The much blogged about, endlessly lamented school trip was… well something .

I know the things that make ‘good’ reading are when the best laid plans of Drama teachers go off the radar even slightly; and I know the party line is: the ‘kids’ really behaved; they enjoyed themselves (and I actively enjoyed their company) we got them home safe and sound: all the measures of a successful educational visit.

So I’m not quite sure how I do it justice.
Settle for a few highlights:

- an impromptu birthday cake (oh to be turning 17 again) in the Covent Garden sunshine.

- Billy Elliott is phenomenal:
political, risqué, emotional, funny: all I demand of a piece of theatre and more… I was on my feet for the ovation before I’d quite realised it was over.

- A backstage tour of the National Theatre: these people take their theatre seriously: perfectly pitched for our students, long enough to be informative and short enough to hold the flitting teenage attention span, and again I was reminded that I should really look beyond the bright lights and lure of the West End when I come to London in search of culture.

- I wouldn’t say I was disappointed in Wicked but it didn’t live up to the hype I’ve heard. Rachel Tucker made an engaging and talented Elphaba but Glinda was an annoyance…yet, maybe it’s impossible to give anything your full attention when you’re worried about a sick student; and getting the remaining 27 home on the tube, in the rain, minus one staff member. Another visit to Oz is needed before I give my informed verdict.

- the Wicked workshop was fabulous. An engaging ( and rather stunning actor) who could both do and teach; and an informative Q&A the included a very lovey Wicked dancer, in which our kids held their own and I managed not to gush too much.

And I could go on… yet, this and any list, denies those moments of magic when you see your pupils as more than a potential grade and name in a mark book: when you’re made privy to their inner world and you get to remember the sheer joy and potential that exists when you’re 17: and when you see the cultural value of travel and teamwork and friendship and fun.

It was a great trip: I was blessed by my travelling companions and a brilliant group of kids BUT I have swore to all who will listen that never will I attempt such madness again!

Day 96
Another day, another theatre trip! Who said teachers have great holidays?!
At least this time we were closer to home. Blood Brothers never, ever disappoints, it’s tragedy and comedy move me every time.
And when it was over the holidays could officially begin…

Days 97&98

My friends S&P hope to persuade me out of my Aetheism through thought provoking, liberal services at their church. The Good Friday Reflection </em was moving, engaging and prompted many queries as I held court in their house with their friend T, who as an Anglican minister was able to shed some light on various issues: if not answers to the questions that have none.

Brunch with my boys is always a delight and I got to travel to their rather far flung new build. Even my spatially unaware self was able to imagine their ‘work in progress’ into their castle on a cloud. My hovel apartment paled into insignificance on my return.

S&P are a blessing I cannot imagine my life without; my soul is richer and happier through knowing them.

Day 98
Easter Sunday is always spent at Auntie V’s eating more than is good for me. It’s always lovely to catch up with extended family: and the cousins at different exciting stages of their lives. A family wedding is planned for a fortnight’s time and it was good to share in that excitement, reminding me of the fun and chaos I’d enjoyed before T& N’s big day.

And bless Sky TV scheduling, I got to catch up with my boys in the NYPD and the men of MADison avenue; and my ultimate TV guilty pleasure Made in Chelsea: while planning and securing the various catch ups a week off promises.

Days 90, 91 & 92 April 1, 2012

Day 91

The last day of term is always something of an anti-climax. I spent nearly three hours and too much money at the hairdressers (no one has noticed): and came home too tired to see straight. I lay semi conscious on the sofa to watch a frustratingly good chick flick, I had so been hoping to dislike.

Day 91

Babysitting is one of my all time favourite activities and my nephew M is my all time favourite baby: so Saturday was full of cuddles and giggles and endless moments of cute…

Post dinner saw the real onset of ‘school trip to London’ panic. Why did I volunteer for such madness?!

I spent too late a night realising that even though Jude Law’s Alfie seems like a terrible kisser: he can really act and has one helluva smile. Following on my from my mid week Don Draper obsession: clearly I like my cinematic crushes to be very flawed; if I wasn’t consumed by school trip fear, I’d worry about that instead.

Day 92
After a bad start my Sunday shaped up to be quietly panicked: a misplaced Oyster card and lost hearing aid were found and the packing/ list ticking completed. Mum taking me out for coffee in the middle of the afternoon was a welcome hour of calm.
3am ( our flight is at stupid o’clock) will come all too quickly: wish me luck and pray for the safe return of this band of travellers. London here we come…

69, 70, 71 and 72: London- a rekindled love affair… March 13, 2012

Let’s try this again.

Day 69

Turns out a busy work day, truly bad airport, the hassle of a late flight and (hotel faux pas#1) a bed without enough pillows, can all be thrown into utter insignificance by the craic and catch up of a friend so fabulous, I should pay her fees as my therapist.

Day 70

Hotel faux pas#2 a flooded bathroom floor: M was on the case (I’m a spineless arse who inwardly fumes, and then blogs about her woes in a self-deprecating tone), we were told to pack our theatre dresses and anti-terrorism toiletries into our suitcases and all would be resolved: a new room found by our return…

Our visit to the Imperial War Museum (improved hugely by having your own history teacher tour guide) was humbling. The first world war exhibit made me realise, not for the first time that I would be one of those soldiers shot in the trench for cowardice: I would never have found whatever it was you needed to throw yourself ‘over the top’.

The holocaust exhibit was as harrowing and terrifying as you expect and need such things to be. I’ve been haunted by the quote stark red against a black wall,

All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men (and women) to do nothing

It’s impossible to hear that and not think of Syria.

And so to Jersey Boys the musical that tells the story of Frankie Vialli and the Four Seasons. I’d stumbled across it by chance on another West End weekend away: and the soundtrack has been part of my theme song ever since. It didn’t disappoint, even when there was a technical hitch only five minutes from curtain. You could feel the audience will the lights back on: we were hooked, we needed our ending…
And it worked, I danced down the street: amazing what a little musical theatre and afternoon wine can do for a girl.

Hotel faux pas #3&4 our stuff hadn’t been moved, and the room we were moved to had slept in beds and towels on the bathroom floor. I’m really not a hotel Princess but I draw the line at using other people’s wet towels.

We finally got a room we could get ready in: and headed without irony, to the theatre at the Savoy hotel for Legally Blonde. I was never a huge fan of the film and I had severe issues hearing a lot of the dialogue but M loved it; and we both loved Emmett (even if it was the delectably talented Mr Meade we’d booked our tickets hoping to see). I’ve been practicing my ‘Bend and snap’ ever since.

We dined in a buzzing Covent Garden restaurant with great prosecco; and headed back in the hope that the Covent Garden Travelodge had morphed into somewhere you could actually stay.

Day 71

4.30am fire alarm goes off but no sign of any actual danger… Hotel faux pas #Come On People get it together! And instead of refunding us one night’s stay they nearly charged my debit card an extra night!
Enter at your peril! You’ve been warned!!

Sunday was walks in the spring sunshine, cupcakes and coffee in the cutest shop imaginable and endless giggling laughing at the slogan t-shorts in David& Goliath in Covent Garden; great Mexican food and shopping at Gatwick; and meeting an old friend on the plane.

So London, you and me? It’s back on…
When I bring, good company, a fully charged google map friendly phone and a sense of humour: I’m yours for the taking!

Day 72

Monday was well Monday, school is busy to the point of hellishness and the work to be done is endless.
My day was brightened considerably when I got a text from my London travel buddy, “…just think, things could be worse, you could work in the Travelodge!”

Comedy gold!

Days 67 and 68 March 8, 2012

Day 67

There are days my job drives me crazy, there are too many days when it stresses me out and rare, rare moments when I remember what a privilege it is…
Yesterday it was just: fun! I had a poorly attended rehearsal and decided that instead of throwing the toys out of the pram and I would embrace the joy with those who cared enough to show up.
I laughed till I cried, at utter silliness, I saw two of the pupils in the corridor today and we all laughed again…
Sometimes my crazy making, heartbreaking job ain’t all that bad…

Day 68

Hubris is a bitch: of course yesterday’s fun has to be paid for today with a rehearsal I screamed in…
But a weekend away awaits: Country Chick Vs The City: Carrie’s London Comeback.

As big a fan as I am of anticipation, I’ve dreaded this weekend as I’ve so much to do for work and should stay home and do it; I’ve so much to do for the school trip and being in the city it’s all a hapenin’ in may have me reaching for a paper bag as I hyperventilate:and the very last thing my perilous bank balance needs is a to be in a place where they charge you to breathe. And let me face it, my melodrama allowed London to so royally kick my ass during our last encounter that I’m not quite sure how I gear up for Round 2.

But I decided tonight was about attitude change: this trip I bring reinforcements: a great friend/ laughter therapist who I adore and I haven’t seen in too, too long.
Tonight I ignored the marking and admin and had a comfort dinner, I danced around with my iPod as I ironed clothes and packed my suitcase: and had a pre-Glee bubble bath .

This weekend is about taking back the fun; the hell of spring term will be there on Monday morning but the cancer to spend a weekend in a city that excites me, with a friend I love, doing things that make me smile just doesn’t come around often enough.

Days 46, 47, 48 and 49: a country girl and the city February 19, 2012

The problem with the 365 is that occasionally my life is too busy to find the time to write about it; and this makes it too easy to feel negative about those endless days when the time is too plentiful.

I started to write my ideas for this blog catch up as I wasted a day in Heathrow, and I realised that my writing fears, first verbalised to Belle Fierce some time ago, had come to fruition. I have lost my mojo. Who wants to read a minute by minute account of someone else’s weekend away?

Do I want to write the pithy, witty, tongue in cheek account of my half term in London? Or do I want to share the self indulgent, no doubt, flawed psychoanalysis such trips seem to force me into?

I guess I try to capture my moments and my thoughts to help my understanding of them; some how my day has worth, if I value it enough to capture its essence in print: but I question it’s value to any reader that’s not me. And yet a small band of followers do read…maybe with perseverance and time; confidence and inspiration.

Until then, I will make do with some half hearted account of the highlights and low lights of the last few days.

#46
Despite the high production values and the strengths of the direction of the performance itself: a very stressful theatre trip set the wrong tone for what was always going to be a fraught few days away.

#47
I was the asshole in central London during Thursday morning’s rush hour with the oversized luggage.Walking the itinerary for the school trip in April is a necessary evil: complicated further by my poor, poor sense of direction, the money I was spending that I can’t actually spare, and the feeling that I was yet again sacrificing myself at the altar of work and no one gives a damn.

Made it till the lunch on Thursday: day one of the trip was in place, I hadn’t paid too much for my West End matinee ticket and I was already for the reclaiming of my afternoon.
I couldn’t find the theatre. I lunched on what was essentially a traffic island with a statue: it was that or faint.

The Novello was footsteps away from where I’d first started looking and Crazy for You deserves its many accolades. A musical with a vintage charm and talent to spare.
My phone died before the standing O and I now needed to be in a very different part of London, having collected my case at Charing Cross, checked in to the hotel and reached Angel for dinner with my bro all within the hour.

Instead I had a meltdown. Got the case but couldn’t find the hotel; I circled the streets of Covent Garden reminding myself how to breath. Found it eventually (hostel is more apt phrase) to be told I was in the wrong building and was first given a room that had neither lights nor bed linen. Back to reception: apologies were made, keys were given, I rang my bro in tears; he ignored my commotion and changed the reservation.

I realised that my pipe dream, of taking on London on a permanent basis, Ms Independence, in a city she loves would be a disaster. Mum and T are right: the stress, the loneliness, the sheer force of that place would kill me within the first fortnight. I would fail where T and B had so excelled: I felt weak and provincial and trapped by my reality.

Dinner, when we got there, was the perfect anti-dote to my crazy afternoon. London most definitely agrees with B and his part of the city was calm with an enigmatic sense of style.
We enjoyed food I’d never tried before, good wine, great and easy conversation. I glimpsed his new place and London began to make sense to me again.

#48
Less tired and with a greater sense of calm and poise I spent Friday morning ‘walking’ days two and three of the school trip itinerary. I was pleased to have face the little hell that is Oxford Street and to have found, with the help of a charged phone, the much sought Abercrombie&Fitch. I lunched in a park and headed back to the hotel to consider my options.
I spent the next two hours making notes about the trip and chilling in the rather vacant hotel room. My feet were aching and I just didn’t have the energy to use my afternoon in a more fruitful way.

I met B at Bank, after a bedlam tube journey. I’d never been in ‘The City’ part of London before. Never had I seen so many purposeful looking twenty and thirty somethings in such obviously expensive suits. I was shocked by the electronic display boards in the streets, to allow the prices of shares to be forever any instantaneously accessible.

Our getting lost in the myriad of streets, phased the ‘now in London’ lad not even a little. B followed his map, stayed calm and I questioned again how we could both belong to the same gene pool.

Dinner at Gordon Ramsay’s BreadStreet Kitchenwas divine: low key but elegant, good food without the need of pretension.
While I awaited the arrival of an old friend, B kept me company in the type of bar he typically avoids. He was my knight in stylish armour this weekend; a familiar port in the storm of an unknown city and my means of decoding the city’s confusion.

EC and I go back a long way: all the way to Washington DC and our intern summer. And without sounding sentimental, we’re kindred spirits. I tell this accomplished girl, who I see so very infrequently, the things I never tell those that populate my every day.

Strangers in the city, we couldn’t find the type of bar we so seeked and instead drank bad wine in the cheap hotel I couldn’t quite believe I’d thought would in any way meet E’s standards.

But it was so very good to see her: both soothing and unsettling to share hidden truths.

#49
There was no hot water for a shower I didn’t make breakfast. E looking a million dollars, my feeling around 99p and looking worse, had time for a rushed coffee before she headed of to meet her friend J and the luxury of a spa, shopping and dinner in Chelsea.

The hangover and the exhaustion made melancholy, I headed to Heathrow rather than drag a suitcase through a busy London Saturday.
I was too, too early for my flight and felt I’d wasted yet another Opportunity in a city demanding I take it on, even though it continued to whip my ass.

The flight was delayed and it was to a sleeting Belfast that I returned. My beloved coastal town seemed to mock me with its provinciality.
London: frustrating and fabulous, tempting and terrifying both lonely and love filled, has left me feeling discontent with life as it is and intimidated by the life if offers: I occupy an uncomfortable restless, purgatory in the frustration that lies between.