Back to theatre, my chicken soup

If anything was ever going to heal me during this pandemic, it has to involve theatre.

Many years ago, I worked in professional theatre, and there was never a day when it ever felt like going to work; it was hard work, it had its moments, but it was fun.

Joining a different profession, theatre remained an important part of my life, creating lasting memories, firing deep discussion, lifting the soul and a reliable MH fix. I’m a sucker for the National Theatre, not only my favourite building – yep, I like a bit of Brutalism – but the best production values anywhere. Objectively, you expect this of a National Theatre, and it more than does the job; even if I’m not mad about the play, the staging or the lighting and, of course, the acting triumph. I can never book too many shows there, and am not averse to seeing something really special twice (or, in the case of Follies, several times).

And, usually, I see lots of things in the west end too, usually two shows a week. The Tricyle in Kilburn (I still can’t get used to calling it the Kiln) is another production house with top class production values. The last thing I saw before the pandemic was Pass Over. It would be the last thing I saw for 18 months as I reluctantly decided against attending Seven Streams of the River Ota at the National Theatre as the pandemic was quite full on then.

So, today, and booked almost two years ago, a year later than it was booked for, Carousel! The Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park is a lush summer venue, fabulous if you get a nice day, probably testing of true grit if it’s chucking it down with rain. Today was dry, the threat of rain was there though, but held off.

A picnic in Queen Mary’s Rose Garden first, then into the Covid safe surroundings of the Open Air Theatre. Fifth row, centre, can’t get much better than that really. However, a restricted view seat behind a tree would have been almost as exciting. Theatre. Theatre. Proper live theatre. Dead exciting.

I sent my lighting designer drama school peer a photo of the set, and said how exciting it was to hear the orchestra tuning up. It’s a sound I take for granted, but I savoured it today. I felt emotional. Holding back some tears emotional.

And, then it started, The Carousel Waltz. It’s one of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s masterpieces, using an overture that reeks of fairground, toffee apples and candy floss (or cotton candy as they call it in America). Wonderful performances as we meet the characters and sense the buzz of the fairground. Proper tears now. Tears for joy. Tears for a pandemic. Tears to see the cast on stage. Tears for being alive.

It was a sterling production, emphasising the darker parts of the original production’s domestic violence and abuse themes in a modern interpretation.

But, this isn’t a review. This is about the joy of theatre, the joy of live theatre (streamed theatre is a second best, but this is a first best), the privilege of being able to see such things in London, the worthwhile wait of exactly a year to see this postponed performance, seeing some of London’s finest performers and techies doing their stuff. And some collared doves from the park trying to upstage the actors by flying onto the stage and going for a stroll during a big number.

I’m just going to listen to a recording of Carousel, think I’ll listen to the original, but the very familiar National Theatre revival recording is tempting. Joanna Riding played Julie Jordan at the National, winning an Olivier Award. Today she plays Nettie Fowler, now having earned the two best songs across the years, June is Busting Out All Over and You’ll Never Walk Alone.

So, that’s theatre back on my radar. Lots booked at the National Theatre for the new season and some things in Kilburn too. And, life feels a bit happier

At the end, the sun came out, so we sat in the Rose Garden to catch a few rays, drink tea and enjoy the best of London.

What a difference a year makes

India. Goa. Far south. Patnem. Nothing much happens there so its a bit like lockdown but with blues skies, warm sunshine, meeting up with your pals and fresh strawberry daiquiris at sunset. So, actually its not really that much like a London lockdown, apart from nothing much happening if you’re stuck at home. 

So, its exactly a year ago since I got back from my last holiday, and I should have been returning today from a trip to the same place. Creature of habit. Thankfully, I got a full refund for this year’s flight back to my credit card, then immediately frittered it away on useless pandemic knick knacks and treats. 

Last year’s trip was just at the very early stages of Covid-19 being reported, seeing the Chinese response in Wuhan to the increasing numbers of very sick and dying people there, well reported in Indian newspapers and via online news sources. We were all beginning to speak about it, wondering if, like SARS, it would be confined to that area. It seems hard now to remember a time before Covid.

While there, I woke up with a sore throat and a harsh dry cough. I had no energy, and felt a shortness of breath sufficient for me to call my tuk tuk driver and go into the pharmacy at Chaudhi to pick up a cough suppressant. Indian pharmacies are great – the pharmacists have excellent knowledge. It didn’t knock this cough on the head though so I checked out my UK prescription app to see the name of the inhaler spray I had been prescribed about eighteen months earlier when stricken by a viral infection that had caused shortness of breath. Because it was more than a year before, it didn’t show up. Anyway, I had zero energy, not enough to call my lovely tuk tuk🛺 driver to go back to the pharmacy in Chaudhi. I went back to bed. Until about 2 pm.  I’m not sure that I slept, but I was too tired to go out. If you know me, you will know how out of character this is. I love the beach. I love the beach. It is my chicken soup. I’m usually there by 9 am, sometimes earlier. My lovely apartment there is practically on the beach, about fifty steps away, a fabulous veggie restaurant is the only distraction during those fifty steps unless the apartment owners are at their kitchen door in which case we have a general chit chat. I forced myself to walk to the beach late afternoon and then about a hundred metres along then fall into a sun lounger at my favourite beach shack. Water and Diet Coke; that was all I wanted, and snoozing in the sun. No reading. Too much effort. This lasted about four days, dry cough unrelenting, unbelievably tired. It lifted though, and I felt better. My neighbours’ young child had had a really bad cough and I thought I’d maybe picked it up from her.  I didn’t really think too much more about it. I’d had my flu jab so knew it was unlikely flu.

Meanwhile, it was nearing hometime, a year ago, but I confused myself about the return date, one of those flights at 3.30am on 2 February. I don’t know why I thought that was 3 February. So, about 11.30pm on 1 February, I checked my flight details, saw check-in was open, panicked slightly as the flight was four hours later, I was 50 miles south of the airport, the whole village was asleep. My local SIM card had run out, and I was dependent upon WiFi to get in touch with somebody I knew who could tell the driver booked for the following day that it was now. Leaving right now. Thankfully, the WiFi had been left on at the main house. I got in touch with my friend by messenger. He usually responds quickly, but all the “what ifs” started forming. Anyway, the upshot was that my driver got woken up, I packed everything up in about 15 minutes and got my London clothes on too, but still in my beach trousers. I think we were on our way by midnight. It’s about an hour to the airport. We arrived without incident, other than me asking my driver to pull over on the hard shoulder so I could do an anticoagulant injection I need to do before and after long haul flights. I do not like doing these, but rolling down the top of my trousers and injecting my abdomen in the back of the taxi seemed a more comfy choice than risking the loos at the airport. Checked in. Phew. Sent a message to my landlady, apologising for abrupt departure, all paid up so no concerns there, saying I’d see them at Easter for a wedding I was going back for.

Back to London, getting a new bathroom sorted, various new kitchen appliances, planning to get the doors and windows replaced,  it was no time at all for Covid-19 to have travelled around too. I’d been slightly nervous about going through Doha as it’s such a hub airport. There was a cruise ship 🚢 out there, the Diamond Princess, that showed as a “country” on WHO lists because of the numbers of infections onboard. I went to the theatre a couple of times, but cancelled seeing Seven Streams of the River Ota as Covid was feeling very real at that point

It must have been early April when I realised that the cough and illness I’d had in India was probably Covid. I felt a bit drama queen even thinking that, but an anaesthetist neighbour who was working non-stop with ICU Covid patients said my symptoms sounded very Covidy. So, I think I had it last January. When plasma donation started up for Covid patients, NHS Blood thought I’d had it too, but I was prevented from donating as soon as they knew I was awaiting some orthopaedic surgery. That has been postponed until goodness knows when, many more important and urgent cases will need to be done before me when a more normal pattern of life assumes. At least I was able to participate in some antibody testing for Oxford research, basically stabbing a hole in your ring finger and letting blood into a vial for boffins to test.

So, if the last year had been very different, I’d be getting home today, after a sunny gentle holiday, cold, tired, something out of the freezer, UHT milk in the fridge awaiting my return. 

The wedding that I intended to go to last Easter took place in Delhi in February for the legal bits before a Judge, but the courts closed down so it took about eight months for the formal certificate to be issued. We’re all waiting for it to be safe to travel for the formal wedding, not the wedding of the year, but the wedding of the two years or the wedding celebrations of the three years.

I didn’t have time to strike the Christmas tree last year so I came back to a bonus night of sparkly fairy lights, Candlemas too. Plus groundhog day which is, for me the day I come back from India. I have the tree in place and sparkling tonight, but no jet lag this year.

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Stop all the clocks – we just lost an hour for summer time

It’s a strange time, stranger than I’ve known, stranger than you’ve known. I’m resilient, enjoy my own company, the master of procrastination, love books, love a surf around the interweb and around social media platforms. I was so busy doing nothing that I didn’t have time to start that new series on Netflix or Sky.

Now, I’ve got the time because the other things I did have been pared back. No pottering up to the shops, bumping into friends and acquaintances there, nipping into a coffee shop for a latte and a gossip. No books for return to the library, nor shelves to browse for curveball books and travel writing. No theatregoing or occasional cinema visits. Nobody coming by for a coffee or, sun’s over the yardarm, glass of wine. No hospital appointments as they’ve all been pushed back to the autumn; yes, September instead of March.

I’m good on my own, but not so good at life without human contact. Physical, in your face contact. Zoom has zoomed into my life from absolutely nowhere, starting with a fun pub quiz with scarily bright competition but I managed not to come last. I think there’s a good chance of that honour next week as it’s now a Monday night fixture. And mindfulness and guided meditation at 6pm weeknights with professional and calm practitioners. Today, there was a get together with friends around the world on Zoom professional, the occasion being a friend’s hen night. The wedding’s been postponed, but I admired her style in having a virtual event, with PowerPoint instructions for certain tasks and break out rooms for team tasks. The overall flow of alcohol may have been less than in real life, but I had a fabulous time with people I love plus a free class in Zoom too.

But, the hen night, different time zone so not a late finish in London, no wild tales to tell about people’s antics afterwards as there were no shared Ubers or minicabs, has left me feeling so flat. We were all there, but we weren’t really there. We were happy to see each other, we laughed and teased one another, but there were no hugs, none of the body language that you get by being in the same airspace. A judge once stated a preference for having a witness attend a case in person rather than by video link as “you can see into the whites of their eyes.” And that’s what we were missing; the whites of our eyes, our true sparkle.

It was good, but it’s left me flat. We will unlikely see each other in real life for at least three months. That was an unspoken silence. A fun afternoon has left a hole, another part of the understanding clicking into place. It will be tough; tough not to worry about getting Covid-19, tough to think of family and friends getting it, but not being able to help them in person, tough for people who’ve lost their jobs or whose jobs are at risk. The list goes on, and more will be added, especially as people become affected directly.

I’m pleased about the clocks having gone forward as it gives an hour less of house arrest time. Stop all the clocks. Please.

I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts

Clean, cool, subtly flavoured, thirst quenching, full of electrolytes and all other manner of good things.

There is nothing quite as refreshing as a drinking coconut, cold as cold could be, a straw size hole chunked out of the tender coconut by dexterous use of an ancient looking machete.

If you’re really lucky, you get a nice gel-like fleshy lining to your coconut, a very fine layer can be played around with with your straw, pushing through some tracks of coconut into the straw’s end and then sucking it out from that end. It’s the colour of rice vermicelli, an almost translucent white. It’s the colour of a teeth whitening advert. There won’t be a huge amount, but it’ll keep you amused for about five minutes or so.

But the real privilege comes with a thick coconut flesh lining, the same translucent white, the same taste, just thicker, almost lunch in its own right. You sort of know when it’s a thick lining. Back it goes to the man with the machete (generally, it’s a man here, but I have seen a machete wielding coconut slayer in Kerala, and nobody would have messed with her), who performs a karate chop with said machete to split the coconut into two, then back it comes to you with a spoon to scrape out the coconut flesh. The Keralan coconut lady provided an old bit of dry coconut shell to use as the scraper, like an Indian version of the French using a mussel shell as the spoon for the rest of the mussels in the bowl.

I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts.

I should coco.

Do the Hokey Cokey, that’s what it’s all about.

The Sound of Silence is not here

This is not a place for those seeking silent solitude. First of all, the sound of the waves gently crashing into the shore reminds you of the nature of the place. The heavy sound of a train, pulling many, many carriages on journeys starting in Bombay or Bangalore is heard rumbling in the not too far distance, the occasional train hooter sounding, perhaps to chase an errant cow off the track. Cows. They make a bit of a noise too, but nothing like the sound of the dogs, street dogs and beach dogs all guarding their territories, and woe betide any dog that strays beyond the border. Crows. Now, they make a total racket, talking to one another and seeing off the quiet sea eagles and other raptors in adjacent trees.

Early morning, the stealth bicycle wakes you up by sneaking up outside your billet, then honking a horn to let you know he has arrived and has bread for sale. The bread is inside a plastic half barrel, affixed to the back of the bike. This is freshly baked pao, a traditional Portuguese bread, still produced in small village bakeries across Goa. It has the texture of ciabatta and looks like a muffin. It’s the perfect size for a fried egg roll. Or a cheese toastie. I am wondering  how it might travel. The early evening pao delivery arrives by scooter which is all very modern around here. 

Then, it’s the bin man. He arrives, pulling a green plastic wheely bin. No health and safety here in his flip flops. He announces his arrival with a full blow on a whistle, like the referee calling half time or full time. The dead could barely sleep through this shrill sound.  

Chop. Chop. Chop. You are never far from a kitchen where the chefs are busy chopping ginger and herbs, julienning vegetables. It’s all done by hand. The sound of a food processor is a rare one – they are of zero use in a power cut. However, they do come into their own for fruit juices and fruit based cocktails. Strawberry Daiquiri or Shiva Shaker, anybody?  There’s a constant background noise as the kitchen teams prep for lunch or dinner, responding too to ad hoc orders.  Clink. Clink. Clink. You can always hear the sounds of glassware, crockery and cutlery. The high quality beach shacks just make everybody to want to eat and drink all day long. 

An afternoon’s sunbathing is disturbed by the sound of the bell. It’s like a small school bell, more of a tinkle than a solid sound though. It’s the ice cream man. He’s new this year. He carries a cloth-covered small barrel on his head, presumably containing the ice creams, somehow insulated from the beating sun and a temperature that has to be into the thirties. I have yet to see anybody buy one. I’m afraid it shan’t be me either. And there’s the chap who mutters “peanuts” as you doze, his basket containing small newspaper cones of monkey nuts. And another man who claims to be called “Dagenham Dave” who sells notebooks. You really don’t have to bother going to the shops as they come to you, no end of costume jewellery for sale by “you look at me and remember” or “I have shop over there”. 

Peace and quiet. You came here for peace and quiet. Nah, this place reminds you that you are very much alive and that you choose to embrace all the noise and distractions; they’re all part of the reason to come here, and to come back again. 

Camden time travel in the dark and the rain

I had never got out at Camden Road station before, despite going past it almost daily when I lived further up Camden Road, towards the Holloway end. But, I can no longer deal with changing tube lines in the rush hour so The Overground seemed like the better idea.What a cute, dinky station it is. Lots of ivory painted wrought ironwork supporting the platform shelter. It looked very ye olde worlde at 6pm on a cold, dark, wet December evening, not modern buzzing London. And there’s a passenger lift too to save the knees from the evils of the staircase down to pavement level.Camden Road is still a bit crazy though; the bus stop towards Holloway was busy and not as gentrified as the newspapers would try to have us believe north London to be. You can tell it’s north London as there’s a background smell of kebab or grilled pitta bread, and it’s heartening to see that there’s still a kebab shop here. The long established painting and decorating shop is still here too, selling everything a jobbing painter might need. Of course, the area is much smarter now and I suspect far fewer tradesmen live there, but the shop prospers.Crossing the road at the traffic lights towards the tube station, and I’m astonished to see that the boot shop is still there. When my parents lived in Highgate, I spent many an evening waiting for the 134 there. I’d quite forgotten about the boot shop. Think DMs and DM homage boots. And a brightly lit window.Up Chalk Farm Road, the Electric Ballroom sign looks the same. Did there used to be as many security people there though? Maybe I just never noticed them back in the day.Chalk Farm Road is Tourist Central. It is also Goth Central. And Londoners Central. The shops all subscribe to the tourist is always right and offer all the London themed keyrings, snow globes and other tourist knock you could think of. And, the road reeks of weed. Like really reeks. I don’t get offered weed for sale today, but a couple of people offer me either CDs or DVDs for sale. I obviously look to old to be a streamer.What used to be the stables market and old warehousing is now called Camden Market, and it looks quite good too, even in the dark. Dingwalls is no longer the rough and ready venue that it used to be. Le Routier restaurant next door seems to have gone the way of history. I like the cobbles, especially in the dark and when wet. They glisten.Further up the road to The Roundhouse, not for the very posh corporate Christmas party that is taking over the the main theatre, but to the studio space for for the launch of an anthology of Argentinian contemporary plays, translated by British translators, now just waiting for producers and theatre companies to pick them up. We hear short extracts and a fascinating Q&A before a glass of fine Malbec courtesy of the Argentinian Embassy.I get the tube home. The Northern Line tube announcements are all very posh and RP. We do not get this voice-over artist for the District line, but, thereagain, we are not near Hampstead. Damn. I forget that it is a few Fridays before Christmas and it’s office party time so the tube is packed and the change onto the Central Line at Bank sees trains busier than the rush hour. Home in one piece, eventually, after a bit of time travel in Camden.

Black socks

This does not explain the mystery of the universe that loses individual socks some place between the laundry basket and the washing line. I have heard about this strange phenomenon, but have no first hand experience. Well, I do if you include the time when I was a teenager and it was apparently one of my socks that got had stuck somewhere in the washing machine, breaking it in the process. I did not do this deliberately; thankfully, my mum will not read this so will not get another chance to revisit that story and recall how much the callout cost. 

This is about matching up socks, all black of course, but from different manufacturers so slightly different. They sort of look alike, but they are not. Some have got a slightly cashmere feel to them, fake cashmere though, and others feel finer, more cotton-like, although I am sure they contain no cotton. 

Some do have quite distinctive tops, maybe a bit of internal stretch stitching that let you match them up. At least with those ones, you can at them the right way out. Most just look the same either side, and it is impossible to decide whether they are the right way round or inside out. The only clue is the toe seam, and short of getting a magnifying glass out (now there’s an idea), it is difficult to find the more pronounced side of the seam which should be inside. 

It is a Herculean task whether the socks are wet or dry. Attempts to sort them when wet have been futile as I have forgotten that they have been sorted previously, and pile them all up together for a second sorting. 

Should I start to buy socks in different colours for easy matching and to save this post-laundry waste of time? But I don’t want grey socks ot navy socks. I only like black socks. Black knee length socks that  are becoming more difficult to source as there is a retail movement towards short socks. John Lewis is currently the preferred supplier as M&S don’t like long black socks any more, Primani’s long black socks fall down and Boots’ long bamboo socks are not exactly what I call decent quality. 

For the amount of time wasted trying to play The Krypton Factor sock matching game, you’d think there were twenty pairs to sort. I am not given to exaggeration, but these four pairs of socks drive me to distraction. I sometimes take a little break half way through to maintain my sock sanity. 

A change of direction, a bit of a curveball

Sometimes, you just have to grab that bull by the horns. Don’t think about it. Just go for it. As Stephen Sondheim says, “opportunity is not a lengthy visitor.”

I think this must be how I have found myself doing some tutoring work with first year undergraduate students.

It’s all a bit random, but so good and uplifting to be working with students at the beginning of their vocational course. They are bright, interesting, interested, keen and beginning to realise just how expensive London can be for an evening out. They are becoming Londoners.

Their subject is not my area of expertise, but I’m drawing upon aspects of my own professional background and applying a common sense approach to the day’s objectives. And it’s great fun and so rewarding.

If these undergraduates are part of the future, the future’s actually looking quite promising.

Sofia for beginners

Back on the travel game in Bulgaria

I was here fifty years ago, about nine or ten, a family holiday on the Black Sea. These were the days of communist rule, and my dad was telling me that the statues of Lenin everywhere had nothing to do, as I thought, with John Lennon. It was a memorable holiday in other ways as dad explained refraction to me, and how refracted rays caused sunburn in the sea. I think that explanation came about as I must have turned lobster red in the sea. I also learnt that you can dry the wet sand off your feet with dry sand; sand was apparently used in Fleet Street (where newspaper presses once rolled) to dry ink.

And, every day we had a brown paper bag of sweet large peaches and another of grapes as beach lunch. The peaches were huge, three times the size of any I’d seen at home, or even in the USA.

Everything was sold by weight, including ice cream cones. The ice cream sellers had sugar cones shaped like ice cream tubs, and thick vanilla ice cream was carefully weighed into the sugar cone on a set of balance scales, a tiny bit being removed if it tipped the scales over.

And, last Friday I saw a giant peach at a local small fruit and veg market in Plovdiv that brought these fond childhood memories flooding back.

It was the size of my grown up hand, probably bigger than the yummy peaches we used to have for lunch half a century ago. And, totally delicious, juicy and sweet as honey.

The fruit and veg market was better than any so called farmers’ market I’ve been to in London, and there were quite possibly actual farmers there. The honey lady seemed to know her onions. There were also red onions, still with their above–ground greenery attached. Now, that is fresh from the farm stuff. I’m going back for some forest honey, but I don’t think I can really justify red onions just because they have their green bits intact.