Emms is back from her tour. It is great to have her back home, although I shall miss being able to say “she’s on a 23 date tour of Wales doing provocative feminist gig-theatre” when locals ask me where she is.
“Oh, I didn’t know she was an actress” they say.
“No, neither did I" I reply.
I’d been looking forward to her getting back. I’d say to my Mum “It’ll be nice to get back to normal”. “Not long now”, she’d say. I’ve since realised that we don’t have a ‘normal’ and never really have. Every week is different. I know everyone has a different version of normal but ours feels pretty 'out there' atm. Granted, living in the middle of the countryside, miles from the urban arena and more sensible ways of earning a living probably adds to that.
Emma & Pınar Öğün entertaining us on the Facetimes whilst backstage in Holyhead, Anglesey. We'll miss being remotely entertained by the Enough is Enough crew.
In the first blog post I wrote when I made this site, I mentioned how I never know how to answer the question "What do you do?". This week, it feels like one of those weeks where I understand why I find it tricky to answer. I've done two days teaching, a morning of mentoring, meetings to arrange an event, Skype meeting with our Islet booking agent, 2 days of writing and rehearsing and some label and assorted admin.
The last two days doing Islet writing have been great. I feel we’re writing more efficiently than ever before. We were planning on recording this week but decided to get everything sharpened up a bit and will record next week instead.
I’ve done a lot of miles in the car and as a result, I’ve listened to a lot of podcasts and music. I can strongly recommend listening to NOSAJ THING ‘Fated’ and the Tiny Desk Concerts podcast.
Today we are sitting by the fire, catching up, drinking tea and working out the logistics for our Islet gig in Sheffield next weekend. Looking forward to it.