FRESH EGGS ON THE WAY!!

Let me introduce you to Ruby and Rachel, my Yiddish chickens, named by my wife and children. No.1 and no.2 would have done for me. Lovely, aren't they? So now I have an allotment full of burgeoning plants and two chickens at home, vaccinated and only three weeks away from laying, apparently?

I feel like Tom Good from The Good Life.

Actually, if anyone is thinking of keeping chickens, the Chicken shack was £150 and the chickens were £7 each. Bit of a bargain!

Of course, I can claim no involvement in any of this as I am still on tour and everything was done while I was in Plymouth. I got back from there yesterday evening, a lovely drive on a sunny day through, Devon, Somerset, Oxfordshire and, unfortunately, round the M25. You can't have everything. And now I am ready to set off again, back round the M25 to Aylesbury, where we are performing this evening. There really isn't a lot of time at home once you hit the road.

We do have a week at the Richmond theatre later in the tour, but I found out on Friday that I am going to be recording a fourth series of Inspector Steine for Radio 4 during that week. So, what would have been a pleasant week at home with a trip to a London theatre each evening, will now be a gruelling week of getting to London for 9.30 am each day and recording until it is time to head to the theatre for the show, then back across London and the last train to Tunbridge Wells, my home town, each evening. I shall be knackered and probably glad, by the end of the week, to get back on tour for a rest!

I'm not complaining really. I love recording radio comedy and this is some of the best. Written by the delightful, very talented, and gorgeously complementary Lynne Truss and with a cast and crew that I now regard as good friends, having already done three series with them, this is one of the highlights of my year. It just seems that every time we record Inspector Steine I am also doing another job, so I never get to socialise with the rest or fully enjoy the work, always being under pressure to get it all recorded in time. Yet, when you consider the number of unemployed actors and the state of the acting business following the recent cuts in funding, I can only be grateful that I am working at all.

At least there will be fresh eggs for breakfast each day. Probably? Come on Ruby and Rachel!! Perhaps I should get the Rabbi round? xx