Well, the carpet does indeed look flipping wonderful. I can't believe how well it goes with the walls and stuff. Woo. And we got all the cables re-connected with no hassles and possibly a new way to keep some of them out of view, so that should be good for the future.

Today has been another one of low productivity for me. Blasted internet. Actually, I wouldn't have done much without the web to distract me - still feeling totally not bothered about things. Must do my best to have a good weekend which should help me do stuff next week. And then a week off for Christmas so if I come back feeling gloomy after that I'll have to start looking around again.

I was going to write a bit more on the trials and tribulations of past yuletide festivities but can't recall what I wanted to say now. Isn't that always the way! If it comes back to me I will try to jot it down sometime.

Instead I'll warp back to Primary School days and the dreaded Christmas Plays. Dreaded by the parents of course, I always enjoyed them. But then I did manage to get good parts in many of them. There were three infant and four junior classes at Panshanger Junior Mixed Infants (known to all as Panshanger JMI) meaning 7 epic productions for them to sit through, and one class always had to do the nativity while the others generally adapted fairy tales in a non-pantomime method.

Those I can recall being in were - a modern (well, for 1976) re-telling of the Christmas/Nativity story to a couple of alien visitors. I played one of the visitors wearing a "proper" spacesuit as borrowed from Graham Kirk.

The Nativity (natch) as Joseph. That year it was a shared role (as Joseph) between me and Frankie Connolly (Boo, hiss) so I only did two of the four performances. And I forgot to (a) lose the chewing gum before going on stage for one of them and then (b) my lines prompting me to turn my head skywards and ask "Oh God, what do say now"? to much amusement from the audience and annoyance from our teacher. Still, the tea towel on the head routine must have gone down OK as costume.

The Snow Queen - adaptation of the fairy tale. All that sticks in my mind on this one is jumping in with an ad-lib in one scene as I had somehow ended up with a non-speaking part and that was just not on after taking the lead in previous productions!

The Nutcracker - another adaptation. I was the toymaker who created the stuff in that one.

The other years have flown from my memory banks but I'm sure I was just as good in those!

After heading on up to Secondary School my acting was confined to Drama lessons in the first three years. There were big school productions put on once or twice a year, but they were strictly paying audience, big scenery, proper costumes, rehersals in your own time stuff and nearly always required singing so I gave them a miss. Anyway, we had a computer at home by then which was more fun to spend my free time on. We still went to see most of them though - Grease, Bugsy Malone, Dracula, The Wiz, Sweeny Todd etc and not just to laugh at the friends who had ended up on stage.

Hmm, time for another early finish today I think.