Popping Back

Thought I would pop back just to see what the old blog looked like..

Quite strange to be here. I kinda wish I could find the time to blog here again but work dominates all.

I have been away from London till recently, working at a provincial theatre to ‘broaden my experience’. Hmm.

Good fun to be honest.

And I have been doing a little extra work for a friend’s writing business, proofreading manuscripts and the such like. I’ve also agreed to help judge a story competition he’s setting up. The boot is well and truly on the other foot!

Unseasonly mild here in the UK, but the promise of colder weather to come. Oh goody, time to get the thermal bra and knickers out!

Love to all.

Little Girl Found

The little girl sat, lost in her own world, swallowed up in the large brown creased leather chair. All around her the hustle and bustle of the bookshop went on. People standing around perusing the latest editions, elderly customers seated in comfy chairs with their reading glasses perched on the end of their noses, and schoolchildren eagerly showing their discoveries to enthusiastic friends. The little girl was oblivious to it all. Her head swirled with hobbits and dragons, her eyes glued to the pages, her legs kicking out in the rhythmical pattern of reading.
“Ah, there you are, Jessie. Thought I’d lost you for a moment. You been okay?”
“Sure, Daddy.”
The little girl looked up and her large brown eyes flashed at the smartly dressed man in front of her.
“I went for an explore then found this book and now I’m fighting a dragon.”
The man chuckled.
“Haha, just another normal day in Jessica Land, then. Let’s go buy that book for you.”
The girl shook her mane of brown hair.
“No need, Daddy. You got the book at home. Third shelf up, seven books in from the left. In your study. I can get it from there tonight to finish. If you don’t mind, Daddy?”
A smile cracked wide across the man’s face.
“Oh no, I don’t mind, Jessie. Come on, let’s go relieve Mummy, she’s been looking after your baby sister all day.”
The little girl bounced off the chair, placed the book precisely on the table where it had been on display and grasped the man’s gloved hand.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, bumpkin?”
“I know what I want to do when I’m grown up, like you and Mummy.”
“Oh really?”
The man steered himself and his daughter through the thronging crowd, barely able to hear the little girl’s words. Pushing open the glass panelled door he stopped on the elegant stone steps of London’s most famous bookshop and breathed in the chilly autumn air.
“Daddy, were you listening?”
“Sorry, Jessie, too many people in there. Now, what do you want to be?”
The little girl beamed up into her father’s face as her smile spread across her lips. Her eyes twinkled.
“I’m gonna read all the books in the world, work in that bookshop and then work in a thing called a theatre!”
“Wow! Now, how’d you know about theatres, we haven’t been to one yet. Said we’d go at Christmas, to a pantomime, didn’t we?”
“Mmm, yes, Daddy. But I kinda seen one, and it’s me. I know.”
The man laughed and stepped down onto the street, still hand in hand with his daughter. As he did so a young woman collided with him. She stopped, looked up with blazing brown eyes and a tired expression. Muttering a quick ‘sorry’ she hastened up into the bookshop.
“Come on, Daddy. You said we had to get home to help Mummy.”
The man, who had stopped and stared at the retreating figure of the woman in her blue faded jeans and short cream jacket , shook himself out of his daze, and started walking.
“Damn funny, Jessie.”
“Daddy! Mummy doesn’t like you saying that word!”
“Sorry, bumpkin. But that woman just now, splitting image of Mummy when I first met her at a matineé. Few years ago now, bumpkin.”
The man shook his head.
“Come on, fruit pie. Home we go!”
As they set off towards the Tube station, the man’s head turned briefly back towards the bookshop…

© Jessica D’Angelo 2011

Little Girl Lost

The little girl wandered along the streets of London. Her head turned left and right, up and down, amazed by the flickering lights and bustling people. She stopped and stared at a large display of glittering jewelery and shoes. A smile crossed her cherubic face. The girl looked around and gazed down at the damp pavement. She was sad that there was no gold there. Hadn’t the story said the streets were paved with gold? Shucks, she thought, another lie from the grown ups. But the little girl lifted her head of shiny shimmering brown hair, smiled and skipped away, dodging the swinging bags and umbrellas.

As her pace of exploration slowed the little girl found herself looking at huge buildings with colourful displays and enormous pictures of strangely garbed people. No one was going into these places, just hurrying past, lost in their own world of thoughts. But something was drawing the girl to the dark doors that hid mysterious interiors. Pressing her nose to a glass panel she stared inwards, making out a few shapes, a counter, and other doors leading she knew not where. Just then, to her right, one of the doors opened and a large gentleman in some kind of uniform stepped out. He glanced lazily around, wandered down a few steps and took out a cigarette and lighter. As he puffed out the white smoke, the little girl slipped behind him and disappeared into the dark foyer.

Faced by a long counter and numerous doors, the girl murmured an infant’s playground chant and tugged open the second door on the right. She wandered curiously down a dark corridor towards another door with a glass panel at adult head height. With effort the little girl pulled it back and immediately stood still, amazed. It was like falling into Wonderland’s rabbit hole. Stepping out of the gloom of the corridor she gazed at a fantastical scene. Ahead, on a vast stage, men and women moved around in apparent choreographed chaos. Men sawed and painted wooden constructions, gaggles of people sat and walked in the aisles and seats, and lights were manoevred overhead with colorful beams bouncing off curtains and walls. A small group of men and women rehearsed movements to one side, laughing and chuckling. On the stage the most beautiful woman the girl had ever seen swept to the front, her brilliant red damask dress like a sun at the centre of a solar system, her yellow blond hair framing an angelic face, long, slender arms practising gestures and commands. Hurrying back and forth like a Cinderella figure, a young woman in jeans and t-shirt scurried up and down the stage steps to the people seated in the auditorium.

The little girl could have stood there for eternity, lost in this make believe world, just like she might become lost in the first pages of a new book. But she knew she must leave. And turned.

Down on the stage Jessica puffed out her cheeks and mentally crossed off another task. A voice came out of the darkened seats. “Jessie, dear, can you get me Patrick Stewart on the phone? Use his personal mobile number, I can’t stand that vacilliating agent of his. ‘Make it so’ – haha!”

Jessica flipped out her Blackberry and as she did so a movement at the back of the theatre caught her eye. She glanced up and saw a small figure pushing open the door. The figure halted momentarily and turned to look at the stage. Jessica narrowed her eyes as the little girl disappeared into the black corridor. For a moment she could have sworn she recognised the face. Her own, from many years ago.

© Jessica D’Angelo 2011

 

London Life

Sorry but this is not a piece of fiction writing, so apologies if you dashed over here thinking I had started blogging my work again! I just thought I would respond to an email an online friend sent today, asking if I were okay in London amidst all the riots.

Well, it has certainly been interesting, and a little scary. In fact a hell of a lot scary at times. For those of you who live outside the UK and depend on the TV coverage and website news, let me confirm that many of the rioters/looters were of school age. Absolutely unbelievable! Yes, many of those arrested were older, they were caught carrying things away or photographed on CCTV and later arrested. But many of the people running up and down, throwing things at windows and swearing and jeering at the police were aged about 10 to 16.

The best scene was seeing a troop of about twenty riot police charging such a crowd and seeing the little b******* run for their lives. I’m pleased to say the police caught some and quite rightly handled them roughly. I just wish they could have taught the parents a lesson or two as well!

Right then, back to work! Theatre life goes on as usual.

It’s Strange

It’s strange to be back here. Entering my blog feels like rifling through an old box under my bed and discovering dusty schoolbooks and creased photographs from years long gone. It’s taken me several attempts to even get this far (partly because I forgot my password!).

I’m now living in London, sharing a flat with three girls. University days are over and work in the real world has begun. After considering the safer options of law or teaching, I decided to go for my first love ( well, second love since publishers have yet to sign me up on a multi-million pound writing contract). Whilst writing at Oxford I had become involved in a theatre group and although at first I was just writing the scripts, I became fascinated by the whole environment of a live performance. Not from the acting point of view, I’m not the next Nicole Kidman, but the whole shebang of writing, producing, directing, etc, etc. Sooooo, with a little help from family contacts and a lot of bootlicking here I am, working from the bottom up in a London theatre. I know how the present director likes his coffee and what time the costume designer likes her doughnut, so the only way is up! Eventual aim? Well, while continuing to write the yet to be published bestseller, I will have to make do with merely directing or producing or writing the next West End hit. Watch out, Lloyd Webber!

Will I continue blogging here? Unlikely, I think. It seems like something from a long, long time ago. Part of my lazy school and university days. Maybe I will pop back at times and give an update, we’ll see. My work takes up six days a week at present so right now I’m trying to fit in all domestic and social tasks into Sunday. Oh and getting some sleep! My flatmates comprise one budding actress, one junior publishing assistant and  one waitress waiting to be discovered as next year’s catwalk model. No money between us, but a million laughs everyday.

Okay, the washing machine is calling me. Look for my name in lights…