Rite of passage

My youngest boy quickly realises that commission-based flyering isn’t the deal that he thought it was. I have told him that for each person he convinces to come to the show, I’ll give him one pound – after only one day he is demanding fee-for-service.

I knew this time would come. My dad’s political career saw me cycling all the way around our country town, putting pamphlets of my surprisingly well-groomed father in people’s letterboxes (there were no ‘no junk mail’ stickers back in those days). ‘A new packet of pencils,’ I would say. ‘Only if I can get my ears pierced.’

We start the dealing, my youngest boy and I.
‘Fifty pence is over one Australian dollar,’ I tell him.
‘Yes, but we aren’t in Australia, are we?’ he says.

We settle on a daily fee. It doubles his pocket-money for the week and my financial loss is already so great that it makes no real difference to my bottom line.

We stand on the Royal Mile, the four of us, one adult for each child. The mister manages to give away two flyers.
I give away a few more.
They fly from the children’s hands. Almost no-one says no.

‘I think it’s your clothes, and the way you speak, Dad,’ my eldest boy says. ‘And also, you’re not the cutest.’

We get offered quite a few flyers too. ‘That’s a good ploy,’ one of the flyerers says and nods towards our boys. ‘Better than a bright coloured T-shirt,’ he says pulling at his. From the resignation in his grin it is clear that he has been here before.

The children aren’t a ploy, but when the cast of another production walks past, some of them in suits, the others in boxer shorts, I agree with the mister: ‘I’m glad I don’t have to walk around in my undies.’

‘Are they allowed to walk around in their underwear?’ Youngest boy asks. We are a world away from the robed malls of Abu Dhabi.

There isn’t anyone at the show who hadn’t pre-bought tickets. No walk-ups, flyer in hand. I always told my Dad that how-to-votes at the polling booth would make no difference to the way that people voted.

We go out for a post-show celebratory meal. ‘Mum, giving out your pamphlets is the best job in the world,’ my eldest boy tells me after the first slug of his soft drink. And later, on our walk home, he is still holding a small pile of flyers in his hand, and handing them to people with his politely-worded question: ‘Would you like to see my Mum’s show? She’s hilarious.’

You can be calm and panicky all at the same time

With a simple production like mine – one person, one microphone, one spotlight – there’s not a lot that can go wrong in the ‘ohmigod the mermaid costume hasn’t arrived’ or ‘ohmigod, look what they did to my cello’. Even so, things can go arse-up. Especially if, like me, you don’t know too much about being a producer. One such moment yesterday, though fairly quickly solved.

The good thing about operating at this level of experience is that you don’t know what can go wrong which means you can’t sit around obsessing over things that probably won’t happen. The bad thing about operating at this level of experience is that you don’t know what can go wrong, so you can’t make contingency plans.

I see from that tweet over there it’s only been six hours since I last tweeted. I did that before I went to bed. Up late stuffing envelopes and this morning I woke with a zing. Apples, I will want apples before I go on. Of course, I should have an entourage thinking of such things. But you know, kids these days.

Not sure why the thought of apples should drive me out of bed. It’s not like the shops are even open yet. But it’s nice sitting here with my cup of tea and my internet, listening to the central heating kick in (we don’t know how to turn it off, and we especially don’t know how to turn the central heating off without turning the hot water off – so we’re not messing with it), making a list and just quietly going through what needs to be done.

So that’s the panic bit. But the calm? The calm is that I love my script.

Tech rehearsal tonight, then first preview tomorrow.

It’s in the job specification

The mister My tech crew has arrived. We took him on a bit of a walk around the ‘hood (‘here’s where we buy our musk sticks’ and ‘here’s where Mum buys her wine’), then down to the Royal Mile, checked out my venue, and now he’s having a sleep (underneath a blanket, it’s a bit chillier here than the desert weather he’s used to).

It’s good to have someone else in the house whose arms are long enough to do the dishes.

It’s Saturdays. They always make me homesick

Wettest July since 1888 according to last night’s weather presenter.

I must say, coming from Australia’s increasingly frightening drought, I find being in this rain…I’m not sure of the word exactly…not ‘reassuring’ not ‘comforting’ not ‘a relief’. But it’s certainly a physical and emotional response of some kind. Not that you can just swap the water from one side to the other. But just…I don’t know, I’ll think on it and see if I can explain it later on.

I got a haircut yesterday. First one since March, and a satisfyingly lovely one it is too. I’m thinking of going and buying a hairdryer so that I can keep it looking lovely. A hairdryer and one of those little round brushes.

After the haircut we went to the Rubbings Museum, then we walked home, my boys took photos of me:

From july2009

then it rained on us. We watched Spongebob Squarepants which is still weird.

In Edinburgh at the moment, there’s a million festivals on all at the same time. I was reading through the brochure for the Festival of Politics and saw the session “Annie Lennox and the SING campaign”. I am going to that for sure. She was one of those women that the teenage me adored. No, adored isn’t right. But she made me feel like you could do things. That there were things to be done. I remember one Saturday afternoon, watching a music show and there was Sisters are Doing it for Themselves.

My Mum, who would have been younger than what I am now, watched it with me. I remember that she stopped whatever it was she was doing and stood in front of the television and watched it. And she said something like, ‘They are, you know.’

I don’t know how much of my precious prepaid gigabyte I just used watching this, but more than twenty years of Saturday afternoons later, it was worth it:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pu0Fn1oRN4&hl=en&fs=1&]

Lighten up

It’s all very earnest around here at the moment, isn’t it? Which is funny, because I keep getting all these google searches ‘comedy edinburgh’ and ‘comedian librarian’ and so on. Goodness knows what they think when the land here.

Anyway, today two things happened. Firstly, I wrote two very good jokes (and I wasn’t even trying, I was supposed to be only doing what is in my script, but one of them appeared as I was cleaning my teeth and the other came out during ‘rehearsals’ – let’s assume here that ‘rehearsals’ can be defined as standing in your bedroom with the door closed, every now and then pulling the door open to surprise the two boys who are standing on the other side giggling and then say, ‘But Mum, how did you know we were here?’). They’re untested jokes, so maybe they aren’t as good as I think they are, but for now let’s just assume they’re brilliant. Secondly, Deborah shared a most excellent joke which did indeed crack my boys up.

What’s your favourite joke?

—

My mum would always crack up at the following:

Q. What’s the difference between a duck?

A. The space between it’s legs.

I have to say, I still don’t get.

—

I think we’ll visit the castle tomorrow

I was doing the dishes and listening to a radio programme about Muriel Spark and her new biography.

I had forgotten that Muriel Spark’s son lived with her parents. The biographer explained this by saying something along the lines of, ‘She couldn’t do the kind of writing she wanted to do and look after him’.

And that was interesting, because just that morning I’d been writing in my diary about the conflict between the two things I’m trying to combine – firstly, putting on a show; and secondly, showing my boys some of the world.

The conflict between being a writer and being a mum.

I don’t want this to be a conflict. In fact, one of the appeals of coming to Edinburgh was the opportunity to immerse my boys in my ‘work’. (For now, let’s leave aside definitions of work, and whether or not this counts towards my ‘career’ and whether or not you have to make a living from it in order for it to count as work). When I was deciding whether or not coming to Edinburgh was a good use of some very precious funds, I looked on it as a chance – probably a once-in-a-lifetime chance – to show my boys that life can be filled with all sorts of bits and pieces and in all sorts of different ways (though at the same time, reminding them – constantly – how bloody lucky they are – again, another post for another day).

My wish to show them this side of me (my ‘work’) is probably closely related to my current obsession with validating the contribution that I make to my relationship and to my family. Which is fuelled by all sorts of things. Ego; and becoming an orphan; and turning 40; and waking up and finding myself an expat wife; and having no career to speak of; oh, and being middle class enough to have the luxury of obsessing over such things.

But I do obsess over it, and that obsession has been exacerbateted by our move to Abu Dhabi where the mister and I have roles that are even more gender-defined than they were at home. I worry at the ‘example’ I set my children. I worry (and the mister does too) that our children see – that they live – such a gender-specific life where the mister goes out to work and I pick the kids up from school.

But it’s funny, because if we hadn’t moved to Abu Dhabi, I never would have come and put on my own show. I would have looked at Edinburgh, from Adelaide, and thought, ‘How could I do that with children? Just how?’

Like I said a few posts ago, when I did start thinking about doing this, I really had no idea how I was going to make it work, bringing the lads along. But like I also said, bringing them here was no harder than any other plan for being away from Abu Dhabi. And in the end it worked out okay, because the mister can get a few weeks off and he’ll be here soon and he won’t be missing his connecting flight (I’ve forgiven him for it, I really have).

But my goodness it’s up and down, polishing a script and rehearsing and looking after little boys who, even when they’re quiet, are pretty loud. Yesterday morning, the two things that I’m trying to be right now – a writer and a mother – were completely incompatible.

I needed, more than I needed anything else, to work through my script. To look at it word by word, to reassure myself it was finished, to immerse myself in it just a little bit more (I’m sure that sounds wanky, and I do apologise for that). To get this work done I woke up early, kept telling my children to ‘put the television back on’ and let them ladle sugar on their weetbix.

Perhaps they got wind of my urgency, because they co-operated by burrowing themselves away in cubbies made of curtains, playing three games of Cluedo without an argument (two pounds fifty at the oxfam shop that game cost and all that was missing was instructions), reading, working in their sketchbooks and munching their way through a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut paste and several punnets of berries.

The writer in me was almost happy. The work had to be done, and I love my script, I just love it, and working on it always makes me feel good.

But at the same time, the mother in me couldn’t help thinking that my boys weren’t doing anything that they couldn’t be doing at home. And not only that, but here they were, cooped up in one small room, with no yard for soccer or cricket and nowhere for mixing mud potions with added stones. This isn’t broadening their horizons, it’s limiting them.

I don’t want to do everything. I just want to do what I do do well.

Anyhoo, I’d made a bargain with myself (and written in my diary, so I couldn’t back out), that I would find us a routine where I spend the morning working and in the afternoons, we go exploring.

So I got a few hours done, then off we went for a run in Holyrood Park and a fossick through Our Dynamic Earth. It was brilliant. Wonderful. And when, after carefully reading all of the information and pressing all of the interactive buttons, my little boy said, ‘Yes, but who is going to tell us where the first dinosaur came from’, I would not have been anywhere else in the world. And then we ran home around – but not up – Arthur’s Seat and my goodneess me, they are thistles over there, and the crag is gorgeous and that grass really does wave in the wind and now our umbrellas have blown inside out, and how lucky are we to be seeing all this?

So I don’t know. What’s the answer?

Because one moment, those two things, being a writer and being a mother are completely incompatible. And the next, they are a perfect fit.

I think I’m the only one spent July and August chasing grey skies

Writing earnest post, but wore myself out. So instead, here is a photo of the mister and the lads playing soccer in our Galician backyard the day after the mister joined us on our holiday. There’s sheep on the other side of the fence. (And not long after this was taken the mister and I were speaking civilly to each other again.)

IMG_2475

Central heating in August

Arrived in Edinburgh despite potent combination of Spanish air traffic controllers strike and budget airline. There’s a certain type of comaraderie you get from an airline that doesn’t allocate seats (I didn’t even know there was such a thing, but there you go, there is), a particular kind of jocularity unique to such an experience. Would I exchange jocularity for an assigned seat? Well, I don’t know. You can buy a seat, but you can’t buy comaraderie.

Youse can stop being jealous of my Andalucian view now. I mean, our flat here is okay, and it does have some nice views of greenery and turret-like things. But it’s not Andalucia if you know what I mean. And August accommodation is extraordinarily expensive here. Really, for the money I’m paying I would expect a castle (with turrets), but welcome to Europe in August.

And rain. Oh, my goodness, the rain. We’re freezing and will be sick to death of the one jumper each that we brought with us. So, if nothing else, we have escaped the Abu Dhabi heat. Which is good. Very good. I’m probably the only one here who actually came for the rain.

I bought one of those USB internet sticks this morning. I asked a few dudes whether or not I could just use the one I bought in Australia and pay for a new account. They laughed in my face. I knew they would, but I didn’t expect them to laugh quite so hard. For some reason, it has installed itself in Arabic – I did buy this computer in Abu Dhabi, but nothing else has ever installed itself in Arabic. Anyhoo, I managed to negotiate my way through it, although it wasn’t without some anxious moments. Does anyone else feel edgey when they can’t get onto the internet? I’m quite concerned about myself in this respect. Also, how long will a gigabyte last? That’s how much I got with the package. One gigabyte. Could I update my podcasts, or will that chew through the bites to the giga?

My, but this is a beautiful city. Seductively so. Crags and castles on your doorstep. Boys are loving black taxis and double decker buses. Oh, and this morning, I saw a chap walking down my street and wearing a kilt. He really was. I tried to get a photo, but the camera battery was flat.

Put up your hand if you’ve been drinking too much

Last Christmas Day, by which I mean the one before the one we had the other day, while the mister was in emergency getting my grandfather’s broken ribs seen to, I dished up the home made tartufo.

My dad peered into the mister’s mother’s bowl and said, What’s that? He was pointing at a Haigh’s truffle. Cupofcino or shiraz, I can no longer be sure which. The truffle was on the side, because the day before the day before the Christmas before the one we’ve just had, tartufo still seemed like a good idea, but an idea for which I did not quite have time. So I made the ice cream and decided to serve it in scoops rather than balls, and with truffle on the side, instead of in the middle.

An excellent plan which resulted in a mighty fine dessert. Except…

My dad, removing his face from the mister’s mother’s bowl said, ‘Where’s mine?’

‘I didn’t give you one,’ said I.

‘Why not?’

At times like this, people will know when you are not telling the truth, and so I did not even try to lie.

‘I thought it was wasted on your tongue, dulled as it is by this savage chemotherapy you’ve been enduring, but nonetheless cooked Christmas lunch through.’

‘And you also thought that I wouldn’t notice that I didn’t get one?’

The mister’s mother was shocked. But my Dad and I, thinking of my mother who was once caught hiding mandarins from her own children, laughed until our tummies hurt.

And when we got into bed that night I said to the mister, It’s going to be a hard year. And so it has. Topped off with a fairly ordinary couple of weeks I have to say.

But it was pretty ace being tapped excitedly on the arm at 6.45 and woken with the words ‘mum, mum, he came, can we open one yet, please can we…mum, mum, it’s light sabres…’. And because I’m a bit ambivalent to this whole Santa Claus thing, the best presents were clearly labelled ‘Love from Mum and Dad’. mp3 players (I know, kids these days) pre-loaded with a bunch of songs I thought they might like.

Of course, it has introduced a whole new argument to our family life. ‘Youngest Boy, I know you totally love Wipeout, but you have to have the volume at fifteen or less’. But what’s life without family arguments?

I’d better go. If the mister gets home and finds me blogging, I’m in fifteen kinds of trouble. There’s a lot to do round here.,