School dinners and map reading

Hi,

We have finished the second week of Contes Dores tour. We have all driven lots, Paddy and I especially, as we travelled all the way up to Amble and back from our native south-west Durham. I have sewn, glued and sprayed lots! The show got much smoother last week, with our changes between scenes becoming less frantic. Emily, Mariae and Paddy are also remembering the order of the strike, which is very nice to see! We enjoyed school dinners at Murton community primary school and Hummersknott secondary! School dinners are a bit of a taboo for me!

This weekend I went to find a plastic apple and gold spray paint so I could respray the apples. One of the existing golden apples lost a stem, so I had to replace it...a very nice man at a fake plant shop gave me a golden delicious for free! I did some sewing as well, sorting out a basket lining, and making a new thing for the set so it looked a bit prettier.

This coming week we are going to stay in some B&Bs and hotels as we are in the far north of Northumberland for a few days. The following week sees us travel to Wakefield, Warrington and Glasgow, before half-term.

Speak soon

Jack

Busy, busy, busy

Hi everyone,

Since I last posted I have battled the snow trying to get to Aydon Castle Cottages where John and Sarah live. Paddy and I dropped the van there on the way back from Tunisia and it got snowed in pretty deep! I walked a mile one morning, from their house to my stuck car with armfulls of props I had to repair and remake. It was all fun though and I helped dig Sarah out a few times. I got all the props, education packs and costumes ready for the tour of Contes Dores to begin on Jan 18th. I also managed to do some database work for the office, as well as booking some hotels for us to stay in while on tour...aah the office life! I am enjoying it as much as the touring side of the job! It must be those lovely people who work there :)

We have now finished the first week of the tour. It has gone well, with lots of enthusiastic audiences and teachers. We are getting back into a good rhythm as a team now and I'm looking forward to the 5 weeks we will be spending on the road, once we are finished in the north east. We will be living in self-catering accomodation for a few weeks, which always creates a great bond between the crew.

Sorry for the delay in posts, but I have been very busy organising my first tax return!

I will post again before we are finished touring the north east.


Jack

Here are some photos of our time on the road to Tunisia...

Jack


Fethi looking gleeful as he sits in a right hand drive van! (Nabeul)




A night in the hotel bar with Jean-Louis, a Belgian lighting technician.






Me and dad in Dijon on the way through France.





Breakfast in Bruges...mmmmm!




Emily, Maria and I in Bruges main square.

Final episode of TSF goes to Tunisia

Thursday continued...John and I looked at the tree after dinner and decided the best solution was for him to hold it in the play tomorrow! Paddy and I played songs late into the night with some people from Morocco and Iraq, fusing their Oud with our baritone ukulele!

Fri 25th...I was awoken by mum and dad bringing me some little presents and breakfast. They told me to be at a venue for a champagne reception at 12, which I went to. There was no sign of anyone from TSF however, and I sat outside this building for 40 minutes, before deciding that they had gone somewhere else. When I left I forgot to take the key to the room and my brother was still asleep as he is ill. So I ate lunch in the hotel, waiting for anyone from our group, with no luck. Then I walked into Nabeul, to see if they were in town, which they weren't! When I got back to the hotel at half 3, they were all there and we went to see a wonderful show by Jose Navarro, a Peruvian who lives in London. Afterwards mum, dad and I went to drink some tea in a little cafe and had a wicked chat to the proprietor about life and politics and some other things! We had a christmassy table for dinner, at which I played the scrooge...bah humbug!! We played more cards in the bar afterwards, with Eleanor winning again! Paddy and I played some songs until the bar closed before going to bed. It was a strange christmas day that is for sure!

Sat 26th...Today we perform our last show, in the hotel again. I think Emily, Sarah and Mariae have been promoting it very well and there will be a lot of people from the festival there as well as a lot of kids. I am going to see if we can do it in a bigger space than the one we performed in on monday. If lots of older, bigger people turn up then the room will be stupidly cramped!

Sat 26th continued...We managed to perform in a bigger room in the hotel, although we had to persuade a hotel worker to let us as he was setting the room up for a wedding! The show went really well; lots of people from the festival turned up and really enjoyed it. Some children who had seen it on monday came to see it again...they were revealing the plot quicker than we could at times!! After the show I went to fill up the van with fuel with Fethi while Mariae went to buy us food for the boat journey. We were given some gifts in the hotel lobby by Hamedi at about midnight. TSF recieved a very nice tile with the festival logo painted on it...i'm sure that will go up in the office soon.

Mon 27th...We woke up early, had breakfast and packed the van. Said goodbyes to people who were up and drove to La Goulette, the port in Tunis. Boarding the boat was much easier than getting on and off the last one, and we sat down to some lunch and left pretty much on time. It is very empty compared to the journey the other way. Mariae and Emily hadn't been to bed all night and fell asleep soon after we finished lunch I guess. Stupidly, dad and I left the food in their room and now we are really hungry. We have knocked on their door lots and I slipped a note under their door proclaiming our dire state, but they are probably fast asleep!! Hopefully they will wake up soon...While we waited I wrote some verses of a very promising pirate song, part of my pirate album, which you will hopefully be able to buy in a store near you in the near future!! They didn't wake up by 8pm, so we went to get some food from the really expensive onboard restaurant. As we were eating Mariae came in. Oh well! We watched some films in french in our rooms before sleeping thoroughly.

Tues 28th...Got off the ship on time and drove straight out of Marseille into the french countryside. Mariae and I made sandwiches in the back of the van as Paddy drove and I took over driving after 3 hours. We arrived in Troyes at 8 and went for a massive meal in the same restaurant Paddy, Emily and I had gone to on the way down. We laughed lots, reminiscing about a pretty amazing past two weeks, and felt generally knackered by the whole experience. It was the last night of us all being together as Emily was leaving for Paris on the train the following day and we were driving to Zeebrugge. We stayed in the restaurant for a good 2 and a half hours before going back to the hotel.

Weds 29th...Emily got her train ok, I did a little bit of late christmas shopping for mum and dad and Paddy took lots of pictures of Troyes. Mariae drove most of the way to Troyes while I made us some hearty sandwiches in the back. Paddy took over for the last 60 miles and we managed to have a drink in a cafe in Zeebrugge before getting on the boat. Now we are waiting for the buffet to open before finishing off our Tunisian wine. Then its bed and Britain tomorrow morning! I am really looking forward to getting back to the cold, grim north!!! The buffet was good and we talked to one of the bar men who we had spoken to on the way down, he remembered us as we remembered him, which was nice!

Thurs 30th...Got off the boat and into the country really quickly. Sorted out Mariae at the train station in Hull and drove back up north. Paddy and I dropped the van off at John and Sarahs at about 2pm and were home by 3. WOWEEE...what an epic and thoroughly tiring adventure! It is strange how just sitting in a van all day can really take it out of you...

Anyways, thats the end of my Tunisian tales...I will be posting updates on how things are going throughout the year, in a much less diary orientated format...

Until then

Au revoir

Jack