Edinburgh Fringe day 12. Keep Smiling!

No, that's not a fixed grin because things have gone suddenly downhill or anything like that. It's a fixed grin because I went to a comedy show at the free Fringe today that really wasn't funny. It was full daylight so you could see everyone in the audience's faces and the guy had done a lot of research and was trying very hard and our eyes kept meeting so I kind of felt obliged to have a bit of a smile.

There were three bits I found funny in the hour ... but that was about it. And the rest of the (packed) audience weren't that amused either. The applause at the end of the show was fairly minimal.

I'm not going to name him because ... oh bugger, should I? I don't know. It's perfectly fair to write a negative review and if it stops other people going and not being amused either... It seems a bit mean. But for goodness' sake woman! All's fair in love and comedy.

Okay, it was a show called All the Jokes in the Bible. I went along because I'm interested in that kind of stuff and I love hearing it made funny. Wouldn't be doing my own show, The Maggy Whitehouse Experience if I didn't now would I?

I will confess that I was noting any Biblical inaccuracies (five) but that's fair dos really for a vicar. But
I didn't go in order to criticise it. It just wasn't funny. And he didn't even mention donkeys apart from Samson's smiting his enemies with an ass's jaw. There could be a lot of good humour in the Bible from the donkey stories...

Anyway, going in to watch a show on my own was great fun in itself and now I'm more experienced in buses and how to get around the city I'll do it as much as I can. Today though I was starving ... having said that staying in The Dell is wonderful (and it is) today, Anne-Marie had a client in her healing room which is off the kitchen and you're not allowed in to the kitchen during those times.

And I'd left it too late to have lunch.

So, having walked from All the Jokes in the Bible to Ryrie's I was close to performance time but I had to stop off at M&S at the station to get their nut and seed energy food package before I could perform. Which of course left seeds in my teeth so I was picking those out frantically beforehand!

However, tonight was a lovely show. It flowed pretty well with a very good audience for a Monday - 15 people - including two Facebook friends, Gillian and Carole, who had come all the way from Glasgow. I just knew them ... having spoken so much on Facebook it wasn't like meeting people for the first time at all! Such a pleasure. What's more the audience were generous financially (and Gillian and Carole gave me tea bags and fruit too!). It's just great to get back to your digs and be able to hand over the night's rent in takings and have more than enough for food and fun tomorrow.

Happy day. Lots more of those to come. Just wish that guy had been funny.

Edinburgh Fringe Day 11 part two. Honing, honing, honing

Day 11 was a Sunday. I was planning to go into town and see a show but the remains of Hurricane

The view over our front gate.

Bertha meant torrential rain which was a tad offputting. If I'd been 100% I'd have gone but it's wise still to rest with the possible homeopathic flare-up in my neck.

Lion of course has had gales down on Dartmoor; that makes me slightly homesick—I've come to love the roaring winds we get at home. Here's a picture of home BTW. Not so different from the moors on the hills outside Edinburgh.

So instead, I've been working on improving the set. It was beginning to feel stale the last few nights.

That's one of the best things about having comedy notebooks and comedy files on the computer. Whenever I think I need to improve, I have piles of ideas to go back to. Not that new ideas don't come out of the blue either ... and not that I don't collaborate with others. Today for example, I had a wonderful Facebook chat with Deb Rowley in New Zealand who came up with the ideas that made up two terrific new and current jokes that I could drop into the act apropos of nothing at all.

And some lines from previous sets jumped out at me as being better for the kind of audiences that I've been getting than the newer ones I'd been using. So it was mix and match, re-order and start again.

So, what with oceans of lemon and ginger tea for my sore throat, I was feeling pretty chipper when I took the bus into town. The Tickled Pigs had a reasonably good turnout and were very happy. And when I started, I had one.

Incidentally, I don't use the phrase 'just one.' What's just about it? When I had supper at a local restaurant the other night, the waiter said, 'just one?' I replied 'entirely one,' which was probably somewhat too smart-alecky for him but it's a valid point. I spent many years travelling the world by myself and I was never 'just one.' It's a bit of a patronising saying isn't it?

Tonight, he was the sort of One who wanted to sit in the front row and engage and, to be honest, that is exactly what you need if you are trying out some new/old-new stuff,  you have a sore throat and aren't feeling 100%.

Even better, he chuckled. He chuckled all the way through ... and he asked questions when he didn't quite get it which will help me hone again. His name was Jez and he'd spent the day tidying up his flat before his wife came home so that there was no evidence that he'd had any parties whatsoever ... and he enjoyed it so much that he came along and joined my Maggy Whitehouse Spirited page on Facebook later that night.

Turns out he's a direct descendent of R. D. Blackmore, author of Lorna Doone and countless other novels.

Later in the show another seven people turned up (although, according to George who followed me another woman stood listening in the doorway for a while and then marched off exclaiming "outrageous!" Could be my first offended customer? Hooray! So there were eight or nine. A bit strange for a rural vicar to be so outnumbered on a Sunday!

It must have been fairly good because the couple who arrived 20 minutes before the end asked me if I could start over and do it again (no...not without seriously inconveniencing George) and a fine time was had by one and all.

I'm so happy that I'm sanguine about not having huge audiences. There's no point in fussing; the right people are coming; I'm having fabulous conversations with the folks who do come and it's still early days anyway. Most of all, I'm loving every second of it. And how does it get any better than that?

Edinburgh Fringe Day 11 part one. Amazing Americans.

Here in the Dell in Colinton is a lovely Victorian, Edinburgh stone house which currently contains six

women and one man. In the 12 days than I have been here, there hasn't been a single obvious scratchy bit; we get along. A lot of that is down to the energy of the house itself—the love between Anne-Marie and her partner; the plethora of dogs all eager for a scratch and a good word; the essence of love expressed in every gift-shop ornament that sits everywhere to greet you and remind you to 'sparkle, smile and shine.'

I'm generally a bit grumpy about piles of positive clutter everywhere but there's no doubt that the atmosphere is just lovely. I have piled a lot of the stuff in my room in the fireplace—it's a single room with a month's worth of luggage in it—but it's obviously still working.

Mind you I have lost three socks... But that is part of the cosmic dance of socks. They are probably having a riotous time on the Fringe and will be found hungover and senseless in a gutter in Grassmarket about three months from now. The lone sock is sulking in my suitcase. I may have to put it back in the washing machine to see if it can also find a loophole to a parallel universe and find its own joy.

But all my other socks are being hand washed by me and dried on the windowsill. There is a place for being a control freak and potentially running out of socks is definitely one of those.

As well as the lovely house, there's the Water of Leith tumbling by in its ravine just over the wall and hundreds of trees surrounding us and the constant 'kee ... kee ... kee' of the buzzards circling overhead. That does remind me of home. And you just have to walk a short space down the road to see the hills to the south of the city. It's just amazing that they rise right over such a magnificent place. You simply can't forget that it's Scotland.

The double bedroom next to mine is occupied by two young American women who have come over for a month to enjoy Edinburgh and the Fringe. Pretty impressive in itself but amazing when you find out that they are both from rural Washington State, had never been on an aeroplane before, never left their country before and only got passports a month ago.

Kaylin and Stephanie are sisters-in-law and as intrepid as they come (and they chat with me about Montana all the time—apparently everyone in Washington State has relatives in Montana). Every day they catch the bus into the city and see the sights and different shows. Not once have they appeared fazed by the whole, huge difference of this country to theirs. They are incredible.

Mind you, as I'm the only person who speaks 'BBC English' here, they often query words and pronunciations which is rather fun. I adore the American habit of going 'lil bit' for 'little bit' and they were fascinated that there actually was a different pronunciation.

So, I have a link back to Montana (which I love so much) as well as a lovely home here for the duration. And I've been to Washington State and love Seattle too so there's another synchronicity. And I just feel so amazing and so humbled (in a good way) at how easy it was to find this lovely place to stay as soon as I had committed to the Fringe. I am totally looked after, thank God.

Edinburgh Fringe Days 9 & 10. Rest, Rest, Rest.

It's true what they say about Edinburgh weather. Wait a minute and it changes. But there has been

Colinton

enough sun these last few days for pottering by the Water of Leith or sitting in Anne-Marie's steep but lovely garden and watching the peacock butterflies on her Buddleia. Everything is steep round here with the river running past in a ravine below.

Not a lot to report really these last two days. After the excitement of The Devil Without I had a quiet day catching up with emails and the like and only went into the city for the show. I leafleted people in the pub with a pitch for all of us (comedy and/or theatre from 12pm to 10pm every day) which felt very much like the right thing to do. Hopefully someone else does that too but if not, it doesn't matter.

At some point I will start leafleting the people who are commuting to the station which is right next door, but not yet. I truly believe that the bulk of the work is best done a/ internally by being at peace about it and keeping on honing the show (God knows what I am asking for, after all) and b/ word of mouth.

I do need to get funnier though. It's that natural point in the run where you get tired of your own material. That, no matter how hard you try to hide it, tends to show. So a bit more honing is required.

On Friday lunchtime, I took my latest homeopathy for the L-ed ... and I got a reaction almost at once with discomfort which swelled, literally into a very swollen and sore neck overnight and practically no voice in the morning. So instead of Saturday being a day when I went and had a one-to-one with the media guys at Fringe Central, it was a day in bed feeling rotten. Still, I had Uncle Eckhart and Auntie Esther Hicks and a meditation CD from Anne-Marie so the time passed pleasantly enough.

It was a bit of a stagger into town though ... and I wasn't expecting a lot of people given my energy level. The Tickled Pigs have been doing a roaring trade these last two nights and when I saw they had a packed room tonight it was a challenge not to be a bit envious. I am glad for them,—they were so worried earlier in the week—but their comedy is very general and mine is really rather eclectic so although I'd like those numbers I'm not sure I'll get them just yet. But I will get them...

Still, I had 21 people tonight which was the largest audience so far ... and some good laughter even if I did cut it short by 10 minutes to save my voice. The nicest thing was that one group of four had come from word-of-mouth from someone who came earlier in the week and three of them stayed behind afterwards to ask me questions about my work and wondering if they could link up on Facebook.

But the best of all was when I overheard them going down the stairs afterwards and one of them said, 'I could come back and listen to all that again every night.'

The thing is, I'm funny - mostly. But I'm serious too. I'm telling them truths that are in the Bible and misconceptions and clearing up a few things. So it's not wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am comedy at all. And it's so lovely when someone appreciates the whole package.

Edinburgh Fringe Day 8. The Devil Without

Boy, do I feel better for that day off...

Today was the 'How To Sell Your Show' seminar at Fringe Central and I was in two minds about going. However, I'm glad I did. Lots of good tips about social media and who to contact elsewhere. And a young man lounging in a front seat on the right who was mentioned as a reporter for Fringe Review, an online magazine that covers all the world's Fringe festivals but specifically this one.

The moment the talks were over, I was sitting beside him with a press release and 'hello, I'm a vicar and comedian.'

He could have brushed me off but he didn't; instead he engaged immediately and asked if I'd like to help him review a show called The Devil Without about Faust. That night. At 10.45. Luckily he confessed that it was past his bedtime before I'd said anything so naff myself So we commiserated with each other and he promised to text if he could get free tickets for tonight.

Tonight! I was going to Tesco's with Anne-Marie at 8pm, being somewhat short on rations. Taurean me was really rather peturbed but AdventureMaggy agreed enthusiastically while thanking God I'd had such a restful day yesterday.

I looked up the show while I was still at Fringe Central and both the poster and the context were certainly scary ... apparently it was about the devil trying to get to Faust (who in this show had evaded him for 500 years) and temporarily taking possession of one of the audience in the process (it's a show of magic). Hmmm. Well, I had a pietersite stone in my bag which is very good for protection ... and the Latin (short) liturgy for exorcism was to hand too. That subject has come up in the show a couple of times so it's good to have it—and really nice to finally have a use for my Latin O level.

Anyway ... the other exciting thing today (I know how to live) was taking the no. 2 bus from Fringe Central to Haymarket instead of walking up to Princes Street and taking the tram. That introduced me to Grassmarket and some other lovely streets which I could explore this evening between my show and the devil's.

Good show tonight at Ryries with people who'd actually heard of Mary Whitehouse (let alone The Mary Whitehouse Experience).  Not all of them, of course, but it's nice when there's interaction with the audience about her. I hadn't realised how few people even remembered Newman, Baddiel, Punt and Dennis. God I'm getting old.

I stayed on to watch the guy after me—George Firehorse's 37 Years of Comedy. Lovely stuff with magic and fun. I ended up taking part in a ridiculous competition to see who could pin the most clothes pegs to his beard and to my delight won. Silliness is a very good thing occasionally.

And then (can you bear the tension?) I took the no.2 back to Grassmarket to wander around and have some gluten-free gnocchi (which are not, I've decided, a good idea) with yummy Neapolitan sauce at a little Italian restaurant.

Dan was at the venue before me but we only met up just before the show. As he said, "I suppose you being a vicar, you wouldn't think of waiting in the bar?" Oops. And then we had to sign our permission to be hypnotised and were in the darkened theatre room where Ian Harvey Stone began his performance.

A few years ago I would have been seriously freaked. But I didn't engage; didn't follow the prompts and held on tightly to the stone so I was detached for most of the performance. I don't therefore know if it was scary but I think it was. Certainly when one of the selected audience on stage began acting as if Mephistopheles had got inside her head.

Fair dos, Ian was very careful not to invoke any deep magic; he ensured that all participants including the audience were clear and focused on good before they left. But when I looked at the Pietersite, it was cracked.

Dan and I agreed that it was nothing that Granny Weatherwax couldn't have done but would have refrained from doing on principle and met Ian and his partner outside.

Dan basically wanted me to have a recorded chat with Ian which I didn't realise—and he introduced me as an exorcist (!) So, given that I didn't really know what to do, I interviewed him about what he knew about shamanisn (obviously quite a bit) and magic (ditto) and why he had come to do the show ... and whether he thought it was a good idea to mess with magic. After all; he might be able to clear up what he was doing but you never know what an audience member might bring in ... or what they might do next.

But it was all very amiable although, somewhat to my surprise, Dan said afterwards I shouldn't have been critical. What? That's what a good journalist does as long as its in the genuine spirit of enquiry. Still...I'm 25 years out of date so what do I know.

Taxi home ... not enough knowledge of night buses yet and 'my' two had stopped running. Got in at about 1am and had a really bad night's sleep. No, not scared, just to much adrenaline. But another very good ... and very interesting day.

Edinburgh Fringe Day 7 — On Courage and Kindness.

This morning I checked my Facebook page to find that a friend—who is really a total stranger—had offered Lion and me a free holiday in her house by the sea in Kefalonia, Greece.

Last night a friend sent a £100 donation to help pay for my accommodation costs in Edinburgh.

Some months back former colleague in Australia sent me a huge donation to pay for the vitamin C therapy that I had in London.

My host yesterday here in Colinton went to the supermarket to buy me some food supplies and has opened up her larder, her freezer as well as her heart both to me and to the other guests here.

Such love and kindness still makes me cry. Many years ago, when my second husband left, a work colleague said,  "You're don't expect kindness do you?" She was right; I hadn't experienced a lot of it back then.

But human beings are kind. We just have to realise that ... and to be kind to ourselves so that we can get used to it a little more and attract it to us. And, where we can, give it out ourselves.

These people, who have been kind to me this last year, say that I'm brave. Well maybe ... it probably is brave to come to Edinburgh as a middle-aged first-time comedian with a LED especially when your financial backer has fallen by the wayside and you've got absolutely no idea how you are going to pay for it!

Other people would simply call it foolhardy.

But I have had years of studying prosperity consciousness and, even though I never used to expect kindness, I do know that prosperity comes when you step up and step out and believe... The universe conspires to help you, firstly (a little) when you take that first step of committing to your goal and then (a lot—but not immediately) as long as you keep walking. It's fear that stops us from doing that but fear is a thought-form, not a reality. It just pretends that it is a reality. And, of course, when we believe it, it turns into a reality.

And, as a journalist, I have had years of walking onward while being wracked by fear—including reporting on conflict situations, being in the middle of riots and being ridiculed in public by top politicians. I was on duty in the newsroom at the BBC World Service on the night of 9/11 and although we were right out of any physical danger, we made some very courageous decisions that night on what it was right and constructive to report and what it was not ... I actually put my own hand on the all-important button and said to CNN and Fox News and the rest of the world: "This is the BBC World Service in London. We are black on this and will not report until we know the source and can verify. Are you with us?" and, being the BBC, which still holds authority at times of international crisis, the world's news followed our example. That was very, very scary and it was the right decision.

So I'm a professional dealer with bravery in a way. My adrenal glands were fucked a long time ago (!) and I eat the protein and take the magnesium every day that they need to keep them feeling okay.

There are news reports every day about terrible things that happen in the world (even though the world itself us usually 90% or more at peace). Some of them require incredible—and public—courage.

But let me tell you a bit about the simple courage that will never make the headlines...

Courage is not being trained in fear-manangement as a reporter—but going with your husband who has a LED to Peru for three months to put yourselves in the hands of wonderful healers on the other side of the world in a completely different culture with a different language—because there is no hope being offered here in the UK. And then, lovingly, holding him in your arms as he dies and dealing with all the Peruvian authorities in order to be able to bring his ashes home.

Courage is not being used to travelling around China in the days before tourists visited there—but getting up at six every morning and making lunch and walking for half an hour with your husband who has another LED to catch a bus ... then a train ... then another bus to hospital and back every day for three months for his radiation treatment. They were out each day for five hours.

Courage is not having to face up to a crowd of hostile Argentinian men in Buenos Aires just one year after the Falklands conflict—but having to cope with your elderly wife's post-operative anger and despair with her own LED when you have your own version to deal with and also have to travel daily for treatment—this time completely on your own because she is not well enough to travel with, or support you—when the treatment and the stress are leading you to a meltdown.

Courage is whenever it is needed. Courage is when your guardian angel wraps her wings around you and whispers "I am here..." when you feel you can't go on but still make that last, superhuman effort.

These three people are my friends and I am proud to call them so. The very least I can do is be some of the kindness that they so very much deserve. And I pray every day for their guardian angels to be guided and strengthened so that they can wrap their loving wings around them—and for all those others who, every day, deal with what the world would call 'small' issues—so that they may be comforted and strengthened and know that they are loved.

Edinburgh Fringe Day 6 A Day Off.

There's no comedy on at Ryrie's this evening because of a big football match tonight. Presumably it's

The Water of Leith

just down the road and the pub will be using its upstairs venue for extra clients. So today has been a full day off.

I've done absolutely sod all apart from listen to Eckhart Tolle, potter up to the shops and wander alongside the Water of Leith, which is what the river is called.

It's been a day of no-thinking or rather of observing my thinking when I did think ... and seeing just how much thought is really a waste of time. Way back at the beginning, I called the LED Nigel simply to dissolve its power. But it's not the dis-ease that was ever Nigel, it was the thoughts about it. It's the thoughts that are scary, not what's actually been happening. But of course the thoughts are afraid of what happens and the thoughts create the reality so they manifest their own scariness.

It was really interesting observing in the last few days how my thoughts don't spiral into fear if I've only got a few people in the audience. That's experience from workshops — and from doing church services where five people was a good turnout! So that part of my thinking process has been tamed; my ego doesn't scream 'nobody likes you!' which is what I could see in the Tickled Pig guys yesterday. They started out with an audience of 25 on Saturday and it has gone steadily down each night. That's not because they are any better or worse than they were ... or any better or worse than any of the other comedians. It's because they didn't think the initial 25 were enough. Nor the 12 ... nor the eight nor the four.

But spiralling thoughts are exactly what happens when you have a 'bad' diagnosis or something is showing up that you don't want. And it's all rubbish really even though it seems so utterly massive at the time. I can see that now ... I went through three-four months of deep fear of a concept that the doctors believed in ... and other people believed in ... which just got bigger the more I feared it. Occasionally I still think it's what other people believe but mostly I know that it's my lymphatic system dealing with old poisons the best way it knows how in order to save my life, not destroy it.

And here I am, in perfect peace, in my hermitage on a pilgrimage or a retreat to rediscover a part of me that had gone missing — the part that once (truly) considered becoming a contemplative nun; the part that loves to be alone and to eat simple food when I want to eat it instead of at breakfast or lunch or suppertime. And simultaneously the part that needs new experiences and adventure.

I don't miss Devon. I don't miss Lion. I knew I wouldn't - and he knows that and doesn't see that as a threat. The person who's away on the adventure doesn't miss the one left behind in the usual scenario as much as the one still at home will do. It's quite natural.

Of course there will be times when I'm homesick; times when I could really, really do with a cuddle, times when I wish there were a TV to watch and a nice home-cooked meal and times that I'll really look forward to getting off that plane and being wrapped in those much-loved arms.

But I am content with what is. And that is such a joy. It is what it is and that's just perfect.