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We're staging a wedding. Filming weddings is always fun, but quite weird. There always seems to be a lot to get through, more cast than usual, and big work for costume and make-up. And there's no reception afterwards. After twelve hours, everyone goes home and comes back again tomorrow. Filming is life in slow motion, as someone clever once said.

"Different characters and different scenes call for different horses and carriages."

We need to save some money. Helga Dowie (line producer), Caroline Skinner (script editor) and I go through the horse and carriage schedule once again looking for more savings. There's lots of travel in Jane Eyre's journey, and this travel is inevitably by carriage.

But it costs a fortune. When we put the schedule together we endeavoured to put as many carriage scenes as possible onto a limited number of days. That way we could make fewer carriage bookings.

But of course, different characters and different scenes call for different horses and carriages. So it doesn't always work. Jane can't travel in exactly the same carriage from the Reed House, through Lowood, Thornfield, the Rivers' cottage and Ferndean. That would be daft.

Even though we are busy doing a wedding this week, things are much calmer now the house party characters and scenes are done. No longer do we have complex driver/pick-up schedules, absurdly early make-up calls, or endless scenes in the freezing long gallery. It's all much simpler. But it's a bit sad too. The house feels empty.

The first signs of Spring are showing. There's still sometimes snow on the ground, but the daffodils are poking through. We can't wait for Spring to arrive.

Press Call

Una Maguire, our wonderful publicist, organises a press call for the local papers and TV. Director Susanna, Ruth Wilson and I hold a little press conference in the café at Haddon Hall, then lead a team of about 15 journos and photographers around our Thornfield.

"Ruth's charming, funny and interesting, she has the press eating out of her hand."

Ruth has never done any interviews like this, but she's a natural. Charming, funny and interesting, she has them eating out of her hand. In contrast, I speak in clichés, forget to thank and acknowledge the right people, and let myself get photographed in the daftest puffa jacket you ever saw. I look like the Michelin Man.

But I do manage to make an appearance on that night's East Midlands Today. And that's something I can always be proud of.

Time for a haircut, though.