Grateful: Day 17 - Laughing Boy

I’m on my way to Berlin and I’m excited.

Across the aisle on the train, a small, old-man-faced boy just lost it with laughing. I have no idea why. He couldn’t really speak. He was howling and shaking and talking through it (one of my favourite things to watch) and infecting everyone with it. I’ve been snorting quietly ever since. He had a surprisingly deep voice for someone of no more than 9 or 10 – he’s a little bag of contradictions.

Finally, when he had control of himself for more than a few seconds, he let out a big ‘I’m spent’ kind of sigh and got on with his maths.

The Japanese girl next to me is doing the slow nod of semi-consciousness, rag doll stylee (I love that Word discarded the second e of stylee. I was being ‘street’, Microsoft, get over it). She’s not much bigger than rag doll sized. A little nodding toy.

She hasn’t touched me yet with her actual head, but her hat bobble has made contact a few times. She doesn’t jerk up… her head lifts back to the centre almost as slowly as it drops onto my upper arm. She’s like some kind of art installation in a final year show. I fear for her neck.

At least she has her mouth shut, though. When I do it, my mouth hangs open and the whites of my eyes are visible. I’ve been woken up on trains before now and told I’m freaking people out. I’ve also woken up open-mouthed and laughing: I know I do this (and how stupid I look, thanks to a business colleague’s photo habit) so when I catch myself, I laugh. That can be unnerving too, I hear. Ah well.*

This morning’s lone breakfast was a blessing, as was my walk to the station. I love being alone and moving through the air of outside. There was fog when I got up. I was hoping to catch some on my eyelashes, but it had cleared before I left.

My one escaped earplug and the snore machine in the room last night made for a questionable night’s sleep. I fluctuated between irritation/anger and laughter. She made a noise dragging an army of wheelie cases across cobbles. The fact that anyone can create such volume and friction with no more than a nasal passage is quite impressive.

At one point, I was standing next to her bunk. Everyone else in the room was kept awake, so I was going to do the snore-banishing upward clap. Apparently, if you make a loud noise as someone is reaching the peak of their snore, they stop and don’t start again. But she woke up to see me there, hands uplifted. I asked her to turn over, but the subsequent snores were at aircraft decibels, so I wish I’d just said nothing.

I went through Braunschweig, where I came on an organised trip to Germany when I was seventeen. A smoker and a teenage rebel, I was placed in a family of devoutly Christian horse-lovers. Instead of drunkenly kissing Nordic boys at warehouse discos, I was singing happy birthday to a pony and cutting cake.

I remember behaving with an appalling lack of grace during that trip. There were complaints from parents that a host family had planned a party on Good Friday. It was vetoed. No fun was to be had. I took photos of graffiti and acted cool, ate my host family’s food as if it was my right and disdained their ways.

The lack of gratitude that accompanied me throughout those years is quite breathtaking. I don’t berate my younger self out of punishment or guilt. I’m sorry for her. She had so many wonderful things that were worthy of gratitude and she didn’t see it that way yet, so she didn’t get to enjoy her luck.

The pleasure that appreciation brings is worth any measure of being right or feeling entitled. In fact I suspect that feelings of entitlement are at the root of many bouts of indignant unhappiness. When I feel I deserve something and it’s not forthcoming, I feel slighted and indignant if it isn’t there. That state of resentment and indignation is perfect for engendering snarly behaviour. We feel we’ve been robbed and we want someone to blame, and we forget that we don't necessarily deserve anything.

Remembering to appreciate what is there is making me so much gentler in my core. I'm always grateful for that.

* I fell asleep too and lolled, open-mouthed. I like to think that together, we made a pleasing picuture, me and the Japanese girl. By the look on one lady's face, I think we did.

Grateful: Day 16 - Dogs and Nature

Despite this morning's sleepy grumpfest, I found something out this morning: that no matter how bad my mood, a dog and a bit of nature will make me smile.

Sometimes it happens quite despite myself. When I'm glum or down or running a mental narrative that undermines every fibre of my being, I don't do it by halves. I commit to it. My physiology drops, my focus goes in, I let my visual imagination create pictures of grubby, sordid nastiness and equate them with my everything that is me. I'm very good at it, actually, and quite determined.

And then along comes a dog - doesn't really matter which, but anything short-haired and muscular is especially good, and dogs with beards, especially females, make me forget all of that shit and grin.

And nature. Walking, already, feeling the cold air on my face and letting my eyes be drawn by flashes of colour or movement help massively. Wuerzburg is splattered with colour. It's ripe with it. And it's really doing Autumn like nobody else - its colours are all from the Autumn Hues pallete - deep orangey browns or browny oranges; bright yellows; ochres and dark, beech colours.

And this morning, in the midst of the autumnal fire colours was a bright pink rose, brazenly summery, glowing away when every other flower on that plant had already gone rosehip. And further a long, a bush that made me stop and go back - like upside-down fire. Deep red and orange on the tips and hidden yellow underneath.

Yesterday, in the throes of my dark brain corridors, I did a terrible pair of scenes in an impro show and decided I didn't deserve to a. call myself an improviser b. ever perform again, ever c. be alive. It seems ridiculous when I write it, but for a moment it was all true. Today was much gentler and I'm grateful for that.

Patti Stiles really is an inspiring creature, rife with authenticity. What she teaches, she also speaks and breathes. She lights up other people's faces by finding their joy and when she does, her face lights up too. Her energy a pleasure to be bathed in.

I had a love scene - a love dance, in fact - with the lady with the deep green eyes. We started a scene without words and there was a blurring wether we were playing characters or ourselves. We picked up a game we'd played in an earlier part of the workshop - a movement/contact improv game - and it became a dance of love and connection. The scene went through a change and we lost each other for a while, but we realised this love was worth embracing and we danced and gazed into each other's eyes, all with the permission of a theatre scene.

That's SOOOOOOO out of my comfort zone. I've spent the last few months thinking about how I couldn't ever imagine myself in such a situation, being warm and intimate, or even in a relationship. And there we are, playing at it. Like pre-verbal children making consonant sounds to practise for real words. It was an absolute gift. I bless her and it. A joyful scene. Our watching partner was squealing with delight and goosebumps by the end of it.

And I said hello and goodbye to lots of very pleasing people today. None of the people I was in the show with yesterday shunned me for being awful - much as they could have done if they'd believed what I chose to believe.

And I'm inspired by this festival. I want to make this happen in London, or at least in UK. We can DO THIS SHIT! I'm already talking about it in the present. Please, please please, let's do this.

Big fat thanks for Max Windholz, Kati Schweitzer and lots of new friends. And for an unexpected and delightful afternoon with Emily 'Cuphead' Wilkinson. Such a pleasing person.

Love and fake teeth.

Grateful: Day 15 - Permission to Fail

I’m in a workshop where we’ve played games called Columbian Headfuck and Columbian Headfuck 2. It feels like coming home.

Since I started trying to share what I love about impro by running workshops, I’ve started to notice my tastes. What’s most important to me is the idea of making the other person feel fabulous, like they just had the best idea ever, and that you love and support them whatever you do. And the idea of making failure a joyful experience rather than a tight, closed one.

Ha – it’s all very well. The reason I think those things are surfacing as the most important is because they are the things I need the most in order to enjoy playing. I go on and on about taking risks, but in fact, I don’t take very many. I play it safe a lot of the time because I’m so afraid of letting others down.

In the past, I’ve heard people say to me ‘you’re so hard on yourself’ and though I wanted to stop, I have to confess that a martyrish part of me was a tiny bit proud. Yes – I can get through this. I’m hard on myself to make myself strong. I can take it. Why? Why would I do that to myself? It makes everything I want to do just so much harder. Why would I choose to be tight and closed and spiky when there are so many juicier options?

And here I am in a workshop with Patti Stiles, and she’s just taken everything to a whole new level. Not enough that you just make your partner look good. No, how about playing every scene as if it’s a game, and the game is for you to find out what gives your partner joy. And to be honest. To give them that gift too.

Making them look good? That could be stuck on from the outside. Look into their eyes and give them what they want. If it doesn’t work, change it so it does. Look for that light that goes on in there eyes, or that inadvertent full-body beam of happiness.

And we’re back to Esther Lilley (I miss her – and have missed her online a few times). She does that. She tries things out until she finds someone’s joy, or that little thing that makes them feel special, and she uses that. She makes them important in their own environment. She brings their own value to the surface of their minds.

I want this. I want to be so much better at failing. And to do that, I have to be so ready and willing to accept that I will no doubt fail at that too. I will get it wrong again and again and I’ll have to learn to accept that and be gentle with myself, and really live the principles I believe in. It IS okay to fail, and when your friends and partners celebrate with you when you do, everything feels so much easier.

All this has given me a bit of a realisation. You know when you’re hiking and you have just done a fairly strenuous hill. You get to the top, full of a sense of achievement, only to see a huge, high horizon full of further mountains to climb. Failing gloriously is the mountain, and my job is to keep on climbing. It may be a big mountain, but god, it’s beautiful, and I’m already putting one foot ahead of the other for the next bit.

The thing about hikers is, they don’t stop once they’ve climbed a mountain, however much of an achievement it was. They find another one, or climb that one again. It’s addictive and joyful and yes please, I want some more.

Someone used the word ‘beef’ today, to mean ‘issue’ or ‘problem’. Gold star. Every time. My beef is… I love it.

I shrugged off my physical body like a fat suit in a scene, and ascended to Heaven. In another, Alex lay in an open grave, cackling as I shoveled dirt over him, sending him to Hell.

There’s a lady here whose face makes me smile immediately. She has the deepest green eyes and fabulous crows’ feet. She smiles a lot and we have had such fun in all the scenes we’ve played. In one, we were lying on the floor, laughing and laughing as we told a story a word at a time. Such raw glee and wonder at the genius and joy of another person. How lucky am I, to get to do this?

I also loved having breakfast alone today. It’s a gift. I’m in a Youth Hostel with 200 or so people, by the feel of things, so it’s amazing to be able to have some privacy. And the autumn outside is stunning. Yellows and reds and browns and that smell.

I find myself beaming when I am alone, walking, going somewhere, but in no particular hurry to get there. Moving, letting thoughts come. It’s wonderful. And I find myself glowing (similar, but not quite the same) when I’ve just played a game with a person and we’ve forgotten ourselves and become mutual gleemongers.

Grateful: Day 14 - Work in Progress

Today is looking ragged and busy and I'm committed to doing this every day.

So, this morning so far, I've been grateful for:

* Breakfast on my own, eating, writing - fuck, yeah! Not a breath in me ready to socialise.

* A hot shower

* A bit of sister-time with the impressive Heike Reissig - I love her dearly

* A late night text from queenly Esther Lilley - nothing sets me up quite like it

* A faceful of Max Windholz

* The fact I haven't yet seen Kati Schweitzer - a pleasure left to come

* The idea of lots of other people I don't know yet who I may go on to love, like these people

* This picture of Dr Brown, my favourite clown - he makes me disproportionately happy.

This is a work in progress - in today's post, there is more to come.

Grateful: Day 13 - Obscenity Warning - don't read if you mind

Today is a day for c*nts.

I've smiled a lot today. Up at 5 to catch a train to the airport. I didn’t smile then. The fucker didn’t come.

I got one train later than I normally would, because I’m always so anal with flying and I get there with hours to spare. But I challenged myself and went for the reasonable option. I was very not Zen on the platform. In fact, I inadvertently called the absent train a c*nt.

I made it, amply, in fact. My stress was all my own.

There was a strangely attractive gentleman in the airport. He smiled. He was a little waxy and perfect-skinned, but he had nice eyes and glasses and seemed possibly even about my age. I saw him lots of times, like the kingfisher. He pleased me, and each time, we smiled. Had I seen him at baggage reclaim, I had decided to chat.

I sat next to someone on the plane - not my smiling gentleman - who took my details for a possible teambuilding job. He let me talk about the stuff I love to do, and whatever comes of it, for that I’m grateful. What I hope comes of it (and he said this, not me) is that he ups and leaves his job to do something he loves and something that lets him spend his evenings with his kids instead of in some soulless Ibis reception area.

He was a skin scientist. My first. I don’t think I asked the right questions – how can you make me ageless, do anti-ageing creams really work? It never occurred to me. Perhaps I could have asked him how to get rid of this persisting midge-bite mound that’s been there since July.

And then there I was, in Frankfurt, first at the airport and then at the Hauptbahnhof waiting for my train. It’s so pleasing that you can just flit and be somewhere else so quickly, walking about in their space as if it were your own.

The man opposite me was eating his sandwich out of the bag. Between bites, he readjusted so that the sandwich was further inside the bag. Each time he went in for his next mouthful, the bag was up around his ears. Made me think of horses.

Once in Wuerzburg town centre, my next c*nt appeared. A car, dithering about which way to turn, was in the way of where a cyclist wanted to go. The man on the bike bellowed 'Du bloede Fotz!' [doo blur-der fots] It took me a while to remember the words. They sound so sweet and anodyne. Not as sharp and harsh as ours. But another man in the street shouted that there were kids around and to watch the language, so I think I remember rightly.

It made me think, though. It's not the sounds themselves, but their intention and, in the case of that one word in particular, their taboo. When I receive them in another language, there's an airlock in between. I can see their offensiveness, but I don't feel it, not even the tiniest pang of shock. In English not always either, depending on the context, but it's much closer to the core.

I feel privileged to be able to play like this with words. It's brilliant fun.

And you've got to love the Germans. Looking for somewhere to eat in Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, I saw the ultimate snack bar, Wursthelden (Sausage Hero), with its sausage of the month on offer (white sausage with simnel bread, if you're interested). Only here. I will be sure and find a Sausage Hero before I leave. In my mind's eye, I can see Victoria Sandison's face.

And now I'm here. Work finished, for today at least, and just playing to do for the next few days. I know I get the pleasure of Kati Schweitzer. Alex is already here. I'm hoping to see lovely Heike, Max, Michael, maybe, who knows who else, and to meet new playing people I don't know yet. And I'm very happy indeed at the prospect of playing in a workshop with Patti Stiles... thank you, Kati, for sorting all that out when I was sitting on a hill on an island off the coast of Wales, hoping I'd get to book my festival tickets in time.

I get to play with lovely people for two or three days. Who wouldn't be grateful for that?

Grateful: Day 12 - Co-existence

Ha ha ha - the foot pie post.

This morning, I spotted a motorbike in a hairdresser's shop. A big, beefy white one. And then I noticed a big, beefy bloke giving another bloke a head-shave. It was 06:58, by my watch.

The two Turkish men in the Station Cafe did their comedy duo routine for me while I bought some coffee ('I am only small, he bullies me all the time' etc.). They always make me smile. I got my train with ample time. Ample as a word is enough to make me smile.

It was raining quite hard when I got in the water. It's beautiful, and all the women in the pond this morning were beaming. It's a strange sensation. A tiny bit annoying in your face, but very pretty at the same time. Mary (the only other swimmer I see in the early morning slot most days who's about the same age as me) says that when it snows, it feels like little cold needles on your bare shoulders. And that you're pink like a kabanossi sausage when you come out of the water when it's really cold.

The ducks were funny. They were hanging out in massive groups, like teenagers at bus stops. Actually, I think they might be teenagers. There are only a few females and lots of males, and fundamentally, they're 'only after one thing'. Still, every time I turned my head there was another sudden gathering of them. Like a much less sinister 'The Birds'.

I didn't get much sleep last night. I was worried about a few things that really don't need worrying about... not because they don't matter, but because it just doesn't help, or make them go away, even a little bit. It makes them bigger, in fact, and bigger and bigger. And they're not even there yet, those things. They're just fears and ideas. They don't exist and perhaps they never even will.

I spoke to wise and wonderful Esther Lilley up in York and she poured some sense into my ears and made me laugh. She has a knack of saying the right thing, not just to me but to pretty much everyone she pays attention to. She does very well at honouring what I'm feeling and then leaving a door open to move on. It's a gift that she has and I'm pleased to be her friend.

I got to thinking about gratitude again, though, and its role in feeling good. It's not that I'm covering up the bits of my day to day existence that feel bad, or denying them. I am noticing them too. Perhaps I don't mention them as much here. I do go on about them in some contexts. But I do notice them. Sometimes with big reactions, but more and more with slightly smaller ones.

I'm noticing the feelings of indignation or anger or irritation and I'm naming them. Quite often, I laugh at them. Oh, there goes disproportionate irritation, for example (at a lady who ate her stinky KFC on the bus, giving every morsel a smakky round of applause with her lips and saliva, sucking her teeth and the mashed up food). To do that means I'm not wrapped up inside it with no way out. I'm at least its equal. We can get by like that.

Or feelings of sadness or anger or frustration. They're still there and I notice them, and sometimes I stay with them a bit too long, but the gratitude and the bits of glee can co-exist. So I can be pulled out of my morbid thoughts by a bird call or a playful dog. I can take a moment to break off where I was at and let something else in. I'm still grateful.

I don't know many people who have to focus on a 'negativity practice' to have to remember to pick up on the bad stuff, especially with newspapers and our own fears fuelling our drive to think about the less glowing side of life. The habit of gratitude needs to be nurtured, for many of us (thanks, Ed Bennett, you interesting egg, you).

When I was little, I used to think that salt and pepper were like plus and minus - that they would cancel each other out - so if I'd poured too much salt on my cauliflower, to take away the taste, I'd add more pepper and if it still tasted bad, more salt again. I had some retch-worthy meals learning that lesson.

In a more positive way, I think awareness of gratitude and glumness, for example, relate to each other more like salt and pepper than plus and minus. They don't cancel each other out, they co-exist. They don't have to bleed into each other. Maybe I feel sad or tired, but the sky is still beautiful and the water is still cold and calming.

I'm grateful to Ellen Allen in Yorkshire. She's done her best, and that's all she can do. What she's been able to do might not acheive what I want it to, but I'm grateful just the same. And she has a pleasing name. Thank you also to Kate, for such good conversation, Rob for creative flowings forth and all the strangers who have smiled at me today. There were lots. And a text from Jessica Loudon. Oh yes. Pleasing times.

Our lunchtime show was an epic fail. No advertising, so although we had prepared two separate shows and travelled a way to do the shows, only two children, both much younger than the target age group, were there with their mother. We couldn't do any kind of a show, but we did let them put one on for us, and they were very funny indeed.

The older girl (nearly 5) was very annoyed that her younger sister, visibly infatuated, wanted to be only where she was. Whatever Hannah said, Kate would repeat (as best she could), doing actions and stealing the show a bit. We had a full on rendition of Old Macdonald, though, and a bow, and a string of stories about a poodle and some fish and some tigers in the forest. Kids don't seem to need showing how to do stories. They just do them. So, our failed show still failed, but I still had a lovely time. Can't complain.

Grateful: Day 11

Mandarin! Mandarin ducks. Not mandrakes. Thank you, Corinna, for pointing that out with such gentle grace. Mandrakes are hallucinogenic roots with all sorts of mythologies attached to them, and they're big in Harry Potter.

This morning was the first day back to the pond for two days. It was quite warm on the way and the water was forgiving. Tomorrow is my last opportunity to say goodbye to the far end of the pond, as the halfway barrier will go up at the weekend, when the clocks go back.

The far end is where the mandarin ducks (ha!) hang out quite a lot, and there's a branch up there where the kingfisher sits after one of his flits close to the water (there's discussion about the fact that we don't know at all if he's a he or a she, but most people seem to him him).

I was thinking about the kingfisher this morning.

In fact, I was thinking about Jean, who hasn't been at the pond for a month or so. She was part of my staple diet of very funny women when I first started and definitely someone I always looked forward to seeing. Jean's irreverence and humour please me very much. And she's seen more theatre than most people will see in a lifetime. She's in her eighties and she looks about twelve... Well, a lot younger than she is, anyway. I remember her story about getting cautioned for 'swimming without supervision' a few months ago, and her wicked glint.

Jean always says that it's a good day if you've seen the kingfisher... but only if she's seen it. If it's just you, it doesn't count. I was thinking about this as I reached the far end of the pond today, and about the fact that I haven't seen him for three weeks or so. And suddenly, there he was. In fact, I saw him, lost him and saw him again four or five times. He was all over the place and he really is just beautiful.That counts as a brilliant day, Jean. I see him for you... I'm beaming it up and hoping some of it hits you.

I was beaming as I walked back across the heath. Really smiling all big. I walked a different way and felt decadent. I smiled at everyone. It's not just the water, or the light, or the translucent sheen on the back of the crow/raven/rook birds I see, or the jays, or the ladies. It's all of that and the ritual too. I feel in rude good health and happy with it.

I made myself laugh on the way back. Walking my different way, I decided to go down a path I'd never go on my bike (because it's not allowed and I am reasonably well-behaved on that front), only to find that it was a dead end full of parky business - compost, fence posts, gravel. And what came out of my mouth, out loud, in the clearest, crispest tones of RP? "Oh," I said, "Is it?". A ridiculous utterance in any accent, but really!

I miss Ruth at the pond. I like so much to see her face there in the mornings, and she's only there at weekends. As I'll be in Germany from Thursday morning, I'll miss her all this week and all next week too. Bum, that's all I have to say. Bum.

I really do want a dog, I decided this morning. It's not news, obviously. But I do. Of course I wouldn't take one on in my current situation - changing where I'm living every few weeks, single and travelling often, out most of the day most days - but when I can, I will.

In the meantime, I want a dog on an alternative basis. I'd like a neighbour with a Great Dane, please, or a friend with a Viszla. Or a partner with a Weimaraner or a scruff-faced mongrel (short-haired, mind, or there'll be shaving on the menu). A partner would be nice too, but first things first.

This lunchtime's show was a gift, not least because of the ridiculous warm-up. There were three of us, so most of our games were redundant, but we slammed on through and laughed a lot. And then we did a show. There was a hiccup at the start as a child was scared when she saw me in a mask. Her mother was very angry and determined to stop the show from going ahead.

We went ahead in the end, though, and our only challenge was getting the children (some older, some younger than the frightened girl) to stay back. They crowded round the masks, shouted things out, joined in and loved Will's mask, Joe (who doesn't love Joe? I think I have a crush!). It was a great success. Alex and Will, you were ridiculous, divine and delightful. Great show.

I love that I get to play so often. Tomorrow, we'll do a 2-person impro show, Will and I. Lord knows if there'll be an audience. I hope so. And I'm sure we'll have a laugh. Maybe Joe will come back. Here's hoping. He doesn't have a dog, though.

Steaming on through my day as the countdown to midnight approaches. Kate came home from Mexico and it was wonderful to see her face and talk and laugh. And I got a dose of Pudding in a cafe in Acton (where there's a secret pool table in the back and lots of smiling Polish women that run it - quite a find).

And some good news, and a chat with Our Face, my sister in Sheffield. It's all right... no elision. This is all right.

Thankful: Day 10 - A Question of Thought

For many years, I've had a secret ache to be one of those people who can have faith. Well, with part of me, I have. With the rest, I've hoped never to succumb.

I come from a family where religious beliefs and having a faith* was an indication of stupidity and neediness. That thought pattern applied to other things too, including dog-owners, do-gooders and anyone who thought differently to "us".

* Does that need a capital F? Beectoria Sandison, help me out, please.

When I was a teenacher (oh, what a gift of a typo! I was full of ache as a teenager!) I as afraid to go into churches in case that feeling I got in my belly was some kind of religious revelation, and then I'd be condemned to be one of the ignorants, one of the stupid masses who believed. It was probably just the adrenalin of that fear in itself.

I still can't imagine a real, existing deity with a beard and robes, or even a face, but I do now feel connected to things in ways I never did before. For lots of reasons, one of them being my morning ritual which gives me the wonder of a daily sunrise and the experience of floating in a bit of nature and really feeling it, I have started to feel part of some greater whole.

If I were to try and personify it, it's a bit like being in the presence of a very large, loving parent, who's rooting for me every step of the way with their eyes so filled with love that even big mistakes or ugly behaviour don't change a thing. When organised religions say that 'God loves you unconditionally', I think I understand. I feel like I am being very well looked after by the whole universal mishmash of things, and that all I have to do is to do what I want to do. To jump, and know the net will be there and even if it's not, there'll be something. If I crash my face on the concrete, then that's just where we'll be.

And that 'God is everywhere' thing? Absolutely, now I get it... but not as a separate, judgemental father figure, not a god... what I feel is that I'm a part of things. I'm an insignificant nublet in a great big pie. I'm a drop of sea-spray that's white in the air for just for a moment before it plunges back into a thundering wave. All I have to do is to get on with it.

So who am I grateful to? Everything and nothing. I'm grateful up into the sky because the sky is beautiful and I feel good when I look up. I am grateful to individuals when they are lovely or kind or funny or attractive. I'm thankful in a very non-focused way, too, like heat off a summer road, when I get to see dogs playing or acts of love or best of all a person on their own laughing into a mobile phone. That makes me so happy. I think 'I get to experience this. How brilliant.'

I'm thankful when I get to be part of something. I like to think of gratitude being tangible, and flowing off and up and spreading out and maybe condensing again and making a light film on someone's cheek, or a mist on a pond. But that's just a way of thinking, not a truth. It's not right, it's pleasing.

Today, I have so many specific things to be grateful for: for good transport, professional people who did a great job and remained human and warm; for lovely Juliet, who trekked all the way over to Ealing and managed to look after me and inspire me at the same time; for my beloved friend, Pudding; for the man at the bus-stop who beamed and blossomed like a flower at a simple 'good morning'; for kind and patient strangers who let me have a bit of themselves, just for a limited time.

Wherever it goes, whoever it touches, and whether I'm right or wrong, it's all fine by me. Thank you.

Grateful: Day 9 - Playing

Playing is most certainly one of my favourite things, so today was very, very good. Brilliant, in fact.

I love going the pond and I also like lying in bed underneath my fat duvet. If I could do both at the same time, that's what I'd do every day. Not worked out how to do that yet, but as today was Mask Workshop day, I made the most of it and stayed bunched up under there until about quarter to eight.

And then preparations, a journey to The Calder Bookshop on The Cut and the workshop itself. I was evidently worried about the whole thing last night. I lay awake for an hour or so, thinking it must be 6 already, but when I finally looked at the clock it was 4.34.

But as soon as this morning started, I was giddy and happy and excited about the day and the play. When people started to arrive, all scaredy bits fell away and I was just excited to get on with it. It's always such an honour when there are so many talented, courageous and willing people in the room. And nice ones too. Really nice.

I love, love, love walking into a workshop and knowing we'll all have done something 'else', something that hasn't been done yet, by the end of the day. Between us, we'll create an experience, or a whole array of experiences and different takes on the same thing. And we'll have only been able to do it because of the presence of every person in the room (and out of the room, as in the case of today's rehearsing jazz band downstairs - what a gift!)

And so we played. The first forty minutes or an hour were just silly play that created lots of laughter. Games you'd play with children. Games teenagers would roll their eyes at but secretly love. Games you'd play if only you were allowed and you could find other people who wanted to play them too. And everyone there, from performers who live to be looked at to people who'd come along to see what it was about got right in there. And at some point at least, everybody laughed.

And then, as Will suggested, the mask work took care of itself. There are always great lists of things that I could have done differently, or that I'd try out another way next time, and even clumsy wrongnesses that I might wish I hadn't done, but all in all, it was good. When the day flows and ideas are left for you like mince pies at the bottom of a chimney, and when half a day has gone and it feels like you're only just getting started, it's so, so good. That's when you're doing what it's right for you to be doing.

Purpose - there's a good one. It's like you're fulfilling your purpose. It all feels right and flowy and pleasing. I often find myself jumping or clapping or squealing with glee in the middle of an exercise. I swear I'm not being 'bubbly' or intentionally 'high octane'. I'm just having a very nice time. And I'm so not cool.

I'm very grateful not to be cool. Someone cooled at me today, with a Big Fat Namedrop. I wanted to say 'Oh, no, Poppet, you've got the wrong end of the stick - there's no need to be cool here'. I opted not to. But it was on the tip of my lips for a moment.

Trance mask is quite the opposite of cool. It's a brave thing to do, I suppose, as it can expose you as sad or soft or vulnerable, more honest than you want to be, or possibly more full of glee. It lifts lids in kitchens that you've tried to keep secret and lets things leak out. Bubbling pots. Other people will see it. They won't judge you, though. They'll enjoy you.

I suppose we're back to the dogs and their wagging. A mask, when you let it find itself, does what's honest, however embarrassing that might be for anyone, person inside included. It's like authenticity with the need for courage taken away. All you need is the courage to put on the mask and 'give it some'. It's a leap into the unknown and a wide-armed welcoming in of failure as part of the process. I really love it. It rocks.

Workshop-wise, Will did an amazing job of framing things and doing good stuff, even when I didn't quite stick to what I'd promised. He knows his stuff, that Will one. And Sergio, the Argentinian Beckett expert in the bookshop, told me about his job teaching acting in a London prison. I was impressed and inspired. I want some.

And now, I'm grateful once again for a warm place to be and a good book to read.

Grateful: Day 8 - Skin and Teeth

One thing to be grateful for is that it's 23.13 as I start. There is still time. This blog WILL be published today.

As always, there's the pond. I am so grateful for it, and for the whole ritual. Getting up early, taking the train, walking across the Heath with a big smile. Massive smile coming back too. I felt very happy.

At the pond, I saw my lovely cousin, Ruth Edwards. I haven't seen her in more than two weeks and I've really missed her.

It is Ruth who is responsible for turning me into a pond lady. She's been swimming there for years and years. Her enthusiasm got me there in the first place and her passion and determination still inspire me. She is a generous, talented and inspiring woman and a true artist.

When I laugh with Ruth, it's like nothing else, whether it's about a turn of phrase, a 'creative' loaf of bread or even just a string of numbers - it's one of my favourite things ever.

I'm also grateful to her for asking, this morning, who or what I'm grateful to. What a marvellous question. Given the time today, I'll save the detail for another post. In short, we decided that whatever it was didn't have a beard, but felt good, and that to solve the problem just for the moment, I could use the word 'thankful'.

Thanks to Ed Bennett, Will Steele and Belgium. Will is staying with me for a few days to come and play with masks. He's brought his considerable mask collection, beautiful Joe, a mask character who fills me with joy and warmth, and lots of good ideas. We ran an impro class last night at The Questors Theatre - such delightful, playful and funny people in it. Such massive fun to do. They really went for it. As a first time facilitating together, we worked well, I thought.

Ed let me come round to his house and record a voiceover for a company in Belgium, using his recording software, massive telly screen and a high quality mic strapped to the back of a chair (thanks Sanjaybhai, great mic). Generous man. Good egg. Good brain.

Will and Ed share a love of improvisation and noticeably large pupils. I wonder if it's connected.

Good advice from Will about the mask workshop today. And it was lovely reminiscing about moments from past workshops. Simone Tani's masks featured a lot (Hello Pillow and Crusher, and the breathy guy who hides). Shame they can't come and play.

I'm grateful for, and excited about, all those meaty people who are coming to the mask workshop tomorrow. It's going to be a delightful day.

And I am so looking forward to being asleep. Probably within the next 7 minutes. Get In.

Grateful: Day 7

Sometimes, I wish I had a tail.

What I love about dogs is that they don't equivocate. They can't. They're just not capable. When they're pleased to see you, they wag despite themselves, sometimes the whole arse, the whole dog, even. When they've eaten a bin, or when you use your 'have you done something bad' voice on them, they peer out from under their eyes, head bent, hoping for the best (I know this thanks to 20 lost but happy minutes on YouTube yesterday).

When I like someone, whether romantically or just in a friend way (though romantically is so much worse), I do 'not bothered' like the teenagest of teenagers. Or I am nice and friendly, but spend hours wondering if they think I'm a needy nobber who should just Get Off Their Case.

A tail would sort that out in no time. Wagging when I'm pleased, disappearing between legs when I'm scared or sorry ... It'd just be nice, sometimes, to have something to get in the way of my deeply ingrained control mechanism that says 'don't say that, you'll embarrass him' or 'don't bother her with that'. A big old wag and a little pant, wide eyes, maybe a piney whine.

I'd lose some dignity, but I realised this morning that dignity's never been my biggest asset. No terribly embarrassing occasion - it just came to me, that's all. Dignity and me are like polite neighbours rather than good friends. I can probably survive without it.

Another realisation: that every morning, I'm not sure I really CAN get into cold water, but I do anyway. It's a mental discipline much more than a physical one. It's just an action that takes place, whatever my body's response. I walk down the steps and I just keep on walking. It's like unlearning the response that when something's uncomfortable, you pull back. You just notice 'oh, this is an experience that's happening' and keep going. It's very Zen. Except when there's an inadvertent noise.

I squealed this morning, getting in. Not because it was cold, but because I nearly stood on a duck. A moorhen, actually, I think. A little brown female who was hanging out underneath the steps. I think she was more scared than I was, but it was me who squealed.

This morning's glee-mongers:

The mandrakes at the back of the pond. The Manga ducks. They are like made up, stylised creatures. Not sure how they can actually be real. They look like they've been painted with

a Japanese calligraphy brush. That's the males, all regal and full of pomp. The females are more delicate, with an understated beauty and gentle eyes.

The sunflowers in the graveyard opposite my house. Despite the cold and the fact that it's nearly November, they're still there very tall and extremely yellow, looking over the railings into the street.

Comments from Angela Bown, which brought back memories of hours and hours and hours of laughing when I worked at Hasbro. I'm sure Angela was working on some project to do with dressing up animals. She made me laugh so much. We all laughed a lot at that. There were tears then too, but mostly only at chihuahuas in wedding dresses. Ahh, good times.

Being able to stop and sit and finish the chapter I was reading as I got off the tube. Nobody to say 'you're late!' or 'what were you thinking?'. Not today, anyway.

The fact that I have a big, fat, lovely day ahead of me to play with, full of pleasing people and juicy things to do.

I intend to have a very nice time, and probably to cry a bit, in a good way.

Grateful: Day 6 - Backwards Thinking?

I'm not sure if it's the wind or the way my face is on today, but I

found myself laughing even though things this morning suddenly

went quite expensively wrong.

I mashed up my bike. My bike that is my favourite place to be in the

whole world. My bike that keeps me steely-thighed and nowhere near

as fat as I would otherwise be. My bike that has newish pedals and

worn old saddle that I insist on keeping. My bike that is not even

my original bike, but an insurance replacement for a stolen bike from

years ago.

I felt the back wheel behaving strangely as I legged it down to the

station to catch the 7.06, but it got me there, and I resolved to fix it

at the other end. Well, it is now 'fixed', only not as I had imagined.

I started the cycle up Parliament Hill towards the Heath, changed gears

and there was a big clanky crunch. My derailleur had gone into the

spokes, taking part of the pannier rack with it. Then it snapped off,

for proper.

I locked it and ran - that cold pond waits for no lady - and I had a

skype meeting at 8.15 with two delightful people. And on my yomp

up onto the Heath I laughed. I wouldn't try and convince anyone that

I'm actually happy about the death of a part of my bike. I'm not.

Spending an extra £100 I wasn't expecting to spend is not the best news

I've had all week. And I love my bike.

I can't even explain why it was so funny. Because it could have been

so much worse? If I'd been hurtling down said hill and that had gone

on, I'd be sticking out of somebody's windscreen. Because it put my

hurry in perspective? 'I've got to rush, I've got to rush'...

'NO, YOU DON'T HAVE TO. HAVE THIS. HA!'

Or because that's just what happened? That's what it was. Will willing

it away help? There's my bike, still in one piece (thank you, clever

engineers, for designing derailleurs so they snap in strategic places

rather than buggering up your frame; thank you, man in bike repair

centre, for explaining this). And there's me still in one piece too.

That's what happened and nobody died. And I have been thinking about

how nice it would be to have a new bike. It's one of my fantasy places

to go. It's not real and in the practicalities of it, it probably wouldn't be anywhere near as good in real life. It smacks of threesome. But I did ask.

So now, in part or in whole, there'll be some new bikeness going on.

Within minutes, I was crying. I didn't change my mind. I just went up onto heathy bit of Parliament Hill. I saw people looking up, so I looked up too, and there was a sunrise worth dying in, just for the romance of it. Even East London, with cranes and drudge, was bathed in beauty. And it was that thought that set me off.

The sun rising in the East was turning the clouds pink and orange, shining up high. Over in the West, the tips of the trees were drinking in the colour and mixing it with their greens and browns. Down

in the valleys it was dull and grey and frosty-foggy, silhouetted with

dog-walkers, but above them, these trees. David Hockney laser prints.

Magical landscapes. And then the passing pigeon, lit from beneath,

was proper neon pink, like a sale sign.

I felt a bit supernatural, swimming today when the train platform had been gritted against ice, but that goodness for the winter-swimming ladies who take it all in their stride, discussing tactics and motivation and some of them still getting changed outside, so what am I even bothering to shiver for?

And there's always that high point of the day, pouring a bucket of hot water over my head after a cold shower that was warmer than the pond. You can't beat that. It's

brilliant. It really, truly is. Oh god, I'm off again.

I went to a cafe, struggled with the internet, tasted the most

appalling cup of coffee, took it back, lost a £20 note, found it again,

and got online only after the meeting I'd set up had finished. It was

a good meeting, though, apparently. I spoke to the deeply pleasing

Esther Lilley just after it, and still get to go and swap ideas with inspiring

Rob Grundel tomorrow.

I am grateful for my bike, broken or not, and for Victoria Sandison, who

made me watery-eyed yesterday too with nice words. I cry a lot. It's a

theme. I'm thinking of adding a cry-count to this blog, just to give it a

bit of perspective. It's not woe-tears, mostly, it's being moved.

Sometimes it's self-pity and sometimes frustration, but right now,

anything that makes my heart feel big, someone's kindness, love or

openness - anything genuine and positive and rich, and that's me done.

Day 6 cry-count so far: 5. 5 and half. There's a novel involved - that

accounts for two of them. This writer is blatantly doing it on purpose,

but that's what I chose that book for, so well done him, and thank you.

I loved the man whose pink shirt hanging out looked like an enormous

comedy bum. It's the fact that it wasn't that was funny. If he had been

wearing one, I'd have looked away. Oh, and I had a go, two goes, on a

spaniel. Very happy to be stroked. On a long string. Small and calendar

cute, with a burly, greasy owner. Brilliant.

Yesterday's most pleasing mis-spelling: Flabjack. If it was spelt like that

all the time, there'd be less of it eaten. And today's misread strapline -

Marxism makes you thin (it was Maxislim, but I prefer my first impression).

And I'm grateful every time someone is nice about this blog. I look

forward to writing it. Not that I don't feel sad, or challenged or annoyed sometimes - I do - but the combined pleasure of looking for things that

please me and getting to write them down is really doing it for me.

Today, I got to check files about the alphabet, migrating swallows,

skunks and howler monkeys and call it work. And my teeth came.

They're in now. They're very good, and a little easier to talk in than

my last ones.

Can't complain.

Grateful: Day 5

Cold air, cold water, laughing ladies discussing warm pipes (no metaphors).

A tall dog with lifty feet.

Andy Hix creeping up on Amaya this morning, for No Good Reason.

Anna Levy's face, on lots of different occasions throughout the day.

Amaya's reaction to the word 'burrito' (like an eager dog's reaction to the word 'walk').

Amaya's genuine gasp at the idea of being minced to go in a huge burrito. I was never really going to mince you.

The picture of a cat in a burrito wrap, which wouldn't download. Probably for the best.

The pride with which the Greasy Spoon man displayed my chilli baked potato to me before closing the polystyrene lid - as if it were a rare diamond in a case.

Lovely friends Celine Boulhaya and Shadia Rat Girl. Good company.

A novel that is engaging me.

Remembering a massive chunk of work I need to do tomorrow, which would have been a nightmare if I'd have forgotten.

A big, warm, soft bed, calling me.

Grateful: Day 4 - Show Us Yer Pie

How good is this:

Yesterday, I took my mac to the apple store because I'd been getting the wheel of death on my screen a lot.

A very helpful (if aggressive-breathed) Apple Genius helped me out and reinstalled my operating system [thank you, by the way, Simon Kirby, Cassy Smith and Em Wilkinson for the 'sort out your mac' tips - I used all of them].

The apple man was so clear - did you back up, do you have any reason not to do this, have you remembered everything. Yes, Yes, Yes and all that. Only no. As I picked it up I realised that my copy of Office for Mac came from a discounted link that I got when I still worked at Hasbro - it was some kind of corporate goodie bag thing. And I don't have any of the information. I'm right in the middle of a job that needs to be sent off before Wednesday morning, so I really need to sort this.

But thank goodness for delightful, lovely friends who have helped me out, and for the regal Mr Jack Rebaldi, who did lots of extra work to get us more money on a job. So I could just afford to order one off Amazon. And, thanks to a previous mistake involving getting giddy with my free trial of Amazon Prime and letting it overrun, I get free next-day delivery.

Every time I've had something delivered before, it's come in the morning. No sign of said software when I got home at 5.30, though, after doing a delicious job with The Spontaneity Shop. Occasionally there have been problems with post going to an almost-indentical address just round the corner, and for a moment, I thought 'oh no... it's all going wrong!

But no: at quarter to six, an exhausted delivery man turns up. He's been on the road since 8am, but he has my parcel and he's even gracious enough to smile and be lovely to me as he delivers it. How good is that?

Today's job: full of really wonderful, talented, brave and pleasing people, both the clients and the other people playing. It's so good to be surrounded by people who are more talented and more experienced than me, but who are gracious and playful and generally very nice. Good eggs as far as the eye can see, and I got to play in French and have a great laugh. Inspired, pleased and grateful.

Thank you too for the Ian Lavender Suite in my little hotel in Thetford (where Dad's Army was filmed - so EVERYONE we met there told us). Despite believing that the man sitting very still on the bench across the river was a calm psychopath who was just waiting for me to fall asleep before opening the non-locking patio doors and coming in to kill me, it was a great night, and a comfortable bed. At breakfast, the night porter explained that it was a statue of Captain Mainwaring (off of Dad's Army). No danger there, then.

There's so much I'm grateful for, and I still have work to finish, but finally, chatting with my sister Sarah about her recently fractured* clavicle, she told me about a horrible, sexist bloke on the bus who'd been shouting obscenities at people and being generally offensive. She feeling angry and annoyed, until he opened the window called to a woman in the street to 'Show us yer pie!'

How can you take such a man seriously? And by his own hand. Well done, that man.

Thank you.