Monday

Today was an hour earlier all day. Odd.
Slower house progress as all but two of last week's turbo-charged builders have gone off to Valencia or somewhere. The two remaining built the gable ends before it started raining and the sun set in the middle of the afternoon.
More pictures soon.
This evening I cooked indian food with boys from a youth club in Hawick, a job through You Can Cook. A great bunch of young teenagers with real interest, energy and good knowledge of food. 
Drove home through a blizzard of wet leaves.

The other ten percent

My growing unease and dissociation with our house-building project shifted over the past couple of weeks when I accepted that I actually need to be hands-on in the building process. The cost of using a builder to build what we want is way beyond our funds. Although I currently possess very few of the skills needed to build a house, I have friends who do, I have time and I have a willingness to learn. I've also realised that it's a great project through which I can gain confidence in an area where I lack it; a giant to be slain.

What I've learned in theatre is that a creditable outcome can emerge from the 90% commitment that most of us can find for most projects and undertakings. It's the other ten percent that can make it extraordinary. But the other ten percent is the retention, the reserve, the backup, the plan B, the what if. I'm very good at what if, and anyway isn't that the cultural norm ? Going the extra ten percent - if you can find it - moves into total commitment, an outpouring, an adventure; uncool, somewhat fanatical, steady on there, don't go over the top, everything in moderation, healthy degree of scepticism.

Thinking about building a house - or at least being an active part of a house-build project - takes me way outside my comfort zone map and into a place where the ocean might tip off the edge of the world, but is also wildly exciting. It's an opportunity to go over ninety.

Five days to Twelfth Night

I spent the week directing a production of Twelfth Night for a team of homeschooling families in South Auckland. The kids acted and the parents were the production team. A fine week working with fine people, and a superb two nights of performances; sharp, bright, pacy and alternately hilarious and poignant. The cast, many of whom also took part in my drama workshops a few weeks ago, was aged between 5 and 15 but would put the paces on actors twice or thrice their ages.

It was an ambitious project and today I've emerged blinking into the sunshine not quite believing that it's only been six days since we started. The joy of such projects, and the reason for their irresistible gravitational hold on me, is the alchemy of talents and skills they generate. I love directing that traffic, having faith in people's ability to surprise, and even the game of dodging the reflected glory that can so easily make directors think more of themselves than is healthy.

Example: a casual conversation with one of the mums a couple of weeks ago about scenery. I described a three-sided rotatable flat and we sketched something together on paper that might just work. The next day she produced technical drawings from her husband, a few days later he'd made two of them in the garage. We got them to the theatre this week and puzzled over what to paint on them. Another dad, a graphic artist, drew six architectural sketches of Italian streetscapes and gardens. Four mums, two overhead projectors and a can of paint later we had the ideal elements of a stage set that would endure wind and weather throughout the play.

Meanwhile another dad created Shakespeare's father's coat of arms on a banner which decorated an otherwise forlorn corner of the stage, several mums generated exhaustive lists of props, costumes, scene changes, prompts, exits and entrances. Consequently the backstage management rivalled air traffic control over Heathrow. One of the fathers even made REAL SWORDS (we didn't tell OSH) and so on it went. A community of families selflessly blending its skills and talents to produce a golden production which I'm proud to have been part of.

These children and young adult performers have had a rich immersive experience of theatre which will stay with them; an infinitesimal deflection R S Thomas talks about. Who remembers maths lessons with fondness, or at all ? But most of us remember childhood performances on stage, and the impact they had. My interest in, and respect for the homeschooling phenomenon grows as I see the opportunities for rethinking the fundamental priorities we bring to educating our successors.

Entrances and exits

Every exit being an entrance somewhere else, I've now turned my attention to this week's trip to Dunedin. A hauntingly familiar city when I visited for the first time last year, I'm looking forward to spending more time there.

Last Friday I shared some fruits of the past two weeks' work at an exhibition of drama skits and sketches by the 30 children and young people who have taken part. I enjoyed seeing the subtle changes they've undergone, the emergence of new confidence and the excitement of performing for their parents and friends.

The Spring progresses, but through mood swings of torrential downpour and dazzling brightness, an adolescent season of promise.

I'm enjoying tamarilloes, Vogel's bread, seeing Tuis in the bottle brush trees, strong sunlight, the sea.

I'm not enjoying the Auckland motorway.

Young promise

The blossom is in full flower here in Auckland. The first dusting of green on the deciduous trees is lime-green, changing by the day, and tonight the new moon lay in the old moon's arms. I started my second week of drama workshops with a younger group; a day spent shifting my expectations away from those set by last week's deep teenagers.

Fab

Last week the kids and I climbed the Scott Monument in Edinburgh. It's Thunderbird Three in stone, towering over Princes Street and only dwarfed at Christmas when the Winter Gardens ferris wheel goes up next to it. Four levels are accessed by spiral stone steps barely one person wide. In the windy crow's nest you see over the jumbled rooftops to the sea, the mountains. You can probably see seven counties, though these days they're called Regions or Authorities as in a soviet novel.

Below us were the excavated remains of Princes Street. The whole mile or so has been dug back to the soil to make room for Edinburgh's new tram system. It promises to give a character and elegance to this grand parade that really hasn't been there for decades.

Yesterday I walked the length of it, through swirling dust and raucous road drills, after a meeting about a Government contract to assist with education workshops. It's a nice little job to add to my modest portfolio, and I remembered my Auckland education job with fondness once again. The downside of self-employment is the endless self-promotion, but perhaps that's good for my soul.

The claustrophobic and vertiginous climb was worth it for the view.

Today's shopping list

Milk
lactose free milk
potatoes
tomatoes
tins toms
sugar
margarine/spread
bagels
dish cloths
cranberry drink
ham/other packed lunch fillings

Whispers of Shakespeare

Last night I was asked to photograph a local production at the Eastgate theatre, titled So Long Lives This. It was a collection of songs, sonnets, pieces of drama and dance all connected by a loose narrative about Queen Elizabeth, Will Shakespeare, The Earl of Southampton and various other of the usual suspects. It was a gentle, occasionally dramatic piece performed in the round in an intimate atmosphere with minimal staging and rich costuming.

I've missed this; subtle and imaginative theatre woven around the life and work of Shakespeare. In Auckland I worked with a fine group of young people and dedicated parents to produce an abridged and minimal Julius Caesar, and with various groups in school holidays on some of my own Shakespearean pieces. It's one of things I like best in theatre, and I'm looking forward to doing more of it.

More info here:
http://www.shakespeare-at-traquair.co.uk/

Black Ice

I'm aiming to walk up the hill by our house every day. This morning the road up was thick with grit and salt ploughed into ruts by cars and farm machines, then frozen over in the sub-zero night. I picked my way up the hill, slipping a couple of times on the frictionless black ice and doing one of those Tintin flailings; a windmill of arms and legs that doesn't quite hit the ground nor spill a drop of tea. More photos of course and a dose of dazzling sunshine glancing off the white fields.

I didn't get the job, just a rejection letter. The certainty of it is a whole lot better than the waiting, though, and I'm over it already. Not sure what's next, but something will turn up. I was reading an article this morning about the 11:11 phenomenon, and while the actual numeral 11 thing doesn't work for me I get the principle of seemingly recurrent trivial events pointing to some underlying direction or 'prompting' or 'flow'. Not sure if there's my own personal Morpheus out there hinting obsurely at the matrix, but I enjoy the idea. It's a call to tune in to the subtleties, the ebb and flow.

No snow, no school, no news

All the Borders schools were off today in anticipation of further snow dumps. Dire weather warnings evaporated in the morning, however, along with much of yesterday's snow, leaving a slushy mess of a no-news day. Didn't take long for the media blame industry to get started though, and everyone from Government ministers to spineless teachers are being accused of having no bottom in the face of adversity. It was never like this in the Blitz, in my day we battled miles through forty foot snowdrifts wearing only clogs etc. One Head Teacher got himself on the news boasting of having been at his school at 5.30 this morning clearing the snow so his school could open. It was the only school open in his area and I'll bet those kids were glad as they saw friends from neighbouring schools heading out for a day's sledging. Don't get me started.

Our two braved the cold for the sake of snowball fighting, building a snow fort and heading into town for bought hot chocolate; so much better than homemade.

Meanwhile no news back from my job interview so I've given up hope and am rewriting the experience such that I was too good for them and didn't really want it anyway.

They might phone tomorrow.