Floods and sewage workers

I am about ready to drop. My eyes are going slightly blurry as I type and my face feels hot. I’ve been a very busy boy this week and cannot wait for the weekend.

Today, I was up at ridiculous-o’clock to go to Birmingham. Unfortunately, none of the taps in the house seemed to have water coming out of them, so I was forced to do the thing I hate most in the world – and start the day without a bath... or a cup of tea.

My mood was lifted, however, by the dawn sun, which was casting the most extraordinary light on one side of the pavement of the A1 outside. I watched, transfixed, for some minutes as commuters emerged from the shadows and immediately brought their hands up to shade their eyes from the intense orange light, which lit them up like halogen lights.

As I was preparing to leave the house, I found the chap who lives in the downstairs flat – also called Ben – rather pathetically standing at his door. It became apparent that the cause of the lack of water was something to do with his flat. When he woke up this morning his kitchen was under a good inch of water, which was still pouring out of his washing machine. It was dripping down into the shop below. The poor man had tried to mop the water up, and then thrown every towel he owned on the kitchen floor, but the water continued to pour, and his face continued to redden and sweat.

I felt awful leaving him to his crisis, but I needed to be in Birmingham. I cruised up the M1 at hyper-speed. 8.30am is obviously a good time to head north out of London. I was at Watford Gap within about an hour, so stopped off for a cup of tea and a nose about. Watford Gap was the focus of one of my musical films, which featured all sorts of friends from back home in Northamptonshire. It was a wonderful project, and the place is full of happy memories. It’s a troubled place, however. Once almost legendary as the spot where all sorts of pop and rock stars converged in the wee smalls after gigging around the country, it had character and charm. It’s now part of a generic chain of service stations; branded to the heavens, and decorated cheaply. It had a refurb before we shot the film, and it’s had another once since. It still looks tatty. Like a Woolworth’s shop. You don’t even enter the place by the main doors any more – and horror of horrors, the Wimpey has now been replaced by MacDonalds.

The job I was doing in Birmingham involved teaching a group of sewage workers how to sing, but they were a fabulous bunch of people. It was an absolute privilege to work with them. They were charming, friendly and up-for-it, which made my job so easy. I taught them to sing Winter Wonderland in two-part harmony, whilst ringing hand bells, and making the sounds of snow. Every time I get north of Watford Gap, I realise how much more friendly the people are. There was no edge to any of them. They were true West Midlanders. A number of them were from Coventry, which pulled my accent all over the place. I sounded like Cat Dealey by the time I left! The guy that met us knew my Grandfather’s butcher shops in the city and sounded like my old Uncle Charlie. I recognised immediately that he was from Cov and the first question I asked him was “so, where in Cov are you from?” “Coventry” he said – before realising quite how specific my question had been. I explained my link, and later over-heard him telling someone that I had a broad Coventry accent as well. I must have done by the time I’d finished talking to them all. It’s an accent that makes me feel very safe.

I came home via Northampton, and picked Fiona up in Collingtree where she’d been spending a couple of days with her family. Barbara, her mother, created an enormous and glorious collation of food in the time it took me to play Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends with Fiona’s hysterical nephews. There were five different types of cake. It would have been rude not to sample them all.

We drove back to London nattering – and here I am, really. The top half of me suited and booted, the bottom half wearing pyjamas.

It’s the second of December. Can someone tell me where the year went?

December 2^nd, 1661, and Pepys went for a sitting with the painter, Mr Savill, who was doing his portrait. Mr Savill was ill, however, so no work got done. The rest of the day was spent with various friends, their various mistresses, in various pubs, at various theatres, drinking merrily.