Working at a MAJOR EVENTS DAY!!!!! It was May Day. There was a big yellow thing in the sky. Ian said it was solar powered. Yesterday was like winter and I was in my home-from-home in the Folk Museum, Tea Lane, which turns into a wind tunnel from about November to March and it revisited this yesterday. It is up on top of the hill and has nothing directly in front of it. Today, however, the sun shone, the birds sang and I was in the rural idyll that is Cruckaclady farm house in the folk museum. I was playing a character, Mary McCullough, farmer’s wife and believer in butterwitches. I had put my yellow flowers over me door and the byre to stop her getting in. For those of you not in the know – you poor souls – the butterwitch is an Irish witch who steals milk from cows and cream and butter from households. She only does it on Mayday morning and you can deter her by putting up yellow flowers round doors and windows. So work away. Keep your Dromona and your Golden Cow safe. She takes the form of an old woman (don’t they all – sigh!) and she stands in fields on May Day swinging a rope over the grass and chanting “Come all to me! Come all to me!” The rope then absorbs all the “goodness” out of the grass and the milk from the cows. Someone should tell Dale Farm. Save them a fortune on machinery. Then she might go into a house that doesn’t have the flowers round the door and steal the cream off the top of the milk or steal all the milk out of the cows in the byre. If someone challenges her or chases her she can turn in to a hare. This sounds like a plan to me. So I spent all day in the sunshine telling people about this.
Then home to a dinner cooked by Ian McDonald. It was a very seasonal game pie. We are clearing out the freezer.
Then up to a rehearsal of “Blue Stockings” for our final performance which will be in the finals – yes, the FINALS – of the Association of Ulster Drama Festivals in the Theatre at the Mill which is on Thursday 18th May. We did well considering we hadn’t done it for a while but it would be fair to say that at certain points it descended into parody – it did have a touch of St Trinians! But of course it will be wonderful!
Came home and booked hotels and sorted stuff out for our impending adventure which is That London on Friday. We are going over to see Nell Gwynne in the Globe, Romeo and Juliet study day for me on the Saturday and then performance on Saturday night.
After that I booked a hotel for our next impending trip which is to Europe, generally, in June. We are going to Etonnants Voyageurs in St Malo for the first weekend and then across to Luxemburg/Germany to visit Marleen de Kramer for the next weekend. We are staying in the Eurenerhof Hotel in Trier which looks great craic.
And now I am writing this! So yo.
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