I didn’t like to take any more photos since it was fairly busy, with it being a Bank Holiday weekend – the painting you can see next to my two is called Manhattan Sunset, painted in acrylic by an Lesley Webb – I’ve not heard of her before.

As well as the exhibition, which was situated upstairs in the West Wing (several rooms, actually), there were lots of other artworks on display (some of which were temporary and others permanent) along with a museum, a room dedicated to Amy Johnson and lots of rooms full of antique furniture etc. The grounds were full also today – there was a vintage (or was it classic??) car show and a display of jousting by some people who re-enact certain periods in history – not my cup of tea at all, but obviously very popular.

My favourite view of the day was the following snaps I took of some llamas that are resident within the gardens of the Hall:

Tuesday was a day of mixed activities for me. I started the day early as I woke up with a stinking headache at 7am. I have been trying to avoid taking painkillers as I think I have been a bit too dependent on them for my headaches, but Tuesday morning was an exception. I did the usual morning routine of feeding the fish in the pond in the garden, which is when I tend to sit and relax for a while on the bench next to the pond – I love to stare at the fish as they effortlessly move for their food. Then it was cat-feeding time, followed by their daily grooming (I have two long-haired cats so they need regular brushing and de-tangling to reduce the amount of knots and hopefully the amount of fur-balls they inevitably throw up everywhere!!!!).  Then I spent some time doing a bit of painting on my 3rd in the series of abstract geometric designs for the gallery in Bridlington.  By 8.30am I was ready for some breakfast. After that I switched the PC on and made a start on locating various poems for the Junior/Youth section members as part of their entries for the Hornsea Speech & Drama Festival. This took longer than I anticipated, as ever, as I was still at it later that morning, 11am. In between painting I then spent the rest of the day finalising the design of the ticket and posters for the show. This was not as fruitful as I expected, but I managed to complete all by late afternoon. Then I was starting to feel hungry as I had forgotten to get any lunch. I rehearsed a couple of the songs ready for the rehearsal that night, and by 6.30 I left for a meeting with the Secretary prior to the rehearsal.

The rehearsal on Tuesday night was the first “Floor” rehearsal. It is a first for me, as I have never been in a musical show before, but it is very similar to the early rehearsal we have at Bilton Amateur Dramatic Society for our plays. We call the process “blocking the play” and essentially you need to have every move on stage written in your script to remember along with your lines.

I was cast as one of the girls in the “Pro” line (yes, a prostitute!) which actually quite pleased me since it means that I have a little bit more to do than I would have if I’d been a chorus member alone. We had a lot of fun flirting with the male characters in the scene, pretending to steal them away from their “wives” (maybe they’d spotted a talent in me based on my real life experience!) and generally be quite forward! A bit of “movement” was included in all three songs, not really any dancing as such, but it was all choreographed throughout. I found the whole evening was hard work, but lots of fun! The three songs we rehearsed were “Twice In Love Every Day”, which is the opening number, “I’m A Busy Man” (Barnardo’s solo piece) and “We’ll Get Him” . The next rehearsal for the chorus isn’t until a week next Sunday, as the children’s rehearsals are taking place next Tuesday.

I can’t wait, but in the meantime I am busy preparing publicity material for the show in order to ensure we get as much coverage as possible!

We were joined by a prospective new member last night, which is always good news for the Society, but he is testing out several of the local societies to see where he wants to belong, so we are hoping we made a good impression!

This play will most likely be our next production in January 2010, provided we can cast it. I really hope so, as it is such an interesting and thought-provoking play, yet still has lots of humour and emotional scenes for the actors involved.

We will be meeting again next week to finalise the cast.

The next production is not until the end of June and even though this time I am not in the play I am still involved with building the set and sourcing props for it. Last week Keith (my husband and director of current production) and I bought a second-hand wall unit from Oxfam. It arrived mid-week but was not stable enough to use at first. So, yesterday afternoon we spent our time using wood glue and screws at various points to make it safe and ready for re-positioning at rehearsals.  We also borrowed a side table from my parents, which we collected and took to the theatre. The rest of the time was spent in altering an old hi-fi unit to make it look something like an old-fashioned TV cabinet and carting a host of spare pieces of furniture from the wings to the wooden container we use as a storage area.

I have recently painted on an old glass decanter with some burnt umber acrylic paint to make it look like a tobacco pot. I’m hoping the paint does not peel off, but will see how it goes at rehearsals.

The next stage of set preparation will be masking off any small gaps in the flats ready for decorating. That will be done within the next few weeks, since we have the luxury of our own theatre rather than having to rent a rehearsal place.