Ruby and the sickening yellow light

I feel like the last two days have somewhat rolled into each other to the extent that they've become a sort of amorphous blob of time. At some point yesterday - don't ask me when - I drove up to Manchester. It always takes longer to get there than you hope. I think it's something to do with the fact that Manchester is not actually on the M6, so you exit the motorway only to find yourself on another flamin' motorway.

I went up to Manchester to record Ruby singing the role of Em on the album. She's currently doing a rep season at Bolton Octagon and her first show opens tonight, so it was impossible to get her down to London to record her vocals.

We ended up taking a punt on a studio in a grimy Victorian warehouse on the edge of the city centre. It was the sort of run-down place which will be gentrified at some point, but definitely not in the very near future! It took ages to find the entrance. A walk around the back of the building revealed the sound of a rock band smashing the hell out of their instruments.

Ruby had already managed to find her way into the studio by the time I'd arrived and was warming up in a room which smelt of BO. I'm used to scuzzy recording studios. It rather goes with the territory and I genuinely think it aids creativity if you don't think you're trashing a place when you spill your tea everywhere in the heat of the moment. The loos always leave a lot to be desired though. These are no places for those with OCD!

Ruby was on great form and we were able to do complete takes of all of her songs, which means there's a real flow to her vocals. She acted them all beautifully. That's the style of performer she is. Very intimate. Very breathy. She falls off notes. She speaks some notes, and sings others. It's a breath of fresh air in a world where many young performers belt the hell out of songs without really thinking about the words they're singing or the dramatic intention behind them.

We finished late in the studio and the journey back down south was punishing. I'd decided to break the journey in one of the Premier Inns in Northampton, but blithely drove to the wrong one, which wasn't my finest ever hour. The woman behind the reception looked at me like I'd gone mad when I told her angrily that I had a booking...

The drive back this morning seemed to take forever, with horribly slow-moving traffic around Luton. I popped my head into the cinema in East Finchley where Natalie Walter and Ben Caplan were filming trailers for Michael's UK Jewish film festival. I'd suggested both actors, so I suppose you could call me the casting director. I thought I'd pop in to offer moral support and see how they were both doing.

Just as I exited the cinema on my way to Julian's studio, all hell broke loose. Nathan, who flies to America today, called to say he was at the airport but had left his passport on his desk at home. It's the stuff of nightmares. I instantly rushed back to the house, grabbed his passport, and started tearing along the North Circular towards Heathrow. In the meantime, he was in a taxi heading towards me. We met at a filling station on the A40, just west of Hangar Lane. I stood by the side of the road, his taxi slowed down, the window opened and I threw the passport in.

Sadly he just missed the flight, and they charged him £150 to get on the next one, which has only just taken off. The taxi cost £50. The poor thing started crying when he told me that he'd only gone to Heathrow by tube to save a bit of money. Now he's £200 down.

I was with Julian by midday, which was when the weird "end of the world" sun appeared which has had social media aflutter all day. We're told it was caused by a sandstorm, which is somehow linked to the arrival of storm Ophelia in the U.K. It was certainly the most eerie sight. It was bright orange, and it reflected in the windows of Crouch End like some sort of halogen light. The clouds started bubbling up over lunch, and then, at about 3pm, the sky turned a sickening shade of yellow. It was almost as though I'd put a pair of weirdly tinted sunglasses on, or that the world was suddenly lurking behind some sort of sepia filter. There was a strangely charged quality to the atmosphere which made my fingers tingle, like I'd been fiddling about with a Van de Graaff generator. I didn't like it at all. It made me feel really uneasy. Brother Edward texted, "is it me or is this light really scary?" Brother Tim, in Manchester, was writing about it on Facebook. The birds in Julian's garden started making really strange noises. Every time I tried to take a picture of the weird yellowness, my phone corrected the colour and made the sky white. The wind got very strong and Julian's house, which is a creepy old Vicarage, started creaking and moaning. It was a surreal and somewhat scary period!

Both Nathan and Fiona are in the air at the moment, which I don't like on a night like this. Nathan has already been told to expect turbulence. Fiona, who is flying to Glasgow, seems to be heading for the eye of the storm. I shall be pleased when they're both safely down.