BATH PLACE HOTEL

The day before the Oxford show was a complete scramble, there were so many things to do and not enough hours in the day. Steve and I had decided to spend Saturday night in Oxford, with both our families, so that we were fresh for the early tech run the next day. But actually being able to escape from London ended up being difficult, although we managed it in the end.

I had to collect props left at the Arts Theatre the day before and Karl Roberts had decided to add some more animations to the projections and wanted me to go over to his edit suite to look at them before I left. I also had to go to theTate to get presents and cards for the company, because this was the only place I would find Pre-Raphaelite pictures and books suitable. It was Joseph Millson's birthday on the Sunday and I knew that nothing other than a book about Rossetti would be right. I also wanted to get Helen something for all her hard work. Frances and I had to find a suitable doll for the little Morris girls to fight over but of course it was in the attic and this took time scrabbling around in the dust, but we found her in the end.

Eventually Frances and I set off in the car, with the easel I had borrowed from my artist friend Ilinca Cantacuzino, perched ridiculously across the little vehicle. We were staying at Bath Place Hotel, where Jane Burden is reputed to have been born - room 11, I was told, but we had room 9. It was a quaint little hotel, down a side street, leading to the Turf Tavern, where I had worked as a young acrtress in Oxford, many years before.

Somehow we all managed to get there and had supper out in the evening with Helen and the Edis family. I am not sure how I slept that night, but I did.