Up at 4:30 with the mares, so I embark upon sorting out the Wifi… it’s a thing I can attempt that shouldn’t disturb any of the sleepers – my previous efforts at coralling the Beverley problems have found me shifting furniture, which does disturb everybody else.

It seems that the almighty flash of the other day, took out the router and the ethernet… so now I’m piggy-backing the limited signal: box to box, in order that the house has some reasonable connectedness. All so that I can listen to BBC Radio6Music while I’m doing the night-befores dishes in the morning-after hot water.

We just make it…
Hope the cameras were turned off!

Looking up.

An interesting day for Carol & I… of course it was always going to be difficult, but connections have been made, circles closed, knots tied; in the grander scheme, which we never quite anticipated.
David’s university is in that very place where I’ve always wished to be… in the midst!
The Royal Geographic Society is just up the road, the Natural History Museum down, the Science Museum next door, The V&A round the corner, The Royal Albert Hall a stones throw, etc… and he’s rightly happy to be there.

As we were driving off I marvelled at fate… though of course not fate.

And within ten minutes we were passing St John & St Elisabeth’s hospital, where David was born, and then we were outside 16, Rutland Park Gardens, where he spent his first years… at which point – we both lost it.

For him… it’s the beginning of the next thing, for us it’s an end.

looking down.

A days script writing workshop, thanks to the Chagford film festival… and out of it comes the germ of an idea, that combines much of what happened to me in Latin America, both in reality and in imagination.
Thanks to five star prisons, sniffer dogs and hyenas after dark.

Nobody sees him.

No hairy berks.

Wouldn’t trust these two.

I know how this is done… I’ve been involved with similar use of the technology, but this is totally wonderful

Not touring anymore.

“This is to inform you that the play weeks in Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo can’t take place (they have been cancelled by the promoter). We regret this very much and we have tried everything we could to keep these show weeks on the schedule, but unfortunately without success.

For your contract and salary this means you will also be on unpaid leave after the previously communicated unpaid leave period for week 39 and 40. Meaning the unpaid leave will continue after week 40 till the start of the production in Germany in week 48 or 49 (depending on the start date of the rehearsals).”

So ten weeks of zero hours, after three months of limited remuneration and significant living expenses… this employment isn’t working.

My lovely friend Ben Taylor, with whom I’ve experienced many magical moments over twenty years reminded me of this synthesis of thought by Mr Jung… I want to pass it on.

Last of the summer roses.

“We shy away from the word ‘eternal’, but I can describe the experience only as an ecstasy of a non-temporal state in which present, past and future are one. Everything that happens in time has been brought together into a concrete whole. Nothing was distributed over time, nothing could be measured by temporal concepts. The experience might best be described as a state of feeling, but one which cannot be produced by imagination. How can I imagine that I exist simultaneously the day before yesterday, to-day, and the day after to-morrow? There would be things which would not yet have begun, other things which would be indubitably present, and others again which would already be finished and yet all this would be one. The only thing that feeling would grasp would be a sum, an iridescent whole, containing all at once expectation of a beginning, surprise at what is now happening, and satisfaction or disappointment with the result of what happened. One is interwoven into an indescribable whole and yet observes it with complete objectivity” – CG Jung

Greatly knowledgeable.

What I can do is limited, but sitting still has never been part of my nature.
I will knock on doors in an attempt to get beyond them, I will send out requests, despite being certain that the response will be far less enthusiastic than it used to be.
I must bluff and cause ideas to form out of smoke, to tear the eyes of ones who should not be there… as they now hold the purse strings.
And,
I must prove myself again.

After attempting a Latin American tour, Ice Age-Live! is in tatters… our trucks (including the one containing my mammoths) are stuck on the border of Ecuador/Colombia, the remaining shows have been cancelled and I’ve been sent home, having been officially notified that that’s it work/pay-wise till Dec 3rd in Berlin.

‘Have been dealing with my angst by ‘tidying’ the house and annoying the wife… wondering if there’s anything happening that might require someone bordering on extinction?

All the best,
Todd

Good at staving off extinction.

So the world has turned.

No longer the centre, the one who can always been turned too.
Not now the one who’s sympathy is sought for grazed knee or night fears.
Never again the one.

I am revealed, after my having abandoned – seen for what I am.
With a look of surprise at breakfast before heading for school
“Dad, your small & old.”

Apparently, not I.

En route (in Reading station actually), consumes two M&S strawberry flans to celebrate returned to UK status and remove the taste of mouldy Iberian inflight offerings.