Earlier and earlier every year....

So Reader, if you've followed my blog for a while, it will come as no surprise to you that Christmas is my most favourite time of year. I get craft crazy, bake all the time, generally wander round with a face like a child in a Dickens novel who's just been given entry to a toyshop.

To make sure I don't go too mad I generally instate a rule that I can't do Christmassy stuff before the 1st of December. Which means no Christmas music, food, films or decorating. Every year though, my addiction takes hold a little more, and I find excuses to get the season going earlier and earlier. Going to the annual Taste of Christmas fair with my gorgeous make up artist friend SJ (remember her? from the cake blogs?) in late November now gives me an excuse to get outrageously excited a bit early. Going to my boyfriend's hometown to have Advent Sunday dinner with his family and old friends is also going to allow me to have mince pies in November (because it would be SO RUDE not to) and the fact that I have an enormous Irish Catholic family who keep having babies means I have had an excuse to start shopping and crafting since the first of November. Last year I spent a week filming in Portugal in December so I managed to convince my housemate that we had to decorate the flat in November so we'd still get the full levels of Christmassy vibes.

Don't get me wrong, I'll still be mostly sticking to my rules-no Christmas films before 1st December (and yes, that includes Christmas TV-re-runs of Kirsty Alsops homemade Christmas and Nigella's Christmas specials are like crack to me), no christmas music on the ipod before 1st December, no opening Christmas magazines (now sat tantalizingly at the end of my bed) no reading A Christmas Carol or putting a Christmas theme on my laptop....

but...

I may have already burnt a Christmas scented candle or three....
and made Christmas pudding....
and have my home made wreath on my bedroom door...
and given my boyfriend a 'Christmas decoration starter kit' for his flat...
and coerced him and also curly one to let me come and help decorate the second they want to feel Christmassy....
And read all the Christmas catalogues from all the supermarkets and planned all the food (because they don't count...right?)

Oh dear...

Elf
x

Erm...I mean,
Ash
x

Night shooting...

Reader, it is 3.30 in the morning and I am halfway through my second night shoot in two nights. I am starting to go a little doolally. We're all that kind of exhausted where you end up having long discussions that go round and round and round, then you find yourself trapped in a discussion loop that you can't escape from. We've all just had burgers and mash, which felt weirdly indulgent in the middle of the night and we're slightly juddery from too much Diet Coke and coffee.

I quite like the whole night shoot thing. I think. But you might have to ask me again when I'm actually awake, because I'm pretty much hallucinating pink elephants at this point.

We're at the point of looking up people we fancy and trying to explain exactly why we fancy them to non-believers. The costume mistress and I have just been attempting in vain to justify our Domnhall Gleeson adoration to a confused male lead and first AD. Apparently the phrase 'I like men who look like serial killers till they smile, then they look like puppies' does not fully make sense. To be fair it is almost 4am and our brains are scrambled.

Someone is in the hallway singing 80s rock and more than half of the crew are dangling off the balcony getting a nicotine fix as the rest of us just barely stay awake.

Being this tired is a bit like being drunk, it makes me soppy and emotional and wanting to tell everyone how great everyone else is. I wax lyrical about my family, my cat, my boyfriend, my friends, my old housemate, my doctor, to anyone who will listen (or who will at least stay still for long enough for me to realise I'm monologuing).

My belly is bloated with catering table chocolate and bread and I need to go to sleep, work out and have a green smoothie or ten. Outside the window, we have a view of Tower Bridge that you'd normally pay a fortune for-it's so stunning that every time one of us looks up we gasp, even though we're all dreaming of heavy duvets and soft pillows. It's times like this being an actor is wonderful, when the cast and crew have all bonded and are laughing over new in jokes, using a private language that will vanish with the packing away of the equipment and you're seeing and doing things most people can't even conceive. When you're all on the brink of tired, slightly hysterical tears but also excitably nervous to see the finished product and everyone looks a bit like a recovering drug addict, because let's face it, no one looks good at 4.30am.

In another 3 and a half hours I'll be in my own bed, sleeping guiltily as everyone else rises.
And I'll probably still want more chocolate.
Ash
x

p.s. watch my new series of vlogs! Letters to Autumn