History Tours and Birthdays

Magical History Tour is out there!
I've been really pleased with the response to it so far. There's been lots of lovely positive comments about the first episode, on all fronts really from the writing to the acting and the production itself. I've listened to the episode a few times now and I'm quite amazed at how far we've come from Echoes of the Protii. There's still a few microphone pops alas, which is something we really need to work on avoiding, but otherwise it is without doubt Planet Skaro's finest first episode yet! I can't wait to hear how the storyline ends.
I don't know if it';s because this story is our first big one actually written specifically for audio (and indeed the first one directly written for our team in the first place, the others being adaptations of existing novellas) that makes it better than the others, or just that we're all more confident on all levels now that we've done a few. It's probably a mixture of things. Certainly I have to say I'm rather proud of both my writing in this one (which listening to it back is really naturalistic, which is pleasing) and my acting too. I don't sound anything like Brian actually did, but I think I've caught the nervousness of him quite well. Certainly I've had a few nice comments, which made me smile.
I just hope the interest is maintained. I have no idea how many people have downloaded it or anything, but there certainly seems to have been more said on this one than the last download adventure, and I think the weekly episodes is a good idea, to maintain discussion of the story on Planet Skaro.

It's been a good weekend. Steve has been away, which usually makes me a bit of a misery, but there's been lots going on to distract me! I went off to work yesterday morning, which was fine, and then came home and waited for Jay to pick me up and take me over to Vic and Mark's.
It was Annabel's second birthday yesterday you see, and so we went over to celebrate. She seemed really happy, but more than a bit overwhelmed by it all. She got lots of pink presents, mostly clothes featuring Dora the Explorer, which is her favourite cartoon it seems. Her baby doll which gurgles and cries and sucks its dummy was a bit of a winner really, and as usual we had a good time bouncing on the trampoline together and doing lots of tickling! The joys of being an uncle!
We had a spooky moment where Luke reminded all of us of my brother when he was young! The strop he threw and the way he turned round and shouted at Jay after he'd been hit by a football in the face, was quite uncanny!
The new house is coming on really well. It's got a roof and everything now, which is huge progress since we last saw it. I'm just pleased that after all this time it's actually happening for them. They deserve something good after everything they've been through.
Me and Jay attempted to go to the cinema last night, but there wasn't anything good on, so we didn't in the end. We did have the chance to have a good chat though, which is rare and a lovely thing. We just don't the chance often enough to do that properly.

Wet Rabbit

There was a bit of drama this evening while Neighbours was on. Charlie the rabbit fell in the pond. Fortunately I was watching him at the time or else we could have a poor drowned rabbit. I have no idea if rabbits can swim ( I suspect not since he was panicking trying to get himself out) so I've tried very hard to make sure he hasn't gone too near the edge. However, he's an inquisitive little rabbit and he's been tentatively sniffing the waterlilies and earlier on he did a miraculous jump over the width of the pond. He just wasn't so lucky on the way back.

So I fished out a rather damp rabbit, who promptly weed all over me. That's gratitude for you! Still the main thing is he's ok, and is still hopping around the garden (though nowhere near the pond) and just has a bit of damp bottom. Honestly it's like having children, you always have to one eye on them just in case of accidents! Hmm, better put back in the hutch as it looks like rain.

I had strange dreams last night. Actually I pretty uneasy night's sleep really. My feet were too hot. It's an odd thing but the moment my feet get too hot I can't sleep. I really should have got up and washed them in cold water, but there's always the hope that I might just be lucky and fall asleep again. It wasn't quite like that last night. I was very conscious of not waking Steve who had to be up early this morning to go and do some traffic surveying, so i just lay there thinking of nice colours trying to clam my brain down. It didn't work very well.
Anyway, after Steve got up and I fell asleep again I had a very intense dream that seemed to have me involved in some kind of early 80s BBC sitcom. It wasn't a very good one though. Then it sort of became "I've let everyone down" affair, because I kept forgetting to do important things for members of my family, and finally we drove somewhere and I accidentally ended up in a school reunion. That was horrible, everyone seemed to have done very for themselves and were as snooty as they always were- yes you Catriona and you Philip Herrington and they all looked down on me for being a lowly librarian. Weirdest of all was the thought of Andrew Fruin being a top record producer. Last time I saw him he had several screaming kids trailing behind him, not lots of adoring fans. I woke up and felt miserable. I don't think I'd ever want to go back and meet them.
This is the strange Facebook thing. I was recently contacted by a couple of people who were in my form at Ranelagh. I didn't really know if it was best to refuse their attempts to get in touch especially Toby who took great delight in taunting me for years. I don't really want to be reminded of that. I'm very happy with the life I have, and being reminded of a time when I wasn't very confident about anything and when because I was different I was made fun of isn't my idea of fun. But I still let them add me, because they'd made that little tiny bit of effort. silly, huh.

I still think Facebook is pretty damn wonderful though. I usually avoid these things, but I think this might be the one that lasts because its as interactive as you want it to be and much easier to use than any of the other sites I've seen. I just like being able to keep on touch with people so easily and organising get togethers is really easy too. That has to be a good thing!

In the bath

I love a nice relaxing bath. 3/4 of an hour just lying there with some music, just thinking and relaxing. It's perfect and one of the few chances there is just to stop for a bit. Wonderful.

So, as you might guess, that's where I've been. In the bath for a bit. I was pondering lots of things in there, and feeling creative. I've got a play to rewrite over the next few months, as Heist! is having a change of companion, which normally would be a bit of a hassle. It actually fits better having just one companion (and a new one at that), as I wasn't really sure there was enough material for 2 companions, so I'm pleased. I've just got to do the little tweaks now to make it work.
The other thing I want to do is write a little short story set directly after Magical History Tour. There's just a little loose end I want to tie up before we send them all off on new adventures, as I think there needs to be a bit of a reconciliation between the Doctor and Nick. I thought a little short story would be the perfect way to explore that, and resolve it before we get on to the business with the Christmas Gnomes. I won't say much more for fear of giving away spoilers, but it's something I'll enjoy writing over the next few weeks.

It's been a nice quiet weekend. Lots of relaxing and not much incident. A good episode of Inspector Morse on Saturday night, suburban stuff today- washing my bike and Steve's car, chasing Charlie round the garden, cleaning the house... not exciting, but vital things. I think Steve needed a chance to stop for a bit. Actually I know we both needed that really. The best thing is, I get another chance to do that tomorrow! Hooray!

Bad Girls and refurbs

Bad Girls-The Musical was exactly what you would expect, camp and silly with some serious moments. I loved it! The songs were catchy and fun, which helped a great deal (well it was a musical after all) with some memorably clever lyrics at times. I thought the recasting of the parts was done really well and there a couple of moments when I had to do a double take because they seemed so like their TV counterparts. The star though was Helen Fraser as Sylvia "Bodybag" Hollenby. She stole the show from everyone else, especially in her song and dance numbers, wrapped in a red feather boa and sparkly top. She rightfully got the biggest cheer at the curtain call. So great fun and a wonderful birthday present from Steve. He knew!

Things are pretty good at the moment. I just really haven't been in the mood for doing much blogging though. I think sometimes a little break is needed from these things, but I always end up regretting not writing about the things I forgot to write about!

There was a little good news at work today, as it seems the improvements that have been suggested for both my libraries recently have been agreed. This is good as they both are in desperate need of some attention, especially in the back office areas. Great Hollands in particular is quite grim really, especially as the only running water in the building is in the hand basin in the toilet. Not ideal. So finally we might be able to have a back office where both me and Pat can work at the same time, and at Birch Hill we might finally get some decent storage space and a back office space that is slightly more practical... well when it's done of course... it could turn out like Gaz's nightmare office refurb... let's hope not, eh?

Don't Stop Now

Sometimes although there's a great deal going on, there isn't always much to say about it. I can't quite believe it's been 3 weeks since I last wrote on here, but there we go. You'll probably know what's been going on, as you'll have read Steve's blog in the meantime, so I won't bore you with a huge recap. The spare room does look good though, I've enjoyed going on a couple of bike rides with Steve and things are trundling on quite nicely really.

We've had some drama at work though. Last Wednesday there was a bit of an incident at Great Hollands involving four rather high teenage boys, the stuffed owl from the children's library and an on target throw... at the time it seemed rather harmless, but it's escalated as the customer involved has reported it as an assault to the police, looking back at the CCTV log it turns out one of the boys was snorting something while he was in the library and so I've ended up reporting the whole incident to the police. I just hope there aren't any reprisals- this is what I fear, but that doesn't really change the fact that I've done the right thing. We'll see how this one pans out.
On the plus side at work a customer at Birch Hill baked me a lovely lemon cake this week for all the help I gave her with a rather tricky library book problem. That makes it all worthwhile!

Work on the next play seems to be coming on well from the sounds of it. We had such a laugh the other night recording some interview material for the making of doc! We shouldn't laugh at our own jokes, but we just kept getting the giggles and getting sillier and sillier. I don't know how much of it is actually usable, or actually entertaining, but I hope Pip can find a use for it.
It sounds like Si is doing another wonderful job with the post production. I hope he does OK editing part 2. Part 2 is a bit of a tricky one really- I like the stuff with Nick and Brian, and the scene where Rob and Nick meet again is really important, but I'm not really too sure about some of the rest of it. I have to be honest and say I wasn't really a big fan of the Freddie cameo in the first place, and I don't think I wrote that bit very well either and so I'd quite happily see that edited out. I probably have an entirely different outlook on the play than Si does, having not heard many of the actual scenes assembled or even being recorded. It takes on a different life then. I do wonder if people will be able to guess which episodes were written by whom? We'll see.

Looking forward to seeing Richard, Si and Simon at the weekend for Bad Girls- The Musical. That should be a fun show.