PRODUCTION REHEARSALS, AND OTHER STORIES NO ONE HAS ASKED FOR. BEDFORD. 23RD OCT.

October 23, 2017

Sleep is a slippery fish.
We’re not yet talking like reasonable adults, so I cock her the snoot and give up at 5:am.
Out of the shower, and coffee in a flask, I tread out into the dark morning.

I like the streets at this hour.
Gulls cross the road by foot and the neon shop signs promise nothing.

A drunk challenges his upright.
A young back-packed woman makes her way briskly to work, I presume.

The supermarkets squint themselves open swamped in stark, sharp light. The kind that induces nausea and depression.

A few people wait for a bus and I silently congratulate myself for choosing to walk.

I have had such little opportunity to walk lately that I have hardly yet worn my legs down to stubs.
That would be a good look.

The litter is no better than when I left for tour some 7 weeks ago.
Dog shit is piled stoically like yesterday’s abandoned sandcastle, a tower or two demolished, but not yet weather wiped.
Dirty dog owning twat bastards.

A few bodies, rolled into the walls in their sleeping bags, have learnt to be still without comfort.
I wonder how deeply they sleep.
I am glad the air is not yet too punishingly cold for them.
That’s big of me.

I stride.
My toes still hurt.
Maybe that’s the beginning of my old lady ailments.
I’m sure it’s those lady tour shoes.
G says it’s most likely gout.
Wanker.

I lost my back-up phone battery bank, what ever they’re called, yesterday.
I have a bad record of ownership over them..
I had a great one once, but I left it on a train.
I bought another,
but killed it with water.
My third died like a wan Victorian with some wan Victorian disease, I imagine.
Consumption perhaps.
I suspect that malady was transmitted via liquid also.

My fourth was just a knob.

The next was retired courtesy of water. Not much. but enough.
Once ruined I had thrown it into my case in America, and landed to find it had been confiscated and destroyed as illegal hold luggage contraband.
I felt heartened that I had killed it first.
You don’t leave me alive you sucker
Saves me disposing of it responsibly.

This last one I suspect I know where I left it.
I went this early morning to see if I could find it and had remembered correctly.
How delightful.
It makes me feel sensible. Responsible.

Not like the time I was walking to Junior school, and tapped on the back, was told I had just dropped my mitten.
I know, I said.
And carried on walking.

Fuck knows what that was all about.

They had been brand new sheepskin.

I had to use socks for mittens after that again.

I have bought a train ticket to Bedford.
I am heading there for production rehearsals. 2.5 hours each way and then a cab.

We have a whole crew now that we are preparing for our still European leg.
Our own desks and lighting rig.

We managed to get Eric onboard from our US tour.
Such a great fit.
This is very pleasing indeed.
I wonder what he will make of our islands.

I arrive in our hanger of a production space which has now been fully hung with curtains.
It sounds great.
The boys are all busy about their business.
Darren is missing. He has been kicking furniture apparently and has dislocated his toe.
He’s not a violent man.

The atmosphere is splendid.
We are all sprung and ready to go.

We work out some moves.
Not choreographic, obvs,
and play through a few songs not yet before featured on this tour.
Shuffle sets.
Build shapes

There are a couple of days here to bring all the component parts together.

I make my way home to pack.
Oh, packing.
How I have missed you…