claytoncast

It’s been a year of screen firsts for me. Kissing, scenes of high romance and now becoming a granddad. It’s been a hectic week. Mum had a bad weekend last weekend, which necessitated a Sunday afternoon drive up to Yorkshire and an overnight stay. Tuesday saw a long day trip to Jersey – weekend break potential I feel having now seen the island – and there has been sessions of corporate training. In the midst of all this, on Wednesday I spent a day on “Peep Show 7” Peep Show has been a glorious job for the last four years. The team on it are delightful. The scripts are fun and we have a laugh when we are making it. Wednesday saw me return to Netherwylde Farm in Herts. where we filmed most of the stuff for my first ever scenes back in 2007. Then it was covered in snow and we froze in our trailers and had lunches in barns around campfires. Wednesday saw the last burst of summer and as my driver turned into the paddock where the unit base was, there was an atmosphere of cou

It’s really hard loving someone at a distance. Rich flies off to New York tomorrow for a week and I will, as always really miss him. Not just the fact that there is space in the tooth mug in the bathroom, or no morning tea in my keep warm mug waiting for me on waking, but there will be a huge space in my life for five whole days. Sure we’ll Skype and email. I will forward him his regular doses of East Enders, though after all the screaming in The Vic last week I really can’t imagine anyone would want to watch it, but I will miss him enormously. After a busy Tuesday this week, with a couple of jobs dealt with despite the efforts of Bob Crowe and his cronies, I headed off to Yorkshire on Wednesday to spend a couple of days with my Mum. Mum is 88 and is fiercely independent. She’s incredibly active. Recently she’s been forced to become more housebound due to a bad attack of sciatica. “It’ll go” she says, “we just have to wait”, though her patience with her own company is we

There's been a nip in the air this week and Autumn seems to be working its way into our lives once more. Autumn is one of my favourite times of the year. The darkening nights, the crisp smoky smell in the air, the golden carpet of the falling leaves and the childhood sense of anticipations as fist Bonfire Night and then Christmas approach. I also loved it because of the curtains. As a child my room at the back of the house attached to my parents shop had thin unlined curtains. Fantastic in winter as lights twinkled mysteriously through the thin patterned cotton, but as soon as Spring and summer approached, the daylight still outside as I tried to settle down to sleep spoke of missed opportunities and a day not yet finished. Then Autumn, when each night the glow through the curtain became less each night and bedtime seemed to have arrived at the right point in the day. Autumn always marks a change in my work calendar. After the summer break of July and August when corporate works is