I managed to cut down on my calorific intake a bit today and did 40 minutes at the gym and pool so feel a lot better about myself. It's also much more pleasurable doing my laps in front of the Indian Ocean, under the African sun than being in the slightly smelly pool at Holmes Place in Hammersmith. The sky was beautiful and blue above me, so much so that when I was doing backstroke (just using my legs) I twice banged my head on the wall of the pool. I was enjoying the sun on my face and the clarity of the sky too much to notice the end of the length.
My toe is still purple, but I don't think it's broken as I was fearing.
It's going to be a few days of lolling in the sunshine so not much to report, but it's been great to have the time to do some reading again. I only seem to really get into books on holiday these days and it's so cool to literally have nothing else to do. I am reading Michael Palin's diaries (perhaps not taking me quite as far from my job as I should be aiming for) and they're really fascinating. I kind of which I'd read this before I wrote my Double Act script as there's some good stuff about the rivalries and confrontations of comedic partnerships, but then again it did confirm a lot of what is already in the script - especially the fact that every month Palin was writing about Python being on the verge of splitting and yet every time they came back with something else (which will be a running theme of my piece if it happens). It's also interesting reading someone else's diary when I have myself spent quite some time doing my own. Seeing ten years of his life bound up in an admittedly pretty thick book does make one consider the passage of time. I've been doing this for nearly four years myself now which this tome puts into perspective. It's the personal stuff from Palin that is really interesting though, how he copes with his young family and the degeneration of his father. Which brings up parallels with my other recent project.
If you are a comedy nerd (and let's face it, you're reading this so you probably are) then I think you'll get a lot out of this book. But I think just at the moment that I would get a fair amount of pleasure at just reading anything at all. This holiday has come at the perfect time. I have nothing to work on til I get back and yet the break is already making me look forward to getting back to the work I've got lined up. Not that I am willing this break to be over just yet. It is a rare pleasure to be doing nothing without the nagging thought at the back of one's mind that you should be doing something.
The Indian Ocean is very warm. I paddled in it this evening.
