And just like that, 6 weeks of summer holidays flew by!
As my wife is now a headteacher of a local school, school holidays feel more important to us than ever if we actually want to see each other. I’m lucky because I’m self-employed so if I want a day off, I just take one, but it’s quite nice to see my other half sometimes so we took a bit of time out to have an adventure this summer. Over a period of 16 days, we drove to Poland and back (with our dog), via the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Czech Republic…3,000 miles, but a great cultural experience and I did a lot of writing whilst there.
A couple of gigs with Queen Bee and Fred’s House later, a performance of The Only Drummer in Town in London which was a lot of fun and then I was at the newly-formed Wild Meadows Festival in Kings Ripton where I performed Only Drummer and Harvey Greenfield, plus ran a drum workshop. My play, Little Git, starring Alex Machell and Nicole Horst also ran there, before its final Cambridge run of shows.
And then after that I was at the Edinburgh Fringe, performing a new 9.45am show, Morning Theatre with Your Friend Paul Richards, which went remarkably well considering it was a very new show, as well as MCing my old pal, Liz Barker (of Blue Peter fame, no less) and hosting a drumming gameshow, Percussion Wars. That was my 19th Edinburgh Fringe run. I reckon I’ve got one more in me, even if my bank balance disagrees…
I’m back teaching privately now, and back in the schools next week. Load of band gigs (check out the events page on this site), a screening of Harvey Greenfield the movie and also the launch of the Christmas show to look forward to before the year is out!