And so, the tour is over. Well, the UK bit of it anyway.
217 shows, 1085 audience members, 22 venues, 5000 miles, 7 mechanics, 3 tow trucks, 2 shellfish-based food poisoning incidents, 2 kazoos.
I'm struggling to find any way of summing up the last 5 months in an easy way. There just isn't a way of putting it neatly. I've been beaming, I've been shattered, I've been on the hard shoulder of the M6, I've been in an art deco hotel with my favourite primary school teacher, I've been mostly in wellies.
And now, I've been home. The flat was waiting for us like a patient friend, welcoming us back and reminding me that we have a lot of stuff, most of which doesn't match any of the other stuff. I love it. The garden has once again been working a little harder than it needed to on producing giant, ungainly plants. Should I need a new umbrella in the next few months, I have a rhubarb plant that could provide me with several.
I haven't counted this properly, but I would estimate that I've been at home for roughly 12 days in the last 5 months-each time I think about this I wonder why on earth I haven't been shaken by feeling unsettled. I like to make nests (not ACTUAL nests, I'm not a BIRD, and even if I was, I'd be a really good one, like an emu who would build a cool house out of feathers and bits of twinkly stuff) As a general rule, I like to be in the same place for a while. Basically, I like to be somewhere for long enough to unpack my washbag. Yes, cotton wool pads, you CAN go in a little pot by the sink. When I look back over the last few months, I wonder why I don't feel that sense of chaos of having been in 22 different places, why I don't feel a smug sense of self congratulatory pride on having been able to deal with this nomadic life-not once was my washbag fully unpacked. Yes, sometimes the shampoo and conditioner stayed in the shower, but the nail clippers and exfoliating gloves remained firmly tucked away. On reflection (and I've been doing a lot of that in the last week since I finished the tour) the thing that has kept me settled has been Joni. My campervan. My constant. In the show, I talk a little about how doing the show in Joni is a little way towards being at home and at work at the same time and I didn't really realise how true that was until this week. Joni is full of our stuff (no, none of that matches anything either) she has been, for the duration of the tour, my little mini house on wheels.
That's right folks.
I'm a tortoise.
This notion of 'what is home' is something I'm being asked to think more about this week, as I am currently up in Manchester, working as creative mentor with a spoken word artist and theatre maker, Fergus Evans, on a new project about home and identity. It is fitting that I had to leave my little London nest once again for yet more days away from it, but that washbag is used to working hard so there's no reason to empty it quite yet. Through discussions, I came to an upsetting realisation that there was a point on tour when I started to call my various Travelodges 'home' which was a deeply depressing thought. Nobody wants to live in a house where the shower gel is nailed to the wall and you can play 'Count the stains' on any of the flat surfaces. Although, that is a good game.
Home is going to start being orange and on wheels again, as we are taking Joni to France next week to perform the show there, at the inaugural 'Festival de Pontlevoy.' At some point in between now and the 7th October, I have to remember how to speak French again, as the last thing I want to do it to perform to 5 solemnly confused faces who no idea what I'm talking about or why there are two men who performed in the 1970s who were both called 'Ronnie.' I need to translate my show, or at least some of it, as currently all I really have is 'Bonjour, je suis Laura Mugridge' and I'm not sure I can string that out for an hour. I also don't want to just rely on learning car-based vocab, whereby the show would just me pointing to stuff and saying 'Steering Wheel.....Clutch.....SEATBELT.'
We have left ourselves lots of time to get to and from the festival in the middle of France and will be ambling down through French woodland/motorways (we haven't looked properly at the map yet) and doing some writing. I'm always a little anxious when faced with my husband conversing with French people as he often makes words up, and once accidentally told an old lady selling watermelons that he was horny. I will need to supervise him heavily throughout our stay.
And Joni, beautiful, orange, tortoise shell Joni, will be returning to France, where she spent the first 30 years of her life. I'm hoping that being back in her homeland will suddenly mean she starts communicating with us, Herbie style.
I'll keep you all posted.
Monday 26 September 2011
Friday 16 September 2011
The Buddhist Nun, the Ghost Dog and the Pineapple Upside Down Cake
I have never tried to write a blog after eating a full English breakfast, so let's give this a whirl shall we. If it suddenly becomes incomprehensible half way through, or just stops, you will know that I have either a) nodded off due to over consumption of meat or b) decided to go and have some more.
And so, here we are in the Trough of Bowland, a beautiful, wet, green, rolling hilled corner of Lancashire, ready to perform 4 shows today. Well, I'm obviously not ready just yet. I've got an awful lot of digesting to do before I'm ready to be that physically close to 5 other people. Last night, we arrived in Joni the campervan at The Parkers Arms, a beautiful pub restaurant tucked away in the hills and were greeted so enthusiastically I felt like an old friend. When you walk into a pub and the landlord shouts 'LAURA! COME IN! LOVELY TO SEE YOU!' even though he has never met you before, you know you're in good company. (NB-this would obviously be weird if your name wasn't Laura)
Since I last updated this blog, I have travelled many many miles. After flying down from Edinburgh to Cornwall (MUCH quicker than driving, just for the record) and spending a whole week doing nothing but eating and looking at the sea, we then drove IN ONE GO to the Wirral. I then performed the show in Salford, outside the Lowry, and now we have returned to gorgeous, cheese filled Lancashire, for the last few days of Running on Air in the UK. As always, if I were to write about all the adventures we'd had, I'd be here all day, so here are a few of the memorable moments:
1) On arriving at our little camping spot right by the sea in Cornwall, we were greeted by a 10 year old boy named Kelly, who climbed into Joni to demonstrate a selection of unsuccessful magic tricks. It didn't matter one bit that none of them worked, as he preceeded each 'reveal' with the phrase 'now then, things around here are about to change.'
2) There is nothing better than camping in Cornwall, nothing better at all. Our little camping spot was a bit of a secret spot, somewhere that isn't advertised, and somewhere we found completely by chance. Waking up in the morning with a view of the ocean, then drifting off to sleep with the sound of it lapping against the sand is something that will never fail to make me happy.
3) Whilst in Cornwall, Tom and I visited a country fair. We looked at some pictures of birds, we saw a man doing something strenuous to some granite, we missed the sheepdog trials, we were tricked in buying some cheese. We also happened upon a second hand clothing stall, at which I bought a 'St Ives Lifeguard' red hoodie. Only now we are out of Cornwall do I feel brave enough to wear this new purchase, as I was so scared I'd get myself into a position of having to rescue someone from some deep water that I left it in my bag until we were over the border. I do have my bronze swimming badge, but this only means that should I be unlucky enough to fall into a canal wearing my pyjamas, I'd be able to swim towards the edge, possibly picking up a plastic brick and swimming through a hoop on the way.
4) Whilst by the sea, I did a bit of 'surfing.' Now, I've put that in inverted commas because what I basically did was to lie on the board like a seal while Tom pushed me and I went 'weeeeeeee!' What I did discover, however, is that EVERYBODY looks cool in a wetsuit, holding a board. It's a sport unlike others, in that you don't have to really do anything at all apart from walk around on the beach, looking thoughtfully at the water, nodding your head and saying 'dude' every so often.
5) Whilst doing the show in Falmouth for a week, after the seaside retreat, we got to see lots of friends and family, and that made me really happy. They came to the show, they celebrated my birthday with me in a seafood restaurant where the food left your clothes smelling like they'd spend 4 years on the inside of a crab, they invited us into their houses for tasty food, proper showers and lovely chats in the garden. Should we ever end up in Cornwall, we'll be amongst champions.
6) During the drive from Cornwall to the Wirral (yes, that is an EXTREMELY LONG WAY) Tom started to feel a bit poorly, and we had to keep stopping so he could have a nap in the back of Joni (one of the great advantages of owning such a vehicle is the ease of being able to go to sleep at virtually any point in the day). By the time we reached our campsite, neither of us felt particularly brilliant. Without going into too much detail, what followed was a night-long double-whammy food poisoning extravaganza on a campsite with no toilet, an experience that heavily tested the romance element of our marriage. You really do know you've found the right person when they continue to look you in the eye, and indeed still love you, after seeing you vomit into a field at hourly intervals whilst wailing 'I just don't understand how there's anything left.' Good times.
7) Somehow, some way, we managed to recover for the next day, however, and we headed for the wedding of two lovely friends of ours. I'd like to make it clear that we drove to another campsite that morning, where we managed to have a shower. Nobody likes a wedding guest with sick in their hair. The wedding was a real treat, full of smiles and ice cream and bunting and dancing. Take THAT, food poisoning.
8) After the first day of shows at The Lowry, Tom and I stayed with 2 super friends of ours in Manchester. We were tired, they presented us with a dinner consisting of only cheese. I need say no more about how much we love those guys.
9)Yesterday in my shows, I performed to my own mum (a natural on the slide whistle) a Buddhist nun (very good at the marracas) and a 6ft5 man who was one of the loveliest presences I've had in the front seat. Another treat from yesterday was the lady who announced towards the end of the show 'I'm terribly sorry, I've just realised that my top is on inside out.' We left her on her own in Joni for a little while after the show, to rectify the situation. Barbara, you made me smile a lot.
10) As requested, our arrival at my parents house on Wednesday evening was filled with snuggles, the best spaghetti bolognaise I've ever tasted, and a pineapple upside down cake. The combination of Team Mugridge and a retro feast made me really happy to be home.
11) Last night, whilst eating the delicious feast prepared for us by the chef here at the Parkers Arms, a huge white dog made his way right over to Tom and started to stare at him intently. The moment at which Tom realised this was happening was a joy to watch, as Tom had momentarily thought it was a ghost, which scared the living daylights out of him., making him screech like a tiny girl.
And so, another day of shows awaits. Sunday night will mark the end of the tour in the UK, as we then head off to France to perform it there. At some point I will be attempting to translate it into French, but right now I'm far too busy meeting the characters of Lancashire, and, let's not forget, digesting that full English breakfast.
And so, here we are in the Trough of Bowland, a beautiful, wet, green, rolling hilled corner of Lancashire, ready to perform 4 shows today. Well, I'm obviously not ready just yet. I've got an awful lot of digesting to do before I'm ready to be that physically close to 5 other people. Last night, we arrived in Joni the campervan at The Parkers Arms, a beautiful pub restaurant tucked away in the hills and were greeted so enthusiastically I felt like an old friend. When you walk into a pub and the landlord shouts 'LAURA! COME IN! LOVELY TO SEE YOU!' even though he has never met you before, you know you're in good company. (NB-this would obviously be weird if your name wasn't Laura)
Since I last updated this blog, I have travelled many many miles. After flying down from Edinburgh to Cornwall (MUCH quicker than driving, just for the record) and spending a whole week doing nothing but eating and looking at the sea, we then drove IN ONE GO to the Wirral. I then performed the show in Salford, outside the Lowry, and now we have returned to gorgeous, cheese filled Lancashire, for the last few days of Running on Air in the UK. As always, if I were to write about all the adventures we'd had, I'd be here all day, so here are a few of the memorable moments:
1) On arriving at our little camping spot right by the sea in Cornwall, we were greeted by a 10 year old boy named Kelly, who climbed into Joni to demonstrate a selection of unsuccessful magic tricks. It didn't matter one bit that none of them worked, as he preceeded each 'reveal' with the phrase 'now then, things around here are about to change.'
2) There is nothing better than camping in Cornwall, nothing better at all. Our little camping spot was a bit of a secret spot, somewhere that isn't advertised, and somewhere we found completely by chance. Waking up in the morning with a view of the ocean, then drifting off to sleep with the sound of it lapping against the sand is something that will never fail to make me happy.
3) Whilst in Cornwall, Tom and I visited a country fair. We looked at some pictures of birds, we saw a man doing something strenuous to some granite, we missed the sheepdog trials, we were tricked in buying some cheese. We also happened upon a second hand clothing stall, at which I bought a 'St Ives Lifeguard' red hoodie. Only now we are out of Cornwall do I feel brave enough to wear this new purchase, as I was so scared I'd get myself into a position of having to rescue someone from some deep water that I left it in my bag until we were over the border. I do have my bronze swimming badge, but this only means that should I be unlucky enough to fall into a canal wearing my pyjamas, I'd be able to swim towards the edge, possibly picking up a plastic brick and swimming through a hoop on the way.
4) Whilst by the sea, I did a bit of 'surfing.' Now, I've put that in inverted commas because what I basically did was to lie on the board like a seal while Tom pushed me and I went 'weeeeeeee!' What I did discover, however, is that EVERYBODY looks cool in a wetsuit, holding a board. It's a sport unlike others, in that you don't have to really do anything at all apart from walk around on the beach, looking thoughtfully at the water, nodding your head and saying 'dude' every so often.
5) Whilst doing the show in Falmouth for a week, after the seaside retreat, we got to see lots of friends and family, and that made me really happy. They came to the show, they celebrated my birthday with me in a seafood restaurant where the food left your clothes smelling like they'd spend 4 years on the inside of a crab, they invited us into their houses for tasty food, proper showers and lovely chats in the garden. Should we ever end up in Cornwall, we'll be amongst champions.
6) During the drive from Cornwall to the Wirral (yes, that is an EXTREMELY LONG WAY) Tom started to feel a bit poorly, and we had to keep stopping so he could have a nap in the back of Joni (one of the great advantages of owning such a vehicle is the ease of being able to go to sleep at virtually any point in the day). By the time we reached our campsite, neither of us felt particularly brilliant. Without going into too much detail, what followed was a night-long double-whammy food poisoning extravaganza on a campsite with no toilet, an experience that heavily tested the romance element of our marriage. You really do know you've found the right person when they continue to look you in the eye, and indeed still love you, after seeing you vomit into a field at hourly intervals whilst wailing 'I just don't understand how there's anything left.' Good times.
7) Somehow, some way, we managed to recover for the next day, however, and we headed for the wedding of two lovely friends of ours. I'd like to make it clear that we drove to another campsite that morning, where we managed to have a shower. Nobody likes a wedding guest with sick in their hair. The wedding was a real treat, full of smiles and ice cream and bunting and dancing. Take THAT, food poisoning.
8) After the first day of shows at The Lowry, Tom and I stayed with 2 super friends of ours in Manchester. We were tired, they presented us with a dinner consisting of only cheese. I need say no more about how much we love those guys.
9)Yesterday in my shows, I performed to my own mum (a natural on the slide whistle) a Buddhist nun (very good at the marracas) and a 6ft5 man who was one of the loveliest presences I've had in the front seat. Another treat from yesterday was the lady who announced towards the end of the show 'I'm terribly sorry, I've just realised that my top is on inside out.' We left her on her own in Joni for a little while after the show, to rectify the situation. Barbara, you made me smile a lot.
10) As requested, our arrival at my parents house on Wednesday evening was filled with snuggles, the best spaghetti bolognaise I've ever tasted, and a pineapple upside down cake. The combination of Team Mugridge and a retro feast made me really happy to be home.
11) Last night, whilst eating the delicious feast prepared for us by the chef here at the Parkers Arms, a huge white dog made his way right over to Tom and started to stare at him intently. The moment at which Tom realised this was happening was a joy to watch, as Tom had momentarily thought it was a ghost, which scared the living daylights out of him., making him screech like a tiny girl.
And so, another day of shows awaits. Sunday night will mark the end of the tour in the UK, as we then head off to France to perform it there. At some point I will be attempting to translate it into French, but right now I'm far too busy meeting the characters of Lancashire, and, let's not forget, digesting that full English breakfast.
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