Warming Up

Rainy day on Arran, until the evening when a downpour was followed by sunny Mediterranean weather. 

Mum got in touch to say that the person in the blue coat in the painting by my grandad is actually my grandma  (the figure is very distant) but I still think she’s wrong. Just because I was about five years old at the time doesn’t mean I can’t be right. Also the ruin is by an inlet not a lake/loch. We are going to go up there tomorrow to see who was right. She did confirm that we went to the cave with our grandparents, though she doesn’t remember the walk (so again, can her memory be trusted) so it’s possible that my memory of my grandad is a real one. My parents last came here twenty-five years ago and said nothing had changed in the quarter of a century since they’d come here with us kids. The swing I played on at Lochranza had still been there. I will see if it’s there tomorrow. Arran seems to have a lot of random swings dotted around, with no other playground equipment. What’s that about? Now it makes sense that people told me there were lots of swingers here.

In the morning we played inside and then played a damp game of cricket in the garden when the rain stopped.   It was Ernie’s first real go at the game and though he managed to avoid getting out by standing directly in front of the wicket and refusing to acknowledge there LBW rule, he was still pretty good for a beginner. Phoebe hasn’t played for a little while, but she’s pretty good at sporty things (her parents are both useless but both sets of grandparents had some skills), but more importantly we had fun playing together and the kids both wanted to have another game when we got back from our day’s jaunt. 

We went to a soft play as it was too rainy for outdoor stuff and the kids made some friends or at least found some playmates. Phoebe was playing with a couple of older boys, but then we didn’t see her for a while and the boys were playing table football. I took off my shoes and went to look for her and found her hiding (pretty well) in a little crevice. She was, she thought, playing hide and seek with the boys. But now the boys were playing a different game. I didn’t know how long she had been hiding, but she was pleased to have found such a good place. Had the boys just bailed on her or had they tricked her into hiding for a nasty prank? I had to tread delicately and told her that she must have hid so well that the boys had given up.  She went over to talk to them - how would this go? She told them where she had been hiding. She didn’t suspect that they might not be interested or that they might have ghosted her. After they’d finished their game she took them to look at her hiding spot and they at least feigned interest.  Phoebe wanted to play the table football game but we were pretending that we didn’t have any coins. Then one of the boys came over and said he had been given some money for babysitting and he had a spare pound that Phoebe could have. Which was very kind of him, so I think I had misjudged him and his brother. Which was lucky as I’d been planning to punch them both in the face for trying to belittle my girl. 

The politics of childhood friendships are so simple and yet so tricky. You can make friends in seconds, but then all that you have to negotiate from there.

I can’t quite fully relax on holiday as I need to book guests for the upcoming run of RHLSTP and find the big names that will sell tickets to ensure that the Leicester Square Theatre dates can continue. I landed one sure fire sell out star today (will let badgers and plussers know who it is soon), but still have no one for the September 5th show. It’s still just about far enough away that I don’t have to worry too much, but do I wait to see if any big names come through or book interesting people and hope that enough of you will come to make things work? Ah the delightful jeopardy. The 12th September show with Reece Shearsmith and Sally Phillips is selling fast. You know all the shows will be great. Tickets for all Leic Sq Theatre shows here. I will definitely have guests by the time of recording!