Summertime...
The arrival of the ’embers’ always, always takes me by surprise.
As soon as we say goodbye to Easter, it seems, we reach September (we never really get a proper summer any more). As we all know, September gives way to Octember, then November and, suddenly, it’s Christmas again.
So as we approach the bank holiday Monday, I should be putting the finishing touches to my Christmas Murder Mystery.
Not a bit of it. I edited the early scenes back in March, but I’ve not had the time since.
But now, all that will change…
The North Pole
It seems a tad ironic but I should now have some time, throughout September, to get on with The Christmas Murder. It remains my ambition to make more of these but it’s a full time job.
Ironic because I have just pulled out of three weeks work in Sweden. And Sweden is the ideal location for Christmassy Mysteries. The place probably has snow already and I doubt I’d have been that far from the arctic circle. A bit annoying, financially, but I had little option thanks to the unions (or the lack of them).
I’d been booked to do some telly work in the middle of October. As I was due to be back in England on 28 September, that wasn’t a problem, even in these COVID isolation days.
But then the TV company brought the start date forward, to the 29 September. They have the right to do that, post union. In the olden days, if they wanted to retain you for a month or so, they had to pay you. Now, they simply tell you you must be available over a period of three months, just in case. If you don’t like it, tough. There are plenty of other actors.
There other rule is; you can’t work for anyone else less than 48 hours before their shoot day (COVID rule). So coming back from a country on the amber list…forget it. the upshot is that I’m tied to a job that pays considerably less than the job I had to let go.
It may well be the last time I ever do any acting. I feel I’m only doing it to keep my agent happy (he’s had nothing since March 2020).
Shallow Bottom
So, I now have much of September to edit, build the website (this one) and get the show up and running in time for the ‘Christmas Murder Mystery rush’, as I like to call it.
My intention, my genuine intention, is to get it done.
Last Minute Christmas Shopping
I have to say, it reminds me of my sister. She’s very organised when it comes to Christmas shopping (and everything else for that matter). I can’t possibly start my Christmas shopping in August or September. So I don’t. I leave it. And it feels like that with this project. It has to be a bit ‘Christmassy’ to want to work on it but, by then, it’s too late.
By the end of November, still a couple of weeks before I even start my Christmas shopping, my sister always announces she’s ‘Still got a few last minute things to buy’.
Last minute!
That’s what this website feels like. The summer will go, the autumn will barely have started and… well, you know. Christmas will thunder towards.
I’ll do it. Promise.