Happy Birthday BMMOC - 25 this month!!

Ah yes it's that time again. Today I spent 8 hours doing panto fit-up at the Belgrade. Tomorrow Iam their from 9am-10pm and Wednesday the same. (so I guess I should get to bed soon!)

It's been good getting back into the swing of things. There were some new faces around which was cool, and we actually managed to get quite a lot done. I have been given the option of Sound Op-ing for the actual show.... This is a pretty big deal and a whole lot of responsibilty (not to mention concentration!)I would have to live mix the band and the cast (somewhere in the region of 10 radio mics!) although the main thing is the "muting" - essential timing required!! ;)

Theoretically this should be fine for me...But I'm still not really decided. I have experience mixing groups and music from the ship, this is pretty different but would also be a good challenge and experience for me..hmmmmmm.....

The reason I didn't work the whole 9am-10pm today is that I had to go to the Birmingham branch of the MMOC (Morris Minor Owners Club) meeting tonight as it is the 25th anniversary of the first meeting this month --pretty cool. Especially as after the 3rd meeting (there's one a month) my mums water's broke and away she went to the hospital to have me - so it's kind of a poignant I guess! :S

Crazy Lights

Check out this - it's Brilliant!!!

[Edit] Since posting this link I've had loads of hits to my webblog! If you want more info on it then check out this link, there's a bit of a discussion but somewhere in the posts it explains how its done..and NO it is NOT animation!

In the last couple of weeks a few new things have come into my life.....

Exhibit A)
I've finally started my Tap lessons! Huzzah! \||/ I'm really enjoying them and seem to be quite good at it! This is where I go for my lessons, lovely cafe aswell ;)

Exhibit B)
I won this lovely instrument on ebay, and then had a fun 4 1/2 hour drive (there and back) to Sussex to pick it up! It was worth it though, it sounds beautiful. Well... I haven't played since I left school so it's not that great but it's fun!

Exhibit C)

This is Steven Blakeley, he's playing the newest recruit to Ashfordly's police force in "Heartbeat" at the mo (click on photo for link). He was also the lead in the final play I DSM'd at Uni and toured to Poland! I know this is not new to most folk - but in my defence, I have been out of the country for 11 months!!! Well done to Steve :)

I'm off out with T tonight to see a gig tonight by some folks called "3 Men & Black "(plus friends!) sounds good!

I Hear Tapping but there's noone there.....

Unless its me practising in the kitchen (only joking mum!!! - the laminate floor is safe :S )

Yes I finally bit the proverbial bullet and had me a Tap Dancing Lesson. And do you know, I wasn't as completely useless as I thought I'd be! In fact the ladies kept asking if I'd done it before. There were 3 in the class (apparently this number and the faces vary week by week!) and the teacher was cool. My balance leaves something to be desired but I picked up the stuff quite quick - Yey a 17 year dream is realised!

T and I went to watch an Ice Hockey Game in Solihull on Sunday night. It was great once I got into it. Not much of an atmosphere there but the game was pretty exciting - I almost understood the rules by the end aswell!

I'm a little worried at my level of geek-ness right at this moment. I've ordered a T-Shirt from wilwheaton.net, My copy of RD VII arrived 2 days before the release date and I watched the whole thing twice (the second time with commentaries) before the day it was supposed to come out, and also there's a "Memorabilia" convention at the NEC at the end of November where the cast of said series will be reuniting - and I'm actually gutted by thought I may not be able to go!(Panto - yes that old chestnut is back!)

I'm a GEEK and, damn it, I'm PROUD!!!

Now going to soak my feet in the bath, as I'm not sure they enjoyed the Tap experience as much as I did!!!

Happy Birthday Blog

My Blog is 2 Years Old, Ah Bless!

That's an huge amount of time for me to keep a journal type thing! I look back at it sometimes to see where I was and what I was thinking. I've done a lot in those 2 years, and it gives me a chance to see what I've learned and how I've grown (or not - you decide!). I reckon everyone should have some form of journaling, it's amazing therapy and so much cheaper than a person ;)

"We're not in Kansas anymore.."

In fact, I'm not entirely sure where I am.

Of all the feelings/emotions that I have experienced when leaving somewhere/finishing a contrcat and coming home, this has to be the weirdest. I feel like I'm in a permament state of limbo. Everyday reality comes a little more closer (and that's no picnic believe me!)but I feel like I'm dreaming and that at any moment I could wkae up. This also comes with a feeling of invincibility, which is slightly odd to say the least.

However getting home went pretty smoothly. Sat next to Cath form reception on the bus to the airport, guided Sarah's trolley around the terminal, ran to get to the gate in time and then we got treated as V.I.P's when the steward on the plane knew we'd been working on the ship!

Jo & Vicky had made a banner for me and bought me a little pressie and on my phone was a message form the Belgrade offering me Follow Spot work this week - crazy! (Panto's looking good then ;))

The evening and following day were chilled with a girly night in and yesterday was spent washing my grime covered car, seeing Dad and helping my mum decorate a hall. Also I went to see Son and Clare, yeyeyeyeyey Sanity! Son is pregnant, wOOt! Although she can't open the fridge without feeling neauseous :(

Church this morning was FAB. Had some speakers in who'd done a session with some folks yesterday about taking risks and opening our hearts to God. Just what I needed to get back into things. Saw EVERYONE!!!! Sarah with her gorgeous engagement ring, Abi looking cute, and various members of the youth looking about 1ft taller :)

In my absence I seem to have been appointed assistant Youth worker!! So this evening we're taking them bowling, tomorrow I'm chaperoning an "Alternative Trick or Treat" and Adrian has asked me to help him start and after school club at my old Primary school....you know...I'm sure I was supposed to rest!!! Seriously though, I'm really looking forward to it, it's cool to be involved in church stuff and to be useful!

Hopefully Sarah (dancer) is coming over this week to start her show reel stuff. It'll be nice to have a slice of ship life for a bit:)

The Summer That Was.....

Well that´s it.

There are now only 6 of us left on the ship waiting to go home. Lauren and Gav M are staying overnight in a hotel for the Scotland flight tomorrow and me and Sarah are heading off at 4pm. Just popped into town for a couple of last minute things.

Had a hectic but good last week. Last nights show was great, a few tears shed on stage and a general feeling of a job well done. This week we´ve had to divert ports TWICE due to ill passengers and Spanish Fishermen blockading Barcelona, but the PAX were great about it. Despite the chaos it could so easily have beome this week has actually been quite relaxing :)

Interesting season, definitely learned about being more patient! Looking forward to next summer now, although, I´m so grateful for this rest!!!!

See you in Brum.......

1 week to go!!!!!

Only one week until I can ditch this life on the high (well, occasionally!)and get back to something resembling normality for a bit.

Everyone´s definitely in Countdown mode. Me and the boys are packing boxes, clearing up and generally organising like crazy. Felino has redeemed himself a bit from his behaviour after Dante left by working like a badger for last 3 days to clear and inventory the Can Can Booth.

I was being harassed by the ETO so badly earlier in the week that I was given a radio with a direct line to Rich! He literally started following me around because I wouldn´t give him the inventory back (this is after he stole out from a pile of paperwork on my desk and then gave it back after a heated discussion). We´ve been specifically told that I couldn´t sign it off, TPTB had to. But he couldn´t really understand what I was saying - including "Leave Me ALONE!!!!! or he was just being pig-headed (as well as frequently referring to me as ´the girl´ instead of ´technician´ or ´Stage Manager´) so in the end Rich managed to talk to him and attempted to explain the situation and explain that he was being rude. Haven´t seen him since so hopefully that´s the end of that.

Me & Fel (and various others) have been doing amusing (hopefully!) things in the booth this week during the last shows which have been making the team smile (and in some cases corpse completely!). These include: wearing brightly coloured wigs and holding up signs for D.I.S.C.O, writing messages on Big red hearts and hanging them in the booth, wearing various hats (depending on the show), joining in with the actions for Do-Re-Mi and generally trying to come up with more and more things to do! TPTB are on this week hough so we may have to calm down a bit :))))

Born and Bred Series 3 arrived this morning so Vicks is wanting a bit of a marathon! Also the DVD of one of my all time favourite films "The Parent Trap" - the original of course, arrived. It has loads of extra features so guess where I´ll be for the next few days!!!

Can´t wait to get home and see everyone, now about work for winter.......

Manicures and Tax Rebates

I had my first ever Manicure this week, I was stuck on duty yesterday (Barcelona day) so I thought I would treat myself. The amazing Geta did my nails, look, aren´t they pretty?!



Checked my account this week to see if I´d been paid and found a very nice amount back from the tax man!!! Yes those wonderful people at Seatax sorted everything out for me and now I get my hard earned cash back :))

Only 2 weeks to go!!! Everyone´s getting pretty excited now. This week we start the last run of shows (we do a 2 week itinerary) so we can pack stuf up as we go. Well, I say we, actually I mean the show team and their costmes. Me and the boys have to wait for the Production managers to come on in the last week - so our last week is going to be a riot :(

The weather this week has been much better, not blisteringly hot anymore, although there were a couple of days where sunbathing could have been an option!

I Really Should Know Better...

Are you one of those people who, when enjoying a trul pleasant day, always has a feeling of foreboding, purely because "..nothing goes this well without then going horribly wrong"?, No....Well, welcome to my life!

I have a really good day yesterday, one that made me remember why I enjoy working on Cruise Ships. It was Sunday, I had a duty at 9am and then nothing until 8pm because I was supposed to be going to Pisa. Due to the fact it was raining and some randoms from TUI turned up me and some others got unceremoniously chucked off our tour but in the end tyhat was great!

Me & Vicks had a loungy morning watching "Born and Bred", I had Hot Chocolate with Gareth in the OKL whilst heckling Gavin and 'New Boy' (Iain - our non-techie). Then we borrowed Cluedo and headed down the stairs where various waifs and strays from the Ents team joined us for a game. I left to teach kids juggling and when I came back they'd moved on to Girls vs Boys Pictionary. Needless to say we whooped them! Then someone had the ingenious idea of Bingo, so we all put something in for the prize and we borrowed the crew bingo machine. We had a strip of 6 tickets each and Gav called. You could have heard a pin drop!

The Show in the evening was hysterical. Factors included the appaling weather, everyone having had a very relaxing Sunday, the fact that it was impossible to walk in a straight line never mind dance or do acrobatics, certain persons changing the words to a song (which only has ONE word in it) and the on going game of "tig on stage!"

Should've known that today was gonna bite me really.

Got up early for crew drill - cancelled
Doing Staging - Car Wash rollers need mending - glue gun sticks too big
try to cut them - slice through tumb nail and index finger on left hand.

Can't fix the star cloth, which is beginning to really annoy me

Rehearsal goes OK, except the MAC's are being a pain.

One won't turn off, try everything, including switching off and on (fast becoming the solution to everything!) and then the board crashes.

Q's work but the Technobeams and MAC's have to be controlled manually and fired up manually. Spend 2 hours trying to fix the problem. Phone Rich, then Martin who rings Compulite. Compulite say to 'Cold Start' It. The One thing Dante specifically told me NOT to do was to cold start the desk as it would wipe all the text from the Qlists and who knows what else. So I decide to save that option until after the show and Deck party.

During the show the board crashes when I press the 'back' button. The spot boys do a sterling job whilst I reboot it and pray!

Show finishes, Deck party is inside because of the weather, which is cool as it works well in here. However avbout 1/3 of the way through something (I give up by now!) triggers the House Tabs relay and down they come. Everyone else found it funny, I just felt like crying!!!

So since that has finished I have been sat in the little booth with my Twix and OJ (supplied by Danny!)trying to salvage the shows and my sanity. I held my breath and did a cold start (not that that's simple either!) and lo and behold it wiped the text, the subs everything.

So finally at 4:30am after routing through the saved files on the desk and the disk I found the 'Autosave' file where someone had very thoughtfully locked all the files from May. So now I have the complete collection of show cues (if not entirely uptodate!) Hurrah - and it's only 6am!! Now all I have to do is find soemthing to do until 9am whern I have to get up and put the BGM on !!!c :((((

There was one bit of good (sort of) news today. Due to the rioting in Corsica (Scary!) we will be in Beautiful (but boring!) Olbia tomorrow and so will....... The Spirit!! Yey I get to see folks :)