I arrived at the set at 9pm, last night. The journey here on the North Circular was quick and straight forward. I parked the car down in the gated car park and made myself at home in the flat. Half an hour later I decided to bring up all my equipment up to the set. It took about 6 trips to get all kit up there. It was a great help that there was a big elevator, that I could use to get the gear upstairs. Blocks of flats usually have a tiny lift, where you can barely fit into let alone a whole load of equipment. Once all the equipment was up, I got a couple of beers and before going to bed.

I woke up about 12 noon feeling hungry. There wasn’t much to eat in the cupboards, so I had to go up the high road to buy some supplies. I will have do a bigger shop tomorrow, but today I needed to get food to get me through the day. As I headed towards the local Tescos, I decided to give Elly a call and leave my apologises for my lack of sympathy the other day. She wasn’t there, so I left a message apologising. Elly got back to me later that evening, once I got back from Lee Akehurst’s place. She still sounded bad. She was gutted that she couldn’t be there tomorrow, having missed out on the Cornwall shoot, but she was still very ill. I asked her if she had won her award? She did. I was very pleased for her. Elly deserves it. She works very hard, and now I can say I have an award winning costume designer on the crew. (I will have to find out what award it is. Elly did tell me, but I forgot. I have asked, and I am just waiting for Elly to reply.)

I got back from my shopping, made myself lunch and then got ready to go out. I needed to go back to my place and send Samuel a copy of the script and the call sheets. I needed to go to Panavision to pick up a new clapper board. And then I needed to drive round to Lee’s place. I set out at 2pm and went straight down the North Circular back to my place. I arrived just before 3pm. The traffic on the North Circular was clear. I emailed Samuel the files and quickly checked my emails. Then I jumped back into the car and then headed back to the North Circular, and towards Panavision. I got there for 3.30pm. Again the road was clear. I quickly went into the Kodak shop inside Panavision and bought a new clapper board. I then jumped back into the car and headed towards Lee’s. I had to take the M25 and head south towards Sutton. So it was A40, M40 and then as I came onto the M25 that’s when the rain came down. It was also when I hit the traffic.

The M25 was at a standstill. The traffic was barely crawling. Was it the rain or an accident or just the sheer volume of traffic on the road? I don’t know. All I know was what should of been an journey of under an hour on the M25 turned into over 2 hours. The traffic jam cleared after the junction for the M3, but as soon as I got my speed up, I drove straight into another queue. This kept on happening for the entire time I drove down the M25. I finally got to my turn off about 6pm. I was already an hour late. Now I had to find Lee’s place.

I have been to Sutton on several occasions, but this was the first time I was driving to Lee’s. I had consulted the map and had a route planned. This of course didn’t stop me from getting lost. After driving round the Sutton one way system several times, I finally pulled over and looked at the map. I had gone past the road, as I had entered Sutton. So I drove back the way I had come. I found Lee’s road. I now had to find his block of flats. Lee’s road is strange as half of the road is a one way system and of course he lived on that part of the road. So I had to turn round and drive back to the main road, so to enter the one way system. I finally arrived at Lee’s place at 7pm.

I buzzed the main door and Lee let me into the flat. He was about to give up on me, as he was heading out that evening. He had the 35mm adaptor and lenses ready for me. He showed me everything and also warned me about not threading the adaptor all the way up to my camera, otherwise I would never get it off. All I had to do was sign the rental agreement and pay him the cash. Once that was done, Lee made me a cup of tea and we caught up on things. We mostly talked about his feature film, Dark Rage. It had been screened at Cannes and Lee was telling me about how he was progressing with selling the film. We chatted for about an hour and then Lee had to go. I was back on the road at 8pm.

The journey back wasn’t as arduous as the journey to Lee’s. The road was clearer then before. There was still a lot of traffic and the rain was still coming down hard, but at least I was moving. I stopped off on the way to grab a bite to eat, as I was starving. I stopped off on the services on the M25 and got myself a tea and a baguette. Something to keep me going. I then got back onto the motorway and head back to set. I arrived back at 10pm. I made myself dinner, watch some TV, spoke to Elly on the phone and then headed to bed. It had been a long day.