There are times when I wish I was still renting. I bought this home so as to calm my mind while I was being creative; however, have since then remembered the times when I was able to peacefully leave the day-to-day running and DIY to the landlord. As a homeowner, my list of responsibilities has grown beyond simply ‘paying rent’ and expanded to make me take care of this property.

Oh, the benefits are many. This space is my own, and my own alone, for example. I simply couldn’t abide trying to write musicals and having to deal with roommates and all their foibles. I dealt with that enough while I was at the acting academy- looking at you, Dean– and now I’ve instituted a solid policy of solo living. The responsibilities are many, however. I can no longer entrust the plumbing to the care of the owner of the property, no indeed. I must find my OWN 24 hour Melbourne plumber.

A particularly egregious incident occurred two days ago, when I was on the verge of rewriting the hook of the opening number. As any theatre person would know, the opening number is by far the most important of the entire show, as it dictates the upcoming plot, explains the character motivations and is generally essential for table setting. You can mess with the musical formula all you like, but this is a concrete constant. And the hook, for me, just wasn’t working. I was on the verge of redeveloping this when I felt a certain dampness on the soles of my feet. The floor, which had previously not been covered in water, was now…so. It was a matter of following the trail up the stairs until I reached the bathroom, at which point I realised that the shower head, no longer able to bear its mortal or metal coil, had leapt off to its doom in the bath and water was spewing forth and leaking through the floorboards.

Naturally, the hook idea went out the metaphorical window and into oblivion, and I have not been able to capture the thought since. Something about frantically searching for an emergency plumber in Melbourne to stop your home from flooding really puts a damper on play writing.