A Window of Opportunity

One of the joys of a holiday is the rosy afterglow that you remain in for a few days after your return home.

Last year I remember spending at least three days in the post holiday blues depression as I hadn't wanted to come home. This year however the holiday ran its natural arc and by the time the flight home came round I was ready.

We had a great two weeks. Lots of relaxing, lying by the pool and soaking up the rays and a humongous amount of fabulous food. We went out exploring for a day in a jeep. We heaved ourselves up into the saddle and set off uphill and down river on a horse riding morning, and we threw a pool party at our villa on the final Friday that was probably even more fun than the one we held last year. Peter, Julia, Sam, Martin, Vivian, Dave, comedy Turkish waiter's, and even the redoubtable Janice all added to what was a two memorable weeks.

It's hard to believe that as I sit here writing this on a Sunday lunchtime that it is literally only a week ago since we came back. The past seven days seem to have be action packed. I was supposed to start filming an episode of "Him and Her" on the Monday after our return, but mercifully this had been delayed for a week. In fact I started work on it at 7 AM this morning. Mercifully finished by 10 AM and now not back in studio until midweek. Having worked yesterday at The Actors Centre, this means that any thoughts of a weekend have been banished.

Last Monday saw a quick visit to check someone's presentation in town turn into a four-hour visit helping set up for the presentation technically and then watching them deliver it and givenotes. Tuesday morning found me at the Royal Marsden pretending to be a prostate cancer victim, and in the afternoon at The Actors Centre giving advice on presentation technique and autocue reading.

Wednesday saw me driving up to the Yorkshire to see Mum and take her shopping. She might not have the money any more but she certainly hasn't lost the desire! I spent Wednesday night in the same quaint little hotel which Rich and I stayed in back in April, and then on Thursday morning following a good hotel breakfast, I took Mum to the hairdressers in a downfall of pre-Ark dimensions which lasted for the rest of the day, or at least until my return journey got to Leicester. Then as though the country were divided by a band of rain for the grim North, and bright golden sunshine for the beautiful South, the skies cleared and I headed home. perhaps that's how it should be. Sunny South, rainy North, and snow, hail, sleet and a plague of locusts on Scotland!

Pub quiz beckoned on Thursday evening only for me to get a phone call from Mum to saying that some charming well brought up young Rotherham person had leaned through the window of her room at the old people's home and stolen her television. Words cannot express, nor eight columns of the Daily Mail contain, the anger that I felt.

I've been incredibly lucky never to have been burgled. Once when the drama school in the late 1970s, I was sitting in my bedsit with the door to the hall open and the front door of the house open on a long summers evening. I may have dozed off but something awoke me and I turned round to seeing a man searching the chest of drawers behind me. I think he was startled as me, as he obviously hadn't noticed me asleep in the chair and he took off at a rate of knots, mercifully with none of my possessions.

It's left me with fear of sitting in a room with my back to an open door, but other than that I am none the worse for it. As regular readers of this blog will know, my Mum is remarkably resilient. Her only expressed regret was that she didn't come into the room while they were leaning through the window trying to remove the television. I think we all know who would have come off worse.

My hope is that of course they have managed to sell the television for a fair sum to someone who will really benefit from it. I hope they can then manage to purchase a good amount of drugs with their reward, and I hope these drugs have been cut with as much lethal substance as it is possible to procure. I hope they've been given a nice bed in ITU near the door!

Its hardly a Christian thought and I'm not proud of it, but then stealing from an old people's home is hardly Christian either.

Mum now has a new television. I'm £180 poorer, and the world goes on.