Settling In?

I got a lovely comment on my last blog post yesterday from another blogger (not someone I know in real life - amazing!) whose blog I've been avidly following and reading for quite a while - in fact the only blog I follow written by someone I've never met! AliBlahBlah, thanks very much - you provided me with the inspiration to start this weird transatlantic/kinda motherhood/waffle-a-lot blog and now the kick up the arse I needed to write something for the first time since April - APRIL!!! It's nearly sodding June!!

One excuse I have is beavering away creating the programme for my theatre company's latest show - Henry V...

On the assumption that the lovely AliBlahBlah is my only non-real life follower, I won't bore you with the details of Theatre Delicatessen - if you're a friend of mine on facebook you're probably doing the usual eye rolling at the number of status updates begging you to spread the viral marketing campaign word and buy tickets to the show. I've been spending the limited computer hours I get (inbetween the sleep training of a certain Little Loy who has decided every bedtime and naptime shall start with an hour or more of screaming tears) doing one of the few jobs that can be achieved from the other side of the world. The programme is done and looks beautiful, even if I do say so myself - but has left me feeling even further away as opposed to closer to the show, the company and my professional (often personal) family. But do buy tickets if you're in London - it's directed by Roland who is one of the most exquisite directors of my all contemporaries, and stars some Theatre Delicatessen stalwarts who are incredible actors it has been my greatest fortune to work with.

Theatre Delicatessen

The other reason for absence has been the visit of the parents to the new house - and bearing in mind my mum is probably the biggest reader of my blog, it seemed a bit counter productive to write about what we've been up to when she's been seeing it for herself.

We moved and welcomed the arrival of our stuff off the boat a few days before Mum and Dad got here, and in a way that was perfect - they were present right at the start of us really beginning our lives in LA (you can't help but feel in limbo land when living in a glorified hotel room wih only a few clothes and photos to resemble home), so they now feel very much a part of it.

We managed a glorious mix of running round seeing sights and sounds of LA - was amazing to get out of Santa Monica for a bit, I REALLY need to learn to drive - and just chilling out and living our lives here. It does feel more like we're living a life here - I'm still thinking ahead to when we go home but it helps that Paul and the Little Loys seem really settled. But a part of me doesn't want to feel utterly settled, I want to go home - maybe not right now but eventually. My first impressions have improved since that particular post but I still can't see me falling in love with city - this weird mixture of chillaxation, yoga and granola eating with the frenetic and frantic need to be doing everything all the time, rushing around in cars that fill up massive roads, everyone living in their fast paced little bubble.

So I continue to feel like there is one foot still planted in the UK, spiritually by the side of my colleagues and friends as they open the first show in our most ambitious space yet, but feeling like I no longer have the right to say "our" company, "our" space because I left everything that is mine. The foot in California is gratefully padded however by a growing close network of people we can now start to call friends. So maybe a balance is starting to be achieved. We plod along, just the same.