claytoncast

When I was at school, I used to hate it when Christmas fell on a Friday, one week away from when we had broken up. A week of anticipation, hidden parcels and mounting frustration. Then finding oneself with only a week left to pack full of enjoyment before the January return to school. It’s a little like that this year. Work done, and only the odd zoom call this week with four days more before we can have what remains of Christmas. We are very lucky that our plans were to spend Christmas at home for only the second time in our 24 years together. Having cancelled a visit to see a friend in pantomime on Sunday, we are not going to Devon to see Richard’s family after Christmas. Yet we are on course for the Christmas we wanted. I’m using this week to send messages to those people I haven’t contacted during the past year. It’s not that I want my address book to be any thinner, But it has sometimes been hard to keep in touch with people one sees. There have been no lunch meetings, no afternoo

A Time for Home In all the 24 years that we have spent together, Richard and I have only ever spent one Christmas together at home. Three years ago, I gave up the unequal struggle of trying to entertain my Mum for the festive holiday as her health had deteriorated, and we hunkered down in our home for the festive frolics. Only for three days, and Christmas lunch was taken out at a restaurant so it was no great hardship. A time to enjoy a home we love at a special moment in the year. Last year we were busy preparing for a once in a lifetime trip to Australia. Three weeks in Sydney, Melbourne and the Hunter Valley. We had the most amazing time. Such a holiday meant we saw nothing of our home last Christmas. No tree went up, no bundle of exciting packages lying under it. No overstocked fridge, and on the sunny beaches of St Kilda in Melbourne, no need for Christmas jumpers. I think if when we were told to lockdown in March, we had known that we would still be under strict limitations at C

I’m not a patient person. I never have been. Waiting is not my forte. If I want something, I want it now. At this time of year, it can be an infuriating trait. My partner has often heard me express needs and wants in the months leading up to Christmas and made a mental note how exciting it would be for me to find that item in my Christmas stocking. His disappointed irritation is quite understandable when he finds that two or three days later, the aforementioned object of desire arrives from Amazon. I just couldn’t wait for it. One quality that would stand all of us in good stead at the moment is patience. I heard a wonderful saying yesterday that seemed so apt on a day when the government once again played with our lives, as though we were of no worth. The phrase was “I haven’t come this faronly to come this far.” I’ve had no support from the government, and I am grateful that I am not in a position to be desperate for it, but that’s only because I have been lucky enough to continue to

 For the last couple of weeks I have been lucky enough to be viable. Creating a virtual conference for a major global brand which will eventually go live this Thursday. It’s been a long, but engaging process with many ups and downs, but I’m very grateful for its part in my life. Otherwise, like so many of my peers, I would have no contact whatsoever with the world in which I work. I’ve been out and about filming and spending days in the studio, and if one tends to ignore the sight of people’s face-masks, and the Covid Marshall vigilantly keeping an eye on our distancing, it would seem to have been work as usual. Yet every day there has been a feeling in the pit of my stomach that I should be at home. I am 63 years of age and the government would term me to be mildly obese. Lockdown hasn’t helped and a hitherto subdued passion for chocolate digestives has risen to the fore. Having the time to cook decent meals hasn’t helped either, and both lunch and dinner have often featured a dessert

Since March, our home has been more than our home. It’s been our life. Our sanctuary. We are very lucky. We have lots of space, so have been able to work from home in separate rooms, coming together for meals and lockdown telly.  We have outside space in the form of a rather beautiful balcony level with the treetops where we can sit and have lunch or a drink in the evening, or fall asleep on a sun bed with a book on a hot afternoon.  Spending so much time in our home has meant that one has started to want to change things. We haven’t got to the point of approaching the estate agents, but we’ve had new windows put in, installed a dishwasher at long last and treated ourselves to little luxuries like new bedding, and new wine racks. I’ve got my eye on redecorating the second bedroom, the facias on the kitchen cupboards could do with a revamp, and I am wondering if we could fit a plunge pool underneath the plastic ivory trellis on the balcony.  After our wonderful five days boating holiday

There's been an awful lot going on for all of us in the last six months, and we still aren’t out of the woods yet as they say. I think the one thing I have still to come to terms with is a sense of loss. Loss of my way of life. We all threw ourselves into lockdown with the blitz spirit. I remember when it was announced that I might have to spend twelve weeks in such a state, I thought it an impossibility. Yet twenty weeks later and my life is still not in any way back to the shape it was, and I’m carrying on. I don’t go out for meetings. As a freelancer my meetings used to take place in other peoples offices and many of them have not reopened those offices. My day would be a journey to the meeting, a meeting, lunch with a mate and then back home for a nap, or dinner with my better half and an evening in front of the box. We have had no shortage of the latter. Saturday night movie night. Monday to Friday — TV and Netflix night. We’ve seen some fabulous stuff, _Succession, The End Of

So we got all the money everybody was screaming for. Probably more than we asked for, and then with an irony that can't have escaped many of us, we were told "off you go, but no shows."  At the time of writing it increasingly looks like the government has cancelled Christmas. Now we are witnessing the unedifying spectacle of Johnson absolutely shitting himself himself about the mistakes he's made.  Only a few weeks ago it was "it'll be all over by Christmas." I think we've all heard that somewhere before. Now it seems like the government are coming to the recognition of the fact that our own particular Battle of the Somme is yet to come. and if that is the case, then there is no place for people gathering for entertainment. The worrying thing about the large sum of money that the government granted the arts, is that most of it seems to be being spent on buildings rather than people. Sadly one hears every day of people who are leaving the industry. Gr

We have found ourselves in a situation which no one could have imagined. I’m not talking about a global pandemic. Evidently governments have done dry runs of such a possibility and failed miserably. I’m talking about a world in which a 99 year old man has to walk around his garden on a walking frame in order to fund the NHS. I’m talking about a world where a footballer has to point out to the Prime Minister that children will starve during the summer holidays if meal vouchers are taken away. Both Major Tom and Marcus Rashford did amazing work and are to be applauded and thanked. We in the theatre world however seem to be still looking for someone to lead us in our action against the pandemic.  Or should that be against the government? Loosening the lockdown on Tuesday, the government’s very own Tintin, Boris the Bumbler, said “I’d like to go to the theatre again.” The scientists stood by looking like a shifty version of the Thompson Twins. Reluctant to wholeheartedly back Tintin’s

All of us have had a lot of up and downs as a result of the self-imposed imprisonment that we have been suffering from for the last 12 weeks.  I remember the government announcing the fact it would be 12 weeks for most people to have to stay indoors and thinking what an incomparably long amount of time that was. Yet in many ways it seems to have flown by and become our accepted way of life. It has brought many changes and made many things harder for many of us. I find the hardest point of any day is the moment my head lifts from the pillow and I slowly gain full consciousness of the world I am about to enter. I want to stay out of it all. Getting up in the morning has not been this hard since the fourth form. I've had a few blowouts of the "I'm just not going to take it any more" variety, more often than not provoked by having to watch the imbecilic behaviour of various politicians on the 5 o'clock government comedy show. I fully understand that nobody has found t

I haven’t blogged for ages. It's all been a bit of a shakeup. I hurled myself into lockdown thinking, ‘Okay here we go. Let's find things to do.’ I enrolled on a criminal psychology course which I'm still working hard at and doing quite well, I’m 32.5k words into my second novel, but getting frustrated by having to do all my research on locations on Google Earth. The foremost thing was that the charity of which I'm a proud patron, Grimm and Co was in danger of losing an open day at the fabulous new premises we have bought in my hometown of Rotherham. May 2nd should have seen us throwing open the doors to what was the Talbot Road Methodist Church and let the public in to see and hear examples of the children's work. Many of the children who the brilliant staff at Grimm and Co deal with in writing clubs, are on the autistic spectrum or suffer from problems such as ADHD and for them lockdown has been difficult. So the chance of being able to zoom in on writing clas

"Cut back on things that get in the way and find space for the nice things. Rather than trying to satisfy everyone, find an hour for coffee with the person you really like."  When I wrote those words in my last blog entry on January 11 this year as a sop to the idea of New Year resolutions, I little realised just how they would be implemented.  Life has changed beyond our comprehension. Yet looking at those words, I find that there is space for the enjoyable things. And the great joys of my day are a Zoom chat or a FaceTime coffee with a friend or two. A definite appointment making a definite amount of time free to look eye to eye and chat.   The site of forty also my loveliest friends and acquaintances all in little boxes on my screen on a Thursday night doing quiz night together bring me untold joy.    I'm still having difficulty finding space. The amount of work done having to do seems to have spread among the virtual days in the office, but more than ever now I&

I’m never sure at which point it becomes politically incorrect to keep on saying Happy New Year. I’m still including it in emails at the moment, but I think by the end of next week I’ll probably have to knock it on the head and accept that 2020 is here and it’s no longer new.  2019 went out with a bang in many ways, but most obviously with a long planned trip to Australia which did turn out to be the holiday of a lifetime. Simply from the point of view distance, when you arrive in Australia you feel the need to enjoy yourself as you’ve travelled all that way. And sometimes stepping away from things can bring clarity. You don’t necessarily need to go to Australia, but the beginning of the New Year is a good time to stand back and take stock. An awful lot of self-help homilies keep appearing on my Facebook feed and I have to resist the urge to click on mute or block each time they do, but there does seem to be a trend. Instead of saying what we will do in 2020, it might help all o