I fail to capture the durm and strang

On Soph's instructions I'm not apologising for my irregularity in posting, for that would draw attention to my self-absorption in assuming people would've been frustratedly waiting for me, when in reality, you're all about your daily lives without fussing at all.

However, I have decided to give up on the goal of doing it all in a year. I haven't read a word of Henry the 6th for a week, and keep accidentally calling it Richard the 6th in my head and to others. Oh well.

Not that Billy hasn't continued stalking me.

First, there was the delightful present of a performance of Comedy of Errors by the students of St Andrews Cathedral School (I mustn't call them the kids!).

They did a fantastic job! I didn't even realise there were two Dromios until the scene where they talk over the door to each other, and suddenly, there were two very similar looking boys on stage doing a fabulous job of yelling Shakespearian lines in consternation. Well done! And the Dromios also did an excellent job of physical comedy (as did their counterpart Antipholae in poking them in the eyes).

The girls were also wonderful, and the costumes and settings were delightfully done. The whole thing had been brought forward to a miraculous 1920s Mediterranean coast that wouldn't have existed that way, but it was great.

The best part about the night was coming into the darkened black-box school theatre, walking in through the sets, over the boards, and feeling a sense of sick and excited anticipation taking me right back to the same experience myself of pre-show nerves before a school performance. It was thrilling.

And I didn't laugh too loudly, so no one forgot their lines on account of me (I believe).

More Shakespeare popped up in my choice to show my friend Rach the latest BBC Taming of the Shrew from their Shakespeare Re-told series - which is absolutely amazing. (I know I'm using an effusion of adjectives in this post, but it's because I feel so restricted by the written word when trying to convey the bubbly joy I've felt at these particular moments). Seriously though, I dare anyone out there who has read or heard of Dr Emerson Eggriches Love and Respect to watch it and see if they don't see the exact same principles wrought so wonderfully that you'll want to love like that forever.

Hmmmm. So you see that I can't escape him anyway, just in going about daily life. And also of course he keeps popping up in other books I'm reading. He was quoted in a novel I finished last weekend, and I'm buried in I Capture the Castle at the moment which is truly stunning me. I've been sitting here howling with delight, surprise and depression. If my neighbours have heard me yelling out, "oh no!!! Oh nooooo. No no no. Oh that's just terrible" they'll probably think I'm having an over-excited girlish conversation with someone. But no, it's just me, here in our loungeroom, realising over and over again why reading Shakespeare and being bookish has meant not only that if I'd kept a journal as a teenager, it would've been hilarious reading for the world upon my death, but why even now, it certainly makes me a little peculiar...

Oh why oh why did I have to be more Cassandra than Rose? More Lizzy than Jane, and frankly, more Mary than them all??!!! I love it of course. I truly adore being this way, because it has made I Capture and exquisite as well as exquisitely painful read, but sometimes it's a little depressing.

So if none of that made sense, I apologise (knowing of course as mentioned before that it has no effect on you but to cause a slight sense of distaste), and certainly shall strive to be better.