Doris Day

As I lay in the bath this morning, I could hear the mother of all rain storms battering the roof tops outside. A great roar of water was gushing down the side of our house and throwing itself into the pathway leading into our neighbour's basement flat. It was quite bizarre, therefore, to leave the house some twenty minutes later to the sight of perfect blue skies and a sun glinting on the wet pavements like a spotlight on a mirror. Today was the day that Storm Doris surged across the country. The media have dubbed it "Doris Day." There were, of course, the obligatory travel warnings galore. Another example of the media whipping stuff up for their own amusement. That said, I wasn't entirely happy with the idea of Nathan being forced to drive all the way to the Peak District this afternoon to teach on a knitting retreat. It apparently took him almost three hours to get as far as Watford Gap.

I am still not actually watching, reading or listening to the news. I catch the odd headline on my way into work, and occasionally read up about an event, but otherwise, I am news-free. This makes me feel no better than the people I admonished for voting Brexit without knowing anything about politics or understanding what on earth was going on, but, at the same time, Brexit and Trump have taught me that the media don't need truth to print a story. They just need an opinion. The more controversial the better. The reliability of the source is unimportant. And I simply can't be dragged into all of that.

Every day we're told something else is damaging to our health. Today, the newspaper next to me informed me that we now need to eat ten portions of veg a day to "really slash health risks." And don't even get me started on the spurious faux scientific shite they make up in adverts to sell projects. "Biffidis Digestivens" in yoghurts, "built in vibrancy serums" in hair dyes, "Micellar Water with Micells" and "anti age 3 technology" in fabric softener. These people must think we were born yesterday. And yet it seems to do the trick.

I've been at Trinity all day doing the last day of rehearsals for the workshop of The Lady Killers project. The team worked incredibly hard and pulled off an excellent performance, which very much landed with its audience. I was proud of them all. Every single one of them raised their game steadily throughout the day and were giving it everything by the time we performed. It's a good show. I hope the writers finish it.

Storm Doris was going full tilt all day and aggressively rattling the roof of our rehearsal rooms. At one point I wondered if the ceiling was about to cave in. She managed to tip a lorry over just down the street. It was apparently quite "exciting biting" as my Dad would say. The lorry hit a bus and lots of people were rushing around in a panic. It was supremely gusty at New Cross Gate station when I left to go home. Pieces of rubbish swirled over the tracks and onto the platform. The clouds, all indigo and black, seemed to be in a hurry to be anywhere else, darting across the sky in terror. Fleeing from Doris' anger.