I am not a fisherman…

So I’ve been back home for two weeks and 3 weekends now and I’m more exhausted now than when I was touring, and that was hard going most days!

After doing relatively little on the Saturday after my re-entry to the town, I had to muster up all of my energy on Sunday afternoon to run in the Race for Life at Leicester. It was such a hot day, and my training hadn’t really been going well on tour due to our ridiculous locations, there was absolutely nowhere to run around if I didn’t want to be hit by cars, lorries or tractors.

My mum and dad came to watch, and as we didn’t know where we were going, I got out my trusty sat-nav and we were off! Despite several mocking from my dad about said sat-nav, it got us to the exact spot no problem, 1-0 to me! We parked up and of course being over an hour early as we always are to these events, we sat in the sunshine, me slapping on the factor 30 as quickly as I could.

About half an hour before the race, it was time for the group warm-up. This year I was in for a treat! There were male cheerleaders!! Obviously raving gay but still, a couple of them were nice to look at, plus we all did a routine to S Club 7! It was turning into a flippin good day! Then came the ‘proper’ warm up, which consisted of a couple of salsa-type dance style routines led by a lady who called herself a fitness trainer but didn’t really look like she followed her own advice if you know what I mean!

After a brief tour of the tents selling fitness equipment and pork (yes, pork!), and getting myself a temporary tattoo(!), it was time to line up. I managed to get quite close to the front of the line-up, although I wouldn’t be staying there for very long! To cut a long story short, I did well considering my awful training and the horrible heat and finished in about 36 minutes. Not my best but there’s always next year! :)

Monday brought with it the main reason my parents are glad I’m home... I started my cleaning mission! My mum said she’d let me live here without paying them any money if I did stuff around the house and boy have I done stuff! The whole of the first week back was spent getting covered in dust, grime and anything else disgusting you can imagine! Strangely I’ve been finding it quite therapeutic but I’ve also been gagging, and I’m sure my lungs are full of dust and fumes from cleaning products! But, the house has never been cleaner! I ask any one of you to come round and eat your dinner off any surface! Kim and Aggie would be so proud!

Of course I haven’t forgotten my primary function in life, performing! Rehearsals have been flippin intense! My first Friday rehearsal was an absolute killer! 3 solid hours of dancing... people were sweating so much that we were all dripping onto the floor and I skidded on the floor and nearly broke my neck due to puddles on the floor! It was so good to be back though, and seeing all the shiny Starlight faces was brilliant. The show is going to be amazing, just know it! Plus, I’m here for the whole of the rehearsal process! So exciting! I usually just flap around on stage pretending I know what I’m doing because I haven’t been at rehearsals but I’m gonna kick it this time! Bring it on! People have already been asking to buy tickets and they’re not even on sale yet! It’s 3 months away!!

Rehearsals always bring fun times at Jacc’s after rehearsals. Ok, sometimes we might have a cheeky takeaway on a Friday night but our television watching is my highlight. Every time I come back, Jacc has a new series recorded for us to watch. This time it’s been 60 minute makeover with Claire Sweeney. Just watching her poke her nose in and seeing the looks on her face when some family make strange comments is priceless! And some of the designers are right ponces! Brillliant TV, even if it is fake! No-one can decorate 4 rooms in 6 minutes! Absolute lies!

The next Saturday brought with it my first outing in Kettering town at night since Easter. Let’s just say that the last time we were out there was blood, punches and police and a ‘lifetime ban’ from our favourite bar in town! But there we were, with nothing to do so we decided to be brave and attempt it again! And on the whole it was a very good night! We drank far too much, found a new cocktail bar, I met a lovely new man to chat to, AND we got back into the bar we got banned from and we weren’t even recognised! Jacc made me ask the manager if it was ok to be in there and he looked at me as if I was some sort of freak, he had no idea (although out again this past weekend and he looked and pointed at us while talking to another member of staff... we might have been rumbled!)

Last Monday was an interesting one! Being an unemployed now, I phoned the number to claim some JobSeekers Allowance. If there’s free money going of course I’m going to have some! I’ve got a social life to fund! Usually the initial phone call goes on for quite a while but this one was set to beat all records! I’m not meaning to be racist in any way, but I was shocked and pleased that I got through to an English person... it’s not usually the way any more when you phone these numbers. Anyway, my glee was short-lived when she could barely hear me, the line was awful, and apparently I kept dropping out. It took 5 minutes just to take my name down! Half an hour later, when I’d been asked repeatedly if I was a fisherman(?!?), she managed to get me an appointment for later that day at the job centre to finalise my claim.

I hate the job centre, I always feel like I’m looked down upon just because I have no job and scrounging for money! But to be fair, today’s people that I dealt with were happy and friendly and actually willing to help. And after being asked again if I was a fisherman, they sent me on my way with my little book and told me to look for work... Hmmm! ;)

I was looking forward to the evening. Dancercise was beckoning me! I like Jacc’s dancercise classes, I can actually do the routine and it makes me feel like I’m the best in the class rather than the overweight heifer flapping around at commercial dance on a Friday night! Last week’s routine was to ‘The Club is Alive’ by JLS and it was freakin’ brilliant! I really got my groove on(!) and this time there was a lot more sweat than usual but I didn’t even notice because it was so fun! Nice one Jacc!

I went round to his afterwards because we had a new game to play! Despite being hideously hungover the previous day, he had insisted on dragging us round the car boot sales of the county, but we hit the jackpot in the form of The Crystal Maze board game! A few months ago, in the 60 minute makeover spot we had The Crystal Maze to watch so we snatched it away from the stall for a bargain price of £1! It’s an absolutely amazing game, and I’m not just saying that because I won(!), it was brilliant! I can’t wait to play it again! You get to take people’s crystals if they lose a challenge! Genius! Everybody should play!

And that’s pretty much it actually... Rehearsals, makeovers, cleaning, dancing, crystals, free money... it’s been good! Oh, and of course going to see my beautiful friend Lydia! I know you’re reading! :) Love you x

So now I think I’m going to write a bit more of my musical which hasn’t been touched for a while, and clean the bathroom again! Dancercise tonight, can’t wait!

Nxxx

The final countdown…

I was in two minds about our final week of the tour. One one hand, hello, last week! But on the other, we would be travelling an indecent amount of miles across, up and down the country.

But first I had an audition to get to! Off I went to London on the obscenely times 7.56am train, listening to my audition song, ‘What I did For Love’ on repeat on my iPod! The journey itself was quite pleasant for an early morning journey. My next challenge was to navigate my way through the tubes to Walthamstow. Due to work being done at St Pancras International, I seemed to walk miles around until I found my appropriate platform. Once again the journey there was quite easy, and the tubes were quiet... So much so that I thought people were bound to hear my heart beating in my chest due to my nerves!

On arrival at Walthamstow station I planted myself in front of the map of the local area to try and find the road I needed. This proved somewhat difficult... I had no idea which way I was facing or which direction I should be heading. My years of doing my Duke of Edinburgh Awards seemed to be useless! I set off in completely the wrong direction and immediately felt that it was wrong so found myself another map which seemed to be equally as pointless.

I did the typical British thing of refusing to ask for help until absolutely necessary but nobody could help me! I don’t know how but I eventually managed to find myself on the right road but heading in the wrong direction! About ten minutes later, walking in the correct direction, I found my destination. I spotted a woman not too much older than me sitting outside so walked straight up to her to see if she was also there for the audition. To my horror and embarrassment she was the assistant director! Brilliant. We sat there in awkward silence until the director arrived about five minutes later. My heart sank as she opened her mouth and her words rolled out in an American accent. The audition was for a musical set in the U.S.A, and to be honest, my general American accent wasn’t completely up to scratch! She also couldn’t seem to understand anything that I’d said in response to her questions. Good start.

I sat outside while they went inside to set up the room (of course I was over half an hour early!) and they brought me out a questionnaire to fill in to take into the audition with me. I noticed another girl arrive and go inside but kept myself to myself- knowing my luck she’d probably be the costume designer or some other big job with the production!

The audition itself went ok. I remembered all the words to my monologue from 42^nd Street, and got good feedback on that. I was note perfect in my song too, and left feeling quite pleased considering it was my first audition in about 14 months!

I hopped back on the tube and made my way to Covent Garden to meet my lovely friend Anna for a pitcher of Pimm’s and a burger and had a lovely afternoon! The highlight of our afternoon was having our photo taken with a Johnny Depp lookalike dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow! Beautiful!

I went home feeling a bit sleepy but happy after quite a nice day, and began packing for the final week of the tour!

Sunday took me up to Scarborough (via St Helens). We found the Bed and Breakfast among the hundreds in the town and were greeted by a woman who appeared to have only one tooth! But the place was gorgeous, and I had a lovely sea view from my window. And we only had a 15 minute drive in the morning which was lovely! I can’t remember many of the shows form the week, but I’m sure if anything awful had happened I would have noted it down! So Monday night took us to another B&B in York. There was nobody there to greet us, just a code for the door where we found our room keys. I could only get one channel on the television so I made the most of my Torchwood DVD’s while eating Pot Noodles. Yes, I know, I’m very ashamed! Later on in the evening there was a knock at my door, and Rob was stood outside with a very beautiful man who I stared at for a few minute while he talked to me about breakfast! I was definitely ready for a good night’s sleep that night but was rudely kept awake by a man who was staying in the building but who hadn’t got his key to get in. My room was closest to the front door on the bottom floor but I wasn’t going to let him because it wasn’t my house and he could have been a murderer! About 20 minutes into his shouting rant, I heard a woman’s voice. Someone who was walking along the street had seen him and helped him to get inside which I thought was rather nice as she was a complete stranger.

After my disturbed night’s sleep, it was only another short drive to the morning school. Sadly Rob was almost attacked during the Macbeth scene! One of the children had his mask put on his face, ripped it off and proceeded to threaten Rob with his fists. It’s always a tense time in schools when a child gets angry at you and I could see all the teachers recoiling in horror at him- please note, not doing anything about it! I couldn’t stop the look of fear and disdain on my face and made a very audible tutting noise when nobody stepped in to help. The afternoon show went really well which made up for it. It was then time for another epic journey up to Barrow-in-Furness. About 3 hours I think. Thankfully this time we had been to that B&B so we knew where we were headed.

Wednesday took us to a special school in Barrow where Rob was attacked again during Macbeth! This time he was actually punched, and the teachers just laughed at the boy doing it. Needless to say, we weren’t impressed. Another good afternoon followed but I was secretly wondering how many more attacks would arise throughout the rest of the week.

Cumbria is a beautiful part of the country but Thursday morning’s school was a mammoth one and a half hour’s journey up windy country roads. We saw a horrible car crash on the way too which slightly held us up. We were a bit late for our arrival time, and pretty much ran with all the set and props into the hall as it was a long way through the school. The show went well, and we threw everything back into the van again for another hour and a half across the country, only to annoy the school by asking if we could move their stage so that we could fit our set in. They begrudgingly did it, and when I appeared onstage for my opening monologue, I was baffled by their seating arrangements. Each year group was sat in a huddle in a different part of the hall!

It was a good show, but as we were packing away, the teachers had told all of the children to bring a chair into the hall for their evening show. I walked into the hall after taking something outside to find a boy struggling to hold up our set as he had been playing around with it and it had almost fallen on top of him. I was so angry! We would have got the blame for it if he had been hurt without a doubt.

Friday took us just around the corner from the B&B to a school that I had previously been to last year. The kids were eerily quiet, it was quite unsettling. But we got on with it and slowly but surely, the final show was upon us. Unfortunately we were in an infant school, where the show didn’t go down quite as well as the junior schools. The kids were awful, some were walking around, just horrible. We did a speed show, packed up and did a little whoop as we realised we were finally going home.

I bombed it down the motorways of Britain to get to Manchester Piccadilly station, and managed to get a reasonably timed one that would get me into Kettering by 9pm. Not bad.

My journey would involve 3 trains, and I hate changing trains when I’ve got luggage! My first train from Manchester to Sheffield was quite quiet apart from the two ladies opposite who were bitching about their work. Typically I was stood in the doorway of the train in full view of everyone when I decided to eat the biscuit that I had bought at lunchtime. I had rammed it into the top of my suitcase when I had jumped out of the van at Manchester, leaving Rob in a cloud of my dust, so when I took it out and began to bite into it, the whole thing crumbled all over my face and onto the train floor. Marvellous.

Train two from Sheffield to Leicester was a nice one. I actually managed to get a seat and sat down with my iPod listening to the Sister Act The Musical soundtrack. Well, I tried. The music was getting drowned out by a couple of Chinese men shouting quite loudly. I don’t think they knew they were shouting, but they were! My final train from Leicester to Kettering was a complete non-event. I sat in the doorway again with my suitcase, just so that I could make a quick getaway when I arrived. I received a text message from my dad saying that no-one could come to pick me up because they couldn’t find my brother’s keys to move his car out of the way, so I made the final 30 minutes home by foot. I wasn’t expecting it to be so hot in Kettering as it had been quite a miserable week in Cumbria so I worked up quite a sweat, to add to my already disgustingly sticky self.

I was almost home when I received a phone call from Jacc asking if I was going around to his house to see him that evening. After hurling him an obscenity in my tiredness, I reached home and sat down on the sofa. I was back! I had a few text messages from my friends welcoming me home which was lovely, and also a couple of texts from Georgie telling me which acts I am in for the next Starlight show, ‘Leave That Wizard Alone’ in October....

And so I have begun rehearsals for that too. Who says actors are lazy?!?!

Nxxx

Washing machines, van batteries and Justin Bieber…

So I turned up to Nantwich by myself at around 3.30 last Saturday. Rob hadn’t told me when he was arriving back with his girlfriend so I made the most of the time by myself and grabbed the washing machine to attack my stack of disgustingly sweaty clothes! Seriously, where did all this heat come from?!?

I did a bit of food shopping, had a nice chill out in front of the television, and started pondering how I was going to spend my evening. And then it came to me, I was going to make a film! I won’t give it away, but I think it’s quite funny... it’s on my YouTube channel if you fancy a view.

Sunday rolled by in a non-eventful blur, and before I knew it, we were back to Monday morning. And what a way to start the week! We entered the morning’s school and I had my usual nosey snoop around. It turned out that a few months before David Cameron had visited! The headmistress came into the hall when we were setting up, and was chatting to Rob when I heard her say “And you’re opening our library for us aren’t you”??? The school had redeveloped their library and they had decided that it would be a fabulous idea if we would cut the ribbon to open it after performing our show. We were sweaty messes but we did as we were asked, but the children didn’t even seem to fussed by it! We had also kicked off their school reading week so most of them were dressed as characters from their favourite books, including one teacher dressed up as Darth Vader!

We left the school and promptly got stuck in a massive traffic jam. We were headed to Birmingham and got stuck on the always fun m6. We did make it on time for the afternoon show, and had about ten minutes to spare before we had to go in. Rob stopped at a garage to get some snacks while I waited in the van. A man came round the corner and walked down the street towards the van, looking as in with a strange look on his face. He stopped about three feet away from the van and undid the button and zip on his trousers and started pulling them down. At this point I was seriously freaking out, my hand was clutching the door handle as tightly as I could, and thankfully I was wearing my sunglasses so that he couldn’t see the absolute terror in my eyes. It turned out that he had another pair of trousers on underneath and he was getting some money out of the pocket! Another typical overreaction from Natalie! Off we went to the school and immediately I wanted to be back at home! On one of the hottest days of the tour so far we ended up in a hall with no windows, with the worst behaved children ever! I saw one teacher manhandling a boy out of the hall because he was being disruptive and kicking on his way, and the kids were just walking around the hall whenever they felt like it! I was so relieved when we finished! I think we actually raced home that night, after a quick and sneaky ice cream from a petrol station!

Tuesday took us to Shrewsbury. I don’t really remember much about the morning show, but we weren’t very far away from the afternoon show and had a nice long lunch. We decided to go for a walk around the town, but Rob got bored after literally about five minutes and went back to the van. I persevered and found some nice shops, bought myself a lovely skirt, and trailed around a bit longer trying to find anywhere that could sell me Heat magazine! After my most important purchase was made(!), I found my way back to the van, read through the glossy pages for about ten minutes before it was time to go. I turned the key but nothing happened. I tried it again but still nothing worked. The battery light stayed on so that to me was the obvious problem. I would like to point out at this point that Rob had said the previous day that we needed to be careful about having the radio on for too long when the engine wasn’t running as he’d done that before on a tour and drained the battery so the van wouldn’t start. When I’d come back with my trashy mag ready to go, the radio was on and the fans were blowing out semi-cold air so my obvious assumption was that they had been going for a while and had drained it. I phoned the afternoon school and told them that we couldn’t get the van started and that we would be with them as soon as we could... annoyingly we were about 5 minutes around the corner! Rob begrudgingly phoned the bosses, and subsequently the breakdown people, and then began the waiting game. We were sat waiting to be rescued for about two hours. I sat outside, took the straps of my top down and tried to catch a bit of colour whilst reading the rest of my magazine. Eventually Rob received the phone call saying that a man was on his way to us, and surely enough, ten minutes later the big shiny orange van rolled up the street and promptly drove straight past us! We were parked in a tiny car park that was immediately next to a huge car park that he thought we were in. Rob decided to chase him on foot (obviously!) but the man got to me before Rob could flag him down, and Rob didn’t re-appear for a good five minutes afterwards! As nice as it was to have the afternoon off, I felt that I could have spent it in a much better place than a Shrewsbury car park, and the breakdown man wouldn’t shut up! He was very good and efficient in sorting our problem but he kept talking and talking and talking, when all we wanted to do was go home! We’d almost got home when we received a phone call from the bosses telling us to go and get a new battery for the van. So after a quick stop at home to wash my hands and have a cheeky snack, we set out to find one! Our second attempt took us to a Halfords where we were faced with a choice of three different batteries with varying materials. Knowing nothing about Transit van batteries, we just shrugged and pointed to the middle one! We asked if the man helping us could fit it for us, and after five minutes of searching under the bonnet, we found the battery underneath the driver’s seat, only for him to say that the batteries they had were probably too small for what we needed. I made the decision to leave it and wait til the next day, the bosses were due to come to see the show so they could make the decision for us!

So Wednesday appeared! It was a day I decided to call ‘Double Boss Day’. Current boss Brian arrived at the morning school at the same time as us, helped us to unload and then took the van to get a replacement battery. He didn’t think he’d be back in time to see the show but he turned up about ten minutes before we started. The battery had been checked and there was nothing wrong with it so he came straight back and saved a bundle! We did the show, probably putting in a bit more effort than usual because he was there(!), but we were slightly concerned. He seemed to have a face like thunder all the way through the performance and we didn’t know why! We were working our arses off. But we needn’t have worried, he absolutely loved it! He raved on to us for ages about how wonderful we are (obviously! Haha!)

There wasn’t much of a journey between schools so we found a supermarket and settled down for lunch. I made the most of my time by watching the beautiful topless men of Stoke going in and out of the shop! We arrived at the second school to find my ex-boss Barry outside! I invited him along for a chat and to see if he wanted to see the show. It turned out that the school we were at was his old primary school and he got a nice tour around from one of the teachers which I’m sure he loved!

I have no idea what happened on Thursday. Some days you just wake up and have nothing to say. Which is precisely what happened all day! We didn’t speak for the whole day except for onstage! Rob disappeared on Thursday night so I took the opportunity to use the washing machine again. I was going to go home on the Friday afternoon so I wanted to get everything sorted and take things home. I decided to change the setting s to a one-hour cycle but 3 hours later, it was still going. I was livid! In the end I just turned the thing off and left things to dry naturally over the weekend.

Friday promised to be a fantastic day! I was so ready to go home, we only had one show, which meant I could leave Crewe around 12.30 and still have a decent afternoon at home. We didn’t speak to each other again on Friday(?!?) , did the show, came home, and off I went on my journey. I got almost half-way home when my phone rang; it was Rob. He had left his coat in the van with his car keys in the pocket. As he had to go home that weekend I had to go back to take the keys back to him. I have never been so livid! I lost 2 hours of home time, and on my second attempt at the m6, I got stuck in a truckload of traffic. My anger levels hit an all-time high, and I never get angry!

But I had a fantastic weekend at home. I didn’t tell anyone I was going to be there so I turned up for dance class on Friday night to some shrieks and lots of hugs which was lovely! Thank you guys! J

I was gutted when I had to go back on Sunday night, but I kept telling myself that there were only two weeks left of the tour! Having Monday afternoon off helped! Tuesday brought with it a full day of rowdy kids. A much needed shopping trip eased my tension at lunchtime, and my faith in humanity was restored! I walked past a lady on my way into Shrewsbury town centre who I thought was just rambling to herself so I walked on in my own little Natalie bubble. I walked back after purchasing my essential Heat magazine (Well, it WAS Tuesday!) and walked past the same lady again. A woman was also following me down the street and I heard the first lady asking her for some money to get something to eat. The second lady replied “Of course, how much do you need?” I couldn’t believe it! Someone actually gave somebody on the street some money!

Wednesday brought another afternoon off which I was very grateful for! I was insanely tired, and had planned to have a quick half an hour nap which turned into a 4-hour sleep in the armchair by the front window! Thursday took us back to Stoke and quite a nice school in the morning. I’ve developed hayfever this year and had started taking some pills for it but came across a nasty side-effect on Thursday morning. I was fine until we started the show but when I stepped in front of the lights, I got a blinding headache. I thought it would pass, but it got worse during the day. I’d stupidly left my painkillers at home so just had to get on with it. I was hoping for a nice small school in the afternoon with maybe about 100 kids, but instead we were faced with a huge school with over 400 angry shouting children. Not amused.

I felt much better when I woke up on Friday morning and took another hayfever pill. Mistake! As soon as we started the show again in the morning, the headache kicked in. Thankfully we were going home that evening so I had access to pain relief! We were in a school in Burton-on-Trent in the morning, and despite my headache, it was a lovely school. It was a school where the majority of the students were Indian. I picked a boy to tell me about the battle of Troy, but he was so far at the back of the long narrow hall, and with his accent and my added headache, I had no idea what he was saying to me! Oh dear! I was hoping for another early finish, as I had another long journey to go to get home. We started the show early, and it went really well, with lovely kids. When the show finished, I went backstage but Rob wasn’t there! Bizarre! He eventually re-appeared and it turned out that he wasn’t feeling well. We packed up and set out on our journey when Rob asked me for some pills to cure his headache. I stopped the van and dug some out and was just about to set off again when he shouted at me to stop the van. I then sat at the side of the road listening to Rob throwing up his insides for about five minutes! Nice!

I dropped him off at Crewe to get his car, and made my way back home. Of course this involved the beautiful m6 and I was stuck for hours entertaining the crowds with my audition pieces for the very next day! I eventually made it home, off I went to dance class, and followed it up with my Friday visit to Jacc’s to watch the DVD of ‘Evolution’! And I have to say it was bloody amazing! As I’ve said before we knew it was a good show but the video just proved how amazing it really was!

Go Starlight! It filled me with a bit more confidence for my audition the next day which was getting closer by the hour...