Welocme to the weekend

'-"I've been thinking, Hobbes---"
-"On a weekend?" - Calvin & Hobbes
-"Well it wasn't on purpose..."

Have had a great weekend, doing enjoyable things.

Saturday: Had to get some posters for Habeas Corpus photocopied so, after an abortive trip to Chertsey ( an uninspiring and boring place, so much so that if you follow the link you'll find someone trying to sell you CD rom!) I ended up in nearby Shepperton, home of Shepperton Film Studios where all of the best early British films were made (and I believe some still are). This is a place that is frequently driven through by me to get to other places but I haven't visited it to shop for a long time, maybe 30+ years. Now I wish I had! It is still a small, local town centre reminiscent of the days when such places consisted of individual independently- owned shops with not a giant supermarket in sight. Shopkeepers actually stood in the doorway when not busy serving and wished passers-by a 'good morning'. Everywhere was very busy and happy and good-natured and I spent a considerable time there just browsing and enjoying the atmosphere. Did I just happen to catch it on a very good day?? I do hope not as these places are fast disappearing and should be cherished.
After this adventure it was home for lunch and then sorting out costumes acquired for
Habeas Corpus as PT was due to come round to discuss them. Jo and Thomas arrived to do a car swap with me and then Pete and his lovely wife, Kathleen, put in their appearance. Everyone stayed for supper (takeaway kebabs - delicious!), Kath, Jo, Thomas and I played 'Doggie Top Trumps' in the kitchen (Thomas won, of course, because he's an expert) and Pete and his Dad talked about family history in the living room. Then everyone went home.

Sunday: Early morning and David set off for the archery field and I set off for 'The Hut', official address of The Ottershaw Players, to do a bit of set building and painting and take the tea and coffee things. Managed to get more black paint on me than the thing I was painting but 'am I bovvered?' - no, as long as they let me into the pub for lunch, which they did. Pete had been given a free lunch by John, the landlord, so he and Kath came too and David joined us after a hard morning shooting arrows. Food was great, as ever.
Back home, David to read his book (that means one paragraph and then zzzzzzzzzzzz.......) and me to wash cups from morning's coffee at the Hut and get together costumes to take to evening rehearsal at Brook Hall so that Pete can take publicity photos.
Then it was time to go to Brook Hall for an evening of fun, laughter and maybe a few bad tempers. It started well and we had a bit of fun and laughter but this was unfortunately interrupted for about an hour by a chap crashing his car into a phone box opposite the hall. One of our actors was out by the door having a quick smoke at the time and was one of the first on the scene. Emergency services were quick to arrive but they had to wait for the firemen to cut the roof off the car to gain access to the driver. This shook everyone up somewhat but after cups of tea/coffee it was time to soldier on. The evening ended a bit earlier than usual and a couple of tempers got frayed (one of them being mine) but most of the cast and crew ended up in the pub again so a fairly pleasant end to the evening. I do hope the chap in the car was OK.

Monday: To the Hut at 10am to collect stuff for our stall at The Ottershaw May Fair. David was dragged along to help (he's got a bigger car than most others) then off to the field to set it all up. The weather forecast had promised heavy rain all day but, I'm glad to say, they were wrong and it wasn't bad at all - a bit chilly but we didn't get wet. However there were a few heavy gusts of wind and the stand next to ours, which was borrowed from a market trader and consisted of a heavy metal frame and plastic sheet, took off and landed on top of a couple of cars parked nearby damaging the roof of one of them. This was duly sorted, without anyone coming to blows I'm glad to say, and we went on to have an enjoyable day promoting our show to the good people of Ottershaw and beyond.
After packing up and putting everything away it was back home to think about dinner and what to have. As if on cue, Jo and Thomas arrived to return tto do a return car swap and suggested we go to an 'eat as much as you like' Chinese restaurant. After much persuation (well none actually) we made our way there and ate our fill - yum, yum.

Lovely, lovely weekend - some of it planned, some of it not. Not all of it fun I'm afraid but that makes me appreciate the good bits more.

How was yours??