My poor long neglected blog. Sadly starved of posts and worse still, emaciating (is that a verb? I bet not) at the hands of Twitter which only calls for 140 characters at a time. I apologise to you, my blog, and will try to do better. I haven't even written anything about a play which I saw nigh on two weeks ago. So there we should start.

In the meantime, here I am on a snowy (outside the train) National Express down to London. The sky is blue, the clouds are pinky, the land is pastoral and snow coated. It's very very pretty.

It was The Tailor of Inverness what I saw. It featured in last year's Festival. But the time was incompatiable with my journalistic orgy of theatre going so the Tailor was neglected although he attracted rave reviews. So when I saw him making an appearance at the Brunton for one night only, I negotiated with mother who fancied instead Mary Stuart at the Traverse and so we went.

And I'm glad I did. It was a charming little play, produced if my sievey memory serves me correctly, by a company called Dogstar. It featured one actor (faithful monologue, mainstay of these cash-strapped festival times) and to be fair to them, a violinist who punctuated the man's dialogue with vivid sawing on his instrument. The actor told the lovely story of growing up in very rural Poland and decanting in his childhood to Inverness where he eventually became a tailor.

I missed the middle chunk of his life as it was dark and cosy in the Brunton and I'd unwisely Friday night defiantly necked a bottle of Budvar before I went in so it seemed rude not to take just a little short nap.

And so the end of his life would probably have been a lot more poignant if only I'd understood the mid. But nonetheless, it was beautifully directed. He did a nice move with a clothes rail which he span in a circle and leapt through to recreate his time on a giant long distance train journey. Which I know sounds a bit ridiculous (I can just imagine trying to persuade some poor long-suffering at my flights of fancy actor to swing and leap - "it'll look good, honest...") but was surprisingly effective. I must remember it.

And they did some nice stuff with projections, recreating his father's imagined journeys around Europe. Because yes, I'm remembering a bit more now and it was all about the son's attempt to piece together the life of his father whom he never understood and now it was too late and he couldn't ask the questions (as his father was dead) but was left only with the fragments of Army conscription and concentration camps and circuitous journeys and a possible long lost sibling of which he now sought to make sense.

Anyway it was very good. And I'm glad I saw at least more of it than I did in the Festival.

Last weekend I was in Manchester with birthday girl Naomi and her startingly alike sister. We frequented various bars and restaurants and it was very lazy and pleasant. And I discovered Singstar which is a welcome addition to the thwarted West End musical star in me. Though you wouldn't have known it as I misguidedly tried to recreate some Indie classic at 3am.

Dashed back for a rehearsal and I made them prank around doing exaggerated versions of their character traits to see if this was educational and character portrayal enhancing. I don't think they thought so but I bet when I see their next performances, they will be all the richer.

And then headlong into the maelstrom of a pitch and an awards deadline and a looming presentation and all sorts of curveball last minute projects which were not meant to happen nearly so soon and this is why poor blog has suffered.

I was anticipating a quieter March but given that I now have 4 research projects looming, all to happen more or less simultaneously, I may be sadly disappointed in that respect.

The bigger concern however is that I haven't done anything about my SFX for my one act which is now, hmmm, let me think, a week today. Time I think to pay a little attention to that before the boys take, otherwise mute, to the stage.

And oh my goodness I need to retrieve the trophy which I took to be engraved two weeks past and still have not been alerted of its readiness. I hope it has not rolled outside the shop door in a moment of wild carelessness and been squashed under the wheels of a passing steam roller. Imagine how petulant that would make me look.