Tues 11/08/09 – 19.04

I return cured! Huzzah!

Alright, so it wasn't that serious, but it was unpleasant. Apparently I had a bout of the marvellously-named 'Labyrinthitis' (my Bowie-related jokes were sadly lost on the doctor), though my case wasn't long-term. Thank god. So, after being made to spin round until I fell over in the GP's office, I was shipped off with some tablets that were, for all intents and purposes, travel sickness tablets. As if I didn't feel and sound pathetic enough already. The theory is to treat the symptoms whilst the virus clears itself up, seeing as they don't know quite what causes it. Still, it did the job and it only took a week to completely cure so I'm dead chuffed.

Last week was a week that largely consisted of doing naff all, unfortunately, and sitting about the lounge (still sofa-less) frantically patching together my re-enactment kit into a wearable state for the weekend. In this venture I was largely successful, but I shall return to the weekend momentarily.

The tedium was broken on Tuesday evening by the appearance of former-house-mate Leeanne who came over to drop some stuff off that I'd left in Nottingham and to have dinner. She didn't get food poisoning, so this went well. She stayed the night and Wednesday lunchtime saw us heading over to Marylebone to rendezvous with Tall Peter for a jaunt to the Wallace Collection. The collection was pretty groovy, comprising of rooms full of charmingly gaudy décor, large paintings and shiny furniture. More importantly, though, the back half seems to be filled with a pretty large collection of arms and armour. This is why we went, I'll be honest. There is some rather sexy (if you're into that sort of thing) stuff in there, and I do recommend it to any of my more stabby friends. I enjoyed it thoroughly, even if I was still feeling decidedly out of it at that point. We then sauntered up in the general direction of Leeanne's train (detouring via Baker Street, to placate the Holmes geeks in the party) to lounge about in Regent's Park for a while before she had to go. I have determined that next time I go to said park, I shall take bread for the ducks and go for a jaunt on one of the pedalos and it will be awesome. On the tube back I fell asleep, and whilst I woke up in time for Archway I felt so fatigued that I got the bus home (instead of walking for 15 minutes) and promptly fell asleep on my bed fully clothed for two hours the moment I got in. Still, fun times.

Not much happened until again until Friday, where I had some minor trials involving the job centre being useless and then embarked upon my epic journey to Sutton Hoo. Said journey was prefixed, I feel obliged to note, by a very surreal trip to the Total petrol station in Highgate. On the outside, it has a 4-pump, 1980s style forecourt. Inside the terraced house that seemed to house the till was a rack of chocolate, some bottles of oil, a couple of A-Zs and cake. Lots of cake. Racks of cakes. It was like an organic farm shop in there. No Ginsters here, Highgate only does organic, it seems. I commented to the man that it was a pretty weird filling station. His response: “Weird how?” I left. Without cake. Sad times.

So, it took me two hours and fifteen minutes to get to Peter's in Surrey when it should have taken about an hour less. But I did opt to travel round London at 16:30 rush hour on a Friday, so I suppose it's my own silly fault. The first hour I averaged 20mph, the next half an hour 10mph. Finding a parking space on the M25 is easy. :) Nonetheless, I got there, took a sneak-preview of their flat (vair nice) ate all offered provisions and we headed off. We got there at 22:30 (after some debate around the Dartford Crossing about turning round to go pick up forgotten stuff), happily missing the erecting of tents and I was in the correct position for sleeping by midnight. I barely slept, of course, but that's just how the first night of camping goes in my experience (though it might have helped if I'd taken a sleeping bag so I wasn't constantly shivering. Ah well).

Saturday and Sunday were, by and large, fun. I got sunburned (my face now clashes with my henna-d hair, dammit) and was entirely too warm in the period layers of linen and wool in the blazing sunshine, but I figured I was better off than the guys who were fighting. They effectively have to wear a duvet under their chain-mail whilst swinging lumps of steel around and carrying a lump of wood on one arm. Nobody passed out, despite this, which was really rather impressive. I got to play water-carrier, learnt how to spin wool, helped cook, finished my cloak, pretended to know stuff at the public and acquired the fabric to make a cooler linen overdress. Considering I had naff all to do, the days passed quickly. Even so, I was exhausted on Saturday night and so crashed out not long after 11 whilst everyone else went to sing songs with some Vikings, which sounded like fun as I promptly fell asleep.

The drive back was much like the drive there, again full of queues (“A12, southbound. There are nine miles of stationary traffic in the place you're driving into.”) and ensuing scenic detours. After dropping off Peter back in surrey I ran out of sugar and crashed out, however, very nearly driving off the road twice about ten minutes from home on the way back. Falling asleep at the wheel is not sexy, kids. I managed to get back, though, somehow and didn't wake up until 13:30 yesterday afternoon, which was great.

So, that's us up to speed, tedious as it was. Tomorrow morning I am donning waistcoat to go heckle some post-production companies in person about jobs. Yes, tomorrow I am going to Soho to beg for work. My, how classy this industry is.