Save the Cat

 No one truly ever knows what a Monday will bring for them, that seemed doubly true for me today. First up, we were a team member down so it was up to me to fill in the gaps - which meant immediately hopping in my car, driving across town to go pick up a pair of glasses one of my colleagues left at home. Riveting stuff.

A short while later we were having a catchup by the window and someone remarked about how uncomfortable a cat looked perched on a fence. So we all looked over as the cat sat, had a wobble, lost its balance and to save face decided to scamper up the nearest tree. Then it just kept on climbing and climbing and climbing til it got about three stories high. That was understandably cause for concern and somehow I became chief of operation Save That Cat. First up, I needed to check if the fire brigade would actually come out for us. I found the non-emergency number of our closest places and got to make a phonecall I never expected to have.  Turns out they will wait about 24 hours before sending one out which I kinda fair in most cases but this particular tree was very spindly and the cat had nowhere to perch for another 23 hours and 50 minutes so we decided to take action into our own hands. A nearby resident just came outside with a big old ladder to help the cause but alas, it wasn't quite tall enough. Then the contruction team next door got involved alongside their powered machines. We ended up guiding a telehandler up towards the tree to offer up a platform to the cat. We had some salmon for coaxing just in case but the cat eventually realized we were here to help and hopped onto the arm of the machine. We all cheered in that moment, I heard later that the whole of the office were watching out the window at this daring rescue. It was somewhat premature though as halfway through the machine's decent the cat decided it would rather take matters into its own hands and leapt off, colliding with a windmirror on the way down, but still landing on all fours. It bolted away before we could check it it was ok, I reckon it just had a bruised ego thankfully. Perhaps I could sell the movie rights for this story.

Then back to it I was told I had to bring in a hire car for tomorrow. I wish that was a better tale to tell, instead it was a phonecall.

Mother's Day 2025

Popped down to Newbury to spend some time with my folks this Mother's Day. Aside from giving a card and some flowers, my biggest contribution to the day was helping Mum out with her latest jigsaw puzzle. But in between that we went in a great big walk in the countryside while Mum pointed and named every tree. Beech, silver Birch, oat, horse chestnut, the works basically. We're lucky to have such nature in our doorstep, especially this time of year. For dinner we nipped out for a curry, the day went by so quickly though so I had to jump back into the car shortly after getting back home. Daylight saving hours struck hard this Sunday. Yesterday it wouldn't be my bedtime right now. But presently I'm just as tired as I would be this time of night.

Outlast Advocaat

We have a new record on longest lasting bottle of advocaat. That stuff usually don't make it past epiphany in our house but for some reason it was kicking around for ages this year. Felt right to finish it off just before the clocks go forward. The ring in this new era of sorts I did a proper Spring clean. On my hands and knees dusting skirting boards, vacuuming unloved corners and sprucing up all the other spots. Rebecca and I carved out some easy going time too. We finished Adolescence, the talking point TV show that's doing the rounds - I'll be poised to chat with colleagues about it on Monday now which is now often the best part about watching a new series. It sure was nice to have a sloppy Saturday all to ourselves though, best part was watching the cat roll around in the sun on our patio. Plenty more of that to come this year.

Greasing the Friday

Been a good few weeks since I've had to wake up at 6am for work, but pastries were a staple of the early Friday morning meetings on the last job so we're bringing them back - at the small expense of my sleeping hours. It did mean we could pick at the pastry leftovers which is a nice perk. But because of my braces, I held off until lunchtime to check the box for remnants, and if course, only the plain croissants were leftover...

The other reason I went out of my way to make the morning meeting so pleasant: if the bosses are in a good mood they sometimes let us go home early on Friday's... And that's exactly what happened today! What a blooming treat!

Quizzin' Thursday

I kept thinking it was Tuesday today, imagine my delight when I realized I was already knocking on the door of the weekend. The past week has flown by and even today went by in a heartbeat. Again I was mostly doing NDA's and points of research for the Line Producer. I also totally misinterpreted a meeting this morning, thinking it was an online call but in actuality it was in person with about 18 people in it. Teas and coffees apenty in that case. I left my barista job half a decade ago yet that old baggage follows me around.

In the evening went went up the road with Louis and Rachel for another stab at the quiz night. We came painfully close wlto winning some of the rounds but never quite sealed the deal. Turns out we know star signs better than we thought, full house on that section but the other teams were just that bit better.

Laptop Sub

My to do list went virtually untouched today as a bevvy of ad hoc jobs all landed at my feet upon entering the office. Lots of little prep bits and putting important people into meeting rooms, that sort of thing. Then just as their Zoom call was about to start, the work laptop died so I had to sub in mine. I thought it would be for 30 minutes but I was off my device for almost two hours. Regardless, I got a lot done and people are in good spirits overall, even as prep ramps up in workload it all feels managable and we're all confident in our roles - that makes such a difference in a work environment.

I could have watched a film tonight but I opted to play some online games with colleagues and people from the Bristol TV scene. I'm getting good at meeting strangers, so long as there's a game in the middle of us to ground conversation. Normally I'd be terrible at throwing myself into the deep end but I'm getting better and better as I get older.

Eco Warriors Unite!

Today's whiteboard question was 'What's the best kind of cake?' Vicky sponge, easy.

Besides that I got a chance to show off how much of the Albert certification I had already completed. A chap from the head office's sustainability team visited our site today so we had an opportunity to sit down and chat all things eco friendly. That's kinda become my baby now, the domain that I'll be overseeing as the shoot progresses which is a sizable duty. Mostly keeping logs of the paper used - how many taxis we book cast and how much fuel our generator guzzles. No doubt we're going to contribute a mountain of pollution on this job, guess it's my job to keep that in check where possible and record everything to feed the great statistics beast.

 

What Would Make Monday's Better?

We have a whiteboard at work that now features a daily question - a 'would you rather...' of sorts. Today's was 'What would make Monday's better?'

 

A) Finding a £20 note

B) Unlimited Artisan Coffee

C) Half a day off

D) Free lunch from Pret (you can tell the age bracket of the person who wrote the question.)

The tally was pretty unanimously in the C column, giving further credibility to my argument that if you ever want to treat a film crew, give them the currency they value most: time. Time to spend time with loved one, time to spend tinkering with hobbies, time to ask questions and time to simply exist. I could have done with a bit more of that as I watched the clock between emails, dreaming of hometime where I could do all of the above.

Boutique Bakery

I sleep so much better when there isn't a cat snoozing on my side if the bed and swaddling up to me for warmth. On one hand, it's adorable but in the other, I do miss unbroken rest. Waking up in our friends house in a bright and airy London flat was a treat. Then the coffee and hot cross buns came out and the morning went from great to idyllic. We had a very leisurely breakfast before walking up to a boutique bakery for some lunch, time went so fast though as we had to dash across London shortly after so we could catch our coach back. This weekend went by far too quickly, tomorrow it'll be back to the grind, the emails, the spreadsheets and the cat hogging the mattress. I already can't wait for the next weekend.

Mickey 17

A delayed coach is usually something I'd groan at, but it gave me ample time to dive into Orbital, the next book I'm reading. In truth, I probably should have tried to get a little bit of extra sleep on the journey since I woke up feeling pretty tired and reading 100 pages of tiny text probably didn't help the cause. I perked up as soon as we got to London though. We killed a bit of time doing some shopping before meeting up with some of Rebecca's friends for pizza and a trip to the cinema for Mickey 17. The film was just so-so, (review on my Letterboxd), but the Picture House venue was a genuine delight, a great space to catch a film in.

Coach Stan

Fridays at work are always tempered with that twinkle of anticipation for the weekend. Better still, I smashed through loads of bits so I have a nice clean slate for Monday... And everything I didn't finish up will become Monday's problem! I packed my bags ready for a weekend up in London with friends, including plenty of books to take up for the coach trip. It's been a hot minute since I caught the coach, I remember quite liking when I was going back and forth on the cheap. Read a lot of books and listened to a lot of podcasts and albums. Hopefully my optimism for coach travel will remain unwaivering after tomorrow, though we do have to get up earlier than I would like on a Saturday to catch a good one. All in the name of keeping friendships alive though and you can't put a price on that.

Keyboard Comedown

There I was. Flat on my stomach, underneath my desk, poking a cable tie with a cylinder of sellotaple applied to the head as I went fishing through the floorboards of my spare bedroom. How did this come to pass I hear you ask? Well I was doing some tinkering on my keyboard and a piece fell off my desk and through the crack of my wood panelling. Lord I felt like a lemon holding my breath and praying that the sellotaple didn't get too dusty as I flossed the floorboards. I felt so dumb that I actually had a bit of an epiphany moment. Why they hell have I spent so much of my life thinking about this damn keyboard? It actually made me quite depressed, when you make an aspirational purchase and it doesn't immediately spark joy and you end up deep in forums and YouTube videos reading about how to fix aspects of it then you know something is wrong. I felt like I was buying into this dream of becoming a better writer because I had a nicer keyboard - one that looked and felt a bit like a typewriter. But that simply isn't the case, every time I press a key I get a weird vibe - a far cry from the confidence it's meant to inspire. In truth it just makes me a bit sad to think about it at the moment.

Tray 3

Swing by the dentist once again for another check up on my braces and another round of IPR. That's where they get an abrasive strip and run in between your teeth, almost like dental floss if it were sandpaper which the goal of shaving off 0.01mm of a tooth. It was hell the first time round and not much nicer today as I bled a fair bit after the dentist went down to the gumline, assuring he was thorough. The upshot is I won't have to do that now for another 3 months, I just have to let my trays do the heavy lifting. Speaking of which, I put my next set in today and once again I'm feeling the pressure on my everything. It's uncomfortable but before I know it it'll be second nature and then it'll be time to repeat the process all over again. I'm probably about 10% of the way through the treatment (if all goes to plan) all I gotta do is muscle it out for a bit longer.

Gotcha Day

In a classic turn of events, my workload ramped up only at the tail end of the day and everything because super urgent. Before the costume coordinator joins us I'm doing the costume transportation bookings, something I'm very familiar doing but still manages to give me anxiety. Probably because every person who owns a railed luton van tends to be over the age of 60 and you can only cross your fingers and pray that your instructions are clear enough. Maybe in 30 years time I should pack it all in, buy a van and do shuttles from London to Bristol. I'd make a pretty penny doing it.

Today also marks the 'Gotcha' day for our cat. Been there years with this little fuzzball in our lives. I like to play it cool in front of Rebecca, playing the stoic figure who is unphased by having a cute animal in the house. But the cat really has transformed the home, lending it a good energy that feels lively and comforting. I hope the cat feels as lucky as we do that we found each other.

Snowglobe Safety

Why is it on the weekends I'm always up at the crack of dawn, yet on weekdays I sleep in well past my alarm. Guess it's linked to the fact there's a bit of Garfield in me since I hate Mondays and find it hard to stomach heading back into the office after such a restful weekend. But, like most Mondays, they're much worse in the anticipation vs the actual day because everything was just as it should be. Emails, phonecalls and arrangements. Bread and butter. Hometime couldn't come fast enough as I couldn't wait to get back to hanging out with Rebecca, laughing at early evening television, playing games and reading books. If that's all life could be, I would freeze myself in a snowglobe and make sure no one would skae it up.

Cover to Cover

Continuing my Asian media streak I dived not into a film... But a book! Convenience Store Woman came highly recommended by Rebecca so I settled into it to see how I'd get on. A few hours later I had finished it. Granted it wasn't the longest book but it felt great to zip through a story like that again. I'm forever lamenting how little I read but when it's as easy and enjoyable as that it's such a treat. I'll try and make a more conscious effort to read going forward, I have far too many in my 'to read' pile now so it'd be great to clear that.

Subtitles Subtitles Subtitles

I realised only now that all I did today was read subtitles. With Rebecca out of town this weekend I decided to have a little movie blow out today. I hand picked three pieces of Asian Cinema that have been gathering dust on my watchlist for a while and now was the perfect time to give them a shot. What I didn't expect was to watch what will no doubt be some of the best films I'll see all year. Supermarket Woman, Yi Yi and Fallen Angels were on the agenda and now of them disappointed.

I realized I don't think I've ever linked my Letterboxd here before but I'll include it here today because I'm now in the habit of writing up short reviews for each film over on that platform. I also just hit 1,700 films watched after today - already hungry for more though.

Here's my LetterBoxd

Lifting Solo Once Again

A cold claimed a co worker so it was down to me to do a handful of two people jobs but myself... Just like old times. In particular it was, physical labour work, the kind of thing I don't do anymore because as I said yesterday, my body is now just an NDA machine. But still it was good to actually DO something during my day. Even if that thing was unloading a shipping crate, just so I could put it all back in a few hours later. The upshot is everyone ran out of work to do, including the bosses so we all clocked off early. Home at a good time in a Friday night, absolutely perfect.

Quizzin' Thursday

My body is a machine that sits behind a desk that turns blank NDA's into DocuSign forms, to then get filed. That feels like the beating heart of my role at the moment in prep, but I do get to do some fun gigs too. I'm designing the cast welcome booklet to Bristol which has a suite of restaurant recommendations in the area, all hand picked and hyped up with a tagline to really sell each spot. If even one person reads it and goes to one restaurant I will have succeeded.

Our favourite art gallery / board game place also hosts a quiz night on Thursdays now. I've always been too busy on Thursdays but we managed a team if four between myself, Rebecca, Louis and Rachel, we gave it a damn good shot too. Instead of there being and overall winner, the quiz was broken into a bunch of mini rounds that each came with their own prizes. We were so close to winning one of them but lost it at the final post. Plus I learnt that polar bears are in fact the biggest bear, a fact that Louis will no doubt laud over me for a long old time.

A Team Player Once Again

Piece by piece, everything starts falling into place. The work load is starting to ramp up and the responsibilities of being in production start to manifest more and more. I'm hiring cars again, wrangling costume vans and forward planning meals for meetings. I'm wearing these duties like a pair of old gloves, they fit better than I remember and there's something about them that just feels like home. 

Once the day was over it was time to spend even more time with my team for a pub night together. I suggested a cheaper option than going to a board game night would be if I just bought a bunch of games with me... In hindsight I should have charged commission but we had a good time and that's all that matters. Once again I think we're locked in with a really strong team and I'm proud to be a cog in that machine. That was the main thing I missed in the world of script supervising, a team environment and a core group of people you could rely on and share your highs and lows with.

Vendors Remembers

Though I've been out of the Production world for about a year, a bunch of old vendors still remember my name. I was chatting to a regular car supplier and a man with a van, both of which greeted me as if we were old friends. That's one of the unspoken best things about this industry, you meet a lot of people and touch a lot of lives. Everyone knows we're passing ships but it's lovely when we get to wave to each other off the stern if we cross routes once again. They're helping me inch the needle that is my job list right now, while I didn't strike much off everything is getting closer to being resolved... Just in time for more big jobs to land our way.

Parking Peeps

What started off as a fairly simple sounding task to ensure long term parking has now turned into a code red for everyone in my team. We're all calling up local businesses to find anywhere with a free slot on their books with very limited success. It honestly has turned into one of those hopeless tasks, none of us can relax until it's all sorted. Even during meetings it was ticking over in my brain. Being back home was nice though, stepping away from that madness and headspace to instead enjoy the company of Rebecca and the cat. They are the source of strength I drawer from whenever I'm feeling low or snowed under.

Summertime in March

It's been a little while since Rebecca and I did the North Street Shuffle and seeing as the sun was shining and it felt more like May than March, we took a walk into town. We popped out heads into the usual shops to check it's all still there though the board game shop will be under new management soon and Mark's Bread is chomping into the Tobacco Factory's real estate, otherwise its same ol', same ol'. We wanted to get lunch out today, not just an aranchini ball but some proper street food. A Turkish flatbread stand was happy to oblige and it was there that I ate possibly the best grilled chicken I've ever had. I was just eating it in total silence, transfixed but how delicious it was. The BBQ style of it paired with the bustle of the crowd made today feel like Summertime. It got me excited for the coming months of warmth and outdoor hangouts.

Weekend Worth

Turns out stumbling home at 3am results in sleeping in, which results in less Saturday. That's some quick maths you can trust. I clawed back a bit of weekend worth by watching a film and by doing a big old declutter of my desk drawers and other places. Turns out I have a few out of circulation coins that might be worth a pretty penny online now, that's my inheritance knocking around in my desk drawers as it turns out. 

I couldn't spend that newfound wealth just yet though, but we did spash the cash a little bit at a local wine bar, supping reds, whites and orange wines until past the point of inebriation. Then when we got kicked out we found a new bar and drank some more. It's been a hot minute since I got takeout food in a drunken stumble home but Rebecca and I couldn't pass up some Southern fried chicken. A Saturday we'll spent,eta hope I get a head start on Sunday.

Lockdown Board Game Lookback

 Powered through the Friday by smashing out emails and phonecalls so I could start Monday afresh. Curveball job if the day was helping the locations department unloaded a bunch of shipping containers into a big old van. I certainly didn't expect to be shimmying a bunch of mats, EZups and pop up bins this afternoon but variety is the spice of life as they say.

 But I spent the evening doing something very familiar and cozy. A friend of me and Mark hosted another one of his infamous board game nights, they tend to go on late and this one was no exception. But it's such a historic and chaotic group we are all guaranteed to have a good time. We were howling with laughter at Zoo Vadis, a game facilitated entirely by negotiations which got wilder and wilder. But the best part of the night was at the very end. With a glass of whiskey we hopped onto his computer to look at a bunch of files on his Google Drive of all the old electronic board games he made for us during lockdown. He spent hours scanning in, cropping pictures and creating elements just so we could play an approximation of games during the height of the pandemic. I didn't appreciate it fully at the time but it was his lifeline and I remember those nights on Zoom calls so fondly. Tonight we laughed at the absolutely absurdity and effort of the whole thing, but that was his Fitzcarraldo. He built it and we came. And for that I am eternally grateful.

Tray 2

The further up the production ladder you get the more snowed under with emails you find yourself. I now find that I spend the first hour of my day responding to all the emails that came in since closing my laptop down. Thankfully I can maintain the pace of the rat race throughout the day so I don't get too bogged down but that initial hurdle is always present. Otherwise I was hiring forklifts, getting quotes for costume rails and generally doing all the usual bits and pieces, all in it was a fairly successful day where I tackled my to do list. The only thing holding me back was my new retainer trays which went in last night - boy are my teeth sore again! I guess this is what having braces tightened feels like, it's thankfully nowhere near as bad as the first few days, but eating needs to be negotiated once again and I'm re-learning where to rest my jaw. I just need to keep telling myself it will be worth it and it does get easier.

Parking Mad

When I rejoined the Production team I knew I'd have to do some ropey and stressful tasks and deal with some crummy vendors. I wasn't ready for it to come quite so early into the job though as a parking company let us down massively but leading us on then note delivering on any of their promises. So now the ball has unceremoniously landed back in our court for us to deal with and we're all out of time to sort it. 

On the upside, this evening was filled with games with some of my new colleagues. We hopped into a game of Lethal Company for scares, thrills and laughter and creepy aliens popped out of the darkness and sci fi delivery vans exploded because we forgot to take it out of 'park' mode... Oh the irony of a situation blowing up because of parking...

Pancake Day 2025

To bring a bit of sparkle to the office we arranged a little pancake bar for the titular day. Nutella, bananas, strawberries, maple syrup, lemon, sugar and little scotch toaster pancakes were all provided for people to pick at across the day. Anyone would have thought that I'd be sick of them by tea time but oh no, crepes are a big thing in our house so I got to mixing batter the moment I landed home. I was flipping all night, stacking pancakes high and chowing down on them, just as Jesus would have wanted. Best of all, it's about this time of year that my lemon tree bears fruit, so we got to squeeze some home grown citrus onto our dessert. Truly a day of indulgence, ready for Lent now as I dream of chocolate eggs.

 

A Fixer

Defrosted the car... In March?! I was driving in while the windscreen still had ice thawing on it when my Line Producer called to say that her own car wasn't starting. So it became my mission of the day to get that all sorted. Luckily we have some transport boys on the case and they did literally everything super fast. I somehow got all the kudos though and my Line Producer even gave me a massive hug for sorting it. I tell ya, deep down I'm just a fixer.

My new, but old coworker started today and for years we've been chatting about playing online games together. Well today we finally locked in time for a session and I couldn't be more jazzed for it. All the pieces are slowly coming together on this job and I can already tell that it'll be a hoot.

Better Call Saul

Sunday came and went, but not without Rebecca and me finishing up Better Call Saul, the Breaking Bad spin off show which turned out to be pretty dang good. We got Bristol's own version of Los Pollos Hermanos as a take away and absorbed the final beats of the show. We laugh because Breaking Bad was a big initial reason why we got together, it was THE show during our first year of uni. I still remember watching the final episode with Jamie, then immediately going back to the first episode to show Mark. Now here we are, over a decade later all still united over our love of that show, and I guess, the world. It was oddly nostalgic to return to that flavour of TV show, the city of Albuquerque and how it's shot is so synonymous with Vince Gilligan's shows now, I daresay I'm going to miss it a lot now that it's all over... Again.

Wilds Weekend

All of yesterday I was dreaming about playing Monster Hunter Wilds with Louis and today was the exactly what we both wanted. Getting big damage numbers while wailing on a massive frog dinosaur with and oversized hammer is a great way to spend a couple of hours on an idle Saturday. Better yet was going over to a friend's house for board games in the evening. Armed with chocolates, beer and scotch we sat down and pawed over cards and tiny wooden pieces long into the night. I ended up pulling off a move that ensured Rebecca's win at the cost of our friends and I felt dreadful about it. Guess it's a war game though so some drama is to be expected.

Prospects Realigned

 Returned to the dentist for a very brief appointment to re-glue some blobs onto my teeth. They asked me how my alligners were working out and I was happy to report that I've grown properly accustomed to them now. If you'd have asked me a week ago it would have been a different story but I am once again in awe at how quickly the body adapts. 

I finished my day at work and all I wanted to do was dive into the new Monster Hunter game - I had just created my character and his little cat companion and was raring for some action. But I'd been invited to a house party by some friends from my last job, so I had to choose wisely about how to spend my Friday night, but one of my favourite quotes gave me a guiding light:

 No one on their deathbed ever said 'I wished I'd spent more time alone at my computer'.

I've spent my whole life wrestling with this internal conflict, and chose wisely tonight to go out to socialise. I drank and chatted long into the night, I'll probably be paying for it tomorrow morning but I'll be smiling at an evening we'll spent.