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There’s probably a bit too much going on in my life this year and believe me, you don’t know about all of it, but even I am slightly afraid that I can’t get everything I need to get done. And that my comedy well has run dry. Though some people think that happened a long time ago. You’d think having loads going on would be great for comedy, but weirdly those days where nothing was happening seem to force out better blogs (on the whole). When life is whizzing by there is no time to sit back and spot the whimsy.
I mean I have written Edinburgh shows in a lot less time than I currently have (I didn’t even start thinking about Oh Fuck I’m 40 til June, but then I had just had a huge pathetic fight, which helped) and I suspect something will occur to me. But at the moment I am not getting the time to be inspired, whilst worrying about the new house, RHLSTP guests and all the other shit and sugar that life is throwing at me.
Today we were off to our new house to talk to the people doing the work on it, but first we were going to take the car in for a service and then pick up a car to test drive (as we’re going to be out in the sticks we will both need a car now). We left London early, but leaving time to drop Phoebe off at her grandparents and I foolishly remarked that the traffic was surprisingly light. Five minutes later we got stuck in a jam on the North Circular that we weren’t going to escape for almost two hours. The stress of being late for appointments was added to the stress of worrying about our child holding in her wee. But even though we were worried about that, we thought she’d tell us before it happened. Alas, once things had finally got moving we pulled over at the first opportunity to discover we were seconds late.
This day was not going well.
Being a parent is awesome.
And from there on in it was difficult to keep up with the plans we’d made for the day, so we felt like we could never catch out breath. And the car we had been given to test drive for the day (which was very decent of the VW dealership) seemed to be a bit sluggish and was guzzling fuel at an alarming rate, despite being a brand new model. So I was a bit stressed that we might break down or that I had done something stupid to make the car not work properly. But luckily it got us where we needed to go, despite using up almost half a tank to go just 70 miles.
Also I realised as we were driving to drop off Phoebe that I had left the house keys at home and then discovered that my father-in-laws had given me their key back when he had last come round. Luckily a neighbour was holding a key or the whole day would have been screwed up. (Although just now I reached into my jeans pocket and realised I had picked up the keys after all - they were in my pocket the whole time. I looked like an idiot for no reason).
The house needs a lot doing to it, but the people we’ve got in seem competent and I’m looking forward to making it our own. But it’s a lot of stress to add on to the stress we were already under. As we left a woman walking her dog stopped to say hello and knew my name, and that I was a comedian (she’d looked me up, but hadn’t recognised me from anything) and when we were moving in officially and where my parents-in-law live. Word gets round a village fast. She was telling me all about the village talent show and the stuff that had gone wrong last year…. But you know, I think I like that. I might be proven wrong, but after the stress of driving through London or failing to, the politeness of the drivers here and the ease of getting around even in a slightly dodgy car was amazing.
Oh Frig, I am 50, aren’t I? Hopefully the move to the country will be the inspiration for the show that I need. Could I be being more 50?
Don't forget - Thursday is your chance to see live Me1 vs Me2 snooker in an 1100 seater venue at the Reading Hexagon. I think I can confidentally predict this will never happen again. You have to sit through some stand up comedy too.
Still a few tickets left.
