So writing this in Chester Cathedral where I am backstage waiting to go on for my next appearance as Weeping Woman in the Chester Mystery Plays. This is my view:
Rehearsals for the play have taken up a lot of time this month even though I only speak four lines in total. It’s been good fun - I’ve met lots of interesting people and I like feeling part of the community. We even made Granada News. You can find me in Noah’s Ark in this clip. Or actually as a piece of Noah’s Ark to be precise.
Otherwise life has been proceeding in the usual routine of dog walks and gardening, though at times it has been too hot for either. I really don’t cope well with heat and bright sunshine and now I appear to have developed hay fever. I have never really had this problem before - it’s a total nuisance especially when I want to be out in the garden. I take the antihistamine tablets but even ‘non-drowsy’ ones turn me into a zombie. And my fair skin reacts badly to sunshine so I’ve spent a fortune on specialist factor 50 creams to prevent the red blotches which appear on my face if I’m not careful. I’m quite happy that rain and cooler temperatures have returned.
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| This imprssive seeded itself in this spot |
We’ve had several rooms in the house repainted this month. There have been decisions to be made about paint colours. I’m not that adventurous choosing generally muted neutrals. We made one mistake in Kate’s room, or her old room since she doesn’t really live here anymore. I wanted to replace her blue and silver decor and chose a paint named ‘ivory’. It turned out to be more yellow than cream. Oh dear. Decided we couldn’t live with it so it’s now ‘natural calico’. Someone must be employed somewhere to invent names for paint colours I suppose. The decorating is all finished now - just some light fittings to be installed.
I had to miss some play rehearsals earlier the month as I’ve been on a couple of trips. The first was right at the beginning of June when I persuaded Kate to come with me to the Hay on Wye Literature festival. I’ve always wanted to go to the Hay festival, a kind of Glastonbury for book lovers. We didn’t camp though, thankfully, as it was pretty chilly when we were there with a brisk breeze blowing through the marquee complex. The main reason we went was because I wanted to see Margaret Atwood speak. She didn’t disappoint. Now in her eighties and a tiny figure on the stage, she was as witty and entertaining as ever. She didn’t do the book signing business though. Not surprising as she’s have been exhausted - the queues for other writers were long enough. To keep Kate happy, I also booked tickets to see the comedian Tom Allen who was there because he has a book out about dealing with his father’s death. Was worried he’d do a serious talk about the book and Kate would be disappointed- in fact it was a standard stand up routine. Very funny.
Paul and I also eventually went on our trip to Paris which was postponed from January. We travelled by Eurostar as he hates flying and all was going well until we got to France. Then the train stopped for two hours in rural Picardy because of a problem in the Gare du Nord. We had to cancel the restaurant we’d booked and didn’t get to our apartment until after 10pm. Things improved after that and we had an enjoyable weekend with lots of nice food and wine, a bit of sightseeing though we had to look for shade as it was hot. We went to the Musee D’Orsay, a very impressive building which was a former railway station with huge clocks at either end. Paul was not terribly happy in there as it was fairly crowded.so I left him behind in main hall an explored by myself.
That’s it for now. Still in the cathedral ‘Backstage though it’s now a whole day later. And we still have 18 performances to go.
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| I chose these flowers for the garden because they are named Dianthus ‘Doris’ |
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| My rambling rose has a few flowers this year. |
