Hue is Hue?

A three and a half hour journey by train dropped us off in Hue - after a slight reluctance to leave Hoi An, knowing that it would be difficult to compare our experience there as we travelled northwards in Vietnam. The train chugged and hugged the coastline, giving us views of narrow inlets and pockets of beaches, fishermen and their boats and the scaling green hills on the other side.

Hue is home to the Citadel and was the capital city of Vietnam in the 19th century and where Ho Chi Minh grew up. As you walk along the street into town, Hue is divided by a clean split down the river - the Citadel down one side and the town down the other. For this reason, the charm that we had been hit by in Hoi An, was lacking here - the people choosing not to base themselves around what is to tourists, the heart of Hue, and very reason why so many people come to visit here. You are left with an impression of a 'wannabe city' - modern hacked buildings, unappealing hotels and cross the bridge to immerse yourself in history and culture.

We felt finagled by the promise of Hue - but I promise that this disappointment will not linger long in this blog.

Hue's Imperial City, the Citadel, is a fortress surrounded by a moat, with water taken from 'The Perfume River' - which runs through the centre of town. Inside is the imperial enclosure to the 'Purple Forbidden City' - where the Emperor, his wives and his concubines lived and where all official business and ceremonies took place. The Citadel was bombed in the Vietnam war and we are told, looked very different a few years ago, but now all of the bomb craters have been filled up with soil and modern hallways provide paths to and from the original buildings that have survived.

Now, Alex is a typical boy in that, in laddish fashion, he spent much of his time looking around the Citadel and designing his own personal fortress. I am informed, by him, that I may live on an island in the middle of a lake and build my own treehouse but that I do not have permission to fish to survive and that if I was to disobey him, he would arrange for his servants to throw things at me and order the angry seabass in the moat to deprive me of bathing or escaping, akin to Austin Powers.

In retaliation, I spent much of the time imagining well-oiled men in loin cloths tending to my every whim, daily massages and a library beating the splendour of Codrington Library at Old Souls College, Oxford. The list goes on.

The DMZ bar hosted us as we clinked our glasses and watched the football and England vs New Zealand rugby in sequential fashion. The DMZ bar stands out due to its ceiling which is a geographical tour of the Demilitarised Zone which was the dividing line between North and South Vietnam during the Indochina War which saw the Viet Cong beat the French to be recognised as its own government in North Vietnam. This paved the way towards the Vietnam War which saw Americans in South Vietnam fighting the 'communism of the North', or as the Vietnamese would probably say - barbarically depriving them of their right to independence. A tale of two sides, as always.

Speaking of which, those who know me well are aware of the amount of literature I absorb on a weekly basis. So far I have probably read about ten books in the past two weeks, but the one that has left me absorbed in the history of Vietnam is called 'Saigon' by Anthony Grey. Through the eyes of a young American who visits the country for the first time in 1926, hunting tiger in the jungles with his wealthy father and brother, the book spans fifty years of Vietnamese history. The young American returns, time and time again, haunted and beguiled by the lumbering country as it leaned harder and harder towards independence. Constantly torn between his patriotism and an innate understanding of the sacrifices Vietnam had made for French colonialism, you observe the battle within himself as much as he details the battle surrounding him. Historical fiction might be its genre, but the way that the author cannily and accurately portrays Saigon, Hue and other places around us leads me to take much of his account as truth and it is considerably unbiased in comparison to the other fiction and non-fiction I have read in understanding this country better.

In Agatha Christie fashion, we boarded the sleeper train that would carry us to Hanoi. The tracks lie flat to the platform and local men sit casually puffing away in the smoky dark until the train arrives. We found ourselves in a cabin with two bunk beds and a narrow table sitting in between. The door only just about shuts and a guard sat outside our cabin, presumably, to ward off the spooky and murderous ghosts of the Orient Express. The train, I had imagined - in typical romantic fashion, would rock me softly to sleep with murmurs of the 'chug-a-chug' beneath me. This was not to be. The train would slow down mildly before throwing down its brakes and hurtling to a stop - nearly throwing us out of the bunk. Occasionally, the guard felt the need to slide our door open and pop his head in, throwing light into the cabin. This was, I assume, to check that we were still there not that somebody had climbed over the top and murdered us in our sleep.

Next stop is Hanoi - on a brief detour before we climb the hills and the fog to Sapa.

Riding bicycles in Hoi An

As the plane dipped beneath the clouds for the first time since leaving Ho Chi Minh, all one could see was a narrow brown river sliding between lush green hills, reminiscent of Conrad's description of the Congo River in 'Heart of Darkness':

"Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish...you thought yourself bewitched and cut off for ever from everything you had known once—somewhere—far away—in another existence perhaps."

We entered the town of Hoi An via taxi, on a narrow track between acres and acres of rice paddies, sleepy buffalo and old women walking in conical hats. The ancient town of Hoi An is an old trading port, active between the 15th and 19th centuries. It sits 4km from the beach and was largely untouched by the Vietnam War which means that the preservation of the old buildings is much a part of the beauty of the place. Countryside Moon was our homestay down a track on the outskirts of the town, the house owned by a Vietnamese couple and their two children. The receptionist was sick and none of the family spoke much English but as I have come to realise more and more, much of feeling welcome in Vietnam has nothing to do with language. 

Bicycle is the main method of travel around Hoi An for tourists and this meant that me and my deaf ears would have to trundle around on the two wheels as well. The homestay is across the river from town and the bridge was still in construction which meant that one of my first challenges was to ride a bike alongside about twenty motorbikes going in the opposite direction on a muddy trail that was about two metres wide. Shit me not. 

Before Alex and I set off, we had agreed on a series of hand signals, a crude sign language, that would enable us to communicate whilst the wind and traffic rendered my hearing aids useless and in essence to keep me alive during the experience. Fairly simple - left, right, slow down, stop and honk - if a vehicle was blaring away behind us. Alex cycles to work in London and he cares about me, so I assumed he would be trustworthy. We had, however, received no warning that the green cross code here is arcane and utterly shambolic. For anybody who wants to blend in with the Vietnamese locals, please observe the following:

1. Honk every time you see a vehicle, person or even a bird. 

2. Feel able to cut someone off on the inside or the outside, God gave you free will.

3. Do not slow down at junctions, even if turning left or right, everyone will work around you.

4. Traffic lights are like disco lights, they serve no purpose.

5. If you wish to take over someone, do not worry about the truck coming down the opposite side of the road, they will slow down for you. (One must remember to honk)

6. Observe no rules, make your own.

Once I had accepted all rules were out of the window and that Alex was too busy observing the same, singing the Sound of Music off key loudly was a must, for it had been many years that I had been on a bike, sober and remained upstanding. Given that the road into town was scattered with karaoke bars pumping base loudly, not too many people suffered. 

The Ancient Town is  effectively three narrow streets parallel to one another, one facing the river. The traditional buildings are fashioned entirely of wood, with large entrances facing out onto the street. Pagodas, temples and meeting houses filter in between shops, restaurants and tailors - the quality of hand-made clothes one of the attractions of the town for tourists. It is very charming and peaceful - the streets cut off from traffic means that there isn't a constant torrent of people passing through. One can spend many days simply absorbing the place and enjoying the atmosphere, which we did. All of the cultural landmarks - the Japanese Bridge, for example, are within metres of each other and blend into the architecture of the town. 

The food here is yet again delicious, in particular the local delicacy - Cao Lau which is only found in Hoi An. Yellow noodles, pork, spring onions with a sweet sauce. Cao Lau is something of an urban legend, it is said that you can only make it with water from an undisclosed ancient well nearby. The Nu Eatery, a restaurant only a few months old, served a delicious chicken and coconut dish with sticky rice. The Reaching Out Teahouse was a local social enterprise run by deaf people. When they bring the menus out to you, they also provide an 'order card' and some wooden cubes with words written on them so that we can gesture to things when we are trying to communicate with them. Whilst my sign language is a little spotty in parts, it was a pleasure to interact to the three waitresses there, talking about the tea they served and their lives. 

We stayed in Hoi An for the 'Legendary Night' which is celebrated on the first full moon of the month. Electric lights are switched off and lanterns are strung up everywhere you can see. Street vendors sell bright boxes with candles in them which you can buy to float down the river. Performances took place in the main square. It was, I will confess, one of those nights where you entirely submit yourself to being soppy and romantic - holding hands as you stroll down the street, staring at the full moon and then hitting yourself on the head to shake yourself off the mood when you get home. 

The receptionist was still sick at our homestay but we became increasingly friendly with the family that we were staying with, making do with very broken English which has become a bit of a habit. You suddenly find yourself talking to a tourist in the same fashion and coming across as a right berk. We made a habit of sitting outside on the veranda with our books and Lan, our host, would sit with us and drink La Rue beer saying "Yo" which would result in all of us picking up our drinks and saying cheers. With the Vietnamese, one doesn't sup at beer casually whilst talking, you say "Yo" and simultaneously everyone clinks their cans and drinks. It has a tendency to get one drunk quite quickly in your desire to be warm and friendly. He also sent his boy off to fetch some smoked squid of which its vile smell and taste still makes us gag in recollection of it. It makes you curse the good manners your family instilled in you. (I have been forced to write here that I didn't eat any of this, Alex took one for the team. But the smell gave it all away.)

When you visit a place, you go marching in search of the culture and the sights with a map, camera and guide book, determined to make your mind up of exactly what you think of it. You seek the truth or the heart. A city or a town is so often determined by its landmarks, its custom and how well it caters to tourists. The number of things to do or to see. Hoi An, in its simplicity, makes as strong a statement as any of the more famous cities of the world in its refusal to be dictated by the pace of modernisation. The vibrancy, elegance and laid-back atmosphere Hoi An treasures, enables it to simply speak for itself. 

"Saigon...shit...I'm still only in Saigon"

From the air, Saigon was the largest metropolis I had ever seen. As the plane dipped beneath the clouds, all I could see was city block after city block sprawled for miles, no ending beyond what the eye could discern. And a brown snake slithering through the middle of it. The Mekong River. Welcome to Ho Chi Minh City.

One deaf, but slightly more experienced backpacker and a map-reading aficiando Scouser disembarked the plane. 

We took a taxi - with the meter on at our insistence but still managed to get ripped off by our escort adding another zero. I took several backward steps away hastedly as Alex unleashed his scorn-ridden Liverpudlian Scouse fury upon the driver, who scratching his forehead, was really only trying to rip us off by 2 pounds. But Alex was having none of it. 

We were in the Pham Ngu Lao district. After having a good look around - we are clearly in the backpacker part of the city, we trundled down a narrow lane to where the map reading aficionado insisted the hostel would be. I learnt very quickly on this trip, his navigation skills only apply when he is wearing his glasses. 

Receiving a very warm welcome at Diep Anh Guesthouse, the owner took us through the entire history of HCMC in the space of half an hour. Quite a skill. Following this, he gave us very detailed itineraries of multiple tours we could go on. After this, we were allowed to fill in our forms and hand in our passports which would permit us entrance into the hostel. We dumped our bags in our room and headed straight out for some Ban Pho. The only thing we had really come to Vietnam for. 

Sitting on a street corner on colourful plastic chairs, crowded in at every angle by local Vietnamese men slurping away, we regaled in our feast of the Vietnamese delicacy - Ban Pho - noodle soup with beef, spring onions, beansprouts, lime and an array of herbs I did not recognise upon taste. The languid humidity which is such a staple of South East Asia left us sweating profusely into our soup, adding a nice level of salt to our already sumptuous feast. All around us were shops, bars and restaurants with fluorescent flashing lights illuminating deals and the all night ‘Happy Hour’ and all we could hear was the loud hum of thousands of scooters passing us by with no pause in the traffic. Vietnamese women in silk pyjamas carrying their wares on their shoulders with a pole holding a make-shift set of weight scales carrying bananas, pineapple and other fruit we could not put a name to. The smell was deliciously foreign - a mix of fresh food, the stench from the drains, the fumes from the bikes. The sights was a never-ending array of ethnic vibrancy so far removed from Western culture. Other backpackers hastened across the road, zig-zagging to and fro the constant ascent of Vietnamese on their scooters with face masks intended to protect them from the metropolis’s pollution. 

With coffee and tea being our staple in the mornings, the next day we encamped in a bland cafe to plan out our route to the day’s cultural beehive of places to visit and see. A long walk found ourselves at the War Remnants Museum which documents (entirely one-sidedly I must warn) the devastation caused by the Vietnam War. A sobering exhibition of Agent Orange, which was one of the poisons that American planes dropped over the forests in Vietnam as an attempt to defeat the never-ending guerrilla warfare which they had found themselves fighting in. These were graphic images of first generation or second generation children born deformed, disfigured and mentally disabled through their parents absorbing the dioxine unleashed on them. A child enraptured by a butterfly. A child holding his dad’s hand whilst locked in a tiny wooden cage (he could not prevent himself from eating anything that came his way, and his dad was an exception to these culinary habits). Children smiling as they made crafts with their feet to sell to local tourists. One would think that this was enough, but we had another three floors to explore which hit us at all angles at the supposed victimisation and cruelty the Vietnamese faced upon fighting the Americans for independence. The other three floors captured images from the war itself - a US soldier with a toothy grin holding up the head of a local farmer who had exploded from standing on a grenade, a well where three young boys had hidden from the solders (two shot and one disemboweled), the haggard faces of US solders wading through rice paddies, completely foreign to their land. The top floor was dedicated to world photographers and journalists who had chronicled their experiences of the war (and was a vast relief to the directness and one-sidedness of the Vietnamese portrayal of their images on the floors below). But it left one wondering exactly what the correct balance was in the war - which lens (none of them rosy) by which to view Vietnamese history. The US war planes, helicopters and tanks outside left Alex in an excited dance with his camera.

We meandered to the Independence Palace, of which I won’t say much, except it’s not a very pretty palace and it has lots of big rooms. The best part was probably seeing the helipad on the top floor and looking out onto the city. We stopped in the General Post Office so that I could send a postcard home to my family, Alex sitting patiently whilst I scribbled away. Then we stopped for lunch at Nha Hang Ngon which offered street food in very stylish surroundings - we sat under a domed ceiling with plants hugging the pillars around the open square. We were surrounded by Vietnamese chefs quietly cooking various local delicacies and we could watch them as they prepared our food. We ate more Ban Pho and shared what was described as ‘pork chops, egg cake, shredded pork and sticky rice’. It was all delicious and only cost us 100,000 Dong (less than £3). 

The Jade Emperor Pagoda, a 30 minute walk away, was a multi-tiered temple created by the Cantonese congregation and contained large black macabre statues, apparently made of paper mache. We stood in silence as several men and women filled the air with joss sticks, chanted and stuck candles into everything. Locals would donate a fee to light a cluster of joss sticks with their palms clasped and shaking them reverently at all of the looming gods surrounding us. Outside was a pond of terrapins, and I confess we spent more time watching these - me cooing away at them and Alex taking pictures of the biggest, the fastest or the baby.

Ben Thanh Market was a bustling street market, reminiscent of the outdoor markets in Bangkok where there was multiple ways in and out but you would never end up back where you were. People ate in the middle of the narrow corridors, thrust various cloths under our noses, grabbed our hands to get us to come and see their stalls. We emerged fairly quickly and, as always, fairly stunned at the colourful chaos that a shopping market can provide. 

Getting my way, but realistically with little resistance from Alex, we went to the Beautiful Saigon Spa for a massage to relieve those tight knots and bumps we had naturally gained from our hours of walking around the city. It was a new experience, compared to the Thai massages we both have more of a feel for (ha!) and started with the submerging of our feet in a cinnamon foot bath. We were also presented with a cup of something which could only be described as smoky bacon flavoured water. New to us indeed. The most exciting part for me, and least for Alex, is when we were asked to don a pair of grey shorts, a short chequered dressing gown and blue crocs. We were wearing exactly the same clothes for all of five minutes. It winds Alex up considerably. Sadly, we did not get any photos. I won’t go into too many details about the massage because that feels a bit like rubbing it in your faces but it was divinely indulgent. I did have a little giggle when I peeked over and Alex was lying on his front and had his arms pulled behind his back. He was being jerked around by the tiniest masseuse I had ever seen. If I had my hearing aids in, I could have sworn he let out a little yelp...

Lazily, we crossed the road for a third course of Ban Pho and some BBQ pork noodles. We read our books and fell asleep at 8.30pm, like a pair of contented dogs.

Strangely, given the size of Saigon, nearly all of the must-see sights are condensed within a square block of a couple of miles. I have no doubt that one could probably explore Saigon forever - soaking up the aromas, dodging the traffic and taking on an almost liquid diet of drinks and Ban Pho. When we walked through the park from the palace, we stopped to watch one guitarist singing soulfully in Vietnamese. A few metres further down, another guitarist was making a complete hash of The Beatles (all corroborated by Alex and not the deaf one). This was, in its own way, the lasting impression of the city of Saigon - a city which aims to please its tourists through a sharp contrast of quietly celebrating its own culture whilst loudly courting to what they believe Western travellers desire.

*Title of the blog can be attributed to one of my favourite films 'Apocalypse Now'.

On the other side of nowhere

For the past three years now, I have entertained the idea of escaping half way around the world. Whether it be Los Angeles or Thailand, I have been perturbed and distracted by the notion that I could be living a better life elsewhere - miles away. Reading books like ‘The 4-hour work week’ by Tim Ferriss fed my hunger and it grew to an almost insatiable desperation to get away from London. Alex (the boy) has put up with this mild discontentment of mine for a long time. And now that we are half way around the world, in Vietnam in fact, I am reflecting on what has driven me to where I am now. I know I am now here for the right reasons.

The convenient thing with writers is that they have very liberal freedom to portray themselves via prose as they wish. I do not say this to imply the truth above is elaborated, but the reverse - that it is difficult to confess via print what seems like a selfish, ungrateful side of me when in actual fact, I am very lucky. 

My mum, to an extent, would describe me as a wanderer - perhaps even flatteringly ‘always in pursuit of adventure’. I certainly never wanted to follow paths worn and trod. I was always the one that was going to leave the nest and not relocate nearby. During my later teenage years, I was a difficult, self-serving and rebellious child - not necessarily in the ways one would imagine - tattoo imprinting, drug taking, car-racing but in the vilest of ways - tormenting, taunting, apathetic and entirely uncompromising with my family. I would take the car into the nearest town, party the night through and then sleep all day or if interrupted, scowl from the sofa. I was merciless in my bad treatment of my family and it got so bad that at one point, I left home and stayed with some guy I had recently hooked up with. The agonising and worrying I must have put them through. Once I had emerged from this black haze, I concentrated all my efforts into forgetting that I had ever behaved this way. Going to Edinburgh University and subsequently moving to London gave me a taste of that ‘long desired freedom’ I had been chasing in my teens. I would visit home desperate to demonstrate that I was no longer that girl that they knew. That I was now better. 

I like puzzles. I like the methodical motion of putting jigsaw pieces together - from the corners, to the edges and gradually into the middle. I like to separate the greys from the blues from the browns, then separate the ‘two bits sticking out’ from the ‘three bits sticking out’ until it is entirely provable that every jigsaw piece fit somewhere, even if I was yet to know where. For the past few years, a long while, I have felt a bit like a jigsaw piece with my family. Not quite sure where I fit in, not understanding familiar jokes, the twins being too big to beat up. In particular, my middle sister and I have been strained, struggling to find a balance in our relationship that means we can both truly relax with each other. I loved coming home, but felt a little lost and almost desperate to just quickly fit myself into a square I did not belong in, but could resemble close enough - like a jigsaw piece - out of place. This caused me to deliberately set myself slightly ajar from my family - both emotionally and physically, to avoid this frustration and panic of not fitting in.

So staying away became a modus operandi when feeling discontent.  

In 2012, a year after the success of ‘The Silence’ which had thrown me into an acting role - a roller coaster ride, taken me away to Dublin and back, plucked my hopes and dreams and threw them into the open to be seized by anyone as they wished, I was struggling. ‘The Silence’ had not, despite my hopes and dreams, sent me whirling straight into another acting role or off to glamorous places overseas. A routine, which I would get very used to, was to go to two or three auditions a year, more if I was lucky. I was plugging effort and money away with my speech therapist, desperate to throw off this issue of sounding deaf without being ashamed or frustrated by my deaf identity. I was also working two days a week for a non-for-profit organisation which did little to preoccupy my time. I became restless but weary, sleeping little. My unhappiness was secret because I knew I was lucky. My unhappiness was secret because I knew it was part of the game plan - actors have to wait it out. My unhappiness was secret because I didn’t want other people to know I was discontent with myself and my life. It became a rationalised unhappiness.

London became a place synonymous with unhappiness for me - when it shouldn’t have. 

In 2013, I was resisting a growing sense of concern - that I had made completely the wrong decision about my life.  When I started working at the aforementioned non-for-profit organisation, it was to support me financially through my out-of-work periods of being an actress. But realistically, it was to place my eggs in two baskets - in case I had taken a risk in acting and it did not take off. I was adamant that I would not end up back in square 1 at 30 years old, having wasted other skills and talents that I might have had to offer. My restlessness was also at its peak. Alex had finally acquiesced that we might live in a different country if we could make it work for the two of us. The best option seemed to be Los Angeles. I also felt that if I gave acting a go properly, on my terms, that this was the place to be.

I visited Los Angeles twice, once at the end of 2013 and again at the beginning of 2014. Californian sunshine, beautiful canyons and a collection of friendly expats led me to believe we could set up a life here. There was hope, acting wise, conversations with an ABC drama called ‘Switched at Birth’ and multiple visits to their set near Laurel Canyon. So many meetings with agents, managers, producers, writers - on my terms. Back in London, I threw myself into the collection of letters of support for a visa and green card, the restless energy being fed into a frenzy of getting myself organised to make this happen. But piece by piece, I lost my way again - with two managers falling through and Switched at Birth no longer a place of promise. No ripe fruit elsewhere. I knew that it was not my time to be in Los Angeles and that the contentment I searched for in my career would not be filled on the other side of the pond. I had to find it within myself at home - the acceptance of the highs and lows of acting or to accept failure and move on (the only way I could express it in my head was as a failure). 

This has turned into a proper little ‘pursuit of happiness’ hasn’t it? 

The combination of this damaging dismay regarding my acting career and feeling trapped in a city did not feel nurturing or prosperous led Alex and I towards the decision to travel the world for a year. Originally probably for the wrong reasons, but the right ones emerged over time. It no longer became the means to escape or the pursuit of something new and better, but quite simply time to reflect, accept and take our lives entirely out of context for a while - explore a rich myriad of landscapes vastly removed from where we had lived and worked for the past six years. In the meantime, other events took place which helped clarify my thinking and understanding some of the aspects of my life where I had struggled the most.

First of all, though no longer ground-breaking news, my mum got cancer. In the emotional turmoil of coming to terms with this, our family knitted in a way that made me realise that viewing myself as a ill-fitting jigsaw piece was a warped irrational fragile mentality that my brain had assembled at easy convenience, rooted in the past not the present. It was I who needed to forgive myself for the child I was all those years ago and accept that this is a part of my life history. There are no puzzles in my family - we simply mould to each other as one. We always have done. 

Secondly, in some weird twist of fate, I got a role in BBC’s Call the Midwife, days before Alex and I were due to embark on our travels. (See previous blog). What that means, I don’t know. But since arriving here in Vietnam, I’ve had more good news about my acting career, and we will just have to see what happens. I know I have had a better acting career than most. I have a hungry ambition that rarely settles on itself. Maybe I’m back at the top of the insecurity spiral again, who knows? But right now I am on the other side of the world, with avid eyes peering through a very different telescope, I couldn’t give a stuff. 

Thirdly, I suddenly started to love London again. Whether this was my best friend moving in, a concentrated period of good memories, the house finally being renovated or seeing London through brighter and happier eyes, its anyone's guess. But after sullying London over the past four years, I finally feel like I can appreciate it again. Will we come back to London in a year? Who knows. But already I feel stronger to face whatever comes my way. 

As Alex is fond of saying, life's big question when discontent is - is the grass greener? And the answer is, no, it just smells different.

***This is not meant to resemble a blow-by-blow account of my emotional health over the last 28 years - for this would be a vastly inaccurate portrayal. But in reflection of consistently ‘wanting to be elsewhere’, I learnt a lot about myself along the way. 

Call the Midwife

Beehives, bouffants and sack dresses - a month in the life of the 1950's - awesome.

Fat suits, faking labour and chinese dolls were a little more unexpected.

Though it is Call the Midwife.

Filming Call the Midwife was a fabulous whirlwind into one of the BBC's most successful television series' of the decade and appealingly dominated by a sexy, sassy female cast. So prim and proper on screen in starched uniforms and clicky lace-up heels, it was a little bewildering sitting in hair and makeup with Helen George (who plays Trixie) dressed glamorously with a fox fur stole wrapped around her neck at 6am in the morning.

And a little awkward at first, knowing she's going to be fake delivering your fake baby out of your fake tummy. A rather intimate moment to happen between two strangers.

But I should be used to the strange world of acting by now.

Driving out of London and down leafy country lanes in Chertsey, Surrey to the film set, I was a little lugubrious due to the fact that Alex and I had been due to go on holiday that very day (which we postponed to enable me to film this role). I was also a little daunted for I was to have a labour rehearsal with the consultant midwife and a lesson in 1960s British Sign Language.

Why?

I've never given birth and even though I'm deaf, I am not fluent in sign - my modus operandi, communication wise, is certainly verbal. There was a lot to learn and it was important to get right.

I have also been traumatised by graphic delineations of labour by three wine-fuelled ladies from Liverpool - you know who you are. Thank you for the extraordinary detail. I will never forget it.

My family were also delighted that I was filming this particular series, not least because there was the potential prospect of my meeting one of their favourite stars - Miranda Hart. Coaxing and wheedlings from them for autographs from the tall lady went no where - with extreme blackmail at one point when asked "in the name of charity". Suggestions that I invite her to join the Hackney Rugby Ladies Team also strangely were forgotten.

Standing in my underwear in the trailer with Ralph Wheeler-Holes, the costume designer, there was a mild moment of bafflement as, in spite of sending my measurements ahead, nothing actually fit once I got into the fat suit. Whilst adjusting the bulk of pennies laden in the crotch (to hold the baby bump down), I asked whether this was par for the course.

"Of course, but most people's bust and hip sizes stay the same whereas yours seem to have expanded along with the baby."

Alex (my boyfriend) will never be using the tape measure again.

The perm mishap 

Once the hairdresser had said decidedly that I was not suited to ringlets, but more to quaffs (think less Judy Garland, more Audrey Hepburn), I became a 'June Denton' faced with the prospects of bringing a child into a deaf world, or a hearing world. June is torn between the baby being able to hear, but she not being able to speak to it or vice versa - the baby being born deaf and therefore living in a silent world. A cruel dilemma - accentuated by the fact that hearing aids were not readily available and cochlea implants did not exist. A deaf person could not learn to speak so easily without those resources and segregation and discrimination were rife in society.

We are fortunate that life is not quite so hard for deaf people now.

Those who know me are familiar with the 'bubble bath' story - when I was little my mum would sing nursery rhymes to me in the bath. And one day, in spite of being born deaf, I started mouthing the words back to her.

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star."

It was a turning point in my mum's battle to teach me how to speak - even though I had no concept of sound at the time, I understood communication and lipreading was to become as familiar to me as being able to read and write. This was in spite of the doctors telling her that I would never learn to speak and that sign language was the only way in which interaction between mother and child would work.

When I found out earlier this year that my mum had breast cancer, it was one of the hardest things I have ever had to come to terms with. A few days before the audition, I had a conversation with her, when she said that struggling with cancer and chemo was better and easier than her discovery that I was born deaf.

It struck a blind nerve.

How could the tragedy of being diagnosed with cancer be remotely equivalent to being born deaf?

Somehow, after long days of filming, I couldn't quite turn off the character of June Denton. Her story. How will I feel when I am pregnant with my first child, facing the possibilities of them being born deaf? How did my mum feel with the predicament of, well me?

I'm sure as June Denton found out, that love holds the answer. What they are doesn't matter.

So grunting, straining, covered in a sheen of fake sweat (and some real) I had my first experience of pretending to give birth on Call the Midwife. And I have no delusions that it is anything like the real thing. Genevieve wanted to look reasonably sexy on camera, but it was not to be. There was also a little caginess as I had heard that there had been several incidences of being peed or pooped on by babies during filming.

Shouldn't there be a hazard sign for that?

The baby actually had no accidents and looked gorgeous - a tiny two month old with jet black hair who had to be lathed in baby oil and fake blood and hidden cunningly under a cloth between my legs. The baby's workload was considerably lighter - 30 minutes of work with an hour's rest in between.

During those breaks, they used a fake baby - which happened to look Chinese. Imagine my confusion when that popped out.

The final day of filming (for it is rarely chronological) was the most important scene, where I would inevitably have to cry and simultaneously sign a long monologue. A typical scene takes about three hours to film, and this was probably going to take longer. Preparing for this had me in a dark place. Trying to put myself in June Denton's shoes.

It's not an easy thing being deaf, and I know that more than most people. If it is a burden, then I carry it most times without being aware of it. If it is a burden and I am aware of it, then I carry it with pride and determination, therefore not really feeling it. But June's grace in her deafness, her delight in the small victories, her realisation that love can be conveyed without sound and without sound left me with more confidence than before - that regardless of which way my children go in the world, they will be loved and know they are loved.

Playing 'June Denton' in Call the Midwife