After-maths.

Dear Ether,

To get it out the way; the exam was ok. I read like hell before the exam and wrote like hell in the exam and that’s a combination that’s yet to fail me. So in the absence of superstition all I can do is not cross my fingers and wait.

The immediate aftermath was deliciously blurry and late night-ed, which picked me up and threw me back into the social whirlwind which I love so dearly. That weekend was also charged with the anticipation of the LUDAAS which I was gut-wrenchingly excited for.

And oh how they delivered. It was an incredibly night and exactly what it should have been: a celebration of a great year of great drama. Everyone was dressed to the nines and beyond in dresses and suits, smiles and nerves.Because of course the night included AWARDS. I think everyone who won an award had earned it, and even those winners were merely la crème of a very high quality crème.

I concede I was amongst the serendipitous few to be blessed with an award, and I honestly could not stop smiling. All night. Not a photograph smile, not a happy smile, but a full on crack-your-face-in-two beam.

I was that happy because it recognised not just my own effort (and I do admit I spent a lot of nights shouting at my wall in a cockney accent for that award) but the efforts of everyone involved. When I went up I thanked my casts and my directors, and I genuinely think that’s where the magic lies. I couldn’t have been Les without Barry/Jerry/Steve and I couldn’t have been that actor without all the others who were with me on stage and at the bar.

The night began in a full suit in a posh joint in the docks and ended at dawn under a tree with a friend, and the time between was spent throwing myself onto the dance floor, into a thousand photographs, and into the arms of my so very very inebriated friends. I couldn’t have been happier.

The next day promised a new chapter, in the form of an unanticipated trip to Wales. To be honest, it should have been anticipated, apparently I had been informed of the dates several times. However, in a bar the night before when I had been reminded that we were leaving for Wales tomorrow I simply insisted that it wasn’t until NEXT Tuesday. Oh dear.

In the end all that confusion paled to the greatness that was the Wales adventure. It seemed the perfect opportunity to rest our fatigued minds and bodies in the peaceful surrounds of the Welsh countryside.

Picnicking beside a slow-moving river, skipping stones and taking in the beautiful landscape, that’s exactly what it was. I don’t think city-soiled students ever thought they would appreciate the serenity of the setting so. Except of course for Morris, who I assume missed this moment as he was trying to work where EXACTLY we were on google latitude, despite having no idea where we were in Wales.

The rest element of this trip was however side-lined slightly by our insistence on taking the night as well. We talked, a lot. An incessant stream of in-jokes, impersonations and teasing which has left me with aching ribs even now. We also found time for debate and conversation which made me fall in love with these fascinating creatures I call friends all over again.

We also found time for an awful, awful film, which left us in tears and laughter for such wrong reasons. For reference, one scene included a small Japanese boy throwing condoms filled with holy water at his newly zombified foster-father. You can only imagine.

This blog-post is rapidly spiralling out of control. The more that happens, the less time I have to write about it. I wouldn’t have it any other way though. Above all however, these times are all the more special because they celebrate the end of; second year, East, life at Liverpool and for some the end of their degrees.

For those of you who haven’t been dedicated enough to translate ‘a la prochaine’, it is French for ‘until the next time’. And so to all those who I might not see for a while, or who feel it’s the end of something, I say, determinedly:

a la prochaine.

Because there will be a next time.