Reasons I'm smiling....

So Reader, yesterday I was on a train home, grinning to myself, when I overheard a lady kiss her teeth and say 'I don't know what SHE's got to smile about'. So I thought I'd share some things. In the hope that it infects. Maybe it'll get back to her and she'll not be able to help but use some of those face muscles! 

REASONS I AM SMILING GORMLESSLY

1. My train station is on a hill. Which means on my way home, I get to run down it, giggling to myself. I do this every time I come back alone, even if there are other commuters. It is JOLLY GOOD FUN.
2. I am getting to spend time with lots of my fabulous friends at the moment. Which I am LOVING.
3. Autumn/pre-christmas Winter is my favourite time of year, because of all the reasons in this video and more. I also start my Christmas prep in October, with Christmas pudding making and starting to hand design Christmas presents for my non-adult relations.
4. Halloween is just round the corner and me and two of my favourites have come up with a BRILLIANT costume idea
5. I am having some adventures in non-Englandy places soon-4 days in Italy with the parents, then 4 days in Ireland with the Partner In Crime and I can't wait!
6. I am really excited about a new career path that will hopefully run alongside my acting/vlogging/writing work. And I'm feeling motivated about it! Which is all jolly nice.
7. I have discovered exercise is actually giving me more energy than usual and am actually ENJOYING working out four times a week ( I know, feel free to throw shoes at my head etc)
8. I am baking on Wednesday. I blooming love baking.
9. Guardians of The Galaxy exists. And for that we should all be grateful.
10. Everywhere smells of autumn at the moment-my room has orange and cinnamon candles burning, walking home from the station I could smell bonfires and damp and roast dinner smell eminates from every home. Lush.
11. Curly One has moved into THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GROWN UP HOUSE and it is only 20 minutes on the train from me. Which is just deliciously delightful. And I was able to help her move in, which made me happy.
12. I got to catch up with my beloved make-up artist/prosthetics guru SJ this week. Long time followers of this blog may remember that SJ and I used to do cake shop reviews here-keep your eyes peeled on my vlogging channel-this Christmas, we are potentially doing a short Christmas series! Cakes, crafts and canny behaviour...
13. School kids are back in school. Which means the streets are mine again! (I love having non conventional working hours...)
14. This year, long flowy coats are in fashion. Which means walking round pretending to be a Daphne Du Maurier heroine
15. I was introduced to THE GREATEST TEA PLACE today at the Leicester Square Arts Theatre. It's called Madd Hatter's, and they make Tea Lattes. In flavours so wonderful you'll want to cry, like candyfloss. And they have Oreo cake. And iced tea that tastes like it has a bucket of sugar in but actually only has one teaspoon per TEN SERVINGS. I may never leave.

Anyway my dear darling lovely Reader, I hope you have lots of reasons for smiling too-and remember-you're all reasons for me to smile too!

Remember not to kick piles of leaves-hedgehogs like to sleep there

Ash

x

The lost romance of coaching...

Reader, I am back from 11 days performing at the Edinburgh Festival. What an experience! Getting in before 2am of a night was impressively puritanical, finding food that wasn’t beige and deep fried became a fun new game, as did booking shows that started ten minutes after another ended, but that were 20 minutes away. I slept on a mattress topper in a room with 3 other girls, and felt lucky that I had so much space to stretch out. I saw shows that made me laugh, shows that made me cry and shows that made me question if maybe the creator’s parents hadn’t been a bit too kind about their efforts. I used Skype for the first time and sent postcards to someone important who was still in London, when my parents visited I begged them to take me somewhere, anywhere where I could even look at a bit of lettuce. I drank shots from test tubes, did Jagerbombs, had a cocktail so strong my eyes hurt and a hangover so awful that we introduced a new method of flyering that involved laying on the floor. We almost sold out and then had a two person audience (who were bloody brilliant and apparently thought our show was the best thing they’d seen). My shoes fell apart in the rain, my clothes went through a wash yet somehow are STILL all stinky and have bits of booze and toothpaste on them and I overheard someone utter the eternally brilliant phrase ‘that man was just too Scottish’. Edinburgh, I shall miss you. On top of all of this was the beauty of the city, the meadows (which I fell in love with walking through alone with music playing in my ears first thing in the morning (by which I mean 11am) and last thing at night (4am), the laughter, the music, the magic.

And then. Then, dear, beloved reader, came the eight and a half coach journey home. Which I am still on as I write this. I am two and a half hours into it in fact. The heating by my feet is making my ankles sweat, the un-turn-off-able air condition above my head is giving me brain freeze and somehow, the whole bus already smells a bit of wee. Thankfully no one on here is drunk, and the inevitable two year old (who brings a two year old on a coach? Seriously?!) has yet to make a peep. However it is past midnight, and having already slept for an hour of the journey, my neck is in pain and my lower back is so squished I’m sure I’m going to be walking like Smeegol when I get off the damn thing. The reading light doesn’t work and really, shouldn’t all overnight coaches have plugs and beds by now? I thought it would be a little like the Knight Bus in Harry Potter but it’s actually just like a normal coach only full of hungover festival goers and with less lighting. I need to learn how to drive.

On this particular coach, we have the enormous family of 6 (with toddler) who don’t seem to understand where they’re going or what a coach is, a group of Chinese students who instantly annoyed the British contingent by not understanding queueing (cue instant tutting), some French performers who have already had a passionate row and complained to the driver, a large woman who won’t stop eating, a small man who keeps rushing to the loo (I don’t want to know), some really grumpy stand ups and a girl who has been quietly but audibly crying since we left the bus station. Or laughing very oddly. It’s sort of hard to tell.

Everyone else on the coach appears to be asleep or meditating in the dark, but after two weeks of only sleeping at 3am at the very earliest, I want to read my book or have a conversation. If I was still in Edinburgh I would probably be at a show right now. Or a bar. Or at the flat having a Skype date. But instead I am writing this blog entry. Which won’t go up till tomorrow, when I am face down in my bed. I cannot wait to be face down in my bed. I actually changed the sheets before I came out to Scotland in preparation.

Anyway, my laptop is running out of power and I reckon I might give sleeping another go-although being the only one on the coach awake makes me feel pleasingly like the badass kid in Battle Royale.

Have a fabulous day not on a coach Reader!
Ash

x