So waking up the morning after the first night of a show is always interesting. In my case, I’ve almost always stayed up into the early hours of the morning after the show, waiting for the opening night euphoria to settle down enough for me to be able to sleep. Consequently, the next day I usually wake up some time mid morning with an applause hangover and some vague confusion over the idea of turning around and doing it all again tonight.

Usually, I get woken up by my phone vibrating on my bedside table to alert me that I have sixteen text messages and five missed calls from eligible young ladies’ mothers who have been to the show and wanted to say how much they enjoyed it and that they would definitely be bringing the rest of their families along for the show the following night because they’d all, on hearing their respective matriarchs’ glowing revues of the show, been dying to come, live the experience for themselves, meet the cast and get lost for an hour and half or so in a little bit of theatrical magic of their own.

I say “usually,” but the fact is it hasn’t happened like that the last three times. Or ever, actually. But it strikes me as the sort of thing that should be happening more often.

No. what happened this time around was I woke up to discover a sagely looking mandrill had snuck into my room overnight and was nibbling on the edges of my Back to the Future poster. I threw my pillow at him to make him stop, but he simply dodged to the left, turned and blew me a raspberry, before boldly exclaiming “you follow old Rafiki! He knows the way!” I had to admit, the crazy old primate had a point, so I followed him out the window onto the front lawn where I found Oxfam Girl and Biscuit Lady having a light sabre duel, accompanied by the theme from The West Wing. It was at that moment that I realised I was a seahorse.

Okay, that one didn’t really happen either.

I was woken up by my phone ringing. It actually was a young lady on the other end, but the young lady in question happened to be my sister, which took some of the excitement out of it. That is, until she said this:

“I’m just ringing to tell you… I’ve been cast in the lead role in an Italian version of the Sound of Music, and I’m moving to Florence to follow my…”

Stop it!

…

That is, until she said this:

“I’m just ringing to tell you… I’m engaged”

My typically eloquent response was the product of severe shock, recent awakening and applause hangover and basically came something like:

“WHAT?”

After some incoherent babbling I think I managed a ‘congratulations’ in there somewhere. But honestly, if you’d put all the previous scenarios in front of me two weeks ago and asked me to bet on the outcome, I would probably have picked the monkey one. It’s strange, and possibly a little disrespectful to my sister, not to mention her fiancé, but that’s where I would have put my money.

I’m not really a gambling man. Make of that what you will.

Garry with 2 Rs

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