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It felt like new beginnings for us too. The building and renovation work on the classroom
and the office was finally complete, we just had to decorate now, but it also meant that with
the infrastructure finally in place we could get down to the nitty-gritty of what exactly we
were going to be offering in our 'school'. Natalie's sewing course in the Dordogne had gone
extremely well, luscious surroundings and sold-out craft courses proving very popular, but
for now - and not knowing a great deal about craft - we wanted to stick with our idea of
running writing courses, specifically genre-writing courses. We were determined not to over-
stretch ourselves and therefore planned to run just four five-day courses over the following
spring and summer, a relaxed beginning giving us a chance to get everything right.
Firstly, though, I had my office to complete. I finally had a room of my own and I wanted to
get it up and running as soon as possible, as did Natalie who was looking forward to finally
seeing the back of 'my' stuff which continued to ruin her shabby-chic house look. Having said
that, and although we both wanted me to crack on with things, I wasn't thrilled about the pro-
spect of more DIY.
One of the worst jobs I ever had was a temporary job in the summer of 1991, which I think
may have been advertised as 'Highway Maintenance Assistant'. In reality, it was scraping up
roadkill from the A24 in Sussex and it was one of those jobs which my dad, a no-nonsense
Yorkshireman, would describe as 'character building'; a Yorkshire euphemism which appar-
ently means 'potentially lethal'. These were the days before rampant 'Health & Safety' and our
equipment consisted of a paint scraper, a bin bag and our nerve. We didn't even have gloves
or a luminous vest as we dodged the traffic, playing some kind of macabre version of the
1980s arcade game Frogger.
In my time I have been a bouncer, I've built kitchens in mobile mammography units, I've
been sacked by Tesco three times, I worked as a housekeeper at the Gatwick Hilton for ap-
proximately twenty-five minutes (you really don't want any details, trust me) and I've been
hired as a 'Minder' for a Jewish rag trader until it came time for me to apply some pressure to
a non-payer and my inadequacies for the role were cruelly exposed.
None of this is exactly diamond mining in South Africa, but I just wanted to show that, just
because I'm in showbiz, I'm not afraid of work. I'll do what it takes to get by. I'm a trouper.
But I hate, hate with a passion, painting and decorating. I like the furniture planning stuff
and I've never found IKEA shelving units or desks as troublesome as most people make them
out to be; I'm handy with a screwdriver. The office, though, was four large walls and a floor,
all of which needed painting, and as it stood empty it looked even bigger than I had planned
(and I had planned big) ideal for a 'pacer'. When I write stand-up I do it standing up, and talk
to myself as I pace around pretending I'm on stage, trying to get the rhythm right. Procrastina-
tion in the form of, 'No, I'm not sure what colours yet' gripped me. I also happened to mention
on Twitter - a necessary evil these days - that I was painting and immediately started getting
advice from 'decorating-bots' (usually companies who jump on a buzzword and try and sell
