Just a quicky!

I’m off to Silverstone for theBritish Grand Prix.

Well, practice and qualifying anyway. Cant see the race as I need to be back for the Riverside Youth Theatre AGM!

Bye for now…

Having just spent the last hour and a half shredding my 00/01 and 01/02 annual business and personal accounts and checking every reciept for my credit card number (printed, I might add, in full on the vast majority of them), I’ve discovered a surprisingly interesting fact…

In January 2001 I was paying about 80 pence per litre for unleaded petrol.

Checking back over my reciepts for the last tax year 07/08, I see I was paying back in the beginning of January this year about 100 pence per litre . Yes, less than six months ago.

And now, with oil prices reaching record highs and our fuel going up almost weekly, I’m paying here in Woking, Surrey, very nearly 120 pence per litre.

So, (and this is in no way a scientific study, just my personal observations) it took about seven years (Jan 01 - Jan 08) for unleaded petrol at the forecourt to rise in cost by 20 pence and then less than six months to rise by another 20 pence!

Okay, a bit of calculation on my part here: Using the figures quoted, a bit of prediction, and extrapolating from them using percentages, the price of unleaded petrol at my pump has been rising by 25% in 8.4% of the time span.

Here’s the maths:

• 80p (01 Jan 01) to 100p (01 Jan 08) is a 25% increase in 7 years. (2556 days)
• 100p (01 Jan 08) to 125p (01 Aug 08 - by extrapolating the increases so far this year) is a 25% increase in just 7 months. (214 days)
• ie: the same percentage increase (25%) occurs in 8.4% of the time. (214/2556)*100 = 8.4%

Therefore my petrol increased by the same percentage (25%) in 8.4% of the previous time span.

So here’s the scary bit…

If this is, in any way, some sort of perverse exponential trend and the maths can hold true for a third time, ie: unleaded petrol rises by another 25% in another 8.4% of the previous time span, then assuming 125p on August 1st (it has been rising at an average rate of 0.117 pence per day since 1st Jan 08), following the model I’ve explained above, unleaded petrol will have risen in price again by 25% in 8.4% of 7 months (ie: 214 days), which will be just 18 days after August 1st.

So, using what I will now christen the “Paul’s Law” of Petrol Prices ie a 25% increase in 8.4% of the previous measured time span, here’s my wacky prediction…

I predict that on Tuesday 19th August, 2008 the price of unleaded petrol at the BP service station in Goldsworth Park (Woking) will be at or above 155.9 pence per litre.

A bit of a laugh, I know, (and boy, I’ll be famous if my prediction does come true!) but there is mention of prices reaching £1.50 per litre by September, so I’m not that far off really if those predictions are anything to go by!

And if I’m anywhere near right, and “Paul’s Law” does hold true for 3 times in succession, you’d better hope and pray it fails on the fourth!

It will of course have to fail, else it would mean a 25% rise to 195p in 8.4% of the time span of 18 days; ie: about one and half days later!

Silly, yes, but maybe now you can see the stupidity of exponentials; you simply can not keep increasing your rate of increase.

Sooner or later, and in terms of house prices, oil prices, food prices, petrol prices, in fact production of anything, hell, the whole bloody world economy for that matter, something somewhere has to give, and give in a big way, ie: crash!

- Houston, we have a problem.

I’m on holiday!

Actually Rich and I are staying in a little two bed cottage at the end of the M4 - my dad’s place. We’re at the end of a long farm track on the side of a hill in the middle of nowhere.

Lovely views (start welsh accent) down in the valleys (end welsh accent) and if the weather stays as nice as it was today then I’ll be very pleased. (Usually rains as soon as I get across the bridge!)

I’m sat wirelessly in the garden looking at the cows and Rich and my dad are exchanging DIY/Interior Design tips in the kitchen.

I hope your day has been just as relaxing and enjoyable as mine!

June 1st, and officially the first birthday of my blog.

Mind you, if you go back far enough you’ll see that the first post (titled Four) was actually posted on 19th July 2007.

The whole month of June 2007 was spent going up and down on pretty much a four or five day cycle. My ups were very hypomanic, my downs pretty bad too.

The reason for setting up the blog was (during a very hypo up) to write about my exploits of raising £4,000,000 for charity in 18 months so I could give it all away on my 40th birthday at some massive event at the Palladium with a whole host of celebrities handing out the cheques. (You can laugh, and I do now, but I was deadly serious at the time.)

Of course it was flawed, although I did have some brilliant ideas and I still have the notebook with all of them written in. I wrote a variety of posts about how I was doing and did get some way down the road setting up various projects - including writing to Channel 4 suggesting they make a documentary about me!

After a spell in the ACU at the beginning of July due to a ‘mixed episode’ (up and down at the same time - not nice) and being totally worn out physically and very ‘ill’ mentally, I spent a few weeks recuperating then changed all of Junes’ posts to ‘Private’ so the rest of the world couldn’t read them.

I decided I would continue with the blog, but just use it as a record of my life, and I am pleased I have. It’s been an education for me. Hope you’re enjoying it too.

So there you have it. Happy 1st Birthday Blog. May there be many more to come!

Monday, and time for a post.

You’ve probably gathered I’m up at the moment. And this weekend I’ve been a little ‘hypo’ too if I’m honest. Having two hours sleep Sunday morning didn’t help either - more on that later!

Okay here goes… A long post, but hey, it’s my blog so I can write as much as I want!

Full House Friday

Curtain up was about ten minutes late since FOH were trying to sort tickets - half the audience had been hunting parking spaces. Great show though. Audience not as responsive as the previous night, which is odd since you’d think that more people would mean more laughs or more applause. I did make all my gauze cues and it didn’t get stuck, so I was happy!

After the show ten of us adults went to an Indian just along the street for a lovely meal. The cast normally go for their own meal too, but the Chinese they go to has recently turned into another Indian and they don’t like the food or the price so they skipped that tradition on this show, which was a pity.

Short Haul Saturday

Well, long haul actually, since having gone to bed at about two I was up again at 6.45am with a number of things to do before leaving the house for what was to be a very long day.

After picking up 18 gold helium filled balloons from the shop around the corner, I left at about 10:15 to get to the Fairoaks Airport in Chobham. The events company I do some ad-hoc work for (when I’m well enough) had a variety of events going on that needed management staff, one of which was the FA Cup Final in Wembley. (I did the Portsmouth winning semi-final last month.)

But I couldn’t do Wembley because I knew I’d be unlikely to be back in time. (And after the fiasco last time, wasn’t particularly fussed anyway - the smaller stadiums are much better organised.) Instead I was asked to oversee a 50th Wedding Anniversary being held in the aircraft hanger next to the company’s offices in the airport - the first the company had hosted itself.

As it was, that was just as disorganised as Wembley but the guests had a great time and had no inkling of the chaos behind the scenes.

I had been promised two agency staff to help be, but Nicky (Fin’s mum - she works part-time for the company) wasn’t told about it and by the time she was, the agencies she called said it was too short notice. I ended up texting my friend Jon and Nicky called a friend whose husband had bar experience - and for this function we basically winged it. (Apt, being as we were in an airport!)

Jon, Rob and I had a code word for whenever the shit was really hitting the fan - Grapefruit! It was so funny.

When you understand that we were running this function by preparing afternoon tea for sixty people in the company’s board room with no sink or running water and in order to provide the hot water for the drinks, we had to constantly fill the kettle up from the disabled toilet then you can see why this was just a farce. We had to hunt around for teaspoons, and plates and stuff then find 60 glasses for the toast - oh, and an then wash the dust of them first.

The highlight of the afternoon for me was getting our lunch from the airport cafe where I had the pleasure of meeting Ronnie Corbett (yes, he’d flown short haul!) He was ordering a cup of tea and I did one of those double take things then said hello (I was filling up a flask of hot water from behind the counter having given up on the boiling a kettle idea). Mind you he isn’t the sort of celebrity that you wonder wether it’s them or not. It so obviously was, though I have to admit he did appear to be shorter in real life than on TV. He’s very stocky so he’s big and small at the same time. Very pleasant though.

The function finished about 6.30pm and I literally jumped into the car to get over to Sunbury for the last performance of ‘Into the Woods’. Arriving in my black Wembley suit and red Ricoh Stadium tie did require a lot of explaining since no one had seen me in a suit before, but I quickly changed into my blacks and helped set the stage.

The house was about two thirds full, so not as many as the previous night, but the audience was so much better. They laughed and applauded much more which made the cast feel so much better too.

It was a great show. The golden egg laying hen flew across the stage, and then had a number of us in quiet hysterics back stage when we discovered Jack (Mark) sat on the floor in the wings - his Hen was reading the script!

All to soon the fourth and last performance of the show was over and the curtain call ‘Ever After’ was sung for the last time. Needless to say the audience loved it, and I’m not surprised: the whole cast gave an excellent performance and the energy was clearly evident.

We had a quick clear up and then everyone gathered in the auditorium for the after show ‘thank yous’. The Wolf (Alex D) and Cinderella’s Father (Adam D) took to the stage and gave out a card and present for each of the adult helpers as well as the band and the tech crew. Even Milky White (the cow) got a card and present too!

The cast were so appreciative of all the hard work and time the adults gave to putting on the production and it makes it all the more worth while when they make such a big point of saying thank you. Hardly surprising then that some of the adults still help out even though their children who were once members have long since grown up and had children of their own.

I had some lovely comments in my card. One of them was from a member for whom this was his last production - they have to leave when they reach 18. He wrote: “Typical! Just as I have to leave, someone to stay for arrives.” I was also presented with a set of juggling balls, which was just brilliant and very thoughtful. I use juggling balls in my various warm-ups and exercises and my current set was beginning to show signs of significant wear. I was so pleased to get a new set.

Next stop: Clare’s house, (Baker’s Mum) quarter of a mile away for the cast party! Among a host of teenagers dancing, singing, eating and drinking, and jumping and spinning the bottle on the trampoline were a few of the adults having a drink in the kitchen. Great fun.

It wasn’t until a bit later that another teenager made an appearance. Reported to be Clare’s nephew, the depressing looking emo/goth/grunger going by the name of Alistair was noticed by a few wandering about the house, then lounging on the settee reading a magazine, listening to his iPod, eating bread and drinking a beer.

Yours truly, incidentally, was last seen heading in the direction of an upstairs loo. I reappeared half an hour later complaining of a dodgy stomach.

I confess…

Last week Richard brought home a rather cool wig from the Mind (charity) shop. It is black with red streaks and a long fringe. ‘Fantastic’ I thought as I tried it on in front of the full length mirror in the bedroom. And before I knew it I was immediately perfecting that somewhat annoying teenage habit of swishing the head to get the hair out of the eyes, and having one of those brilliant ideas!

In addition to the rather cool wig, add a long sleeved black teeshirt with my sleeves pushed up, a pair of black jeans with half my arse showing, a LowLife ‘Devoid’ belt (Thanks Taddy!), the obligatory white earphone cord disappearing into the pocket and the ‘I couldn’t care a shit about anything - apart from music’ slouch coupled with few choice monosyllabic grunts, and I was 20 years younger!

Okay so I didn’t fool everybody; the adults (though not all of them) guessed straight away, but quite a few of the younger party goers were convinced for while, and it was great fun having an alter ego.

‘Alistair’ was chatted up and asked to dance and it was even suggested he got his own facebook/myspace page!

I eventually left Clare’s house (after doing an early morning Agony Uncle stint) with the sun shinning on crashed out teenagers and finally got home and into bed at 6.45am.

Yep, exactly 24 hours after I’d got up!

Song Free Sunday

And then, just 2 hours later, my ever wonderful Rich, bless him, bought me up a cup of tea.

“What time did you get in?” he asked sitting on the bed. “I heard you get up for the loo about six.”

“Er, no Darling” I mumbled, half awake. “That was me getting home!”

I was back at the Riverside Arts Centre by half ten, and already the raked seating had been dismantled, costumes and props were winging there way back into cupboards, and lights were being de-rigged. I helped Alan and Kevin take the set apart, then moved onto organising a team of cast members to rub out the pencil marks in all the returned scripts. (They were hired.)

That done it was time for lunch. Ellie (one of the show’s directors) had taken a couple of the young people off to Tesco’s and some of the others set up the tables in the hall. And by then I was aware I was still a little hypo.

I then cut up the french sticks as others rolled sliced ham, chunked up the cheese, chopped cucumber and tomatoes and layed out the rest of the ploughmans lunch on a table at one end of the hall. The tables were arranged in two rows with the adults on one and the young people on the other. Convention dictates that the adults help themselves to lunch first, then the young people demolish what’s left. Various boxes of chocolates are then passed round (adults first, naturally) and lunch was then cleared.

And all that was left was the post show debrief in which everyone (about 40 of us) sat on chairs in a huge circle and Ellie invited comments from each of us. We had a round-robin style discussion in which each person was invited to talk about their experience of the production by sharing one bad thing, one good thing, a ‘man of the match’ and any other general comments they wished to give.

It was so good to hear of everybody else’s experience and many commented on the Baker (Adam A) who had taken on his first big part and done a great job, as well as the the two Princes (Tom A and Peter) and their rather brilliant ‘Agony’ songs. Amoungst others, the tech team who provided sound and light were also acknowledged for their work as well as Amy the musical director.

It was me who was last to speak (before Ellie excellently summed everything up) and after highlighting my bad thing (the gauze getting stuck a number of times and my unfortunate lack of concentration during Thursday night’s performance meaning I was late with my cues to lower the gauze - and after me banging on about concentration in my many warm-ups!) I talked about the good points from the show and how brilliant everyone was, and how proud I was to be part of the such a dedicated and truly wonderful team of people.

Unfortunately, there is one slightly embarrassing side-effect of going ‘hypo’; I get incredibly emotional.

Emotion, in its most general definition, is an intense mental state that arises autonomically in the nervous system and evokes either a positive or negative physiological response. When I’m hypomanic (about a 7/8 on my scale of 0-10), this mental state is highly intensified meaning that it’s impossible for me to suppress the visible signs of emotion. Subsequently, there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop the inevitable tears of joy! (I was already welling up with all the positive things being said by the time the discussion got half way round the circle!)

Even when I am ‘up’ and not necessarily hypomanic, a ‘moving’ moment in a movie or TV show can cause the odd tear to trickle down my cheek. (And they say men don’t cry!)

Sadly, however, it was particularly soul destroying for me to be party to a disparaging remark from one of the adults in the coffee bar afterwards and then to hear a small group of the young people alone in the hall (what appeared to me to be) taking the piss after they’d thought I’d left the building.

Ah, what the fuck. I don’t care. Life’s too short. At least my feelings were genuine, even if my Bi-Polarity means I show them in a somewhat (for a man anyway) unconventional way.

Oh well, here I am at the end of a very long post: I drove the 30 minutes home and after eating only half my dinner, I went to bed watching a rather well written Agatha Christie themed Doctor Who and then promptly fell into a very long, deep and happy sleep.

All that remains to be said is that I am very lucky and incredibly proud to be involved in the development of such a talented group of wonderful teenagers and be part of a very caring group of kind, considerate and supportive adults who, as parents and children collectively, make up the Riverside Youth Theatre and, it has to be said, without whom my Sunday afternoons would be completely and utterly worthless.

I know some of you read my blog and you’re all brilliant! (And that includes the Steward! - There you go Ryan, your wish is granted!)

Thanks guys!

PS: I am very pleased to report that Cinderella’s Father (Adam D) did eventually find his fluffy thing!!!!!!

Not my words; apparently, it is famously alleged that the last words of King George V were “bugger Bognor” in response to a suggestion that he might recover from his illness by visiting Bognor Regis.

Been there a few times now. Rich and I owned a holiday home at West Wittering (just south of Chichester) for a few years and recently sold it back to the site owner (though we haven’t had the money yet!)

We had a day out yesterday for a number of reasons; one: to check on the caravan site to see if ours had been sold or not, (no) two: to visit Bognor again as Rich wanted to go to a craft shop to pick up a mail order catalogue and I wanted to pick up a book I’d reserved at the library (Improv!), and three: to visit Chichester again on the way home becasue we love it and we both needed to spend some quality time together since Rich hasn’t seen much of me over the last few weeks. (I’ve been hibernating in the little bedroom upstairs upstairs - 2nd floor).

Lovely day. Weather was good, and the curry in Wetherspoon’s opposite the cathedral in West Street was great. (I recommend the Mint Bomb things for a dessert!)

Missed the last attempt a couple of weeks ago, so Rich and I were really pleased to meet up with Liz, Ian, Amanda, Martha and Joe last night for a few drinks, an interesting choccy thing (mix a load of sweets like jelly babies and wine gums in melted chocolate and the set it in the fridge - wonderful!) and a lot of fun with the quiz.

Shame we didn’t win, but our team name of ‘Mating Elephants’ got a mention.

I was convinced I saw my phone for sale on ebay yesterday.

Boxed refurbished phones like mine (Nokia 6310i - about 10 years old!) go for anywhere bween £35 and £100! They are highly sort after!

Anyway I saw a photo of one - no charger or anything just the handset and it was worn exactly like mine. Trouble was the seller was in Liverpool. I was trying to think how it got there and couldn’t quite work out why my phone was still ringing when I called it. Naturally of course my phone was on silent/vibrate mode so no-one would have heard it anyway!

And to cut a very long and frantic phone hunting story short, I found it.

Well actually I went to Guildford and hunted down the taxi I travelled in on Saturday morning.

“What, this one?” said the taxi driver producing my lost for four days mobile phone as I stood in the rain explaining who I was.

What a happy bunny I am!

I saw the first episode of the BBC’s “I’d Do Anything” on Saturday evening.

Rich and I were eating dinner when I jumped up pointing at the screen. Having frightened the life out Rich I explained that I’d just seen what I thought was my friend Nicky’s son Finlay standing at the top of the steps at County Hall waving at the camera. (I was at that point getting our lunch in the Westminster Tescos.)

About half an hour later (having finished my chicken breast in mustard and honey sauce and moved on to my Morrisons organic low fat strawberry yoghurt - not so keen on the rhubarb) I jumped again as I saw Finlay singing and dancing on the screen. Fin was the one in the green tee shirt on the right in the front of a group of boys.

It was literally only a second or so in a montage of shots from the various auditions, but it was Fin.

When I spoke to Nicky on the phone she reminded me that the bit where the Lord got out the taxi waving at the beginning of the show was ( see the previous post) when she had gone out for a break while Fin was auditioning, and had been pushed aside by some woman clearing the way for his Lordship.

Needless to say Fin was very pleased with himself.

It’s 12.30 am on Tuesday 11th March and I have just renewed my library books online with one click of my dutiful mouse.

Convenient, to say the least.

I have 9 books of playscripts sat here in my office from my last visit to the Performing Arts Library in Dorking a whole six weeks ago - and I haven’t read any of them.

My bookmark, a silver ‘P’ I unwrapped at Christmas a couple of years ago, marks the beginning of Scene Two of Caryl Churchill’s play Owners.

Scene One, I recall was set in a butchers shop where CLEGG, the butcher is chatting to WORSLEY a young man in his early twenties with bandaged wrists. I’ve tried to kill myself six times, says WORSLEY towards the end of the scene. And I’m a willing victim.

Needless to say, that was a little too close for comfort at the time and I’ve not been in a good enough mental state to read any of the other nine library books since.

Saturday night was probably the bottom of my current episode, a long and rather deep one. At least i hope it was.

I have started to write again, so here I go; splurging I think is the technical blogging term.

I’m not really one for splurging I have to admit, but I’m doing this purely for my benefit tonight and not yours, though if you do decide to read on and do get some enjoyment or life enhancing nugget of information from this post then I’ll be happy to consider it a bonus.

I don’t really want to go on about my depressive episode, but as I said this is for my benefit, not yours, so I will. You don’t have to read this.

It’s odd. Tapping away at the keyboard in the small hours is showing me that things are changing again. The fact that I haven’t written anything on this blog for a month is also significant.

It’s not that I haven’t done anything worth blogging about, I have, it’s just that although I have been doing things I would normally enjoy and want to blog about, I haven’t had the pleasure of being able to enjoy anything.

I haven’t had the energy to concentrate for long enough to write anything either. I’ll even confess that I haven’t been able to keep up my mood diary in handwritten form so that I could cheat with my postings like I did last time.

I haven’t been able to do much at all. I could give the excuse that I’ve been really busy, but unless you’d consider being really busy sleeping an excuse then I haven’t been really been really busy either.

Slept rather a lot actually. Far too much.

Today I got up at about 10.30am. Had a smoothie for breakfast, fart arsed about doing nothing in particular (though I did recieve one important phone call that I had to deal with and also managed an important email) had some soup for lunch, then, because I was totally worn out and couldn’t concentrate on anything at all, I went back to sleep for three hours.

When I woke up I had recharged enough to brave the weekly shop at Morrisons, not that I actually did any shopping, you understand. Richard did that, I just wandered around in a daze for an hour and stuck the credit card in the slot thingy while Rich packed the shopping in our green boxes.

Please note, I do not choose to live the life of a zombie. There are plenty things I should, need, and indeed want to be doing. Each and every task piles up, waiting for the day when my brain is alert enough to be able to cope with doing things.

As is often the case, during my hypomanic phases (though sadly not enough and not long enough either recently) I’ll be able to concentrate for many hours at a time and do hundred and one different things in order to catch up with my life.

What I hate most about these excessive down periods is my lack of creativity. Ironic that I have plenty of time to be creative, but simply can’t. The brain just doesn’t work. I get lost in a dark fog and find myself in that room I talked about in my last post.

Incidentally, it was thinking about describing that feeling in a blog post that got my mind off the subject of seriously considering what appears at the time to be the only way out. Thinking about what I was going to write allowed my mind to wander away enough to allow me to go to sleep.

So what have I actually been able to do in the last month?

Well, I had an assessment with the Intensive Group Therapy Team at the ACU (the mental hospital at St Peter’s in Chertsey) having been referred by my Psychiatrist an I’ve since had a letter saying I have a place on the next course that starts on the 17th (Monday).

The programme is for eight weeks and I’ll have to attend three 90 minute sessions each week; Art Therapy on a Monday, Mind Matters on a Tuesday, and Open Space on a Wednesday, as well as a fortnightly meeting with my co-ordinator.

It’s essentially talking group therapy for patients (or ’service users’ as they prefer to call us in the NHS these days) with a variety of mental health issues - I don’t think my group will be confined to those with BiPolar Disorders, and to be honest, talking therapies, whilst I do recognise they have a place, aren’t really going to be of a major benefit to me, and certainly won’t cure my condition, but the sessions I’m sure will help my understanding and at least I can have severe down days with out worrying about what people think about me.

The routine of having to be there for each session will also be helpful.

One thing that I am looking forward to is that by talking about my mental health I’ll be able to help others in the group who aren’t so clued up about their condition.

On the day of my assessment at ACU, I also went to Sunbury in the evening with Richard and a couple of friends and took part in the annual Trivial Pursuits Quiz Night organised by the Riverside Youth Theatre to raise funds.

I am pleased to say that our team, the Methuen Marvels, came 2nd out of 14, so we’ll definately be going next year with the aim of winning!

The following night I helped out Front of House for the Ottershaw Players Farrago - this year was a very adult version of Treasure Island. My contribution was new lyrics for Village Peoples ‘In the Navy’. And I’m not repeating them here! (Though with charater names like Pirate Dan Gleebles, and Roger the Cabin Boy I’m sure you get the picture.)

I managed to take Fin to the cinema during half term, though I confess I’ve completely forgotten what we saw so it was probably crap.

Oh and I did manage to go on auto pilot for a couple of days. I went to the races at Chepstow (working behind the members bar with a polish guy who didn’t know the difference between Guiness and Fosters) and the the next day I was at Wembley again working as manager in the Venue resturant for the Carling Cup match between two football teams that I have forgotten too. (Might even be working there for the Foo Fighters concert in June.)

Managed to go to my Nuffield Theatre Writers group meeting a couple of weeks ago. Though I have to say it was bloody hard work, not least because by this time my brain had slowed down to just about the pace of a snail.

Luckily I’d taken the precaution of buying a railcard and travelled to Southampton by train. Certainly wouldn’t have been able to drive down. (Too many bad thoughts - amazing how the mind gets fixated on ditches and embankments and tress when you’re driving down the motorway during a depressive episode!)

I arrived, but I’d been asleep most of the day, was wearing the same clothes I’d worn all week and couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a shower.

One helpful chap commented on the fact that I hadn’t had a shave and that completely drained the minute amount of confidence I had left in myself. I tried to explain I was BiPolar and was in a very bad down episode and left it at that. I seem to remember someone saying that I had a least made it to the meeting and that was to be commended considering the circumstances, and that helped.

I have managed to go to my Sunday afternoon sessions with the Riverside Youth Theatre in Sunbury. They are doing Sondhiem’s Into The Woods in May and it’s coming on nicely. Admittedly I haven’t been up to my usual capacity with organising workshop activities, but have managed to teach at least half of them how to juggle! A skill which, I am sure, will, at some point in their lives, come in useful.

RYT also entered their production of Richard Harris’ Albert (Stepping Out, Outside Edge) into the Elmbridge One Act Play Festival last week and I helped out back stage. Again, one of those exciting experiences I would normally have really enjoyed, but sadly for me it was all just a blur. The performances were great, and the Ajudicator was positive, though the lava-lamp was having an off day. I know how it was feeling!

I’ve been asked to consider writing a one act play for the 50th Woking Drama Festival in October and can even apply for a small amount of funding. I spent the two evenings I was watching plays at the Elmbridge Festival (I went along on the Wednesday night to see a friend performing in a new play) thinking about how totally useless I am as a writer and that there wouldn’t be any point in even bothering to write one, let alone enter it into the Woking Festival.

I have, somewhat surprising, even come up with an idea for such a play, but constantly keep telling myself its crap. I have managed to write down some notes, so maybe when I’m back up again I can look at it with a much better mental picture and maybe get round to writing it. We’ll see.

Last week I also managed to help Richard with letting his shop. Part of Richards property where we live is a small (250 sq ft) lock-up shop (we live on the three stories behind and above it.) and the last tenants who had been there for ten years vacated it at the beginning of the month.

We put up a ‘to let’ sign and its been my responsibility to field the calls and find a tenant. (Richard hates dealing with that sort of stuff and I enjoy it and its the least I can do to help out since he does most of the other things in our relationship, though I do all the driving because Richard never took his driving test when he was younger and sold the mini he was learning to drive in to buy an antique four poster victorian brass bed.)

It’s not been easy or enjoyable though since it has clashed with my down period. I don’t have the ability to make the calls I need to make, and don’t get to answer the calls I need to answer either. Richard just ends up saying I’m out on business (ie asleep upstairs) and says I’ll call them back.

We have a potential new tenant, a beauty therapist into manicures and pedicures and tanning and waxing and stuff, and I really need to chase things.

I did manage to speak to our solicitor today about issuing a new ten year lease on the shop, but I also need to speak to the old tenant whose claiming he paid a deposit ten years ago, and I can’t do it all at once. It’s things like this that just have to wait until my brain is able to menatlly deal with the concententaion needed to communicate effectively.

As I mentioned earlier, after just one important 15 minute conversation demanding my utmiost concentration and powers of thought today, I was knacked and needed to go back to sleep. Maybe I’ll be better able to deal with things tomorrow.

If you’re still reading, you’ve just learnt that depression isn’t just about being sad or unhappy. The sad (and often suicidal) thoughts come from the frustration of trying to deal with a brain that doesn’t work, one that won’t allow you to do or enjoy the things you normally do and enjoy. There are times when you end up feeling that it is never going to get any better and you just want to end it all purely and simply for the relief of not having to deal with it again. There is (for me anyway) the constant battle of weighing up the short term pain in committing the act with the long term pain of dealing with a brain that doesn’t work properly.

In my analogy of the room that I wrote about in my last post, the key to the locked door being thrown away means that I have developed a system where by I can keep that decision as far away as possible. Though at times like when you’ve been as down as I have for the past month, there is a very fine line.

As I said in my last post; on saturday night I found the key and opened the door. I’m intelligent enough to know that this extreme low period will pass, but there are plenty of other people out there who will not be so fortunate as I am.

I did manage to lock the door again and throw away the key, and to be honest I don’t think I would ever be able to actually step outside, though over the years I have thought about the ‘how’ many, many times.

And although that scares the shit out of you, what really fucking scares the shit out of you is wondering if or when the thinking about the ‘how’ actually stops scaring the fucking shit out of you.

Enough.

If you’re still reading, I’ll move on.

Since I thought of the title of this post (can you remember it?) before I thought of the actual writing I’ve still got to get on to the second word in order to complete the double meaning. Confused?

I’ve said already that I haven’t done much reading, and neither have I written much either. The last time I even looked at Kath and Kin was probably about two months ago.

I find this deeply distressing since I can’t even begin to earn a living in the future if I can’t write a play.

There has been the odd spurt of a scene or two - I managed a couple scenes of a short five scene play as an exercise in writing in words of one syllable. (Incidentally, we haved moved on to the art of writing a good ‘arguement’ in my Nuffield Theatre Writers Group - Stichomythia as the ancient Greeks called it. Which reminds me I still have the homework to do!)

I have though managed a few more lyrics. The attention span needed to write a lyric is a heck of a lot less that writing a play, or a blog post for that matter. I can have an idea, make a note on paper, then type it up and add to it, then review it and re-write it, all over a period of a couple of days with minimal effort each time.

I am even being asked by other people to write for them. I’m up to 9 songs I think at last count, and now write for three musician/songwriters, though I have to admit I have yet to hear any of my creations set to music so I don’t know if they are any good.

Though I did read a couple out at a poetry evening for a recent Woking Writers Circle Meeting - another evening where I definatley wasn’t firing on all four pistons - and the comments were favourable except for one member.

After saying they were good she promptly added that they would only work as poetry because you wouldn’t find the word ‘pedestal’ in a song.

I was floored. The word was pivotal to the meaning of the lyric and my mental state was not helping my feelings of total inadequacy.

It wasn’t until a couple of days later that I heard Diana Ross singing Chain Reaction with the Bee Gees ( You took a mystery and made me want it. You took a pedestal and put me on it.) Sod her I thought thinking of the Writers Circle Member who had dared to cut me down, if its good enough for the Bee Gees, it’s good enough for me!

I am having fun with my lyrics, and though I am usually very happy writing plays, lyric writing has at least meant I have been able to write something creative in the weeks I have been down. Admittedly, most have reflected my mood, though none are autobiographical since all my lyrics are about characters who have a story to tell, in much the same way as those in a play, just that the time taken to tell the story is very much shorter.

I’ve recently been asked to write lyrics for a member of the Riverside Youth Theatre who sings in a ‘metalcore’ band. Apparently not as much shouting as ‘thrashmetal’, or so I have come to understand.

I must admit I have not had the slightest interest in this genre since I’m much more main stream rock/pop (80’s synth driven pop - Erasure to be more specific) but having heard some of the music I could at least, once I got past the shouting and screaming, appreciate the musical and indeed the lyrical content. You need a fair amount of talent to play that stuff.

The pace is much faster and the song structure appears a bit different too. Lyrically the tone is much darker than I’m used too, though there is still a story to be told, just in a darker way. Hey, I can do dark. Been there, bought the tee shirt.

I also appreciate that we are all entitled to our own taste in music and it has been quite an experience researching the lyrics of this genre, something I never would have done had I not been asked to attempt some lyrics for this band.

Anyway, I’ve had a go and sent a lyric off into cyberspace; it remains to be seen what comes of it. At the very least I hope it will inspire somebody to write some music for it. (Yes Taddy, that means you!)

Which brings me to the end of this post. (You’re still reading?!)

Oh except that is to mention the bunnies. Got to mention the bunnies!

Richard’s niece (and her husband and six very young children) all moved further south recently and couldn’t take their pet rabbits with them. They have been in the driveway of Richards parents house for a month or two now, but this week I managed to find new homes for two of them.

The little silver dwarf buck has gone to my friend Nicky’s son Finlay and was subsequently named Smokey, and the half brown half white doe is has now been named Clover and is living it up in Horsell with my friend Amanda’s two children.

It’s great to bring pleasure to others. Just slightly annoying that I haven’t been able to actively enjoy it myself. though I do make every effort to.

I’m off to see my psychiatrist again on Wednesday and report on my medication and my Group Therapy place. I am wondering if the meds are causing some of my tiredness. Who knows? At least I haven’t had a major reaction to them like I did the last lot! Up to 75mg now. Need to be at 150 before they are supposed to be doing anything. here’s hoping.

Oh well, that’s it. Three and half hours and three and a half thousand words later and I have finished my post.

Again, writing it was just for my benefit, but hopefully if you’ve got this far then you’ve got something out of it too.

I’m certainly pleased I have been able to concentrate for three and half hours straight - the first time in over a month - and I have a record of what I have done during this depressive episode too, which is great.

Admittedly I am beginning to wain a little and so have decided I am going to post this now completely un-edited, something I wouldn’t normally do, but what the hell, it is a record of my current mental state and that is why I have written it.

Thanks for reading.