In real time (now), we’re in week 2 and have two more days of rehearsal until the show. Going quite well!
I don’t know how much more blogging I will be able to do before I get home. Note to self – when you travel to a foreign land where you need to use your electricity converter, bringing a laptop with a 3-prong charging cable won’t help you a bit. The converter only takes two-prong plugs. I should have brought my Chromebook. Or a keyboard for the Ipad. Ah well.
Anyway, Tuesday morning, got up, did the ‘read the internet with no coffee’ thing, got cleaned up, went to breakfast. I tried the miso-mushroom eggs – the miso was too salty, but this was otherwise a nice meal. Back to the room, finished packing. Even though these hotels have lifts, they also often have little stairs through the floor, so there was some schlepping and lifting and huffing to get my suitcases and backpack to the lift and then the lobby Filled my water bottle, checked out, bounce bounce bounce the luggage down the stairs to the street.
Had decided to Uber to Euston Station, but was one button press away from confirming the request when a taxi pulled up, disgorging other passengers. “Are you free?” I asked Mr. Humphries the taxi driver, and he was. Off to Euston with my luggage in the seatwell with me, easier than trying to trunk it. Pleasant drive, not bad fare.
So when I’d bought my train ticket north, in a what-the-hell mood, I’d gone first class as an experiment. I wasn’t sure if this particular train line was the one that got access to the Euston first class lounge, but it was! So I relaxed in there with a fizzy cider or such until it was time to board.
On the train, my reserved seat was at a table, which I didn’t particularly want, but I probably could have moved, the car was mostly empty. It was very comfortable and I had room to spread out. We got beverages and breakfast! Since I’d already eaten, I just got toast, but having had days of sort-of ‘fancy cuisine’ breakfast where they kept piling the food on top of the toast, it was nice to just to get A RACK OF TOAST. Had a very pleasant couple of hours training north to Stockport. I think the results of the experiment is that the experience was probably not worth the price I paid for it, but I wont deny it was really nice. I’ll get to compare on the way back to London, where I am not going first class.
I knew already that first class means nothing on the Stockport/Buxton leg, it’s a teeny little regional rail train. I got off the big train, and the restroom was right there, so took a bio-break. Then it turned out that the Buxton train was on another platform and I had to take the elevator down and then there was some sort of gate nonsense that didn’t apply to me, but there was some sort of technical difficulty and passenger pileup and by the time I got through and up to “Platform Zero”, I’d missed the connection. Ah well, next one in 45 minutes or so.
5 minutes before the next train, I went out on the platform and everyone was clumped at one end (actually, a lady with her bags was directly in front of the door and I passive-aggressively muttered something like, “Oh, I see you need to be RIGHT THERE” as I struggled to get my luggage past her.) I went down the platform a ways, and then of course, when the train pulled in, they’d closed off the cars at that end. So by the time I got to the end where they’d let us on, everyone was already on the train. Heave ho luggage up into the train… and then it turned out that basically the train was so small that I couldn’t actually go anywhere. (I think if I’d picked the door at the other end of the car, I would have some room to put my luggage somewhere.) OK, so I’m stuck with my luggage in the doorwell, and will be standing for this trip, which isn’t a problem for a subway-savvy New Yorker, but what completely pissed me off is that there were two other passengers (both young ladies) who insisted on standing in the doorwell too, even though they could have easily found seats and gotten out of my way so I could maneuver my luggage into a corner and gotten out of everyone else’s way. I was lucky in that no one really need to get off the half of the car behind where I was standing, because it would have been quite a dance to allow them to get past me.
Anyway, eventually one of these chickies got off and the other one moved to a seat and I could finally position me and my stuff so I wasn’t in anyone’s way. (I really have a very strong issue about trying not to be in other people’s way and taking up space, and this is probably shrink-discussion-worthy, but honestly, so many people are just completely unaware of how their bodies affect the space around them and the traffic flow, and how if they just moved a foot to the left, they wouldn’t be in the fucking way. This was a real issue on the cruise ship a few weeks ago.)
Ah, finally in Buxton. Hot, sweaty, schlepping luggage, across the street and down the hill and through the alley by Pizza Express and over rough asphalt to the building across from the Opera House.
I guess I’d never really thought about it, but the Old Hall isn’t actually on the side facing the Opera House, it’s around the corner and across from the Broadwalk – I should have gone the other way by the Crescent. No biggie, got in just fine, checked in, paid an exorbitant amount of money for my long stay and headed over to the lift The lift in the Old Hall is quirky and good for storytelling purposes – it has an inner gate that must be manually closed, and it’s finicky. And when you get off the elevator, you must manually close it behind you, or no one else can summon it. Which means that many many times a day, some poor schub has to go up the stairs to rescue the elevator so it will start working again, which is what happened here.
Luckily, I was (am) in room 27, right by the lift on the 2nd floor. My room is nice and big, and there’s mostly plenty of storage space (unlike last year in the Queen’s Head, where I had to be pretty creative about how to unpack).
Settled in, did some unpacking, made a shopping list, went out to buy some necessaries in the pedestrian marketplace. About the same as last year, a little sad, not really thriving. (the whole town has kind of felt like this this year, lackluster almost)
Got cleaned up and across the street to the Old Clubhouse. Poked my head around, no one I knew there, so before I got a drink, I pulled out my phone to text Marisa and who should show up immediately before I could but the lady herself, plus Kay, Carol and Matt. They were headed to the Cheshire Cheese, so I went and got a ‘wrap’ as it was starting to get a little more chilly, and met them there. Fantastic time eating and drinking and getting caught up.
Walked back and split off as we went to our various digs… and so to bed. Yay, back in Buxton!
More soon, but probably not from this laptop.
The Toast Point Page 