Day By Day

 Monday. 7.10 a.m. I have been out with Alfie. I've only just come back indoors. There's been a further incident with another thoughtless person. We were walking down the path towards Oldbrook Green and I had just picked up after Alfie. Almost before I could stand up, a red bicycle (I think it was one of the Santander electric bicycles.) came roaring past, giving me barely a second to stand aside. The rider was wearing a hood, so absolutely no sight of his/her face. Then they shot over Oldbrook Boulevard and then into Fishermead. No slowing down to let me get out of the way, or any word of apology. It really took me by surprise and I was left reeling. Why not just slow down when someone is in your way? At least apologize. People are always in such a hurry. Look at what happened to me yesterday, with the driver who tailgated me on the way home from church. (see yesterday's blog post.) 

Tuesday. 7.00 a.m. It's quite chilly this morning.

4.30 p.m. Another great day at Camphill, in the theatre workshop.

As usual, the morning began with a check-in. The chairs are arranged in a circle and Terrie goes around to see how everyone is feeling and what they have been up to. It gets everyone talking and if there are any problems they can be sorted out. In August, there is to be a 'play in a week' event, which is, as the title suggests, going to create and perform a play in a week.

The group is now developing stories and characters for silent movies. We did a really great exercise to create stories. We were broken up into pairs and one of the pair started telling a story, a fairytale or well-known story and as we told the story, the other person kept butting in and saying, 'what happened next?' or 'that's not correct', the idea being to change the plot and get things moving in a different direction.

Not only that, but we did an exercise to show how a particular type of character would move, based on commedia  del'arte, which would be the basis for any character that will appear in the silent movies we are going to create. Then Terrie bought out a large white sheet of paper to write down suggestions members of the group had on the type of stories they wanted to create for their movies. In other words, a brainstorming session. This went down a storm and produced some great ideas. Over the lunch period, Terrie worked on and used the information she had got to create three separate storylines which would be the basis for three separate movies. It will be interesting to see what comes of all our work today and next week we will start developing the characters further into some sort of workable script for each movie.

Quite an exhausting day, particularly as we did so much movement, but certainly a great success.

Wednesday. 7.30 a.m. Yet another really bright and sunny morning. There was a real sound of a bird singing which I could hear even before I got outside with Alfie at about 5.50. 

1.45 p.m. I went to Sainsbury's for a few items this morning. I was there just after nine o'clock. I used one of the self-service tills to check out and pay. There were plenty free to use. I'm not over-enthusiastic about their use, as you will have realized if you read my blog regularly. I found one, but the one next to the machine I intended to use was making odd noises to itself. Sort of sounding like it was going to burst into life. The one I was on decided that one item wasn't going to go in the bagging area without a problem, so a member of staff had to come and sort it out. I reckon these machines are sentient. They certainly have a way of breaking down at the least provocation.

I am completing a piece of writing that links two bits which are already written and means I can introduce the new character I have already got devised. Things are really ramping up, and I have ideas for a further story arc.