Dunstable

The Bass thinks it will be hilarious to talk to me in the style of the old spice man while wearing nought but pants when I go to the dressing rooms to check the personal props.

Day off...

Sitting in a Premier Inn watching Sherlock, failing to fix a life size can can dancer puppet, at midnight.

Newark - Nearly stand on the bass's face as I don't realise he is sleeping under a counter in dressing room 4 as I set out costumes.

Wellingborough - Discuss the finer points of war, religion, politics, the economy and Oscar Wilde with a cobbler as he fixes a zip on the tenors boot.

Tweeksbury [sic] - The techies are called Smiffy, Cookie... and Mark

Blackpool

The Baritone reveals that he sang at Nora Batty's funeral.

Keswick

Opening Night - Leading lady's net shawl gets attached to leading man's brass button. Thus incredibly romantic waltz ends with him being dragged upstage by her, chest first.

To look back on in the future - Because I shall loose a paper list

Sher-oh-good-lord-isn't-cumberbatch-a sexy bastard-lock finished its most recent run today on the tellybox. The iphone generation tell me that while the next series has been commissioned though it will not start filming till other work commitments are out of the way. In order to fill the immense emptiness that we now face in our lives we have made a pact* to achieve a life goal each before the next instalment.

I post the aims here so that they are stored but a few clicks away and labelled by date. Don't feel obliged to read them.

Achieve a publishing deal of some description

Have Dandy Highwaymen in existence

Get an article in Dr Who Magazine

Buy a windsurfer

Oh and also, to sum up the last trip (since that is the real and true purpose of this endeavour) East coast as better than the West coast - apart from for snow sports and the Victoria Fringe. Quebec is the best province, particularly Montreal. New Brunswick has absolutely brilliant road signs regarding Moose. Bam.

*Had a notional chat

Summer nights and my Radio

I appreciate summer ended a while ago (even longer ago if you are Scotland rather than Canada, as I understand it) but I'm still going to write a brief account of mine exploits before commencing our road trip.  The tales of Which I shall save for another day.

So, the running theme was ice cream.  Partially cause the presidents choice line of ice cream includes flavours like almond-bark-mocca-brownie, but mainly because I got a job driving an ice cream truck. This was because Andy was working as one, his bosses needed more drivers, I needed a job, so it goes.  We had separate trucks, but took a lot of ice cream chat home.  Did you know in Canada you can get frozen flavoured ice in  the shape of sponge bob square pants on a stick?  Kids go proper mad for them.  I tried one once, I thought it was pretty rubbish.  Driving an ice cream truck is kind of annoying, kids wave you down then don't have any money, or have very, very angry parents.  An old man came up once to ask the name of the tune the truck was playing.  It is labelled '1' on my music control box, and when I told him this I thought he was going to kill me  "You don't... know?" I know lots of things.  Do you know exact date of the council of Nicaea, old man?  He didn't even buy a bubble gum swirl.

Then there were the ice cream bosses.  Who about a week after I started decided that I wasn't trained well enough by Andy and this was clearly why I was only taking $350 a day while everyone else was taking $400 (not because I was being sent to neighbourhoods where there are no kids) so both put someone in the truck to instruct me and then followed me around in her car watching what I did.  In a mortifying embarrassing sort of a way.  She also told me a few weeks later that her buddy's sister was on a boat out on the lake when I was selling ice cream on a campsite by the shore and she couldn't hear my music from there (The lake is a pretty big lake, the Okanagan lake, if you wish to look it up) so I wasn't playing it loud enough and people wouldn't be able to hear and they wouldn't come and buy ice cream!  My bosses' buddy's sister also thought I was a guy.  I would argue that her sensory perception isn't exactly top notch.  Yes, I am still bitter.

Anyway.  We got a second job picking fruit and general farm work at a place with a really laid back boss who let us drive multi terrain buggies,  another chap who fed us freeze pops all the time , (apparently no one really knew what his job title was, there was a rumour he had naked pictures of the farm owners.)  I was a really great place to work.  And now I know all sorts of things about pollination that I never used to.

What with working 2 jobs we mainly worked 12 hour days so social times were limited to seeing the last Harry Potter, and the occasional pint at the 'Grateful Fed' (yes really.)  EXCEPT from when Chris came to Vancouver and we went to meet up.  The Aquarium is awesome, Stanly Park is very pretty, Chris and I both failed to land a simulated rocket, we learned that all the Japanese Canadians were chucked out of BC after WWII, and met a brilliant and very small parrot called Nelson.  AND the hostel we stayed at was built on a street that was used in the filming of a never ending story.  It was a whirlwind.

The two weeks working on the fringe were brilliant.  I was billeted with a lovely lady who has had many great adventures thus many great stories.  She also made lots of great cake.  The other guys working on the festival were all incredible, really friendly as were all the performers who were in my venue.  And I really enjoyed being in Victoria too, thought it was a very pretty city.  No bad words essentially.  Which after 2 months of crazy ice cream time was beyond fantastic.

That's where the facebook album of the same title ends, and so shall this part of the story.
Next up, following the only road...

The 2 best lisence plates of the road trip thus far

OBI TWO - outside 'The wee scottish inn' in Jasper.

UR LUVED - On a yellow sports car that was tailgating me over the Rockies.

Full (ish) details of THE ENTIRE SUMMER to follow.