Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Friendly Enderby!


These pictures will give you an idea why I love being here...

This is a view of the amazing cliffs of Enderby, which you can see from Enderby and from Grindrod, where we are rehearsing. I got my bike out the other day and although it means getting up earlier, it's a wonderful way to clear my head at the beginning and end of the day. It's somewhere between 7 & 10km to get from Enderby to Grindrod so it's good exercise too. Besides, I wake up early whether I GET up or not- Doug & Cathy & the kids are awake by about 6:30. It's taking my poor body a while to adjust, but slowly it's happening. The first few days I was just in shock! Doug is an organic farmer and he cooks amazing dinners (and sometimes breakfast too), which is great because the last thing I want to do is cook after a long day dealing with little puppets and their even tinier props! I love staying with Doug & Cathy because their kids are so lovely- Leif, Nell and Rosa have been a part of my life on and off for 10 years so it's always great to watch them grow. They are little wild kids, especially the twins, but very smart and hilarious to listen to- I love kids' non-linear way of talking.
This is the beautiful and wild Curly Willow Farm, where Doug does his farming and Cathy has her puppet theatre- an old flower-drying barn.

That's little Bessie, their latest dog. She loves having her ears rubbed.
It's been hard work, and my body is still acclimatising to the early hours and the constant dirt. I had a cold when I got here and it's never really gone, just morphed into a constantly stuffy nose. I get through miles of tissue every day. I think it's allergies.
I had a fantastic thrift-store day in Salmon Arm yesterday (our day off). I went shopping with Sarah May, who has a keen eye for a good piece of clothing, but suprisingly it was me who scored the most stuff- tops, skirts, dresses, and a fabulous pair of pants which had $90 tucked in the pocket! I turned that in to the store clerk, but Sarah assures me they'll be lucky pants for me from now on. If I eat too much of Doug's home cooking, and Uschi's too- our lunch cook- I won't fit into them, so I'd better be careful!
These last shots are some great blurry pix that Chris (the 3rd actor in the show with Cathy & Sarah) snapped at the Riverside Pub in Grindrod. It was inhabited by bikers the night we were there, many of them singing karaoke tunes. Very surreal.