Shattered

I can't believe that I'm so absoutely knackered that I very nearly just fell asleep at the keyboard. I had my head down on the edge of it and wasn't moving for love nor money. I can't believe I'm this tired. Its been a busy weekend but I'm sure I've had worse. I got up about 8.30 yesterday morning partly because I had to go and pick up a parcel from the delivery office across the other side of town and partly because I couldn't sleep anymore. After I'd picked my parcel up I met my mum briefly for brunch (nice pot of tea and a veggie breakfast), popped into a couple of shops and then was home for 15 minutes or so before I had to go out again for my appointment at the hairdressers, had to walk part of the way home again as I'd missed a bus, in for half an hour before I was picked up by a chum to go to a Eurovision party in Rochdale then back again just after midnight. Up about 9.15 this morning to go to the theatre where we had to change the set from that of the last play that'd been on the previous evening to the one for Educating Rita which starts tomorrow night. Fortunately most of the main structural work had been done by the time I got there so I was just doing some set dressing but I was up & down various flights of stairs looking for props, ornaments, papers, files and paint so many times that I've worn myself out. Hence the zonking at the PC. And I've got work as normal tomorrow as well as stage managing our first night of ER tomorrow night. I don't know if I've got the stamina for it. It'd help if I wasn't such a lardy fat arse. At least I've worked off a few thousand calories this weekend. If you can call sitting in front of a TV cheering on Lordi in the Eurovision Song Contest and sitting in a hairdressers having my scalp massaged 'working'.

Just realised

...That the title of my last post doesn't work quite as well because I forgot to add that my doctor has an appropriate name too. Dr Healey.

And now to pointless lists...

(Nicking an idea from a message board I'm on)

Cd's I've either bought, had bought for me or borrowed that I haven't listened to yet;

Ben Christophers - The Spaces In Between
The Lemonheads - Car Button Cloth
Robbie Williams - Life Thru a Lens
Eddi Reader - Sings the Songs of Robert Burns
Eddi Reader - Simple Soul
Jose Gonzales - Veneer
Indigo Girls - 4.5
Indigo Girls - Come On Now Social
William Shatner - Has Been

Books on my bedside table waiting to be read/finished;

Lonely Planet guide to San Francisco
Lonely Planet guide to LA
Ghost Hunting with Derek Acorah (why did I buy this?)
Sheridan Le Fanu - In a Glass Darkly
Alexei Sayle - Barcelona Plates
Alexei Sayle - Overtaken
Most Haunted official BTS guide

Cds I'm actually listening to rather alot

KT Tunstall - Eye to the Telescope
Fleetwood Mac - Bare Trees

Dr Beat

I've just sent an email to the Sarah Kennedy show on Radio 2. She's got this thing going at the moment where listeners email her about people with appropriate names for their professions so when I received my regular email from the Marcella Detroit fan club I had to get in touch. Marcy was telling us about her upcoming gigs, detailing the band members she'd be playing with. All fairly unremarkable until you get to the drummer's name - Max Bangwell.

I hope its his real name & not a stage name.

Sexy text

Ooh what lovely gorgeous summery hot days we've been having this week. Just the kind of days where you want to be stuck in an office/portacabin. And just the kind of evenings where you want to be stuck in a slightly dark, damp theatre.

And not down the pub.

In the beer garden.

Knocking back a few cold ones.

I really didn't want to be at rehearsal tonight. We're doing Educating Rita at the moment. Been rehearsing for six months as opposed to the usual six weeks we get because its a two-hander (ie only two people in it) and its an extra play tagged on the end of the season. The three of us who've been rehearsing for six months are getting ever so bored of it now. I can practically quote it backwards and I'm only the assistant director! We're so sick of it now, with only two weeks until we go on, that tonight after getting through the first three scenes the director (who is playing the Michael Caine part) decided he really couldn't be arsed and that we should call it a night. So we (myself, the props mistress and my best mate playing Rita) spent the next half hour or so having a cuppa and being very giggly girlies making lewd jokes about how the director is a bit of a letch. We've nicknamed him Benny Hill in honour and envisaged him getting my b mate to chase him round the theatre wearing a maids outfit. And of course we kept singing the theme tune to each other for the rest of our time there and giggling like loons. As you do.

Best mate has since joined her hubby in the pub, texting me with "We're in the Miner's. You're not missing much."

Me - "You would have been better in the Bull... so to speak."

Her - "I know, its far more warm and inviting and has a much wider entrance."

There's not much I can say to that is there?

Summer is heeeeere!

Am blogging from work again, tee hee. The office (I say office but its actually little more than a portacabin) is so quiet today. There are only three of us in at the moment. The boss & the woman who trained me are out at a meeting, one of the other women doesn't do Fridays anyway and another girl is off sick. So its just me and two chaps. I really rather like it being quiet. I'm not one for noise. The atmosphere is nice & chilled & the sun is streaming in through the windows. And its about bloody time the sun put in an appearance. It was absolutely gorgeous yesterday. We had all the windows open (no air con in here) and a lovely breeze taking the edge off although it also meant we had to weight all the paperwork down with handy staplers and hole punches - anything heavy. Unfortunately it also meant that a lot of dust & grit blew in and covered every available surface. A couple of us had ice-cream after lunch as one of the chaps kindly popped out to the shop. My strawberry Cornetto was a bit mushy by the time he got back but it still tasted good.

I love summer. And spring. All the blossom on the cherry trees, the sun, the general green-ness, the warm weather. Its all lovely. Even the rain is ok once in a while. I've often thought I'd like to live in Britain through spring, summer & autumn then bugger off somewhere hot for winter, preferably Sydney, Australia. Just a pipe dream that though. No way I can afford it. Ah well.

Am off to the pub in Manchester after work to meet one of my ex work colleagues. It was almost going to be her leaving do but the bastards won't let her go. She was all set to move to another office nearer to her home on the other side of Manchester but still working for the same company (the one I was working for until 2 months ago) but then it all fell through. Of course they're all happy. She isn't. It means she still has to be in the same office as Fat Slag (remember her?). I expect we'll be doing alot of bitching and gossiping tonight. We didn't plan on the weather being so good though. I picked the non-smoking Wetherspoons near the town hall to meet in but the White Lion in Castlefield with its outside tables & hanging baskets would've been more the thing. Maybe we could do a pub crawl...

Tired but happy

I've just spent the most lovely of days in the blandest, most soulless place ever. Yes its good old Milton Keynes. I've heard all the jokes before but never seen it for myself. The roads are so straight, the buildings all look the same. Even the pubs lack character. Still, its not as bad a 'new town' as Skelmersdale which really is the pit of hell. Milton Keynes is at least clean. By far the most interesting thing on the walk from the train station to the shopping centre is the collapsed scaffolding at the Jury's Inn which was all over the news a few weeks ago.

Anyhoo, I wasn't there to admire the architecture. I was going to another one of those Collectormania things. We didn't have to pay to get in this time which was nice and we started off by gawking at the celebs from the ends of the autograph queues. I gawked at Jonathan Frakes (barely recognisable), Levar Burton and Kate Mulgrew (yes Lee I gawked at the husky voiced, white wine chugging one herself) from Star Trek, Mira Furlan from Bab 5 and Lost, and the two Coreys (Haim & Feldman) from a plethora of 80's films such as Lost Boys. In fact, as I trawled round the stalls I was inches away from Corey Haim as he walked in front of me (no I wasn't stalking him). But the real reason I was there was to meet Pat Tallman again who is one of my all time favourite actresses and pass on a tape I'd promised her. Now, get your minds out of the gutter people, it wasn't that sort of tape. Some time ago Pat had asked for recordings of herself at conventions and I just so happened to have one. I must say that Pat looked absolutely stunning as ever and despite my nervousness I managed to have a short conversation with her. Then she gave me a big hug for giving her the tape & I was lost. God knows how I managed to recover my faculties but I did. Cue me with a big silly grin on my face for the rest of the day. She is just the loveliest person to meet. *sigh*

The other reason I was there was to meet the two stars of my most favourite show in the whole wide world when I was 13 - Dempsey & Makepeace. Now, having been all a dither when I met Pat I thought I'd be even worse meeting Michael Brandon & Glynis Barber but I wasn't for some strange reason. I wasn't the chattiest but I kept it together & they laughed at my comment that I was a bit warm when Michael asked me how I was (they were in front of a huge window & the sun was streaming in). Bless 'em, they were utterly lovely too. And both of them looked damn good from where I was standing.

After a bit more gawking, a bit more shopping and some pizza buffet my legs and feet were starting to protest so me & my chums caught the train home. By god I was knackered when I eventually got home. So much so that I managed to head butt the ironing board when I got it out earlier to iron my work trousers for tomorrow. You would've thought it'd knock some sense into me but no.

Ooh, I forgot that I took a picture of one of the funniest shop signs I've ever seen. Even funnier than Gays Creamery of Torquay.....

...Lovejuice.

No, really.