Hard Sloggi

Well, after yesterday I was a bit tired (not enough Minecraft) and had convinced myself that I was only going to have a 4 hour rehearsal today.
So when I discovered that my schedule was 12 noon till 8pm, that was ... difficult. So I made sure I mentioned 4 times that it would be a tough lengthy day and if it was to happen again, I would quit acting forever because nobody in their right mind would ever work for 8 hours a day, 2 days a week.
So my slave presented me with a mixed continental fruit and protein breakfast and I Youtubed happily until Theatre time.
Additional: being in the Scouts means you really ought to co-opt your parent(s) into Scout Helpy-activities. So mine does procurement and acquisition and getting things, including in this case, fixing some Vango Alpha tents with broken tent poles. For a man who has never put up a tent, it's amazing how far you can get by reading the instructions.
Standard lunchtime was reduced to 1/2 an hour and Bud met me with a picnic medley of easy-chomp foodstuffs on the decking in the sun. We did a few run-throughs of the performance and when Sydney got there after childcare it all got a bit better, not something I always admit.
On the way home we were most 1) aggressive 2) interactive 3) physical and 4) disruptive to the taxi driver but who's counting. So a game of who-can-molest-each-other-the-most turned into an invite to Skype and Minecraft on Murder-craft and Holy Poodles but within 5 minutes of getting back, we were talking to each other on Skype and playing with each other on Mine-murder-craft.
Now that's what I call peer-group teamwork. It had to be cut short due to supper and Matrix Revolutionary Film Night but now we have reached out to each other in cyber-space, I see the potential for so much more.

Groovy Channel 7

Woken at 9 something when my curtains mysteriously opened. While I am generally a happy soul, sometimes a dark cloud lurks in the background, and today had that cloud, in the form of a 10 1/2 hour rehearsal at the theatre. I like to tread the boards as much as anyone, but isn't this supposed to be a holiday?

So I demanded scrambled eggs with less butter but more cheese and we got to the theatre for 11. It was supposed to be 12, but they lengthened it. We discovered why, when the cameras from 'That's Solent' TV set up and filmed us doing our rehearsal. I have been on the BBC twice already so this is not new. I texted Bud and said watch Freeview Channel 7 tonight. Slight problem is, we don't get Freeview as part of our broadband and home entertainment package.

I suppose to want something free when you spend however many hundred pounds a month on the service is asking too much. So we will have to harvest their Yourtube, Fartbook and Tweetle feeds to see my gorgeous face brightening the airwaves. Apparently it's like an American radio station beginning with KW, in that its transmitters beam the programmes as far as 30 miles, if you have a clifftop receiver.

So then it was lunchtime and we tried the Ship Leopard Boutique Hotel foodery and watched the diggers digging up the new bus station. They'd run out of tuna/mayo for the jacket potato so I had pepperoni pizza which was very cheesy and filled me up for the main afternoon session. The afternoon session was marred by Child B (it's always the same Child B) who dropped Maltesers all over the floor so that everybody crunched them into the gaps in the floorboards, happy rodents there. Downstairs there was a 2 hour meditation class - downstairs from 90 kids practising musical dance theatre. Just saying.

In the end us slightly younger actors were allowed to go home after only 9 hours instead of the original 10 1/2, giving me time to seek out Sydney on Skype. There were 2, one in South Dakota. I wonder which she is.

Hunting for Alien Artefacts

Pushed the envelope today. OK, I don't even have an envelope, but I watched so many Youtube videos my tablet ran out of charge. Shopping was completed so early we were able to get the bikes out and cycle down to the swimming pool end of the seafront to meet some Scouts.

One of the components of the Community Challenge badge (which you need in order to get the Chief Scouts' Gold Award badge) is volunteering some time doing good works in the community, charity work or helping out on some organized community-friendly event. So a few months ago we all spent a couple of hours cleaning up the seashore with the Southsea Beach Clean team (available on Facebook) and filled a few binbags with stuff that doesn't belong on the beach. That time, I was the only Scout to show up.

Last week, I helped Jofs' work friends clean out and fix up the cricket club on the seafront, making it all nice for the new season. And this week it was beach cleaning again. Rapidly it became obvious we were in the wrong place and we cycled up to the pier where the official Beach Cleaners (including a delegation from Surfers against Sewage - imagine hanging ten in a sea of floaters) had a table and we signed ourselves in and got protective gloves. I also got a dragon grabber (it does not grab dragons, it is a grabber cunningly coloured to look like a dragon) and I refused to hold a binbag of my own because that would cramp my style, which is to march up and down not grabbing dragons, telling everybody what to do, basically to pick up all artefacts that are alien to a littoral zone.

Flynn and Cosmo and Alfie and Matt and OtherMax joined our motley crew of pickers and we set off in an easterly direction. I grabbed litter and transferred it to the binbags held by my minions, and we proceeded sedately past the millions of happy people on the beach. It was definitely Skimpy Summer Skirt Sunday.

We ignored the tomatoes. They are biodegradable. We ignored the rocks, for they are a natural part of the beach and very numerous. We ignored the hundreds of flip-flops, brightly coloured plastic buckets and spades, because they still being used by toddlers, and that would be unfair. But we did pick up the laughing gas canisters, the energy or cider drinks cans (when not still in use), blue string, coffee cups, wet wipes, random bits of plastic and fishing string. The air was thick with the smog of barbecues and nameless cigarettes but the onshore breeze took it away.

I got a fag lighter and plastic Supermans' cape and Jof got a purple Thomas the Tank Engine. She also kept saying to people "I hope you're going to put that in the bin" and I picked up a dead fish and threw it back. Then I found a fish head and found that if you squeezed the grabber you could make the fish head open its mouth. Jof ran away screaming, girls. In the end we got all the way to Coffee Cup (which is where we started the last Beach Clean) and wandered back. I got lots of sun (red arms, and I'm an official redneck) and another 2 hours towards my badge and a chocolate chip ice cream. Cycled home with chocolate all up my face and played Minecraft until Film Night which was Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

 

Icy Dead People

Saturday! And not a normal one - this is the start of 2 weeks off. But typically, I awoke with a 7 in it and read quietly in bed like the good boy I hope to one day become. Breakfast was buttery and cheesy and that was just the scrambled eggs, the rest of the morning being devoted to Youtube, not sure if it counts as an addiction or a religion.

Meanwhile, a minion boxed up my duplicate coins and yea, they weighed 10 kilogrammes and were difficult to hold up for long. They shall hit the online auction facilitator tonight to provide much-needed funds for, I don't know, coins or something. Then we waited slightly too long for Sydney and she'd been a little like me with the not getting up when told to and the lying around and the pretending not to hear.

But once she'd brushed her hair all over the car she perked up and we had a splendid 4 1/2 hour rehearsal in which the set grew and grew until it took up half the auditorium. We bequeathed my old wartime suitcase from the Evacuee school project to the theatre as a prop, waste not, damn right.

'Wind in the Willows' is a sedate story from gentler times, but not the way we've done it. Hedgehogs and rabbits and weasels and other forest fauna have to pop up here and there so in the absence of portal technology at knockdown prices, tunnels have been built alongside the audience crucible so that we can scurry around unseen and unheard (but probably not unsmelt) and emerge elsewhere.

Viewing holes have been cunningly incorporated into the megastructure so that we can see our cues and spy on the audience. Apparently it's a bit interactive as well as musical and some of them will be playing the part of picnickers so expect some creaky legs at intermission. But it's all hilarious fun and everybody should attend and fill the auditorium and have a good time.

Of course all these tunnels get a bit sawdusty and we'll be going down in full costume so I went down Sydney's tunnel to give it a good spring clean. The we distributed masks around the room, maybe for some kind of German speciality film where they only wear masks.

Now, being as I was unjustly unplugged from my Youtube Cyber-teat and had a 4 1/2 hour rehearsal full of dances and songs with only Jaffa Cakes as nutriment, my mood at the end can be a little unpredictable. One of the girls spent the whole time crying and asking when Mummy was coming to pick her up, and even one of the adult volunteers fell down the stairs and banged her leg. But at the end Poppy and Riley and Sydney and Alfie and anybody else ending in -ee absolutely insisted on an emergency 45 minute game of hide and seek with me in the sunshine.

Much later, because I failed to get off my butt and choose a Saturday-Night-Is-Film-Night video, 'Sixth Sense' was chosen for me. I watched, absorbed, understood, hid behind a pillow, and finally witnessed the underpinning denouement of the entire film and got the prescribed surprise. Then I sang a medley of Willows-related songs in the shower because I do not see dead people, only stupid ones.

Lions on Acid - in the War!

School. In the past, it has been funny, different, something to look forward to, something to hide from. Now it's just getting boring, with endless revision and tests, and every day is an ersatz samizdat of the previous.

Today they even had a 'Wartime Quiz' which was exactly the same as all the other maths tests except the winners got 2 small easter eggs. The non-winners got 1 easter egg: my team was one of those.

And incredibly, a mere 40 days after the event, we had an assembly prize-giving session for the Lego League, in which I was a founder member of the school team. Team members were called up to the stage one by one to rapturous applause to receive their certificates of joining-in, sadly the printer had a paper jam when it came to doing mine so I was not called. OK, I've got the official group pose-a-thon photo and the Regional Winners' Medal but any further adulation should be lapped up.

The teacher noticed my absence from the Roster of Victory, and I was given my own personal round of applause, as it should be.

Later it was the Official School Spring Fair. We have been working towards this for months, as part of a living history topic. On a Wartime and Child Evacuation theme, my group was tasked with bringing rationing to life, something quite alien to our privileged existence, one ounce of butter per month my buttocks. I mean, who wants butter when you can have Quality Street Chocolate Assortment? So we had a guess-the-weight-of-the-cake stall and a lucky dip and 17 other stalls had their thing, ranging from Splat the Teacher and Paper Plane Competition to Land Girls selling Gingerbread Men and shove Ha'Penny to Battle of Britain via Air Raids and Spot the Railway Station. The weather chipped in with some very creditable sunshine.

Owen and Gene were stalwarts of the Splat the Teacher stall: they offered their faces for splatting and I duly obliged. As I am Captain Coconut when it comes to village fairs, I had my 5 shots and gave them a full facial 3 times.

One stall had a Lion Raffle, although the creepy cats had a rather unsettling stare. I know you have to live off the land when normal supply routes are cut off by enemy U-boat action, but don't eat the wrong mushrooms, guys.

I also spent the remainder of my money on the other stalls and came back with a healthy (or unhealthy) selection of sweetie-booty. I then had to carry my child evacuee suitcase home on my back (still in Cockney kid costume) which is why I left my T-shirt at school, but who's counting. Now for a relaxing holiday ..... not.

Femaelström

Far too much sun for me to be stuck inside.

Anyway, Jof drove me to school because I had a period suitcase for the wartime evacuation re-enactment tomorrow.

School itself was overly dull with numerous repetitive tests and revisions and stuff. But then came the parents' meeting for the upcoming week-long trip to the zoo where we will be taking the place of some animals who need a holiday in a mammalian student exchange program.

I have a very comprehensive kit list and rule list but our teachers visited the site a couple of weeks ago and took pictures and it all looks rather good. Like the residential trip to Stubbington, there are single-sex dormitory cabins with some snazzy showers and oodles of space for the promising activities including laser tag, shooting, archery and tunnelling. Food is apparently a speciality and we are predicted to fall asleep before 9pm having run around the 65 acres of paddocks and animal enclosures all day.

I recorded all details on my phone and when the parents got back I made a presentation based on the presentation I'd witnessed, with slide show, complicated hand movements and solid public speaking skills. Then I beat Jof up and had more luck than I did with Bud. She has strong legs but a toenail weakness which I viciously exploited.

Boss 'OCoole GG

Today in school we were joined by a German exchange student. He spoke very good English but with a teensy-veensy bit off en eccent.

I was left detailed instructions about having a snack and being ready to be picked up by Sydney for acting. I managed it. Every good turn deserves another, and I have been justifying the new-found trust in my abilities to organize myself with efficiency and punctuality.

In acting we did quite a lot of dancing which is not my strong point, but I do have a Sydney who is an accomplished dance tutor, now I can box-step.

Also we learnt some new songs (all original compositions by our singing teacher, so no royalties for the theatre to pay) and we met Toad for the first time. Well, he's one of our acting teachers but he does a very good leap.

Later, Blue group found one of the older actors sparko backstage having suffered a seizure. The Ambulance people declared him alive as he'd woken up.

Due to the upcoming Spring Fertility Festival Oestrus, we designed easter eggs and mine is a doggone cool righteous French dud with CIA sunglasses. Sadly fags (the burning tobacco ones, not the personal slave 3rd formers) are still deemed cool. Child A and Child B drew fags first, I copied from them: they got busted to the headmaster and I smuggled my leafy contraband out of the building in my sock.

A Tale of Two Testes (sorry, tests)

Testing times are ahead for all of us, sometimes long drawn-out testes, sometimes little mini testicles. And we get coaching from the teachers on how to read the question accurately and ignore distractions and not get into a huff or a flap or a tizzy when you don't know the answer to 14b.

And at home no doubt we all get criticism (you should be doing better) or veiled criticism (not bad ...) or passive-aggressive criticism (you disappointa da family) and actual help ranging from none to lots. And as if to prove these tests are for a purpose, Bud got 47/50 on something called a McQuaig Mental Agility Test at work today. I got 117/120 on MY test today, a much bigger number. But in both cases, reading the question is key, and when you look back over where you went wrong, you just can't believe how stupid you were, like this dog.

A Pox on Mox

Drifted into the final week of term. We got our results back from the mocks from last week and I 'Exceed' Expectations in most areas but for some only got Great Expectations. Something to work on there.

For Monday Park we were without a Ben for reasons unknown so Robert and I went back to his house and watched dated comedy broadcast "The Goodies" in which grown men act the giddy goat which is how it should be. Johnny got back early from a trip to London to see some kind of religious shrine, temple, iconic triptych or similar. I got home at exactly 6pm having seen the text asking me to be home by 6. Perhaps punctuality is a heritable trait. In Scouts we had to search in the car park and Garden of Remembrance with torches to find lolly-sticks with our names on in Morse code. These talismans (not talismen) afforded us access to a Rolo Easter Egg, which we brought home in triumph.

I am Root

Now, after a full week at work and a late night performing on stage last night, you think I'd get a day off. But no.

Jof's work has this thing called Cricket Force where you do 3 hours of voluntary community service helping out a cricket club of your choice. 2 years ago, we painted Fareham Cricket Club's pavilion which was an oddly satisfying job. There were free T-shirts.

Last year we destroyed obsolete bits of Portsmouth Cricket Club's building and also repaired the practise nets and the rain covers. And of course you can cycle to that one, extra brownie points there. This year it was back to Portsmouth CC so we got the bikes out and left at 10am - frighteningly early for a Sunday - and met up with some almost familiar faces from previous events, well they certainly knew me.

Initially I mopped the away team's dressing room floor. Then there were sinks and toilets and large communal showers. Then we discovered the home team had roughly the same arrangement so I mopped a bit more before heading off outside into the bright April sunshine.

Over by the 10th Hole Tea Rooms, the boundary rope hides a long flowerbed of Rosemary, Cherry blossom and brambles. While it is no doubt good to eat free blackberries while retrieving the ball after the batsman has scored a 4, it does rather shred your skin. So we chose to destroy all blackberry bushes to save the epidermis of the nation.

They were quite tough. We had to send Bud home for more chopping tools and then we dug the roots out to stop them coming back and it was sweaty difficult work in the sun so we got rid of our shirts. This meant that all the customers at the tea rooms had to admire my bronzed torso for entertainment while they ate. I teamed up with a fellow of similar age and we slashed and burned and killed and dug and in the end, the compost heap was liberally scattered with some really quite big bramble roots. A good job having been jobbed, we sat back and had bacon butties forced upon us. They were so good we had another. We'd done 3 hours of voluntary work (towards my Scout badge) and I felt good about it: with the destroying and the chopping and the mopping and the free Vitamin D. The changing room shower curtains are now on our washing line, hope they want them back.

Later, Jof went back to bed so I got undisturbed Minecraft time, ho ho. Also later, the Air Ambulance helicopter landed right in front of the pavilion.