What a day yesterday! I was exhausted at the end of it. I don’t know about you, but we live a very modest lifestyle and have been through many lean years, where paying the bills and the mortgage seemed impossible. Somehow, we have always done it, but the stress was constant.

We still have very little money, but we are getting social security and pensions, so we know we can cover our basic costs every month.

So when I had to pay a chunk of money for plane fare last week and, yesterday, for a hotel in London and plane fare from Edinburgh to Paris, yours truly got very stressed. Of course, I’d already set aside those funds for the trip, but paying out what to me is a lot  of money for our trip made me tense. That, coupled with the Kavanaugh hearings in Washington, was a stress-tsunami!

We’ve decided that we’ll fly into Edinburgh, go through customs, grab a bite to eat and then board a plane for Paris, where – presumably – we’ll collapse that night in our lodgings. We’re spending a week in Paris (our anniversary falls during that week) and then we’ll travel to London, spend a week there, take the train to Edinburgh, spend 2 days there, and fly home.

It all costs a whole heck of a lot more money than we are used to shelling out.

We’ve booked the hotel in London, the flights are booked, we’re waiting to hear about an apartment in Paris (Linda, we used your link) but they haven’t got back to us yet which is making us nervous. Don even called them this morning and left a message.

We haven’t booked a hotel in Edinburgh yet, or the train to London. We’ll get to that.

It’s all too much for yours truly!

The zinnias are looking lovely even in this horrible heat wave. Next week looks much better.

Hopefully, we can wrap up the Paris reservations today. The trip is in just about a month, which will be here before you know it.

In the meantime, I have been dealing with professional disappointments, jobs I thought I would have, courtesy that I expected but didn’t get, long waiting periods without any communication, all while I was waiting to book this trip, keeping a certain chunk of time open for work, trying not to conflict with any rehearsal dates, only to finally say “Screw It!” and book the trip anyway. I can’t go into any more detail than that but I’ve been hurt and disappointed. I’d even throw in ‘disillusioned.’

So we’re going when we’re going and that’s that. After 18 years of freelancing out here in the east, much of which has been lovely, by the way, I’m tired of always being the last person contacted, the one who has to constantly email or call to get someone to commit to a contract and then waiting and waiting for a response. In this world of quick emails and texts, how hard can it be to answer someone in a timely manner? I am pretty scrupulous about doing that myself and I expect others to be as well. But, they’re not. Actors have agents, directors have agents, as do designers and choreographers. There are not agents for what I do. It’s just me.

And I’m over it.

Thanks for letting me rant a little.

Happy Wednesday.