The Reflections, the Rhubarb Umbrella and the Unpacked Washbag

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.