R and R

It's been a day of r and r. Nathan worked at the box office. I sat on a sofa wrapped in a towel watching episodes of Frasier. I know for a fact that I have seen every episode of that show: Nathan and I got the box set and watched it beginning to end over the course of a few months. Despite this, every time I watch an episode out of context, I can't remember how it ends. It's like I'm watching it for the first time!

So I watched Frasier, had lunch in the local spoon, tidied up a bit, threw on yesterday's smelly clothes and headed off to central London to see Beyond The Fence. Reviews have been predictably luke warm, but audience reactions on websites have been extraordinarily positive, proving that, although critics might not like a formula, the general public does.

I was heartened by my Mum today who said she recognised every single one of the women on that stage, and that the show had taken her back to our long days on the CND commune. I asked if she thought the women should have been more political and whether we should have had them engaging in more political debate. "Absolutely not" came the response, "that's not how we were."

My cousin Bridg was watching the repeat of the documentary on Sky Arts tonight and sent a text to say how proud she was of us. She'd apparently been shouting things at the telly like "I was his mother's bridesmaid!" I just look at it and watch the progression of a man putting on two stones in weight!

The show was great tonight. Good and clean. A stack load of friends were there including two of the NYMT mothers, which was just fabulous. One of them, Robin's Mum, has instantly bought herself tickets for tomorrow because she loved the show so much.

Nathan had some of his knitting folk in and my publishers at R and H were also there. Dean, who was the MD on Taboo came, along with John Hay from Channel 4 and, as he put it, "loads of people I recognised from your wedding" including Amy Bird and Luke Fredericks, whose friend said he wanted to put Annie Wensak (who plays Margie in the show) on his mantelpiece! I agree.

There was a talk afterwards where members of the audience got to interrogate us about our process and look a bit perplexed at the answers we were giving. We finally got a chance to publicly thank Kat Mace, who was in the audience, who worked tirelessly behind the scenes with Clarissa the Cloud Lyricist, sifting through heaps of nonsense to pull out the few phrases and words which actually made sense. Throughout the process she's been nothing but a joy to work with... She's operated boom mics, filmed sequences, done research and smiled every single day. She's a precious ray of sunshine.