We are slowly moving our stuff back into our house and spending the occasional night here now. After my gig in Chiswick I avoided the long drive to Harpenden and came back to my empty, echoey and half-finished house. There is no carpet on the stairs and some of the lights don't work and only the bedroom and bathroom are near to being ready. There's something a bit spooky about it all. It's like my house, but half much better and half much worse. Staying here alone tonight might be the closest I get to spending the night in a haunted house.
And unsettling also to be back in the Bush. I have turned into a countrified pussy (cuntrified?) and recoiled a bit when a gang of young men approached talking loudly. I had also forgotten about the delights of drunk men using the end of our street as a urinal and having to navigate around puddles of wee. And the fact that no matter what the hour people will walk past the house basically shouting at each other.
But on the other hand it was cool to be back where some stuff was happening and to be able to walk to the shop to pick up a beer and some samosas at 10.45pm. And it's exciting to see the renovations taking shape and to have stuff looking sparkling and new. Though I feared that I would mess it all up and break it before my wife got a chance to see it. As you know I shouldn't be allowed to have nice things. I just mess them up and ruin them.
It's nine years since I moved in to this place and I have lived with the previous occupants' decoration choices all that time, so it's high time that we made it ours. I correctly ascertained that it wasn't worth me doing anything before, mainly because I wasn't that bothered, but I also figured that I'd eventually get married and my wife would want to get rid of all my rubbish old choices and we'd redecorate anyway. And you can call me Nostradamus if you like, because that's more or less what has happened (though to be fair I think the decision to make the changes was mine - my wife is a very easy-going woman). So think of all the money I saved!
My house was built back in the 1870s and with all its innards exposed I wondered how much of what I could see was original and what had been added later. Were the bare wooden stairs I was clumping up tonight originally put in by a Victorian builder or had the originals been replaced? I wondered, as I do every now and again, about all the people who have lived in this place in the last 150 years. I think it might make a quite interesting "Who Do You Think You Are?" style programme, in which researchers find out what they can about the people who lived in a house over the decades. Living people could be brought back to see how things had changed and I suspect you could find plans of any changes to the property pretty easily, as well as info about the people who lived and died there. Think you'd get an interesting history of social changes too as some properties would start as the homes of rich people and then become flats or whatever.
Also I could find out if there had been a WWII bomb in my back garden,
It's a good idea isn't it? Why don't you nick it?
No one fainted at the gig tonight, but I had lost my script so was flying solo for the first time. I haven't really been using the script too much since the very early previews, but it's been nice to have it there if I get lost or forget a stat. But it turns out I pretty much know the show as it stands. I am planning on making a few changes over the next few days as there are some weaker bits that need bolstering and some different points I wish to explore. I also need to start work on the powerpoint aspect of the piece.
But it's in great shape and I am very much looking forward to the Fringe. And pretty much all the tour dates are now sorted out. You can see them
here. Not all box office details and websites are included yet, but that will be coming soon. Some of these gigs are almost a year away, but it'd be cool to book now, don't you think?
This week's Metro column is now up
here.
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