Patches of Hidden Icing

Did I say I was back? I seem to have neglected my blog for almost another month. Not only have I been spreading myself thinner than Becel margarine on a weightwatcher’s rye cracker, but thing after thing has been going wrong and, strangely, I just haven’t felt like publicly whinging about it – damn this year of the pink toilet!

But now it’s time for some shameless advertising, kicking off with this season’s Poetry & Jazz – the food edition. What with the play, the move and all the calamities, I said to myself that I wasn’t going to do Poetry and Jazz this autumn. I spoke to myself sternly in the mirror every morning and said I simply didn’t have the time, no matter how much Joel twisted my arm.

But Joel left my arms alone and unleashed puppy eyes on me; and at the last moment I found myself not only doing Poetry and Jazz, but performing (and therefore memorising) two poems and a 1,600–word story!

The full-length version of Turkey Wrangling was originally written as a sort of pastiche of Joel’s Turkey Hills series and is therefore set in the fictional town of the same name in Massachusetts. For some reason that now escapes me, I therefore decided I would do all the speech in an American accent…

Joel, who grew up in Massachusetts, gave me a few pointers. He didn’t, however, comment after my first accent rehearsal. I finally plucked up the courage to ask him about it in the pub afterwards. The reply? He hadn’t ‘noticed anything untoward’. Err … hadn’t noticed I was doing it, or hadn’t noticed anything hideous? Hadn’t noticed I was doing it! I attempted to take this as a complement, figuring that if he hadn’t noticed, it can’t have been so diabolical, nor had I gone all cringingly Southern belle on everyone’s ear holes, as is the unfortunate tendency.

However, after tonight’s final rehearsal – still no comments from Joel – I remain convinced that my American accent sucks ear and I have no one to blame but myself.

Oh, and I still don’t have any curtains.