Mrs The Millbrooker and I took a minor constitutional yesterday, despite the grey skies and traditional Cornish weather (drizzle).
Our avowed intent was to visit the charity shop in West Street and then try out Millbrook's latest commercial venture: The Honey Room.
The charity shop visit was fruitful, I got my hands on an old style hairbrush and mirror set of the type often seen atop a dressing table. Hideous looking thing, but exactly what I need as a prop for the next show - and for only 50 of our English pennies!
From thence it was but a short hop into Jo and Rose's excellent greengrocery shop and out through the back into their Honey Room cafe.
And what I delight we found within - it's a light and airy space with a warm and welcoming atmosphere. It's exactly what Millbrook has been crying out for: a relaxed cafe to meet in, to chat, to simply pass the time.Rather fittingly, and completely unexpectedly, the place seemed to be mostly populated by cast members from Snow White: The Wicked Queen was there, sharing a table with Snow White and Prince Kevin (AKA Tooty McBadass); Sleepy the dwarf was at another table and Ross the sound-and-lighting man (who, it should be said is also a performer in his own right) was behind the counter doing his day job. Ollie (remember Ollie and Ivy?) is also employed within.
The menu is vegetarian and very reasonably priced:
Must say, my latte accompanied by a slice of date and apple flapjack was scrummy. Mrs The Millbrooker thoroughly enjoyed her Cornish Easter biscuit, too.
Must say, my latte accompanied by a slice of date and apple flapjack was scrummy. Mrs The Millbrooker thoroughly enjoyed her Cornish Easter biscuit, too.There's a potted history of the building on the menu as well, which makes for interesting reading:
Should you find yourself in West Street and fancying a wee snackette or decent cup of the warm stuff, do give The Honey Room a try: in through Widdicombe Fare's shop front and turn right; you'll not be disappointed. In better weather than we had yesterday, you can sit in the garden as well - now that sounds like a pleasant spot to while away an afternoon.
Now Bern has teamed up with a mate of his to create a space where enthusiasts, journalists, photography fans and anyone seeking a perfect gift for Uncle Brian (come on, everyone's got an Uncle Brian tucked away somewhere) can get themselves copies of his work, printed in high quality and at full size ready for framing.
A decent excuse to publish my favourite photo again, though.
There was a day long rehearsal yesterday involving much theatrical waiting around. Someone muttered darkly that being in a play is like being at war: long periods of boredom interspersed by brief moments of intense activity and excitement. Ever-so-slightly less bloodshed, though, I expect.
Actually, the day began with the usual sort of morning routine, roughly common throughout the developed world: stretch, moan about getting old and creaky, shower, cup of tea, bite of breakfast, avoid eye contact with anyone until first few morsels have passed lips... It was Churchill who said "My wife and I tried to breakfast together, but we had to stop or our marriage would have been wrecked." Mrs The Millbrooker and I can, and do, breakfast together, but it's the exception rather than the rule; apart from anything else, I like a massive traditional first meal of the day and she prefers a delicate bite of fresh fruit unaccompanied by other forms of sustenance.
One slap-up lunch later and my minders took me to 
I won't go into minute detail about the 90 minutes that I spent in Janey's company. Suffice to say she took me way outside of my theatrical comfort zone, challenged me to try all sorts of new acting techniques, shoved a camera in my face to produce an intimate close-up portrait of my (very inadequate) portrayals of a good-cop-bad-cop scenario, got me to improvise my way into and out of a scene; I left feeling both drained and highly elated.
...and one cup of coffee later we reversed the London-bound rail journey to Bath and made our way, using the world's 
In the unexpected event of any reader heading to Weston for a night or two of fun and frolics at such nightspots as HotShotz or Vee's Bar, I'm happy to recommend 
Now, Saturday got quite exciting, but I'll leave that for another time.
And in rather becoming close up, demonstrating a finely tuned gold mining technique with plywood and hazel stick pick-axe (Sneezy is next to yours truly, with Bashful just behind).
Eventually, we were allowed onto the stage, where we rehearsed very hard by saying things that approximated the wording of the script in roughly the right places, and doing so several times before singing lots of dwarf-like songs.
The eagle-eyed amongst you might notice that Grumpy is not actually the tallest dwarf on show. Dopey shades it by an inch or so. 
Mrs The Millbrooker took camera-controlling duties because she reckoned I should try the stuff first. So I did.
Closely followed by the lady of the establishment.
At the risk of blowing my own, so to speak ("do you ever do much else?" I hear the cry from the cheap seats, to which I reply "Fie! to thee, groundlings!"), the stuff is bloomin' delicious. And quite decently alcoholic, too. There's a a couple of glasses left from the first bottle; I think they'll disappear rather rapidly after dinner this evening before my ridiculously early bedtime courtesy of a week of early shifts - boo!
See more of Bern's work by 
I know what you're thinking: "Red Leb doesn't come in a bottle, it's a rather pungent and effective resin". Assuming you are thinking that, you're obviously a stoner (or an ex-stoner) who is familiar with the huge varieties of smokables that used to be freely available in one's dim and distant youth; Black Moroccan, Rocky, Acapulco Gold.... ah, dreamy and (very) hazy days of yore...
We made fairly short work of Little Lush Lewis's fine main course cooking skills and moved on to a scrummity pudding: peach and ginger fool. Naturally, Auntie Sharon couldn't stop herself giving the pud a smiley face.
The small (but most select) gathering was augmented at a later hour by J.Edgar and his paramour Catherine. J.Edgar, you might recall, joined the navy back in the summer and is now doing specialist training inside deepest enemy territory (near 
You'll be unsurprised to learn that the evening wore on and much bollocks was talked as we worked our way heroically through a decent bottle of 
As with nearly all such occasions, the evening drew to a close and Mrs The Millbrooker took me home before I had to be removed in disgrace. Many thanks to Shazzerooneypoos for cooking and hosting, we had a grand old time.
The link to all the photos is at the bottom of this post. If any cast members want a full sized copy of any of the photos, just let me know by email and I'll happily send them to you.