LAURA IN THE LAKES

I have LANDED. In a heap of belongings, wellies and a pair of straighteners which have instantly been made redundant (Rain + My Hair = Frizzimanjarlo), I have arrived in the North. And it is raining. Quelle surprise!

The rain in the Lake District is leaps and bounds away from the rain in London, not just because of the obvious geographical distance but because in the North one is not afeared that said rain will corrode one’s face.

However, the rain in the Lakes does not come danger free, oh no. What the bracing, tumultuous, Wuthering Heights-esque downpours do is much, much worse… They call to my inner frolic.

Now we all have an inner frolic in us somewhere, that need to skip and grin like we’ve done a really good fart and no one’s heard.  The frolic is usually equated with the playing of S Club 7 or unexpectedly finding oneself in a meadow or failing that, a BodyForm advert.

But not in the Lakes, the rain is what does it here. As soon as one single drop falls, I am INSTANTLY Elizabeth Bennett trekking over the fields to Pemberly to rescue my flu suffering yet perfectly composed sister Jane, with muddy skirts and flushed cheeks, accompanied by nothing but the hidden yet unrecognised to desire to bump into Mr Darcy.

‘Yes, I do have a vivid imagination’, she answered to the child psychologist. Couple that with a pink bicycle/wicker basket combo and a strong desire for adventure and that’s me covered. There is even a café in Keswick called ‘Laura in the Lakes’. It was obviously meant to be.

SO. I climbed my first hill this weekend. I say hill… It was most definitely more of a hillock. However, along the way I found something which has potentially made my life, or at least seven months of my life. Many of you will have seen this incredible discovery already as I have brutally plastered it over every social medium available to my fat fingers.

As I was stomping up said hillock, I came across this sign…

As we say in Gloucester- THAT’S THE BADGER! I literally had to stop to wet myself. ‘BADGERS FOR ½ MILE’. Who do you think discussed this with the badgers? Do they know not to stray beyond the half mile? Is it a badger/human compromise? Or was one badger adamant for ¾ mile but got shot down?!

‘Alright lads, you’re allowed to build your dens up to the stile but no further, do you hear me?!? We’ve made a pact. Remember the Magna Carta? No, why should you, you’re badgers. The Magna Carta is utterly irrelevant to your place in this world. Unless King John harboured strong views on culling… which I can’t rule out entirely… But ANYWAY, this is your half mile and you stick to it! Alright?!’

What happened after that, we’ll never know. We’re just left with this brilliant sign and a hope for the future of badgers throughout the land.

What I should be telling you about is rehearsals, the theatre and the people. But I’m afraid the badgers, the rain and the bicycle may have SLIGHTLY distracted me.

I promise to fill you in (like Craig David) in more detail next time. But to sum them up for now I shall use a quote from a little known play called As You Like It… 

‘O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! And yet again wonderful, and after that, out of all whooping!’