Stuart’s Blog

Further to my last post, I have returned. Been in, got my hernias (three!) done and am now at home recuperating.
In all honesty god bless the NHS. God bless it and all who sail in it. You never come to appreciate something like that until you have need of it and I for one am in awe of the whole thing. Humbled by it too if truth be known. Such a massive and infinitely complex business run as smoothly and efficiently as it was, in my experience at least. You have to be impressed by that. The nurses and staff at the hospital were wonderful and dedicated and professional, the theatre staff and anaesthetists (whom I have to admit to not really seeing, since I was more or less out of it by the time I got to theatre) did a fantastic job and it is a testament to their collective skills and abilities that I am sitting at home now, writing this to you. Who ever you are.
So thank-you to them, and more power to them and all like them.Thank-you.

Back from my travels around the country. An experience indeed. And onto another one in the not too distant future. I’m going in for an operation soon to fix two (count ‘em) hernias. I’ve been carrying ‘em for a little while now and it was only the action of a friend of mine getting his done that spurred me on to do something about mine. I have to admit to feeling a little nervous about the whole thing though. I’ve never been in hospital, other than visiting, my whole life, and I’m feeling a little daunted to say the least. I have absolute faith in the surgeons and staff, you have to really, you got no choice, but still I’m a little apprehensive it’s only natural though. I’m told I’ll be out of action for six to eight weeks. I’ll check back in a little while hopefully…

Busy now, and for some time to come, being the keeper of the keys on a schools tour. truth be told I’ve not done this for a while, quite a while, so this has become a voyage of rediscovery for me. I’m enjoying elements of it, though I will be happy to get back to the old familiar. Better the devil you know and all that…

Not posted for a while so thought I’d pop one out as t’were, Tho’ not too much to report. Booked our first foreign holiday en famille the other day, I’m really looking forward to it I must say tho’ Vals’ a bit nervous. its only to France, so it’s not exactly the grand tour, but it’ll be exciting none the less and a definite test of my failed o’ level French.

Got phoned by the NTS (work it out for yourself) and offered a couple of shows to do, one of which I’d done before and will, more or less, be a relight, but the other will be a new devised kids show with a director I didn’t know, I’m sure it’ll be fine.

Got contacted, sort of ,by my father recently, which doesn’t sound that much, until you consider that he hasn’t played any significant role in my life for the last twenty years, that’s half of my life, so for various reasons too tedious to go in to here, he’s decided to get in touch by proxy, to say he wanted to meet up, meet the kids, get to know me and mine but I’ve said no. I’ll explain at some point but not now, maybe later. Much later.

Bubble Boy:It’s Moors you idiot, The Moors.
George: I’m sorry, it says Moops on the card…

Excused boots by the director, so jumped ship and came home to my loving family. It’s good to be back home. Still doing the washing. Boring but true…

Another beautiful hot day in the land of our fathers, that’s partly to blame for the haze we’re using in the show, refusing to drop to floor level and just hanging around (as only haze could) about a foot below the lamps and stubbornly refusing to drop any further. The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley. So consequently the sparks have to rig another type of hazer (thank god that we’re in a building that has two different types of haze machine) and we’ll take it from there.
We also have to rig more lamps (shuffle a couple of 2ks around a bit actually) to try and cover for the eventuality of this hazer metaphorically sticking its two fingers up at us as well, so hopefully all bases covered.
The preview went well, I was sitting next to a bloke who had one of those whistling noses, if you know what I mean. Every time he breathed out with any force, a nasally whistle was emitted and bloody distracting it was too during all that tense high drama, exuding all that heat and pent up sexual tension, (wheeeeep). Otherwise all’s well so far.
Need to work out first night cards/pressies to buy on Saturday ( I”ll buy the guy with the nose a box of bloody hankies) Pip Pip…

Did something that I’d promised the boys I’d do a long time ago, Bought some rods to take the boys fishing at some point. I haven’t been fishing in about ten years so it’ll probably be a bit of a learning curve for all of us, we’ll see.
Got to the first dress tonight, an audience tomorrow evening for the first preview. I’ve got to say how refreshing it is to work with people who have a positive attitude to their job and to the product of every body’s hard work. It seems that, more or less, if you make a request, it will be seriously considered and if it can be done, it will be, and if it can’t, you’ll be told why. You can’t say fairer than that now can you? It also seems to be an attitude that is becoming all too rare these days. The sparks at Clwyd should all be stuffed and mounted, in a nice way of course.
More muffled curses from the stalls to come…

One thing I noticed last night, a thing I had forgotten about and was struck by when I came back to my digs out in the countryside (I’m about 5 miles out of town) was the overwhelming quietness out here. Its sooooooo quiet, apart from the occasional boy racer thundering past my door all flaired wheel arches and grunty exhaust, there’s very little to disturb the stillness. I used to think it was kind of quiet down where we live, but if you listen, theres always a dull, distant rumble of cars, voices inside other houses, that sort of thing, but nothing like that here
.Just.
Peace.
And.
Quiet.
All’s well with the show, dressed about half an hour of it, it’s coming on, lets hope tomorrow holds the same good fortune. Foties in the evening so we have to be in a dressable state by then, it’s looking good for that though. Talking about tempting fate though.
More to follow if you can stand it…

Good God, when I got home to my new digs tonight (a cosy little holiday cottage type of thing) I honestly don’t think I could have told you if it was New York or New Year. I was completely phased out by the end of the evening; I don’t think I’ve ever focused that fast in a long time, if ever. Two guys, one on the gantry one on the tally. By the way, this isn’t a criticism of them, or doing the job fast, far from it, it needed to be done, and the quicker the better on Easter Monday, believe me we all wanted to get away as soon as possible today but still, whew. Also, tomorrow is going to be a barrel of laughs first thing with most, not all, but a fair amount of the colour for the rig missing in the post and us going into a lighting session tomorrow morning, though actually we won’t, ‘cos the colour’s missing, so god alone knows what’ll happen, I guess we’ll wait and see.
Otherwise today’s been okay. Checked out of the hotel, went down to the theatre, sat in the green room checking emails and so on, making up yesterdays blog, and the like, nothing particularly earth shattering but a welcome distraction none the less at the time, much like doing this one now is keeping me from thinking about tomorrow. It’s the stress and worry you can do without, I don’t know if I’m cut out for this. More to follow. Oh yes…

First day down in Wales and so far, so good, all seems to be okay. Stayed in the Beaufort Park Hotel last night, had a meal and a quick pint in the bar, stayed in my room for the rest of the night and watched the golf, more for something to do than any great interest in golf. Didn’t sleep too well, kept waking up throughout the night for various reasons, nervous about today, and missing the family. I’m a home boy at heart. A guy I know from Edinburgh says that us soap-dodgin’- weedgie-b*****ds never move too far from Glasgow, my reply of,why should we with attitudes like his going around, didn’t go down too well, but, none the less, I think he may have a point. Focusing this afternoon, and this evening and moving into new digs. More to come…