I have breakfast at my table next to the roadworks again. I'm not a creature of habit, but I like a bit of a routine. The rest of the day is sightseeing, really. Oh, first it's lots of admin – the theatre kindly set up some wifi for us in the bar. Three hours of hunched work at low bar tables pass in a flash and Bartelt realises that we need to get out there so he can buy my birthday present: Something From A Charity Shop. We end up doing a really spectacular tour of Leeds, including the more than gorgeous Corn Exchange. I realise this makes me sound very, very British, but the weather is extraordinary. Leeds has obviously had some money put into it for refurbishment, and on a gorgeous day like this it can show itself off wonderfully. But where are the charity shops? We find a vintage shop, where Bartelt buys me two pairs of earrings, and we part company – I've got to go back to the hotel to put on my costume and face for the show. Having scored M&S sale pants yesterday, Bartelt is off to find out what other delights this place has.
The show is a rather lovely experience tonight. Well, it always is, but there are representatives from such disparate parts of my life, as well as total strangers, that I have the delightful experience of knowing some of the audience but not being able to even start about how to 'tailor' my performance for them, so I just do my best and have no space to worry about doing the right thing. Afterwards we are in long, intense, laughter-filled conversations with Simon (knew Kate nearly all her life, son of my godparents), his wife and children, Nick (a police colleague of mine), his wife, uncle and aunt, Mark (another police colleague) and his teenage daughter. Tom (a classmate from a stand-up course I've just completed) and the five he brings along (note to self: I owe Tom a pint) have to shoot off asap, but he later leaves... an amazing and extensive note about the show on facebook.
Walking back to the Ibis, we say again to one another, that this show is bigger than both of us.
It's time to pack on the Saturday morning and for me to head off to meet my friend Dey and his three-year-old son. I have known Dey since we were twelve and his family have recently moved from London to Sheffield. They have brought me a birthday bun with a candle... but not matches. I forgive them – back home is Dey's wife and their new baby daughter – I'm surprised they're dressed and sentient.
When I started at university I became depressed. I'd been pretty depressed quite a lot before that, but I moved into purgatorial shared flats, and what with this being academia, separated from my then boyfriend and wonderful school friends, and making virtually no friends, I stopped coping and got very low indeed, so low that one of the two friends I had made - Angie - couldn't persuade me to open my curtains most of the time. It's a far longer an duller story than I will go into now, but by phoning the accommodation office every day (pretty impressive – this is pre-mobiles and with no phone in my building let alone my flat) I wore them down and got a place in Wyddrington Hall. At the end of my first term, then, I had to move out of the Purgatorial Flats at the end of the winter term ready to move into the hall at the beginning of the spring term. This meant training it home and borrowing Mum's car to come back to clear out my room. I don't remember how it came about, but Dey came with me. He helped me clear my room and accompanied me on the journey. Real generosity. And the wonderful phrase, uttered as we entered The Purgatorial Flats, “I'D be depressed if I had to live here, Becca.” It didn't make me feel normal, but it made me feel slightly less of a failure.
Yesterday, Bartelt and I had found the covered market, where there are lots of cast-iron Dragons above your head. Dey's boy happens to ask if there are dragons in Leeds, to which I am able to answer yes, and off we trot to see them and take a shot of both of them with the dragons.
All too soon we are heading south on a train. Bartelt is able to present me with a lovely necklace he has found for my birthday. We feel like we've been here a while and Bartelt has a difficult decision on his hands: whether he wants to move to Bolton or Leeds.
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