This time last week it was chucking it down with rain and had been doing so for, I don’t know – a hundred years?  This time this week the sun is shining.  This time last week it was my Birthday and I had aged a  whole year overnight.  The years all came down on me in one dark rainfall.  I guess this is just a pseudo-poetic way of saying that for goodness sake – a birthday is much easier to contemplate in the sunshine!  Apparently, Edinburgh had its August quota of rain last weekend.  My favorite boots – which had seen me through two English winters dissolved.  I wish this were a metaphor.

Time is moving oddly here, and we feel to be on a unpredictable  funfair ride, depending on how many people come to the show, whether we a get a review, whether my boots are dissolving or how much coffee is slooshing through our veins.  Yesterday, there were 21 people in the audience (the biggest we’ve had here), and it’s the first time since Martin did the show before a home crowd that there were ‘whoops’ at the end.  The responsiveness  of the audience depends on how many people there are in it, it seems. There is more awkwardness with fewer people; they seem too uncomfortable to laugh out loud at the funny bits of the show. We have had three four star reviews so far.  All the reviewers have mentioned the ‘laughter among the tears’.  I hope that today’s audience will take this as permission to laugh, otherwise it feels as if we are putting them through 55 minutes of  torture.

Right I need a coffee to go with the sunshine.  That should do it.

We’ve been in Edinburgh a week now and Martin has four shows under his belt and a four star review from The List.  All good.  Audiences have been very small – we hit double figures yesterday (woo-hoo!)- and we are trying not to get dispirited. The review has helped with this and  Martin’s performances are getting better and better.  The thing about Edinburgh, is that you must give the same show experience to six people as you would to a full house.  Coming last year as punters helped us prepare for this.  It would be good to go home with a few more reviews and the sense of achievement of bringing a show here for a full run.

The flat is on Holyrood park and the view is the hills above it.  It’s lovely to have that view to come back to after the chock-a-block congestion of town.  It’s important for the sanity.  They are preparing a far corner of the park for something though; a beer-tent type tent is just going up, but hopefully it is far enough away from us to keep hold of its own noise.  I thought a little foolishly, that I might be able to work on my own stuff in the mornings before heading out, but we need to leave at 12.30 to be at the theatre for our 15 minute get-in before the show, so it hasn’t been possible.  This is in fact the first time I’ve had since my last blog entry to listen to my own words writing themselves on a screen.  The idea of writing a poem seems as alien as….something very alien indeed.  You see my similes have suffered greatly.

Trying really hard to eat non-processed food, and I have a pasta sauce from fresh ingredients cooking right now for this evening.  Mealtimes have become odd, and I think I may have lost weight.  Everywhere is uphill here, which helps with the fitness.  Just as well since I haven’t had the chance to crack open the trampoline since we arrived.  And I can’t believe I’ve got to the end of this blog post without mentioning the rain.

In most instances, choosing the words for these pieces comes second.  I rifle though the pages of the encyclopedias until something screams ‘pick me’ at me.  I have no idea why it does, or why I think the words should go with the image, but I feel it in my bones.  Seriously – it’s like an act of divining. So can a man have show shadows?  Well, it must have something to do with flight in my head. *shrug*

As I’ve said before, we are off to Edinburgh for August, so I am away from my studio.  I hope I’ll be able to write something on here while I’m away.  Not necessarily poems, but I’ll try to send you some postcards.  When I think postcards, I think prose poems – same shape?  I like Charles Simic’s idea of a prose poem being like a fly trapped inside  room.  Maybe I’ll have a play around with that idea….maybe I will….buzz buzzzzzz….

I went into my studio yesterday for a pair of scissors and it didn’t recognise me.  It must be three weeks since I last did anything meaningful in there and it growled at me.  I am sure there are been further resin castings happening in my absence.  It must have grown tired of waiting for me.

We go up  to Edinburgh in less than two weeks for the whole of August for Martin’s show Whistle.  I am his technical support – I operate the visuals, and we will do the show every day save two, for the whole of the Fringe.  I have no idea how exhausted he/we will be by the end of it, but I am already looking forward to a holiday!

So my studio will need to wait a bit longer for me to remind it what we were doing before. Perhaps it will invent a password and deny me access till I say it three times.  I thought I would post something I made about a month ago, which kind of illustrates what’s been happening with time around here of late.

Further into my adventures in casting, I present to you some kind of a bird-child-creature.  I think she owes something to the Green Man, but she’s keeping mum on the subject.

This is a magpie feather from an envelope of magpie feathers given to me by my friend Matt.  It’s always good when people know you are on the lookout for materials, because some interesting things come your way.  My friend Paddy for example, found half a set of false teeth in her front garden (?!).  I haven’t got possession of them yet but they’ve got my name on.

I have used resin plaster for these hands and feet, which is whiter and denser and means more serious business than the type of plaster I used first.  Unfortunately, it only seems to come in small boxes.  Growl.