It’s been quite a quiet week on tour this week. Nothing major going on, no real news to report. I think that with the end of the tour just around the corner, we’re starting to wind down and get ready for our summer holiday!
So I last left you on Monday... let’s think back. Ah yes, Tuesday. Tiredness was definitely present on Tuesday morning. I stumbled through the show on autopilot, but thankfully the kids seemed to enjoy it and nobody apart from myself and Rob could tell, and he’s too much of a gentleman to point out how shoddy my performance actually was! Tuesday afternoon however, was a different matter. We were performing at a special needs school, which again was fine, but I knew I’d have to work extra hard and my tank was definitely running on empty. The hall was filled with chairs by the caretakers and slowly the kids all piled in. As soon as Rob introduced the show, they all went wild, loving that someone was there to entertain them. This meant that by the time I appeared onstage and began my opening monologue, I could have been speaking in Arabic for all they knew, the level of sound was through the roof and I could barely hear myself! I just crossed my fingers and hoped that Rob could hear his cue line to come on!
Despite the initial roar of the crowds, they did quieten down and seemed to really enjoy it. The teacher who had booked it was also full of amazement, and was really grateful that we had come to their school. I’ve probably said it before, but we like doing special schools because we get to do a shorter show which means early home time! Sadly this wasn’t the case that day. I find it strange when schools have assemblies at the end of the day, which was what happened there, and we were asked if we could wait to take our equipment out until after their assembly. Of course, as visitors to the school who were paying our wages we said yes, but this meant having to wait outside in the van for almost an hour while assembly was going on, and then having to wait to bring our van back into the school car park when all of the school buses had departed.
After the show, I noticed that I had a missed call from Jacc on my phone. Thinking that it might be a call revealing whether Starlight had made it onto television, I raced out to the van and called him back, only to find that he wanted me to quote ABBA lyrics down the phone to him for his kids musical theatre class that night as his internet had been cut off! But at least it passed the time, and in the end all of the teachers from the school helped to bring all of the set out to the van so we had a super-quick get-out!
Wednesday brought another of my favourite type of days. We had two shows in the same school! And as our first show wasn’t til 11am, I got to catch a bit more sleep! The first show went really well; the teachers had split the kids into upper and lower school and we had the upper school first. I prefer doing this show to the slightly older ones as they know more, and it’s easy to get the answers you are looking for out of them, rather than having 4 year olds shouting random words at you. We had about an hour’s break in between shows, so after the first show, I reset all of the props so that we could leg it out and grab some lunch. Some of the children were still in the room while I was packing away and I spoke to a few of them that were desperate to ask me questions. After a couple of minutes, I saw one girl looking at me so I gave her a nice smile. Only for her to say “I can see your sweat.” Brilliant. So I’ve been working my arse off for over an hour to entertain and educate you and all you can think about is my sweaty face! Thank you! With that, I ran off behind the curtain to cry. Joking!
The afternoon show was completely different to the morning’s. The kids knew nothing about any subject we approached and one child I asked a question to rambled on for about two minutes without me understanding a word! Turns out he had a speech impediment! I sure know how to find them!
Needless to say, I was very glad when Thursday rolled around, as it meant we had the afternoon off! I really enjoyed the show that morning. The company hadn’t been to the school before and so the teacher in charge seemed a bit wary of us, but even he was joining in and having a whale of a time! The show flew past and before I knew it we were home again. About 15 minutes away from the cottage was a discount designer shopping centre, so I waved goodbye to Rob and set out for an afternoon of luxury! Turned out I only got an hour’s worth, I wasn’t expecting to have to pay for parking and I just managed to scrabble around enough for the smallest amount on the tariff! It wasn’t all bad, I got myself a lovely new handbag and purse, and some lovely flower hair accessories! You don’t get any of those in primary schools!
Despite having had Thursday afternoon off, Friday morning rolled around I was ridiculously tired again. This might have had something to do with me staying up to watch films until silly o’clock! Oh well, I’ll learn. Friday morning’s receptionist seemed a bit of a dragon! Rob introduced us, and she just stared at us like we’d stolen her child’s Christmas presents! Luckily the teacher we needed to see popped his head out of the door and we scurried away. The show was a good one, although I wasn’t really putting as much effort in as I probably could, I was just hoping I made it to the end without falling over and going to sleep! As we were packing away, two girls walked through the hall, looking at Rob giggling, so I told him they fancied him! He replied with a disgusting joke. As usual! I knew something had to be done about my tiredness, so after we had parked the van up at lunch time (after driving around the town for ten minutes in circles trying to find the school!), I bought myself the biggest can of Red Bull I could find, and off we went.
I manoeuvred the van around the hundreds of small children in the playground and we patiently waited outside for the dinnerladies to finish sweeping the hall before we could get our stuff in. There was a maypole outside, and obediently a small group of children gathered around it to practice for the following day’s country dancing display. I love this time of year at schools, all the summer fetes are taking place and it’s so fun to watch all the kids getting excited about running around with a ribbon in their hand thinking they are amazing dancers! (Friday morning’s school were having their fete that night, and were putting a big screen up in the hall so that all the dads/boys could watch England play in their World Cup match!)
I was sitting in the back of the van watching all of the children take their places around the maypole when the teacher in charge of them walked over to us and said, “I don’t know why the hell we bother with this bloody country dancing. Every year it’s awful but the kids enjoy it so we have to do it.” I didn’t quite know what to do with that remark so I just giggled politely and smiled. I have to admit though, I did have a chuckle to myself thinking of what was going through his head when the kids kept getting it wrong!
So, we got in the hall, set up and prepared for the kids to come in. I was still feeling pretty tired, but as soon as I stepped in front of them, the Red Bull automatically kicked in and didn’t stop til way after we got home! I was literally bouncing off the walls! And despite it being a first school, so they were all the younger ones, I really enjoyed it! I suppose it helped that it was Friday afternoon too!
As we were packing away, I saw a couple of boys hanging around outside the door to the hall so I asked them if they enjoyed the show. To which one of them responded, “Well yes, but there was a bit too much talking. If you come again could there be less talking in it please?” I told him I’d do my best! Shortly after that, another boy appeared and looked at me for a moment before asking, “What’s your number?” Slightly baffled, I asked him what number he meant. “What’s your phone number?” I could hear Rob laughing over the other side of the hall so I politely told the boy that he was too young for me and ran away before I could be accused of something untoward! Rob said it was payback for me saying the girls fancied him that morning. I couldn’t argue!
I stuffed myself stupid with food that evening, so much so that I actually didn’t move myself off the sofa and ended up watching England’s awful attempt at football that night. I’d have probably had a better time at that school fete!
So then Saturday rolled around and it was time to say goodbye to Somerset. I couldn’t say I was sad. When you’re away from home it’s quite nice to have a phone handy, but Somerset is quite behind with the whole phone signal thing, and to be honest, I’d had enough of the wonky house. I ended up feeling like I was on a boat, with all the floors at different angles, I felt like I was at sea, and I’d bashed my elbow so many times trying to make my way up and down the stairs it wasn’t funny any more.
So we set off in the van up to St Helens so that Rob could get his car to use for this fortnight. And then I made my way back down to Nantwich, the place where it all began! And here we shall stay for two weeks, before the final week of trekking around the country in about four different locations! I’ll probably moan during that last week, but I’ll be happy to know that summer is just round the corner! x
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