Moving Out!

I will be ringing the removal company tomorrow to arrange the date for moving. I frankly won't be sorry to leave this house. In the last few months I've be struggling to pay the rent, basically because Housing Benefit won't pay the whole amount and I've had to top it up with savings, most of which was paid from a death grant after Carol's passing. I am somewhat annoyed that I had to raid my savings account this month to pay the rent, but hope that once I've moved out this concern will be gone. It has caused no end of stress. I now learn, from my landlord's son, that he's expecting me to pay a proportion of rent until I go, which is another stress-point. Oh well, let them eat cake, as someone said. I should get one more Housing Benefit payment and that can go part-way towards rent.

I've taken a further couple of boxes of things to the flat. I will have to get some curtain track because I notice the windows in the flat have none. Then I must look for some curtains for the lounge and bedroom.

The broadband fibre installation continues. Just when I thought they had completed the work, I come across another group of workmen making holes in the road or a path. Alfie didn't get his second walk this afternoon because it was raining heavily, not that Alfie is in the least bit bothered by a drop of rain.

The landlord's son is expecting me to pay something like £400 for rent up until the 17th October, when my notice expires. But today (1st October) my rent payment will have gone out by Direct Debit, so if that's a whole month's rent in advance, HE will owe me for the weeks I'm not in the flat up until the end of October. Please don't tell me you pay rent in arrears. I bet he'll attempt to wriggle out of this and not pay me back the deposit. Which, wait a minute! He does or should owe me because of the deposit. Just tying myself in ever decreasing circles over this matter.

Later. I've been to Camphill as usual. During the morning I rang the removal firm and I have said I would like the move to be on either a Monday or Wednesday, because the other days I am engaged elsewhere and I don't want these days interrupted. The coordinator will arrange a day and I will have to pay a £50 deposit and the pay the balance on the day.

We had another run-through of 'Stranger Danger,' Teo is still on holiday, but I think he comes home sometimes this week. A couple of the guys are looking forward to having a holiday in Blackpool. I expect when they come back the following week they will be full of what they did, together with photographs on their mobiles.

We then worked on a proposed script for a video which will be put on the Chrysalis Theatre website. It will show people who come to see a show, or any other event which is put on in the Chrysalis, to explain that they can't park at Camphill, unless they are staff or disabled. We were put into two groups and went through ideas which the drama team came up with. The other group went out to the Peace Pagoda carpark, which is across the road from Camphill, to work out how people would find the theatre as that is the nearest carpark. Also, having to show them the route without crossing the road, Brickhill Street. I'm not sure whether we actually managed to come up with a script or storyboard for this video, which will eventually be made by Jeremy, who made the 'Stranger Danger' video, but at least some ideas were committed to paper.

After lunch we did more improvisations, sitting in a circle and doing 'Fortunately/unfortunately.' The idea being that you start off with someone coming up with a phrase, or a longer sentence, ending or beginning, 'So and so did whatever, and fortunately . . .' and then passing it on when the next person said, 'but unfortunately . . .' and so on around the circle. Some crazy things came out of this and it's quite a good way to start a story.

After lunch we did more improvisation. One exercise was with the drama guys standing on opposite sides of the hall (actually the auditorium of the Chrysalis Theatre.) and speaking their lines to the other person they speak to in the play. It turned out to be an excellent exercise to get them all to project their voices rather than shout and so it turned out.

Next, it was back to the improvisation method we started the previous week. Two groups were formed, each given a subject to work on, which meant devising a situation and then creating characters and the other team had to guess what the subject without it being mentioned. Ours was the seaside and some mimed swimming, playing tennis, and I mimed a 'Punch and Judy' show with the rest of the team sitting on the floor and watching.

The other team did their mime about going to the theatre. We got their subject but they didn't manage to get ours.

The day ended with a line rehearsal, just sitting in the auditorium and for some reason it had a great deal more energy than when it is acted with all the props and furniture. Probably because they can concentrate on their lines and don't have to think about where to enter and exit and move around on the stage.