Hello 2015...

Ok. So in all reality, I should have written this blog post in January, not *looks at calendar* MIDWAY THROUGH FEBRUARY?! Bloody hell Reader, what happened?



Ok, so 2015 has been ridiculous so far. Pretty much from the second day in I've been so awash with auditions, acting jobs, teaching jobs, coaching gigs, social life stuff etc that I've not even dyed my hair yet (I think I actually have more root going on at the moment than I ever have before...seriously, it looks like a bar of chocolate dipped in carrot juice). Add to that the fact that a huge proportion of people I love were born at this time of year and you have a very expensive, very busy chunk of time...and now I have roughly a kajillion hen do's to attend as well because I am now of an age where half my friends are getting married and the other half have taken up very expensive hobbies. Like having children.

Saying that, I wouldn't have it any other way- we're both so busy and skint, the gorgeous boyfriend and I now don't feel guilty having dates where we refuse to leave the house (time spent in comfy clothes watching cartoons, cooking and playing each other music we used to listen to when we were young and stupid-or younger and more stupid-is utter bliss when our lives are so frenzied). I love having regular acting work and the projects I'm working on at the moment are interesting and varied. And of course, since I've been working so hard, I've felt no shame in booking two holidays for later this year!

I am pretty stunned looking at my diary though. Every other weekend contains a wedding, a hen do or acting work. I have wisely booked my second holiday at the end of the wedding season (when Rob and I will be so full of cake, debt and booze that a week in Tuscany sunning ourselves and weeping gently into bowls of pasta will be required). I am actually quite impressed that I am of an age where not only am I perfectly able to book hotels, hen do's, travel etc for weddings, but that I also book my own holidays. When did that happen? I'm pretty sure last week I was blissfully unaware of the price difference between flying on a weekend in school holidays and flying in a time when no one wants to travel, and the only thing I had to worry about when going to a wedding was if I could remember all the moves to the macarena.

It's looking to be a pretty fantastic year-loads of juicy acting jobs to sink my teeth into, a producer role on a film I'm very passionate about getting made, adventures to plan, family time to enjoy, friends to hang out with and celebrate massive events with and a man who not only loves me but also has taught me the joys of popcorn mixed with malteasers. 2015-I think we're going to get on.

Ash
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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

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Hanging out with Parents...

Reader, I have never been a particularly trendy human being. I have an hourglass figure which mean most fashionable clothes look positively ghastly (in other news, how brilliant is THAT phrase?!) on me, I don't like the taste of beer and I was only 'in the know' about music for about 5 minutes when I was 17. Most awkwardly of all, I actually get on with my parents. I even like spending time of them. Reader, I enjoy introducing them to my friends. I know, cast me out, send me to the uncool corner with the granny pants and B*witched.

But it's true! I tried to do a bit of Kevin-The-Teenager style whinging when I was 15 but to be honest it was usually followed by us all slumping down to watch Sex and The City together and throwing bits of dinner at each other. We regularly go out for dinner together and have a brilliant time laughing till we cry. We're about to go on holiday together to Italy. I was actually delighted when a photoshoot got cancelled this morning because it meant I could go for coffee with my mum. Me and my dad went and had a lovely picnic and open air theatre evening last week.

When my younger friends talk about how they don't get on with their parents, I often sagely say how time makes you realise how precious they are, but in all honestly, my parents have always also been two of my closest friends.

Ok, so maybe it's because they're a bit younger than most parents I know-or at least look younger. They used to be punks (which all my mates thought to be the coolest thing ever), my dad has tattoos and when I got various parts of my body pierced or tattooed, they'd be the first to want to see and be impressed by them. When I smoked my first spliff aged 18 I phoned them up and my Dad wound me up on purpose because he thought it was funny (I didn't actually do many drugs after that even though they were readily available-my parents had told me young about what you experience when you take them, so there was no mystery or thrill. I am still somewhat bored by drug culture). My mum has better knowledge of music than me (she regularly rolls her eyes in the car when I don't recognise the latest Rhianna or Katy Perry song) and my Dad has been clubbing more times than me this year.

Now, don't get me wrong, my parents have never spoiled me (which, in my opinion is one of the reasons we get on so well). They didn't see the point in kids having designer labels (now I'm an adult, neither do I) and my school bags were normally the free laptop bags dad would get from work events with a housing association name printed across the side. We always ate what they ate (which resulted in some strange food quirks-from a young age I was obsessed with olives and pistachio nuts and my brother was a red meat addict at age 4) with no room for compromise and they were strict about homework. Junk food was only allowed on special occasions and I didn't have my first Burger King till age 8. Rudeness was not tolerated, and we were taught from a young age to care about social injustice (which led to both my younger brother and I occasionally putting ourselves in the way of danger to protect others). When I wanted a pet, they made me do an in depth project on the species that involved phoning up local vets, RSPCA shelters and going to the library for weeks on end before they would consider it.

One of the most fantastic things my parents did was take me and my younger sibling travelling. Between the two of us, we've been to some incredible places, had some truly bizarre experiences and tried some seriously dodgy meals, and I think it's been an amazing learning experience. I spent most of from when I was 3-4 sleeping in caravans, on floor-beds in Asia and on planes, trains and buses (which now means that I fall asleep in nearly every moving vehicle I travel in). My playmates ranged from local kids in Fiji who didn't speak a word of English but showed me how to ride a waterfall like a water slide, to a variety of weird and wonderful animals (I became BFFs with a Cane Toad and then got very upset when none of the people in the restaurant wanted to stroke it). A couple of years ago we spent a month travelling across Vietnam, which was a wonderful experience-particularly for my younger brother, who had never seen Asia. Thanks to my brilliant parents, I have a huge volume of memories in my head that I know I'll be able to tell my kids like Roald Dahl tales as they drift off to sleep.

So yeah. I'm really glad that I'm uncool enough to love hanging out with my parents. Even if that does make me an epic geek.

Have a lovely week Reader! New vlog will be out on my youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/magenta/videos tomorrow at 11.30am!
Ash
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