Hey Everyone,
Happy Thursday,
How are you all feeling? I'm starting this week's blog sitting on my bed. For the past two hours there has been a chain saw making a hell of a racket and sounds like he's cutting the Amazon rain forest down right outside my window which is not the sort of sleep you need before a double show day. Now that my alarm has gone off to actually wake up, of course the noise had stopped! Grrrrrrr. Never mind!!!
It's been a good week including a trip home to see Mother Evans for mother's day which was great.
So last Friday I woke early to head into central London to meet my sister and two brothers and their other halves to have breakfast and do a bit of sauntering around London and shopping before they left to head back to North Wales in the early afternoon. It was great to spend time with them away from our local area in Wales. Time always goes by too quickly though.
After they left me I headed to my dressing room to finish up the invitations for my best friend's Hen Party and then posted them all before I went to a physio session. (The blooming chainsaw has just started up again by the way!) My physiotherapist/osteopath is amazing. He knows my body so well by now that I can just walk in and he knows what he needs to do to 'fix' me just by looking at me. I told him I was feeling really tired that day, probably from entertaining my family after a two show day the night before and he said 'well my appointment after you has just cancelled so I'll get rid of your aches and pains and then you can just relax' - He finished the painful stuff where he put my body back together and then gave me a 20 minute back massage, during which I'm pretty sure I was snoring. I then headed to sit in the steam room to relax a bit more before heading to work. It took me a while to crank up the energy during warm up but by the time it came to doing the show I was fine!
Saturday morning I woke and packed my stuff ready for my trip to Wales on Sunday so that I wouldn't have to do it after work late that night, then I did a cheeky 50 lengths of the swimming pool before the two shows.
Really enjoyed the shows on Saturday, especially the evening performance. The audience were on fire, it was an amazing atmosphere! Great way to finish the week.
After that I headed home and had a nice chilled out evening before dropping off to sleep.
I woke on Sunday morning at 6.15am which I would usually feel was too early on my day off but I didn't care because I left the house and the sun was shining and I was really looking forward to seeing my family in Wales and surprising my mum by secretly being home for Mother's Day! I arrived on the train about 11.30am and my brother in law picked me up with my two nieces who I adore. They ran towards me on the platform and I picked them up and could have literally popped them like helium balloons I squished them so hard. I miss them so much when I'm away! All four of us went to Pizza Hut for lunch and then spent a good hour in the park before heading home. My mum works with my sister (at the restaurant where I used to work too) on a Sunday and so they don't finish until about 3.30pm So I was at my sister's house, then when she arrived home it meant that mum had gone home too so I called her on the phone pretending that I was in London. She was saying things like "oh the weather is beautiful here, I'm just looking out over the hills and it looks stunning" my reply was "yeah, it's really nice here too" - little did she know that I was clearly looking over the same view from my sister's house as it's only half a mile away.
The big plan was that my sister had arranged for my Mum & Dad to head to them by 5pm for a chinese take away and then a little while later the whole family would descend on them to wish her a happy mother's day. So when she arrived, I was hiding in the bathroom and my eldest niece who is 6 said to her "I want to show you something in the lounge please" so my mum followed her and was ready to make a big fuss out of whatever her granddaughter had to show her, but couldn't see anything once she'd gone into the lounge, then my niece said "turn around" and I was stood behind her with flowers and chocolates…..and……..she cried!!! Woohoo! Successful mother's day surprise when you reduce them to tears!
We had a really nice night, all the family together with a HUGE chinese banquet which we devoured and then we relaxed watching a bit of T.V and chatting. It was the perfect evening. I did however eat far too much considering I was doing a fitness photo shoot for a magazine two days after that which involved me wearing a little less than usual. But hey, I didn't care, I was having fun so I continued to shovel flapjacks and cheesecake into my face, washed down with a couple of rose wines! Woop woop!
The dog woke me up by barking at the sheep on Monday morning - that's how I know I'm home. It was closely followed by the cows mooing as if they have been told "ok mrs, you have just one last chance to moo and then you will be silent for the rest of your life" so they do it with the most conviction EVER! Painful mooing!!!
I didn't complain in the slightest though. It felt like heaven to be home and I felt sad that it was for less than 24 hours!
My sister took me to Rhyl train station only to discover that there were problems on the line, so to prevent me having to get a replacement coach to Chester she drove me there herself, which I was very grateful for and enjoyed, as it meant we had another hour to chat just the two of us! Good times! My sister is one of my best friends and I miss her a lot!
I arrived back in London and headed straight to the gym to do my own workout for an hour before meeting my new personal trainer to do another hour long workout with him. I finished at 6pm feeling drained and was onstage doing physical warm up by 6.15pm with everyone calling me 'Arnie' because my muscles hadn't had time to deflate from being pumped up yet. Everyone was laughing at me because I always look twice my size when I leave the gym. Haha.
I had a couple of friends watching the show on Monday so had a very quick drink with them afterwards before heading to my friend Wayne's house for a late night haircut. It was good to catch up whilst having my ears lowered and then I managed to get my last train back home to get my beauty sleep before the photo shoot the next day.
The photo shoot and interview was for the fitness section of Attitude magazine which is called 'Active' so it was all about my fitness and my gym routine, training schedule and how to balance it all whilst doing a show like Ghost playing the lead role. So as you can imagine I felt the need to get to the gym before the photo shoot. So I woke early Tuesday and headed to do an hours workout before heading over to meet the crew from Attitude in a studio in east London. It was a really fun shoot and the photographer was great. It was really nice to do a photo shoot wearing sports gear and really comfortable clothing (and on occasion not much of it!) and I was pleased with the pictures we decided to use afterwards for my issue which will be out in May apparently.
After that I went for some food with a friend before doing the show. I was a little achey to say the least in Tuesday night's show after all the working out in preparation for my shoot, but it was worth it.
Thank you to all of you who got in touch saying very lovely things about the couple of sneaky shots I posted on my twitter account. Lots of people have asked for work out or diet advice and I am very flattered but, as I believe I may have written in a blog long, long ago, I don't feel I am qualified to offer training or diet advice but the one thing I will say (which I also told the magazine) is that it takes a certain amount of motivation to get started at the gym or with a diet and then it really doesn't take long before the habit kicks in and it becomes enjoyable - especially when you start noticing the results and seeing differences in your shape in a positive way. It gets addictive and in my opinion it's a pretty healthy thing to get addicted to!
Wednesday (yesterday) I had a swim in the morning and then headed to watch The Woman In Black at the cinema (starring Daniel Radcliffe). I really enjoyed it and thought it was beautifully shot and well acted but I do prefer the stage production. I thought the play, when I saw it many moons ago was one of the most terrifying things I'd ever witnessed and for live theatre to have that affect on you is amazing - I would highly recommend the play, more so than the film!
And that more or less brings me up to date with today. I had a swim after my train journey in today and so I'm now wrapping this up from my dressing room. "Ladies and gentlemen this is your act one beginners call"…..and on that note! Farewell!
Have a great week and thank as always for reading and for your support. - Anyone who has sent fan mail in, please know that I read it all and appreciate it all and am awaiting some production cards of myself so I can sign them and reply to you all.
Keep smiling and as always BELIEVE!!!
Sh-boom!!!
Mark
