How hard can it be?

Posting to this blog has been reduced to a once a month scenario, I rue the day I said "I'll write a play how hard can it be?" -the answer is -probably, when you haven't done this sort of thing before that ignorance is neither blissful or helpful. What I see now (in my minds eye - mostly at 3am - when I wake up hyper ventilating with heart palpitations and that swirly swooshy excited feeling of adrenalin rush in the pit of my belly)anyway - being a very visual person I have realised that it has taken me a lot longer than I previously thought to get my mind straight on what this entails. Amazingly we have the most fantastic bunch of volunteers of a ridiculously over qualified experience and a budget - for something that is going to be shown three times at the end of January in the village hall.So a sense of perspective IS required....
We have a musical director and assistant md who between them are professional musicians - and both ex BBC - (I'm not sure what that means other than giving a reassuringly weighty quality to their involvement.) We have the assurances of his partner that the current lighting designer for Scottish Opera is coming off tour this week - lives in Finzean - and is bound to want to help. We have a stage manager who I am informed on his last production had audiences of 600 (Im aiming for about 150 each night) and we have a professional set designer - who despite working freelance on two productions, after her current run and her Christmas run in Birmingham is young enough and fresh enough to think she will have the energy to fit POOT into her weekends. On top of that we have Guy's military background running the production, Jane's Banchory show secretary attention to detail running front of house and Wendy keeping the books in order.
My over whelming fear was that this was all very well but as they all pointed out - we didn't have a script?! -and so now we do-ish -and it's all hanging on IF the good people of the 4 communities turn out in 2 weekends time and fight over parts -some of which have been written with specific individuals and characters in mind - Now I only have to hope they themselves turn up - a few judicious phone calls may be in order before hand. (So if I phone you and start crawling - be a good scout and be prepared.....)

Anyway on the gamekeeping front the hind season has started and Hedge and Finlay's wellies seem to have turned brown with blood splashes as they gralloch away to their hearts content. The boys thoughts have turned to guising -as I force them to call it - Having no truck with trick or treating - which is fine if you live in the land of the star spangled banner - but it's not featuring in in my turnip lantern filled proper seeing off of witchy spirit household...oh the smell of singed turnip and the numerous bent spoons rendered useless by howking a neep....anyway we were talking of dressing up and Archie had the bright idea that he wanted to "you know like those football players, with like the big hockey masks, and like the weapons of mass distruction and like lots of padding and like looking really scarey with like a Freddie Kruger like mask??" (me thinks we are back in the old USA again) when I pointed out that none of the elements of his proposed costume did we actually own - except that I could like maybe turn the mesh food safe into like a sort of fencing mask with a bit of gaffer tape and like a coat hanger.....? he was surprisingly disappointed and dejected, Realism featuring at the lower end of his priorities.... - Fin on the other hand rallied to the suggestion that I get Hedge to tip deer guts over his head to match his wellies and he could go as a "gralloch" - he replied with a glimmer of hopefulness "could I?"....last year when he won first prize when I resurrected mum's old first aid kit crepe bandages and mummified him, it was a doddle - but we need to aim higher if we are to fullfill his helplessly competitive streak. Last year Archie went as Braveheart - cant go wrong with a St Andrews cross painted on your face, your rugby shirt and a kilt. His cardboard sword was soggy on arrival and was swapped by a smaller child's axe of death from W H Smiths -why is plastic SO durable and so much better if it's aproper "bought" sword.. I had been inspired by a Country Living article on pumpkin carving with a scalpel and pin - but made the children promise not to cheat and enter it under their names in the p3 -7 category - all was lost as Hedge dropped it getting out of the car and it smashed to smithereens getting hot wax on his shoes for his trouble due to the fact the boys had insisted they were carried from home with their candles already burning - and due to a tea light shortage in the house - arrived at the hall asphyxiated with the smell of turnip and vanilla beans....Hedge has informed me that as he has his first pheasant shooting driven day the night of the Halloween party - and considering he has taken the boys for the last five consecutive years that he is taking a year off as he wont be finished work in time (what he really means is that he wont have finished drinking beer in the caravan with his beating team come six o'clock) and I will have to accompany my mini gralloch and skater boy myself. The first year we came to Finzean we mis understood the "everyone must dress up" - taking it literally - not thinking it applied only to the children. Hedge arrived wearing a long ginger wig which complimented his beard, a pair of my stripey breeks and a goth t-shirt -he looked like a roadie from a Kiss tour. But our au-pair Marcianna stole the show as the scariest looking witch ever as she spent the afternoon crafting herself a prosthetic nose out of Plasticine that stayed on and after sticking rice crispy warts over her face and painting everything green - she frightened the life out of the boys by sneaking out our front door and charging in the back door squwaking loudly -Archie jumping a full two feet in the air and the three year old Fin dissolving into inconsolable tears -not helped by the fact that she refused to take her nose off to reassure him she was Marcie!!
Hey ho - what happened to a sheet with two holes in it - those were the days.)