The narrowest house in the West Village was For Sale when Jack Galligan and Brenda Robins and I made our little tour, guided via an email from Bobby, one of the nine child guardians on the Billy Elliot staff. Only nine feet wide. I was thinking about how to arrange the living room furniture... quite a conundrum. And if you buy a coach house that's down one of the horse walks, you have to make sure your furniture will fit down there (the passage is only as wide as a horses... rear part). And although the four or five row-houses in Grove Court were built as workers houses in the 1800s, apparently one of them sold last year for seven million buckeroos! I can't imagine what the little farmhouse at the corner of Charles and Greenwich St must be worth! EEEEE! And yet, although housing may be an issue, the Village has more charm than you can imagine... and the tea and scones at Tea and Sympathy are worth the real estate woes.

Fun to have visitors to play with!

The work week was tough. I have to say I was working at my edge. We have got to the point now where I am putting numbers together at tempo and the dancing is a challenge to my old bod. Particularly the tapping/skipping/lasso part where you have to sing at the same time. The thing with learning choreography that involves skipping is... YOU CAN'T SLOW IT DOWN! If you slow it down of course, what does the rope do? It stops going over your head and under your feet! Bummer. That means learning all the elements up to speed separately, and then just sort of... praying. The criminal part? I'm only talking about sixteen bars of music!

Sixteen #%*&@! bars. That I spent about 6 hours working on last week!

Oh my. It's like banging your head against a wall. Thank God for Sara (Cara is on holidays, lucky her!) who has the patience of Job. As many times as I'd curse and want to quit she would count me in ... "and five, six, seven, eight..."" and I'd try again. We'd break down sections that we could, and we'd run sections again, and again, and again, the sweat poring off me, the water bottles drained, the towels getting soaked, the shins getting sore. And still only minimal improvement. It's hard to be this frustrated, but... on I go, and hang onto the glorious gains being made in other parts of the show, and even in other parts of the number. And in the delicious relationship I am building with the 14 year old Alex Ko.

So on the day off what a relief it was to find a piece of paradise right at the end of my street. I discovered South Riverside Park: a new park that has been built around the ruins of some of the old shipping piers in the Hudson River. So peaceful. Wildflowers, rushes, grasses, a boardwalk, and a huge long pier that juts halfway into the water, just five minutes from my apartment door. I will spend many a Monday there, I just know it. To enjoy the air, the water, and little moments of bliss after a tough week on Broadway.