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My mother-in-law was in charge of the kids overnight, so that we could get drunk. I didn’t get that drunk, but had the most annoying of free nights, where I couldn’t sleep properly anyway. I got less sleep than I do when I am in charge of my stupid baby. And I didn’t even have a smiling baby face looking up at me at 4am to make me laugh at the situation.
I was just thinking of the day ahead: early call for Little Gym with Phoebe, train to Brighton, two shows and then a long drive home. And wishing I hadn’t agreed to that hubristic second gig.
But somehow - and I have no idea how - I got through the day fine (with only a 30 minute nap between shows). I had to leave Little Gym early and walk to the station and realised I had not even thought about how cold it was going to be. I wondered if I might freeze on the ten minute walk.
And I’d hoped to do some work on the train, but it was pretty full and had no tables and anyway my mind wasn’t clicking into gear.
Welsh Ray was picking me up from the station, but he was waiting on the other side of station and I couldn’t find him. I was regretting my thin jumper choice and thinking, you know, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to go out like Jack Nicholson in the Shining.
But he found me eventually and we got to the venue and it turned out we’d sold 120+ tickets for the afternoon (I’d been thinking it would be maybe 40), so it didn’t feel like so much of a fool’s errand.
And the audience soon shook off the weirdness of seeing comedy in the afternoon and it was a good gig.
It is strange to be in theatre and a basement dressing room for most of the day, but the time passed quickly and I was back doing the same show, this time in a packed theatre with 300 people in, feeling a sense of deja vu, but only starting to feel a little bit shaky by the second half. I am definitely too old for two gigs in a day (and I am doing a few more on this tour), if not for touring all together, but I was pleased to get through this long day.
We got back to Hertfordshire and the snow was coming down, making the car skid on the country roads. But Ray slid us home, like a Welsh Santa on a sleigh where all the presents were my unsold DVDs.
I was tired by now, but it still takes a little while to reacclimatise. I was aware that tomorrow I had a solo morning looking after the kids and also had to cook lunch for us and another family. How the Hell was I going to get through that?
