Milder Weather

Tuesday. 7.55 a.m. It's foggy at the moment. It was something of a surprise when we went out at around 7.10. I hope it clears as the day progresses. It's not too thick, and visibility is about 20-30 feet or so.

6.05 p.m. The fog lifted gradually, as the day progressed, and the rest of the day was bright and sunny and really pleasant. The drive to Camphill was stress-free, with no queuing onto any of the roundabouts.  I think this was because it was half-term, with parents not driving their children to school.

The day at Camphill, in the theatre workshop, was spent reviewing the feedback from the two performances of '12 Nite.' (That was how it was spelt on the programmes and in the media. It was done to show that it wasn't actually as William Shakespeare wrote it, but an adaptation to be performed by a group who have a range of disabilities and for their capabilities.) Ticket sales were amazing and as a result, some £1,200 was made from the total sales. There has been a great number of positive reactions on social media, such as Facebook and Twitter.

During the lunch break, there was an incident, when one of the young men in the theatre workshop had a 'moment.' He got somewhat annoyed and swore at one of the girls, who got really upset, which was totally understandable. There was nothing violent, he didn't hit anyone, but it caused a situation which had to be resolved. As a result, Terrie, the workshop leader, had to get to the bottom of the incident and went off to deal with the young man. Generally, the group are very supportive of each other and there are never any raised voices, they all get on remarkably well together. Terrie had to interview all those people who witnessed the incident, including me, and write a report. 

During the time Terrie was out of the theatre, the rest of the team played a series of drama exercises and games. One, 'Grandmother's Basket' was played, with the team sitting in a circle and one person being given an empty basket and putting in an imaginary item, such as a boo, a dragon, a gold watch or whatever, and then the basket is passed to the next person who has to say the last item added and puts their own item in and the basket passes on round the circle with each person saying the last items and then their own, until it gets to the end of the circle, in this case, myself, who had to remember all the items, which was quite a feat of memory and add my own! I did manage. So glad to be part of all this! 

Then Paul, who is Terrie's assistant, suggested playing a game which might be useful in the development of a silent film which the group might make. The group was split into two and was given a theme for a sort of 'silent' or 'mime' piece. Then each group had to decide how to present the 'them' to the other group, who had to guess what the 'theme' was. My group had to first show a doctor's surgery, so we had the doctor mime, with patients arriving and him checking the patient. The other group theme was a school, with a teacher being the head of the class and some pupils arriving late, but in both exercises, no one could speak. It was a great success and even more than ever showed how well the teams work together. One of the definite positives of Camphill and showing the success of the community.

The afternoon was then spent watching a video on YouTube of a silent film, starring Buster Keaton, which was shown to give the team inspiration for making their own silent film. 

The day ended at 3.30 instead of 4 o'clock because Terrie and other members of staff had a meeting with the lady who is in charge of things at Camphill, to discuss the various things involved with the production of 'Twelfth Night.'

Wednesday. 7.50 a.m. A bright and relatively mild morning, but I did notice that there was a light frost on the grass when I took Alfie out at around 7.10 a.m.

9.00 a.m. The sun is shining, and I'm about to go to Aldi to do a bit of shopping.

11.00 a.m. I'm back from my trip to Aldi. In and out relatively quickly. I made a mess up with a one-pound coin in the trolley. I put one of the two I had with me in the wrong trolley and then found I couldn't release it, unfortunately. It might seem a triviality, but I never have a pocketful of pound coins, probably because I pay for most things with my debit card and usually not with cash. You need a coin for car parking or for these supermarket trolleys, Sainsbury's doesn't have trolleys which unlock with a pound coin, but Aldi does.