By Sam Hill

Off-we-go to Os-we-go, sorry, terrible joke, you can blame Lucy for that one… Oswego is a city in upstate New York. It sits on Lake Ontario, and for the most part, has been covered in pristine snow. Although it is COLD, the town is beautiful and the snow, newly laid upon the ground, makes a soft, crunching sound, providing a satisfying ASMR to every walk.

We performed two shows here and enjoyed them both. As any actor would, we balked at the idea of performing at 9:30 am to a group of high schoolers. To be clear, we were more than happy to perform to high schoolers; it was the idea of performing so early we struggled with. However, we were met by a warm group of young people in the auditorium and ended up thoroughly enjoying ourselves. That’s actors for you. We love to complain but, when we get going, always end up enjoying ourselves.

Did you know what the collective noun for a group of actors is? A whinge (just kidding).

A real highlight of the stay here was getting tickets to a local ice hockey game. There was a local championship in which an Oswego team had reached the final. Hockey is %$£$-ing brutal. Actions that would get you sent off in any other sport seem to be totally acceptable. These include smashing into each other, hitting each other with sticks, tripping each other up and shoving the other player into the side-barrier, which thankfully separates competitors and fans. I felt particularly sorry for the keeper, whose job is to wear a comical amount of padding, so much so that they look like Michelin men. They stand in front of the goal as a hard puck is fired towards their head, chest or groin. It is so physical that you can see the young players getting more heated as the game went on. With increasing frequency, players ended up in the sin bin to cool down and by the end three players had been sent off during the game. They must have been black and blue by the end of the game and need to be hosed down with deep heat. Oswego won 5 goals to 2 and at the end of the match every Oswego player threw their helmet and stick in the air and left them strewn upon the ice. So fair and foul a day I have not seen.

I am going to add a section now called ‘Wing of the Week’. Anna and I are both fans of wings and have been sampling local wing stops throughout the tour. As we have travelled, we have developed a subtle and complex rating system: ‘clucks’. The highest award is 5 Clucks; the minimum is 1 Cluck. We are yet to have a wing worth of 5 Clucks, but here are our ratings so far.

Week 1 and 2: O’Rourke’s, South Bend, Indiana. A solid, dependable buffalo wing here, but its not going to change your life. 3 Clucks
Week 3: Harry’s, West Lafayette, Indiana. A good dependable wing, but has a slight edge on
O’Rourke’s. 3.5 Clucks.
Week 4: Domino’s Buffalo Wings. Oswego, New York. A terrible wing experience. Soggy, lacking in flavour, not enough Buffalo sauce. 1 Cluck.
Week 4: Southern Fare. Oswego, New York. Good quality chicken for sure. A flavourful dry rub however, we wanted a little more. The chicken itself, although good quality, a tiny bit dry. 3.8 Clucks.

Talking of wings, we gotta fly! We travel to Syracuse airport to fly into La Guardia, New York from where we catch a connecting flight to Burlington, Vermont. Burlington is the home of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and our last cold stop of the tour. From there we go South…