Monday 20 May 2019

Refreshing the blog

Welcome back, one and all!

This is the blog refresh after a good few months of no posting. Life has rather got in the way of things! As I intimated in my last post, I am finding that Twitter, my only social media stream, is fast becoming not fit for purpose really. Bombarded with negativity, I have bid a hasty retreat back to blogging as the best way of sharing what is going on in the world (although I will still be using Twitter, just less often).

So far in 2019 then... we took a wonderful trip to Yale in the coldest month of the year. Yes, we did wander round New Haven during the Polar Vortex of January! I really enjoyed working in the archive, though. The Ernst Toller papers were really fascinating: there was a lot in there about the Spanish Civil War - I hadn't realised how instrumental Toller was in getting world leaders to understand the plight of ordinary Spanish people. We had a fantastic couple of days in New York on the way home: exploring book shops in Brooklyn and watching the Knicks.

Since then, I have mostly been building towards new projects and working with my bright, talented third years on their production of Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros. They will be performing in Loughborough on the 5,6,7 June. We had a jolly time in Edinburgh over Easter, seeing friends and family. I took a little time out to work in the garden, my happiest place. Our rather late flowering bluebells are now making their entrance. We enjoyed a camping trip with friends in North Wales; it was the first time I have camped with D and the first time we had used our new tent. Apart from having to erect it in the wind (quite a challenge!) we had a brilliant time.

It's a busy week coming up in preparation for my trip to the States next week. I am giving the keynote at The Space Between conference. Here are some things I said in preparation. I am so excited to see a new part of the world and meet new folks. Then it is straight into Rhinoceros production week and, at the end of that, we have our first Wrestling Resurgence Loughborough show, 'Angry Dancing'. It's going to be the biggest show we have put on so far.

And then it is into a summer of research (hopefully). I have a good number of projects I want to move on with. We have a couple of holiday gaps too when we can enjoy travelling about a bit.

I will try and write a new post each month here in case you are interested in goings-on chez Warden. In the meantime, 'strength to you' if you are in the midst of marking and 'happy start of summer' everyone else.
CSW