Middleton Cheney and Broughton

Oopsy - getting behind again... and how could I not mention Middleton Cheney.  OMG Middleton Cheney audience I am so totally, yeah, in love with you.  You even laughed at things that weren't funny.  And it was a Thursday night just before half term.  Weren't you tired at all?  Not looking forward to a break? Bit kind of fed up about having to go out to a school do?  I mean, Educating Essex was on the telly and it's a programme too good to miss, isn't it?  Not a bit of it.  MC were up for it.  I thank you.  

Had a bit of a double take when I was shown my dressing room:  the nurse's room.  There was a screen, a bed with a propped up head, syringes, wadding, lots of antiseptic bits and bobs.  The entire area was sanitised and disinfected and I worried quite a lot about contaminating things.  This is not something I usually have to concern myself with.  In fact usually it is the other way round.  Not many village halls are blessed with Artists' Dressing Rooms and I am only too accustomed to changing in cupboards, disabled toilets, lobbies and corridors.   One day it will all change and I'll see my name on a dressing room door.  It's only a matter of time, I feel sure.

Talking of disabled loos, that's where I changed in Broughton.  You know what, Broughton?  I reckon  I did one of the best performances I've ever done that night.  It just all seemed to work, and your happy smiling faces were a joy to perform to.  Nightmare on lighting street but it'll be sorted.    I wonder if I was so relaxed because I'd taken a short holiday earlier in the week?  Three days in Paris with son and girlfriend.  Son is 16.  I reckon it takes some character to go to Paris with  your mum and your girl, and son rose to the occasion.   On the whole we agreed about most things:  The Mona Lisa is overrated, the Moulin Rouge is worth every penny, the metro is hard work, there is absolutely no fathomable reason for a gothic scene of flowers and overpainted lady to be represented in the players' dressing room of the Stade de France, and the walk beside the Seine was great despite the fact that the Musee D'Orsay was shut when we got there.    Funniest moment:  son and girlfriend trying to remember their actual birthdays and say them in French in order to prove that they were under, rather than over, 18 for a change in order to get in free.

Um - if you are reading this (like, who?) may I just mention that the next performance I will report will take place before the Princess Royal.  Aaaaarrrrrgh.