We went to the Warehouse Theatre yesterday to see "Some Kinda' Arizona" about a brother who re-discovers his sister, who disappeared nine years previously. It's about memories, and lives ruined by the absence of their loved one without explanation, and the connections people have.
The tone of the play, which we thoroughly enjoyed and recommend, by the way, seemed quite similar to that of the book I've just finished "A Fool's Alphabet" by Sebastian Ffaulks, which is also about memories and loss and connections between people, in a life told piecemeal in non chronological order.
They brought back memories of my own life, and the years that Ed was working overseas while I was at home. After a while (3 years, in fact) we realised that he had to come home or take us with him, otherwise we wouldn't survive as a family, because you can't live in a state of constant grief and yearning for the one missing - there comes a point when you have to pick up the pieces and forge a new life - and then if they're not permanently gone, the danger is their return is an unwelcome intrusion in the life achieved, instead of a welcome return to the old life.
Which brings me to thoughts of the Mc Cann family, and how they must soon begin to let go of Madeleine and forge a new way for their family without her, or live in limbo forever.

Our cat used to live round the corner and be called Poppy before her owners left and she didn't. She has lived almost exclusively with us for the last seven years, under the pseudonym Six Dinner Sid, as we originally shared her with several other feeders until she decided to move in.

The arrangement suited us all, as not being really our cat, and knowing she gets extra food elsewhere, we have always felt relaxed about not making holiday plans for her. Except when my cat-phobic Mum comes to stay, when we put her in a cattery, but that doesn't count; otherwise we just rely on her getting fed by the neighbours. (Before anyone gets upset about this, the one time we arranged for Dorothy to feed her, and took Sid and a box of food across the road, she never went there all week.)

But this summer we went away for over a fortnight instead of our usual week or 5 days. And when we returned, we find that Sid has taken her custom elsewhere. She still occasionally calls for an extra dinner, but when she does, she is soon asking to leave again and we don't see her again for a day or two.

This hasn't gone un-noticed by our peripheral cats. Buddy, or "He's No Buddy of Mine" as Sid calls him, has grabbed the opportunity to make free with Sid's unwanted dinners and has also become much friendlier and taken to staying in the house for longer and longer, even spending the night quite recently.

And the little ginger kitty from next door is also losing her shyness and peeping in the kitchen door from time to time.

Just so long as there's a cat about, it doesn't really matter which one!

is a trying and frustrating experience, judging by our struggles this week to get our nursery up and running in time to open on Monday coming.

We have had a complete refurb over the summer, as phase one of our new Children's Centre development, but were promised that the builders would be out by last weekend. They weren't.

But promised that we could at least have our office by Monday, and work alongside the tradesmen in the rest of the nursery. When we left today, they were still finishing off in our office and tradesmen were still busy everywhere else we wanted to be too.

We have given up all hope of having the creative end safe to use by Monday, as they are still installing the kitchen and the boiler and shelving in the cupboard, etc., etc., and concentrated today on getting the other two indoor areas ready, as the garden is due to be completed on Saturday. We had been promised our large display boards today, too.

The display boards may now arrive tomorrow, but we have at least got the two areas finished, apart from the displays and minus doors on the store cupboards and of course not yet having been cleaned after the workmen's efforts to put dust everywhere.

Our clothes pegs are in a temporary place until next week; our message pockets and registration boards are not yet fixed up ... and do you think my hair is a little greyer than last week?

Possibly.

Here I am home again, after my trip to York to do a spot of filming for the BBC! Just to prove it, the picture shows me with interviewer Lowri Turner, and my proud Mum beaming in the background.

I was contacted a while ago by Helen Rogers, who had read my Wedding Dress webpage asking if I would be interviewed for an edition of the BBC TV programme called "Inside Out" featuring the Wedding Dress Ball in York. My remit was to talk about the history of wedding dress style through the 20th century. Naturally I agreed to do the show (!) and yesterday was the day of the filming.

Mum and I arrived at "Elizabeth's of York" at 2.30pm as requested, to find we were the first to get there. We knew we were at the right place though as there was a man with a large camera on a tripod standing nearby, obviously waiting for the rest of the film crew.

We went into the shop, to be greeted by some rather disgruntled staff, who weren't very keen to see us on their busiest day of the week, and hoped we would be done and gone in half an hour, as we were inconveniencing their customers and they had had to cancel some ladies as it was. Did I know how many people to expect and how long it would take? I admitted I didn't know anything, but I'd been told an hour. They were horrified and even less gruntled than before. Good for them for prefering to consider their customers first, but Mum and I felt rather awkward. We sat down to wait, and enjoyed watching two girls trying dresses on in front of the mirrors.

Then Helen Rogers arrived, with another lady, the camera man and a sound man. We were all introduced, which led to a slight misunderstanding as the camera man thought that I was the Elizabeth of York the shop belonged to and started asking my permission to move a sofa! But he and Helen soon charmed the shop assistants and converted one of the trying on bays into a mini interview corner, by moving said sofa and a dummy displaying one of the many beautiful gowns the shop had to offer. The others teased the camera man about his smart white trousers and he admitted that when his wife heard he was filming in a wedding gown shop, she wouldn't let him out in his usual scruffy jeans!

Then Lowri Turner arrived and went off to change into her very nice outfit for the interview. We sat down together and Helen ran over the sort of thing she wanted us to discuss and left us to it. Lowri Turner was not only extremely pleasant, but very professional. She asked all the relevant questions and encouraged me with tiny hand gestures and flickering winks as I replied. We had to repeat a few sections as the shop door bell, or the cash register bell interrupted, and we went over other points again on Helen's request. When we'd come to a natural conclusion she asked for specific questions to be included, or expounded upon, until she was satisfied.

We then did the "reverses", where Lowri asked the same questions again, with the camera pointing at her instead of me, while I did nothing. And that was it! We filmed for about an hour, but of course it will be cut down to a couple of minutes within the programme as a whole. I suspect the only bits to be included will be some of the particular questions Helen wanted repeating. It was a fun experience though.

The programme will go out on 3rd October, but only in the Newcastle and possibly Leeds BBC regions, so I won't see it on air myself. Helen has promised me a CD however.

I was a bit disappointed not to see any of the other people taking part in the programme, but their sections were all filmed elsewhere, and the crew were going on to the actual Wedding Dress Ball to interview some of the guests after my segment.

Helen had mentioned something about me being filmed in my wedding dress, so I dutifully took it with me, but managed to avoid actually putting it on, in the end. I got it out back at Mum and Dad's and put it on for them to see, as they hadn't seen it since the big day 30 years ago. I took Dad by surprise as he was reading the papers, and his eyes filled with tears as he saw me "Ahh! That was a wonderful day, wasn't it?" he asked. "You look just the same." Which all goes to show that there's nothing quite like your parents for boosting your morale.

We have just renewed our membersip of Croydon's Warehouse Theatre and purchased a special three play deal on tickets. On Friday night we saw the first of our three plays - Ray Brown's "Vacant Possession."

It is set in 1986, about an old bloke who sells his house to a young half-baked anarchist/pacifist and his reluctance then to actually leave the place. The knowing, manipulative old codger was played brilliantly by Phillip Manikum and Jamie Smelt as the idealistic, naif Gary, also gave a fine performance, with lots of laughs and some poignant moments too. Old Joe came out on top, as we always knew he would, but young Gary grew from the experience too!

It never ceases to amaze me how varied the homes of our children are, in size, cleanliness, tidiness and child-friendliness.
This week we have visited small flats where obviously limited funds have been used to make the place clean and attractive, and others where the furnishings are dirty and unkempt.
We have seen rooms packed full of expensive toys and electronic equipment; rooms with a few carefully chosen toys; rooms with no toys but an enormous T.V.; rooms with none of the above, and all combinations.
We have been to homes that are obviously always kept tidy and neat, with the possible but not invariable exception of the children's playthings; homes that look as if they have been hastily tidied for our benefit, and homes where the idea of tidying for visitors is an alien concept.
We have visited homes where they have been waiting for our arrival with great excitement and anticipation; ones where their startled faces are a sure sign that they forgot we were coming; and ones with that even surer sign - nobody was home. Some had even moved away without telling us.
Some had the requested photo of the child all ready for us - a beautiful studio portrait; others supplied a cute snapshot; others had to rummage to find one; a few offered totally unsuitable examples - face hidden by large dummy, etc; and the odd one had no pictures of their child to give us.
Amazingly, the children from all these varied backgrounds were almost all really sweet and lovable and we are looking forward to seeing them all in our Nursery, along with next week's batch!

Back to school today for another new year. We've got a somewhat different and difficult start this September, as our Nursery is still in the throes of Phase 1 of the refurbishment and is not due to be ready until the last minute when the children start in 3 weeks.

So we have got our paperwork spread around various places in the main school building where we have been offered temporary shelf space, and are trying to organise ourselves in the PPA room while other staff are using the computers and photocopier around us.

Anyway, we're all set for our first home visits tomorrow and our first chance to get to know our new children. We have an easy start, as our very first call is to Sophie, who has been coming in to nursery all this last year with her Mum bringing an older child, so she knows us already and is raring to start and we know her and Mum, who is one of the nice ones...

Let's hope it's a case of starting as we mean to go on!