Grateful: Day 29

Today was distinctly unplanned.

An unexpected breakfast with Ruth (very lovely) was followed by the discovery that I was entirely wrong about what I was doing with my day. What I thought I was doing is not scheduled until December, apparently. Oh.

I thought of going to the flicks, but it's Saturday so by its nature more expensive and busier. And anyway, the grimbucket film I wanted to see (We Need To Talk About Kevin) wasn't on up in Muswell Hill. And Arthur Christmas? Oh, shove it up your bum.

So I bumbled. Mostly around Muswell Hill, even after a decisive stride forth to go home, the bumbling continued. My only exercise today was my swim, which is therapeutic, meditative, mentally and physically stimulating and really awfully nice - but not in any way strenuous. So I walked through Highgate Wood and skirted round the back of Highgate and ended up on Hampstead Heath again.

I've explored it a lot over the last few months, but yet again I found places I hadn't been. I managed to lose myself in some woods I have never seen before. It was quiet, mostly, apart from the pop of falling acorns. I nearly fell over in mud. Almost disappointed not to. It would have been spectacular.

I was aching for a wee, and part of my adventure was focused on finding a secret spot to do one, but there were people emerging from every nook. There were mushroomiers (I'm sure they have a better name [better meaning 'an actual word']); there were dogs and walkers, families, and an endless supply of runners.

First thing this morning, as I rose over the lip of Parliament Hill in the still-darkness, there was a man clanging tiny cymbals. For peace? Noisy bugger. I love that people do their thing here. Whatever it is and however weird. There are so many different versions of the Heath. We all have our own relationship (or two) to this place.

I dropped down to Hampstead Heath Overground station using a completely new route (for me) only to find that the trains were suspended, so a marathon journey home started. Buses, trains, tubes, changes of plan, failed intentions. I had a bus driver kind of have a barney at me, but it didn't really register. I discovered bits of Maida Vale. I sampled the joys of Queens Park station for about 5 minutes. Thank fuck for Carol Sheilds!

Even without her, there were lots of things to keep me entertained. Some brilliant Spaniards on the train, all swarthy eyebrows and hispanic indignance, and some über-French French boys, 'bof'ing for their country. I love listening to French. It's so up-and-downy. I love that often rises and rises and rises and then plummets in the steepest of downward inflections at the end. A little rollercoaster thrill of a rhythm.

And a woman with a voice so loud and so shrill, I had visions of her in the Albert Hall, reaching every last seat in the Gods, no mic, just an i-phone stuck to her ear and gossip to be spread.

I've been chased around by a luck-monkey recently, especially where travel is concerned. Yesterday, very late, I caught myself singing a song, children's nursery rhyme style, that went:

Good luck, me

Good luck, me

Good luck, me

Getting my train.

And I got it. But seriously, that song and its tune, if you can call it that, wlll not move on. It's in my head like a brain-eating weevil. Ridiculous. Yesterday, I caught a train by a hair. Today, the 266 pulled in the second I wanted one.

And tomorrow, I am grateful for a lie-in. I'm not swimming - I have to be somewhere else too early. And much as I shall miss it, how nice to be staying in bed that extra hour, if I can stay asleep.

A chat with Lady Semark when I got home - very nice - and a massive pate sandwich and an afternoon of mask-making. Sensual glee, the papier mache stage. Strips of softened paper ('distressed'?) dipped into a mixture of water, flour and pva and smoothed over the exaggerated features of the mask. I saw a nearly-qualified surgeon make a mask last year. She placed every morsel with such care, and smoothed, smoothed, smoothed as if it was a face translplant. Which in a way, I suppose, it is. Her mask was like a porcelain doll. She was a bit like one too, all small.

And then, to my huge glee, a meeting to talk about using masks in a show, making them with the cast, running a few sessions to fit them into the piece, maybe even working with musicians (and finding some... Rob, expect that call). I love that I get to do this. I am so, so grateful that this has become part of what I do.

Good ideas. Good company. Good times.

Grateful.