Can I have a wheat free, dairy free, sugar free flapjack please?

“Can I have a wheat free, dairy free, sugar free flapjack please?”

The answer is no, you can’t. Because they don’t exist.

There’re aren’t a lot of treats out there when you’re off what feels like every food type going. 

You know when you’re flagging and you just really need that sugar kick to get you going again?

You have to make do with sparkling water and just imagine it’s not just the carbonated version of the tap stuff.

But generally you don’t really find yourself craving cheesecake, chocolate, pizza or milk. You miss the simple things: fruit juice, jam, tuna mayo, a sniff of a French stick. Oh, for a spoonful of raspberry jam in my unsweetened-almond-milk-made plain porridge! Alas, one banana on top instead. Yummy.

For my health at the moment I’m having to follow the candida diet. Right about now I should detect a shudder from those in the know. For those who don’t know what this is, google it. Google it and despair. I generally can’t take wheat, but the candida diet means no yeast, no lactose, no sugar – even natural sugars, meaning you’re rationed to two pieces of fruit a day.

Aka. No fun.

I find it quite a test of character. I’ve had to follow this diet before for what felt like forever, but was probably only about 150 days, so I’m stoically determined I shouldn’t have a problem this time. And most of the time I just suck it up and get on with it. So a carrot with hummus and a couple of Ryvita for lunch it is.

All would be well. If it hadn’t just been Easter.

I’m a big fan of baking, and the candida diet hasn’t stopped me from making cute little easter themed cornflake cakes for my friends and family, and a rather majestic carrot cake for my Nan’s Birthday. I didn’t particularly resent the fact I wouldn’t be able to eat them (maybe the carrot cake a little bit because I was rather proud of that). But the dessert course of the Easter lunch was another matter.

Imagine, if you can, being at the head of the table, looking down a table of 9 at everyone tucking in to not one, not two, but three different types of dessert. Nan had pulled out all the stops: there was a tarte au citron with a delicate icing sugar dusting, a mandarin topped cheesecake, eton mess ice-cream, and a jug of cream to go with any of the above. 

A nibble here and there from my friends I won’t resent. But it was the dessert course. People are meant to eat during a dessert course. Imagine being the only one not eating pudding. Not even being able to dig in to the undecadent fruit salad because you’d used your quota of fruit that morning making your porridge more bearable.

I used the opportunity to relieve my brother of his squirming offspring and give him the chance to eat his pudding. I spooned just a little fruit salad into my bowl, thinking I’d ‘treat myself’; ‘what the heck, it’s easter’.

My 19 month old niece sat on my lap and stuck her fist into my bowl, helping herself to the few morsels of fruit in there.

The universe told me not to bother.

I have no idea why, but it really was agony. The clinking of forks and spoons against crockery and the “mmm”ing and “yes, it really is lovely”ing – torture to my ears! Oh, for a lick of a discarded serving spoon!

I also happen to be a sucker for an easter egg. Yes, it’s just regular chocolate in the shape of a hollow egg. I don’t care. I love them. You can break off little bits and just nibble on them, not like a chocolate bar where you know you have six squares, and six squares only. With an egg, you can make it last as long as you want. Or wolf all the little bits in one and be done with it!

My Mum very sweetly handed over a Golden Eggs easter egg on Sunday morning and said, apologetically, “I’m sorry Judes. Save it for another time?”

I am saving it for another time. It’s in my drawer and out of sight, but not quite out of mind.

Knowing I’ll get to tuck in the that at the end of the summer puts the imaginary sugar back in the sparkling water, and I’m sure even the porridge is looking a little better. 

Midsummer Madness

I do this to myself every year. 

Every March through to June. I load up my plate full of projects and I burn out. And every year, about June 5^th, I say to myself that I won’t be doing that again next year. Then by September I’m feeling complacent and start looking for small projects just to stop me twiddling my thumbs. Then while Christmas is approaching, I may as well be working on so-and-so. Then I’ll get an amazing opportunity for a lovely new project, and I think “amazing! I want to be a part of that!” And then you start the planning, which is pretty plain sailing at the beginning, but then BOOM it’s March and all those little things are suddenly sprouting and suddenly you’re in 5 places at once and then oh good god you’re rehearsing/working every night of the week and it’s not even Fringe yet and then it IS Fringe and you swear to god you’ll never do this again next year.

So here I am; April, and thinking, I’ll take a break next year. March was manic (as March always is). Last year was hellish in terms of what I needed to balance (3 sets of rehearsals for 3 set of performances all in the one month), so I said to myself that I wouldn’t do certain projects again the next year. This March, I did all 3 projects again – actually managing to take on more responsibility within 2 of them than I previously had. Aren’t I clever?

No. That makes me very stupid.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy the projects. On the contrary. I cannot be idle creatively: I always have something on the go; I take a break from one creative project by dipping into another. A day off with no rehearsals? I’ll write a parody song! Actually, I’ve got some daylight hours – I’ll make a video to accompany it! Such is my strange, workaholic, masochistic little mind. I thoroughly enjoy the projects – more often than not they inspire ideas for other projects in other formats. But it does always get to that point, usually around now, in April, where I go “why am I doing all this – directing, acting, writing, singing, marketing, designing, creating – for no money?”

I absolutely hate the phrase ‘just think of it as a good chance to build some experience’. While there is certainly an undeniable truth to this, I have been building the same kind of experiences for about 3 years now, and yet never quite managing to get enough to make creative employers take me seriously. That’s the bitch. There are exceptions of course – certain projects I’ve only worked on in the last year may well take their next steps soon and that will open up a new stage of experience. Maybe this will be a breakthrough.

But in terms of slogging it through March, April, May and June, will I find myself back again next year to continue to ‘build experience’? Probably; I can’t just have a month off. I’ve already watched the entire Johnathan Creek boxset about 5 times and what else is there in life?

Check the 2018 Fringe flyers and see.

ps. I do of course love the projects I get involved with. I do just wish I could sleep without running through the admin in my head.