BLOG 24!!! What a great Christmas!!!

Hi Everyone,

How are we all???

How funny that this is blog 24 and I happen to feel 24 pounds heavier now that the Christmas week is nearly over and I have eaten lots and lots of wonderful food! I had a great time!!! I love my family and being at home so much!!! I got back to London this afternoon so here is what has happened over the last week:

I did my last day in the studio before the Xmas break of 'Marcaroni' last Thursday which was great, but I think we all knew that it was the day before a rest, so our minds had already begun to switch off which was annoying because it made the day seem really long and I personally was fighting to keep the lines in my head 'cause my mind was frazzled! But it was a lovely atmosphere and the company had Christmas lunches delivered to the studio for us which was very nice of them! The company ('Ceidiog' run by Nia Ceidiog) really are great people to work for - the production of the programme is great but they also really look after everyone who is working for them, and when you're working so hard and such long hours (7am-6pm) every day it makes it a lot easier knowing your work is gratefully appreciated by the management!
Then i got a train from Cardiff to Rhyl and I was so pleased that nothing was affected by the weather apart from when I got to Chester we had to hang around for a while, waiting for some delayed trains from Euston as they had loads of Irish people on them trying to get home for Christmas because Dublin airport was closed so they needed our train as a connection! Some of them will have had to travel for 22 hours to get home! They were so tired bless them! I felt lucky that my journey was only delayed by an hour and twenty minutes (meanwhile Moma Evans was waiting patiently in Rhyl train station bless her) but I got home eventually!

Christmas eve I was doing Santa duty delivering presents to different family members etc and doing a bit of last minute food shopping with my mum! Then I got home and helped my mum prepare the veg etc for the Christmas lunch then just watched TV.

CHRISTMAS DAY!!! I woke at about 9am. Had breakfast with my Mum, as my Dad was outside on the farm. My Dad always has to work harder than ever at this time of year as all his sheep are lambing. I went out on the farm to help him for a couple of hours Christmas morning to make sure he could finish in time to join us for lunch! It was SO COLD, and the main thing I was given to do was to change the water in each of the sheep pens - This involved smashing the layer of ice which had formed on the top of the buckets with my hands, empty each bucket then run the tap to fill them with fresh water- however, the water pipes are metal and had frozen over, so my Dad said "just cover the pipe with your hand for a couple of minutes and your body heat will defrost the ice"- well...I managed to do this for a good two and a half minutes and......no water came out! - my god that was like torture on a Christmas morning it was so cold! I ended up having to use another tap further away! When I later got in the house, I ran warm water over my hands for a few minutes, but they didn't warm up for ages! Ha. What a wimp! - I'm sure my dad was just doing it for a laugh!

Our Christmas lunch was amazing - Everyone thinks their Mum's xmas dinner is the best don't they?!, but i must tell you, my mum's really is the best (so there!). I was stuffed - not even room for a handful of Celebrations from the tub my Nanna gave us!!!

Christmas evening, all our immediate family members and the kids went to my sister's house and we had a great time just eating and drinking and laughing! The perfect Christmas for me personally is just having plenty of time to enjoy your family and that's what I had this year! I felt very grateful!

Boxing day - There has always been a tradition that we take it in turns to go round to different family member's houses for boxing day but since there have been grand-children and babies etc it is now held at my folks place (aka The Ranch) because we can't all fit anywhere else! Ha.
I got considerably drunk (in a good, happy drunk sort of way) on boxing day and ended up being games organiser which consisted of games like the Cornflake box game - which is basically a challenge to see who can pick up an empty cereal box off the floor with their mouth without putting your hands or knees on the floor - sounds easy but once everyone has done it, then you tear a bit off so it gets smaller each time! I am proud to say that I won - My brother got quite frustrated that I was better than him, so he ended up standing and the box so it was flat against the floor - but in true dancer style I got down into the splits and still managed to pick it up (I could barely walk the next day - drunken splits are not good everyone - remember that!!!) We also had a game which resulted in the 'grown ups' (Dad, Mum, Aunts & Uncles) wrapping their Husband/Wife in toilet roll against the stopwatch to see who can mummify their partner the best - My mum didn't even leave a gap for my Dad to breath! Us kids were on the floor with laughter! Just a couple of the many games played on what can only be described as a bloomin' marvellous boxing day!!!

On Monday the 27th I went with my good friend Aimee to watch the pantomime, Peter Pan in Rhyl. One of my students from my summer school was in it and he was brilliant! I also know Tara Bethan who played Peter Pan and did a great job of it too - she was the year above me in high school and we have worked together a few times since. Funnily enough we were singing together on T.V on Monday evening! It was the concert I told you guys about that I did between Wolverhampton and Edinburgh with Oklahoma! It was held at the CIA in Cardiff and it featured people from Wales who have been successful in reality T.V over the past 5 years! I have to say it was great to see something really commercial on the channel S4C and thought it was a cracking programme!
I shall post the link to the online 'catch up' video of it on my Facebook fanpage - it's in Welsh but i'll let you know where my bit comes in the programme incase your interested in checking it out!

So Aimee stayed at the ranch on Monday then on Tuesday we went to a local pub, The Brookhouse Mill to meet our friends Carys and Helen for lunch. We had a right laugh and a good catch up! I have really enjoyed the novelty of waking up everyday this past week thinking "what have i got to do?, where have I got to go?" and realising that I don't have to do anything - I never give myself time to do nothing but it did me the world of good I think! However, I do think that it's because of me stopping all of a sudden, that I now have a sore throat and bad cold - booooooo!!! But hey, as I'm the sort of person who likes to look at the positives in life - at least it happened when i don't need to sing or even speak in general really!

Yesterday I chilled out all day and learned lots of Marcaroni script for when I return to the studio for 5 weeks next Tuesday! Then last night all the immediate family and the kids came to the ranch again for another dinner (Beef this time!!! No Turkey for a while now). Love my family lots!

So woke up today and my Mum has obviously caught my cold, but worse than me, so I told her she wasn't going to take me to the train station and the minister of our local chapel very kindly took me to Chester as he was driving that way anyway and I got the train from there! It's good to be back in London to be in my flat etc! But although I have said it a few times in this blog- you can't beat a good ole family Christmas and that's exactly what I had! The End!

So 2011 is nearly here! This past year for me has been incredible ....I have met some wonderful friends and worked with some too, toured the UK enjoying performing The Rocky Horror Show, Oklahoma! and the beginnings of Marcaroni. Also my summer school West End In Wales was a huge success again this year! I also loved both my visits to New York - where I will live one day (I hope - just for a couple of years!)....but I have a feeling (and this too is me thinking positive, as i have learned to do by reading 'The Secret' by Rhonda Byrne-highly recommended!) that 2011 is going to be an even better year! I am really looking forward to playing Fiyero in WICKED from February 7th, recording my debut album which is scheduled for a summer release, running my summer school again and having at least one holiday! There are also a couple of other exciting things in the pipeline (a non-frozen pipeline!!!) which i will tell you about if and when they happen!

Folks- that was my Christmas week, hope you enjoyed reading about it! I will say as always, please keep in contact via Twitter and my Facebook FanPage! I love hearing from you and appreciate your time and effort in supporting everything I do!
I want to put out a special mention to one of my fans, Paula, from Ireland, who sent me a wonderfully thoughtful Christmas gift! Thank you Paula, I love it!

Let me know what your doing tomorrow night to celebrate 2010 and the last decade and to welcome in 2011! I shall be at a friends house with a group of friends drinking champagne and enjoying good company!

You are all wonderful and always remember that! Life is great!

Thanks for reading!

See you in the next decade!

Mark