I've finally got a chance to sit down and update my journal. Much to Lissa's annoyance - she does like me playing on 'that damn phone again' - apparently we're supposed to be watching TV together.

This summer Lissa and I got this brilliant flat together, but I'd also just got the house so now I move between the two.

Anyway, after drama class on Saturday, it was late so I stopped at Jonathan's place. We stayed up until the early hours of the morning, just talking, it was great.

We covered all sorts of topics, from work to his ex and little Amber (who isn't so little anymore), even with all the time we spend together at work and just hanging out, its amazing how much we can still learn about each other.

Then we slept late on Sunday. Like, really late. Like, ten in the morning! Which doesn't seem that late, but when you usually get up at five, its late!

After a really lazy day I headed to the flat with him. And the three of us had tea. And another late night!

Anyway, as much as I'd love to stay up late writing on my phone, the TV programme has nearly finished and I still need a shower before bed.

Tags: cast, crew, weekend, work
Current Location: In the flat's living room
Current Mood: Happy
Current Music: TV

Well, we had a bit of snow fall yesterday, right before Jonathan phoned to let me know that he was back from England and ready to meet up with me for a catch up session in Glasgow.

All the arrangements were being made when I rather abruptly squealed and dashed outside (then promptly complained about the cold). It didn't settle but I was still pretty excited by it all. I'm just a bit kid really.

It would have been fun if it had settled. When we were younger all us kids would have a massive snowball fight, girls against boys usually, our team would usually win because the boys were only little. Now that Rebecca is that much taller than me I suspect that I would lose, badly!

Anyway, I caught an early boat this morning and Jonathan drove out to meet me off the boat. We indulged in a bit of retail therapy and played spot the paparazzo. No doubt there will be some photo of he and I enjoying a conversation which will be packaged up and sent off to various magazines suggesting that we're romantically involved.

We shopped, I bought a dress, Jonathan offered fashion advice and told me I looked gorgeous when I came out the changing room (which a girl always likes to hear). We took advantage of the charity shops and I looked at ornaments and random stuffed animals... and books... you can never have too many books.

He got a phone call just after lunch, his agent requesting a meeting, so we had to cut things short. It then took me an absolute age to get home. I have no fear of using public transport, but they're doing things to the Glasgow-Wemyss Bay line at the moment and it caused all kinds of trouble. First there was the bus to Paisley Gilmore street, then the wait. That was fine, I had a hat and scarf, I bought a hot chocolate to keep myself satisfied.

The train came and all was good. I sat and day dreamed while I stared out the window. Some sort of muffled announcement came over the speakers but I didn't catch what was said until the ticket guy came through and explained that we were being diverted to Gourock for some reason. Once there we had to wait for taxis for almost three-quarters of an hour. I was well entertained. An exciteable teenage girl named Anna recognised me, then there were pictures to be taken and autographs to sign. She told me that she couldn't believe that I used the trains like her and we shared several stories about particularly horrific trips.

We shared a taxi together and practically drove the driver mad by singing along to the Reasons theme when it came on the radio. Then on the boat she met up with some friends and it was a bit of a squeal-fest all the way back. All in all it was a good day, and an especially entertaining journey back.

Now I'm just going to polish up Emilia's New Years Resolutions for tomorrow. I've got to get up early and head to the mainland tomorrow for that. Then we're back into work as of Monday so I have to dig out my script and make sure that I'm up on my lines.

All I want to do right now is sleep!

Tags: shopping, travel, weather
Current Location: Living room floor
Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: CSI: Miami

Jonathan called me half an hour ago! When is it appropriate to call your colleague at twenty past ten in the evening?

Anyway, it was just as well that he did, I'd completely forgotten about the prompt we were supposed to be writing about for the acting class that we are all expected to attend on a Saturday. While we're there Jamie, our coach, gives us various activities. Sometimes we spend ages playing games, other times Jamie'll come up with a scenario and we have to act as our characters in that improvised scene. A fair amount of time is also spent going over script pages, things we're not clear how to play and doing the basic blocking of scenes.

He also gives us homework.

Not that I mind. In the beginning it was just simple stuff, like list three books that [your character] might have on their bookshelf, or write about what [your character] likes and dislikes about [another character].

But then as the show progressed we got to deeper stuff. Sometimes it was about ourselves and how we relate to the characters, sometimes it's about how the characters act in certain sitations, and of course there's always the things that haven't been explicitly stated in the show but which help us to give the characters another dimension... or understand them on another level... or whatever.

So anyway, the phone rang at twenty past ten tonight and a voice says "Yo! Emilia!" (This comes from our first acting class when we were instructed to call each other by our characters names. It stuck for ages at first, to the point where I had to stop at one point I had to ask Sophie what her name was because I was so used to calling her Tess!)

"Hey Ben." I replied automatically. After covering how we were getting on after the New Year festivities and how Amber (his daughter) was, he asked me whether I'd done the homework for the class. Of course with all the preparation for the holidays I hadn't. So then he asked what it was. He's actually like a kid in school. If the opportunity arose I swear he would copy from me, or pay me to do it for him! I had to look it up while he was on the line; we have to write about what our characters New Years Resolutions would be.

Jonathan told me he'd see me on Friday, so that means either I'm going to Glasgow this Friday or Jonathan's coming over to the island. He's driving back tomorrow so hopefully I'll be able to get hold of him before then and find out what he meant. But while I wait to hear from him I'm going to work out what Emilia's resolutions would be...

Emilia's New Year Resolutions

1. Stop bossing Ben around. Just because my job is more important than his does not mean that you are better than him.
2. Make more of an effort to socialise with people outside of work. I'm always talking about my friend Maggie, but as yet the only people I seem to socialise with are the guys from work!
3. Travel again. I've been to all sorts of foreign places and it would be interesting to go back and carry on the work that I was doing out there.

Okay... so it needs some work, but it's a start for the class on Saturday.

Tags: acting class, homework
Current Location: Living room floor
Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Documentary on TV

 Well, I'm just about up and dressed. Amazingly enough Rebecca was up before me today. She stuck her head around the door and announced that she wanted to head down to town to pick up some stuff. Ooh... and she's back already. I'm curious as to what she might have picked up.

Ah, not much, apparently most of the shops were closed (it being a bank holiday might have something to do with it). She picked up a couple of magazine but that's it.

Don't actually have much planned for today. I should really make sure that everything is all tidied up from the party the other night. I keep on finding beer bottles and random glasses behind pieces of furniture! I dread to think what the sets looked like after we left the other week.

Apparently later on I'm going to have a couple of people up, probably just to watch a film or something. Rebecca arranged it with two of the guys from the party. So I'm going to spend the afternoon watching random films! One of them has two small children so I can set them up in one of the rooms with a couple of the DVDs that I got in for Lilimae.

Lilimae is my little niece. She's two years old and is just amazing! My older sister, Bonnie, named her for two of our grandmothers, then jazzed it up a bit. Personally I think Lily May would have been a beautiful name, and she's going to have a hard time getting people to spell it correctly. I should know when I was growing up nobody knew the name Caitlin. I spent half my life being Catlin... and once even Caketyn! But apparently five year olds aren't very good at spelling.

Hmm... I really don't have much more to say here... I think I might go look out some writing prompts to help me get some more ideas for writing.

Tags: family, rambling
Current Location: Living room
Current Mood: relaxed
Current Music: The TV

Jonathan gave me a laptop for Christmas. It's a strange gift for one work colleague to give another, but I guess when you're a big celebrity you can afford to splurge on gifts.

I don't know how much it cost... I know you shouldn't think about those things but I got him this race car thing where he gets to go drive around a race track for a day. We weren't supposed to do big gifts since there was a Secret Santa at work. I got Bridie, one of the make-up girls and gave her a huge spa selection box. She loved it! One of the camera guys gave me a framed version of my first script. I don't know where he got it from but across the back there's ARGH!!! written in large black capital letters. I'm not sure what I was thinking at the time, clearly I wasn't happy with whatever I was doing. I suspect it had something to do with remembering my lines.

Anyway...

Jonathan and I spent an age hanging out at the Christmas party. Everything wrapped up on the seventeenth and so that night we had a massive party on the set. It was in my office, the morgue and the station. Seeing as they are all arranged around the central point of the studio. As far as I remember all the nibblies were laid out on the slabs in the morgue, which was a little bit bizarre.

It's weird to think how much has changed. Summer before last I was doing bit parts and plays. Admittedly a couple of them were bigger plays, travelled around a bit, but it wasn't going to make me rich. Then I happened to get an audition, they weren't sure I was suitable. Promised to consider me. Then next thing I know they're calling me up and having me sign a contract and everything! Okay, so I was the second or third choice, the original actresses pulled out. But the fact is, since then they're glad that they went with a relative unknown. I'm not being likened to previous roles, apparently nobody really watches Taggart or River City!

We were talking about it at the party last night. I've never really hosted a party before, and some people couldn't come (Jonathan's down south visiting his daughter), but Melissa and I were joking about how nervous and unsure we were in the beginning. She'd had about as many proper roles as I had before staring here. On the whole the night was a huge success. Everyone welcomed in the New Year together, there was drinking and laughing and it was just generally a good time. I've never felt that I belong so much before.

And my younger sister was here lapping it all up. Rebecca works in America, for a law firm, and is painfully shy, so I was not expecting her to enjoy it at all. She didn't even have anything to drink! She just totally lit up. I suppose it's because she's met loads of the cast and crew before so there was a real family feeling going on. The only weird thing was when Marky, one of our directors came over to me... he'd had a few... and informed me that Rebecca and I could be twins. Which is interesting for several reasons.

Firstly, despite being about two years younger than me she is almost a full half foot taller. Secondly, I'm brunette, she's natural blonde. Thirdly, there's no actual genetic relationship between us. She's adopted, so while she's fully related to our older sister and my oldest younger brother, we don't share any parents. However it's fairly complicated and I wasn't about to explain it to a drunk director.

She's gone up to bed now. I'm staying up way too late seeing as one of the tech guys set me up with the wireless network. I am so totally uncomputer-savvy! I have my regular PC which is very buggy but has a cabled internet connection, but now I can sit anywhere in this house and go online.

But now I should probably head upstairs myself. I've barely been to bed before two since before Christmas!

Cait

Tags: christmas, new year, work
Current Location: Living room floor
Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Deadliest Catch