11:37 Saturday am: Cambridge Circus

I am early, and Kenny is late. This is almost completely unheard of.
He is far enough away that I can stumble across the road and get coffee.
If I don't have coffee, I tell him, I will die.

It was, as hideous weeks go, a desperately hideous week.

There's not one particular lowlight that tipped it, just a long series of hideousness rolled into one excruciatingly horrible 7 day period. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, the weekend before saw me dancing through the streets of Soho in the early hours of morning, somewhat the worse for wear, in the company of bald drag queens and topless Brazilian men. Little sleep and excessive sambucca, my feet sore from too many dance floors.
Monday morning blues came thick and fast. Delayed Thameslink trains and broken down buses, tubes hot with bodies pressing into each other, a walk to work in freezing rain without an umbrella. Silly mistakes, lack of focus, quick flashes of anger and the overwhelming sense I was failing.

Last week I hated the world.

Kenny peers over at me through his trademark shades, sees my face – a mixture of unfocussed fury, a sadness I can't hold onto.

"You are a reflection of your environment."

I protest. I don't want to be miserable, glaring at passerbys through the largest sunglasses I can find. I don't want to see people, I'd rather hide and look at the world through a darkened din. He suggests it's a shame they're not pink; I tend to agree.

I don't know what it was, struggled, unable to shake it. For days I glared at my housemates, my colleagues, people on the bus, on delayed tubes, waiting for cancelled trains; pissed off with life, with the never ending grey days, with rain, with people, pissed off at myself for being pissed off.

Which pissed me off even more. My patience, it seemed, had disappeared.

It took me a while to see past the fury, the short sharp flashes of red hot anger that seemed to simmer underneath my skin, failed to diagnose the crazy blues, even after the shortness of breath, the undisguised feeling of paranoia of something nameless, complete helplessness.

Jean Jacque Rouseeau wrote: "There is no happiness without courage nor virtue without struggle."

I wonder what he'd say to Ken Livingstone and his Transport for London.

Part 2: The Theatre makes everything better

And so clutching coffee, we make our way down Old Compton Street, past coffee bars and pink fronted buildings, weaving down a cobblestone street amid waving rainbow flags.
And there we stop outside of Queen's Theatre.
Kenny, you see, has a surprise.

Now, I love the theatre.

I always have.

There is something about a theatre that makes me feel safe. I trained as an actress way back when, but it was never the lure of technicolour that held me fast. It was always the bareboards of the theatre that seduced me. Whether onstage or backstage, waiting in the wings or sat, eyes fixed firmly on costumed players; it has always been the theatre that made everything better.

And we make our way through the stage door, up past offices and dressing rooms, past forms bent over, laying hair onto nets and then the clean crisp smell of laundry. And there, amidst corsets and buttons and bows, I am measured and fitted. Swatches of velvet unfurled, a sketched design from Kenny's bag.

My leaving present from the Lovelies, a bespoke purple velvet coat.

And so, my feet a little lighter down the stairs (I confess that Kenny does have to hold me back from trying to sneak onstage) and we make our way back into the grey March afternoon; somehow the theatre making everything just that little better.

I'm not so sure I hate anyone anymore.