Springtime in England

It’s been forever since our last post. So much has happened.

Andrew has been employed by P&K Recruitment. Basically, this recruitment agency placed teaching assistants and substitute teachers in local schools. Currently, Andrew has a long-term placement at Baskerville School. He is working with autistic students. He finds the work both rewarding and enjoyable. It is much better than working at Home Fundraising for so many reasons. First, he doesn’t have to go door-to-door and harass people for money. Second, he works from 9 am- 4 pm instead of 2 am-9 pm plus commute. Third, Baskerville School is located in Harborne, which is only a little ways away. It makes for a quick and easy commute. He can even walk if he so fancies.

We have been blessed with a few visitors over the past few months. Andrew’s aunt and uncle came to visit us for a few days in late February. We had a wonderful time with them. Andrew went with them on an excursion to the Cotswolds and we enjoyed a delicious dinner at an Indian restaurant.

Also, the Barnd family came to visit for a week in early March. It was so nice to see them. Matt stayed with us for several nights in our flat. It was great. We explored Shakespeare’s Birthplace, the Cotswolds, London, and the Lake District. Mark decided to rent a vehicle so we had a very exciting adventure navigating the roads of England. The trip culminated in all of the family staying in our flat the night before their departure. It was really fun to be able to see/talk with family. It was also great to see them in our “world” for a little while. We were very sad to see them go back home.

I finished my 2^nd term a month ago, ending with my performance as Anne Shankland in Terence Rattigan’s “Separate Tables”. I thus ended my classes, which I am very happy about. For my last term, I will simply be in 7-8 hr. a day rehearsals culminating in two performances at the Old Repertory Theatre in Birmingham.

I then had a month-long break. Andrew joined me in the break for two weeks during his Easter break. We spent a lot of time in the sun, as it was in the 70’s for a while and explored Birmingham and Litchfield City. During this time, I also began working on my dissertation. We celebrated the Easter holiday by attending a Church of England for services and having a large meal of roast beef, mashed potatoes, corn casserole, and rhubarb cobbler. The cobbler was questionable. It will get better with experience. We also celebrated by watching all of the Indiana Jones films.

I am currently working on my first production, Polly Teale’s “After Mrs. Rochester”. This play is based on the work/life of Jean Rhys, the author of “Wide Sargasso Sea” and her obsession with Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” and more specifically the character of Bertha Mason. I was cast as Ella, the younger version of Jean Rhys. Basically the play goes through the episodes of Ella’s life which leads her to become the writer of “Wide Sargasso Sea”. It is an intense role, the likes of which I have never played before. It will certainly be a challenge. “After Mrs. Rochester” opens on May 26^th.

Between these two plays I will be going down to London for preparation for an audition I will have in New York in October. Also, Andrew has a week off so he is hoping to go visit his brother, Matt, in Alicante, Spain. Matt will be studying Spanish there for his May Term.

My second play is “Playhouse Creatures” and I will be playing Restoration actress, Rebecca Marshall who is accused of being a witch. This play centers around the great first actresses of the Restoration stage. This play opens on June 30^th and will mark the last of my events at BSA.

After my time at BSA, my family will be coming for a visit. We will be traveling around England and visiting Paris. We’ll be there during Bastille Day and will be able to participate in the festivities. They will be visiting between July 7-18^th. Andrew and I have been very busy planning this trip. We will be taking the Eurostar to Paris, which will be an adventure in itself.

Well, that is all for now. We will keep you updated…hopefully a little more regularly than we have been. We are terrible bloggers. 

New Year, New Term

Christmas has come and gone. We had a great time over the holiday season visiting our friends and family. Needless to say, we didn’t want to leave the States.

Now we are back in Birmingham and all settled back into regular life. I was surprised how quickly the body and mind assimilate into routines. For example, when we went back to Iowa, it almost felt as though we never left. We were both expecting it to feel very fresh and new, which it did…for a couple of hours….and then it felt as though everything was as it had always been. The same thing happened when we arrived back in Birmingham. Of course, it wasn’t completely perfect as we had no groceries and no heat for a couple of days.

But before I get ahead of myself, I should relate to those of you who did not hear our travel horror stories the details of our journey home:

We were supposed to leave on Jan. 20^th and fly from Birmingham to Paris to Minneapolis to Cedar Rapids and arrive home on the same day (due to the time change) around 5 pm. However, a couple of days before our departure there was an “enormous” snow storm that left Birmingham and most of England in disarray due to a 4” snow fall. Flights were being cancelled and delayed left and right. We tried to remain positive that our flight would take off, especially since it had been a couple of days since the storm.

In preparation for our flight, we stayed up all night the night before so we could sleep on the flight and avoid jet lag. We caught a cab at 3 am, got the airport, went through security, and almost boarded the flight, just to find out that our flight was cancelled. In short, we ended up waiting in line for 5 hours to rebook our flight for the next day at 8 pm. We went home, heartbroken. The next day, we caught another cab and arrived at the airport. Not ten minutes after we got there, our second flight was cancelled. They tried to rebook us for the next available flight, but there wouldn’t be one until after Christmas. However, they could put us on a waiting list for a 6:30 am flight the next morning and put us up in a hotel. So, the next morning we showed up at 3 am to see if we could get a spot on the flight, and miraculously we did. We took off for Paris. In Paris, we hopped a flight to Washington D.C. and arrived there too late to get to our next flight to Minneapolis. They couldn’t get us on any flights that night, so AirFrance had to rebook us for the next morning and put us up in yet another hotel.

Early Thursday morning we awoke, boarded our flight for Minneapolis, arrived on time, boarded our flight to Cedar Rapids, and finally got to our final destination. We were exhausted and four days late. But we made it.

And of course, we had a delay on our flight home, but it was nothing compared to our previous experience. We are happy not to be boarding any flights in the near future.

Andrew is back at work at Home Fundraising. Tomorrow he will start fundraising for a new charity called “Sense” which fundraises for blind and deaf people of all ages. The job is getting a little better as the weather has been very cooperative here. We can’t believe that it’s hovering around 45-50 degrees every day. It seems weird to have this kind of weather in January as we are used to tundra. Andrew is still hoping to do some substitute teaching in the near future. He sent his credentials in to get the UK equivalent. This will most definitely help him find other jobs.

Classes are going well for me, although it’s quite early to tell. We are covering the Restoration period right now, which is very interesting for me as I’ve never done any Restoration theatre and don’t know much about it. This term will be quite challenging as we are doing two full performances. Our first one, “The Grace of Mary Traverse” is in the middle of February, so we only have 3 more weeks to get everything together until the performance week. Our second play, “Separate Tables” will be performed at the end of March. Even though this will be a lot of work, I’m really looking forward to doing two shows. I think it will make everything move at a very fast pace. However, it is difficult since we still have all of our classes on top of the performances. We are also “encouraged” to use our British accents for our performances this time around, so hopefully after this term is over, I will emerge with a pretty legit accent.

Andrew’s aunt and uncle will be visiting us at the end of February and we are really looking forward to seeing them and showing them around Birmingham. So, if anyone else wants to visit, any time is a good time! I looked up flights in April and they are much cheaper than in the summer….just saying! Anyway, as always, we really miss everyone and are really happy that we got to see so many of you over the break. We loved being surrounded by the warmth of home.

Hope everyone is well!