My ‘Work’ Day!

My ‘Work’ Day!

I am often accused of having an easy life so I thought I’d blog about my typical ‘work’ day to clear up any misunderstanding.

I woke at 5.57am. It wasn’t jet lag. I can honestly say I am an early riser and neither time differences nor flights affect me as I am a big believer in not sleeping when I make the often long treks from home to a ship. Today I am in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. After some calculations I realised that I wouldn’t start work for another 13 hours and 33 minutes.

That’s a lot of time to kill.

Although time is needed to get ready, so maybe give me thirty of those minutes to shower and get dressed. I also had to write out a plan for a show and would need ten minutes for that. This will be my fifth show with this technical team so we hadn’t scheduled a sound check, so that’s ten minutes back to me.

We docked at 8am and I was third inline for the shuttle bus and happily plonked on the second to back row, book in hand. Bear Town by Fredrik Backman. He is right at the top of my list when it comes to writers. His stories are well thought out and told from the perspective of every character involved. He jumps around from one point of view to another with abandon that’d frustrate some readers I am sure but I love it. He wrote A Man Called Ove which was made into the hugely successful Tom Hanks movie A Man Called Otto (I guess Ove was confusing…)

I was off the shuttle bus and walked up Featherston Street while Chris Stapleton played through my buds. My pace quickened because I was minutes away from my breakfast of choice whenever I am lucky enough to find myself in New Zealand. A flat white coupled with a PB&J everything bagel from Best Ugly Bagels. This particular stop was first found when I was in Auckland with Lyn last year and I was torn because I have always championed the importance of independent traders but this tiny chain had me. It offers everything I needed for my morning. And in this branch I was always greeted enthusiastically by Sarah 

I popped in on every visit to Wellington and enjoyed being addressed as ‘love’ ‘honey’ ‘gorgeous’ to name a few, and as much as I’d want to tell you these were unique to me I can’t, everyone who entered the establishment was treated exactly the same way.

Next stop was Dylan’s, for the best coffee in town, I grabbed another flat white and headed to the grounds of the New Zealand Parliament. I plonked myself on a bench under a tree with a view. Not that I took much time to enjoy it because my head was quickly back in my book.

Just after ten I walked back to Dylan’s and purchased two more flat whites another for me and the other for an old mate Chris Crowe, he runs Edit. It’s a very exclusive clothing shop in town so I was dressed appropriately in my ugliest rugby shirt and my newly acquired multi coloured bucket hat. Chris and I worked together on a ship many years ago. He was part of a vocal group called La Forza and I rarely missed the chance opportunity to embarrass him with my attire.

By midday I am at the Banksy exhibition being hosted at Wellingtons newly purpose built Tàkina Convention Centre. It closed the day before so I was left with no other option then to pop back into Dylans’s for one last flat white. On the way I passed The Rugby World Cup Celebration monument. Two teams rising to reach the ball much like the Cook Strait, where the waves from the Pacific Ocean meet those from Tasman Sea. (Wikipedia’s line, not mine!)

I was on the penultimate shuttle back to the ship ready for the all aboard time of four o’clock. A great day so far and still a fair few hours before I was due to start work.

I enjoyed an episode of Designated Survivor, it is awful but I had started it and now the whole series needed to be finished. A few more chapters of my book were enjoyed while I ate a salad. I really did eat a salad, I know when you write creative license can be enjoyed but I promise you it was a salad. 

Back in my cabin and it’s now an hour before I clocked in. I wrote my plan, shaved my head, trimmed my beard and showered. 

Half dressed by 7.07pm I have a few minutes to myself so I played a game of Wordscapes, which I won, Freecall was another success before the Backgmmon computer beat me. 7.13PM and I should be backstage by 7.15 but I can’t leave on a loss. One more, this time successful game of Backgammon and after my four minute commute I am backstage at 7.21PM Only nine minutes until ‘work’ so I enjoyed more of my book. 

“…ladies and gentlemen please welcome comedian Paul Adams!”

It was just after 7.30PM and around 135 jokes later at just about 8.15PM I am halfway done.

Show two started at 9PM and you wouldn’t win prizes for guessing how I killed that time between shows.

At just after 9.45PM I finished my final joke and got my last laugh.

Job done. I walked off into the wings knowing that now the real work about to begin!