Small summery surprises

On the whole, I take a rather Dim View of big surprises.  I love anticipation - why remove so much of the fun of a situation by preventing someone from looking forward to it? Thinking of lovely things ahead is what helps me on tough days.

However, little unexpected things brighten my day.  Like finding self-seeded flowers in bloom at the bottom of my garden, or collecting a double yolker from the nest box.

One of the hens was certainly walking bow-legged after laying this monster - 

And one of the new hen laid her first tiny egg the same day, bless her feathery wee self, and strutted about crowing her achievement for all the world to hear. You'd think no bird had ever laid an egg before for all the obvious fuss she made -

Another nice surprise was being given all these gooseberries from my next door neighbour - 

which I cooked up with sugar in my big jam pan -

 - so I could make jars of gooseberry jam for my Dad. It's one of his favourites. Funny how the colour changes from that lovely green, isn't it?

Not really a surprise, but a delightful unexpected thing I discovered this summer was the presence of a grand piano in the middle of a covered square in Ghent. The roof of the structure was just amazing, the piano rich and beautiful, and watching passers-by sit down to plink plonk out Chopsticks, play some boogie woogie or carry us away with Bach's Toccata and Fugue was one of the highlights of the trip for me.

How does that even work? Wouldn't the changes of humidity and temperature constantly send the piano out of tune? And yet it sounded wonderful to my untutored ear, even in the pouring rain.

A few weeks later I was in Leeds city centre. I'd had fun chatting on BBC Radio Leeds with my erstwhile mentor Andrew Edwards and my partner in chat Caroline Eden. I like being on the radio with Caroline, she's good fun.  Later that evening I was going out for a meal with my Women's Institute pals for the centenary celebration, so I had some time to kill between the two engagements.

Look at what I found - 

A painted grand piano in the Trinity centre! A cluster of young men were hovering around, waiting for a chance to play it, egging each other on.  This lad is a student at Trinity University. He played a lilting piece of his own composition; others played a fair few pop songs to the delight of some school kids wandering by.  I know it's only a temporary feature to celebrate the triennial International Piano Competition, but I do so wish it were a permanent feature. One of my favourite surprises this summer.

Mum and Dad came over for a visit in July, which gave me a chance to surprise Mum in the daftest way possible. 

Since first tasting Viennetta ice cream in the 80s, Mum is completely predictable. "Wouldn't you think they'd make that tray out of chocolate?" she'd say of the dark brown plastic tray the ice cream sits on.  She's right, of course, it looks just like it ought to be dark chocolate. But what makes it funny to us all is that Mum has said it every time without fail, for 30 years. She doesn't even realise she's said it out loud some of the time.

So why not? I bought a Viennetta the week they were due to stay. I removed the squiggly ice cream block and popped it back in the freezer while I washed the tray, lined it with cling film and painted it carefully with melted chocolate.  Once the chocolate had nearly set, I bobbed the ice cream back in its new chocolaty tray. 

After dinner I removed the plastic tray and clingfilm from the bottom, put the Viennetta on a serving plate and brought it over to Mum.

"Don't you wish the tray was made of chocolate?" she said, right on cue.

We laughed all evening. Couldn't stop.  The look on her face was absolutely priceless. I couldn't speak for laughing, and I'm giggling again just writing about it.

Some surprises are worth it.

Further Adventures in Radio

I had a meeting with my mentor at Radio Leeds this week. I'm not over the thrill of that yet. I have a mentor. Me. Inexperienced, out of my depth me. It's bloody brilliant.
An experienced, knowledgeable, talented person is helping me get closer to becoming a broadcaster, and the BBC is letting him do that on their time. It's an act of such generosity on his and BBC Yorkshire's parts; I'm extraordinarily lucky. I'm Wayne and Garth meeting Alice Cooper - "We are not worthy" - and I'm Charlie Bucket, golden ticket in hand.

In February I appeared as a guest on Jake Katberg's Saturday morning panel, chatting away about Facebook movies, texts from the council telling you to exercise more and other lightweight news from the week. My first time on air - wow! It was enormous fun. I didn't feel at all scared, which I put down to that afternoon shadowing Andrew Edwards in early January. It was a familiar environment rather than an intimidating one.  That helped me a lot.

There's the weekend editor, Andy, at the desk. He was a really nice bloke. The cake box you can see is full of home made scones with jam and cream. I figured if Radio Leeds helps me develop new skills, it's only fair they benefit from the skills I have already. 

On this coming Wednesday I'm on air for again - this time as part of the Wednesday Witter chat with Johnny I'Anson a little after 3pm. I don't know what we'll be talking about but I am very much looking forward to it. 

I've got a heap of tasks to do before next month's mentoring session, including recording some interviews. I'm pretty nervous about that, even though they are not for broadcast. It needs to be with people I don't know, last 4 minutes or so, and in a style that suits Radio Leeds. Eek. I'll feel better when I've done the first one.

Looking back to when I first knuckled down and applied for a place on the Women In Radio event, it's been a remarkable 5 months. I still can't believe that my crazy day researching things for my programme idea and trying (and failing) to talk into my iphone's microphone about Leeds for 2 minutes without saying 'um' once led to all of this. Sometimes attempting - whether fearlessly or when you are scared stiff - pays off.

Jay x

Tackling that list

Since I wrote out the list of of tricky things in January I felt newly motivated to tackle some of them. I can't say I've had a Damascene conversion to all of the things I've attempted, but I liked more than I expected.

First item on the list -
Our eldest is studying for next year's GCSEs at the moment. One of his set texts is Lord of the Flies, the book I was too terrified by age 10 to ever go back to. Parental responsibility trumps childhood fear, so in order to help him with revision I read it, as I mentioned here. Tick.

Try meat -
I've had a go at 4 types of meat in the last 2 months. I quite like pancetta, as long as it is pretty well cooked. I have it in carbonara now, although I give Mark most of the pancetta bits. However, the British version, back bacon, grosses me out dreadfully - all that pale stringy fat. I had to spit it out.
I already knew I loved pastrami. Pastrami, dill pickle, mayo and French's mustard is a good enough sandwich to dream about. add a little firm lettuce like cos or little gem and you've hit perfection. I missed pastrami dreadfully for years.
I tried peperoni. Peperoni and hot dogs were the last meats I gave up all those years ago. I was disapointed. Nice flavour up to a point, but so oily I felt queasy afterwards.
Finally, a 'dinner' type meat - chicken. Just no. I wish I could but I can't. The texture, the smell... I'm happy sticking to fish and veggies.

The big one - exercise.
Thanks to the generous Michelle Nichols, writer of the Running Up Top Down Under blog and all 'round good egg,  I have exercised for over a month. She's discussed different options, looked at my (lack of) fitness and free time, and provided masses of encouragement and cheerleading - all online, as she lives in Newcastle.
We decided brisk walking was best. There have been days when events overtook me, but on the whole I've managed 2 1/2 hours of walking per week, averaging 3km per day, Monday to Friday. I have problems with my knees, and Michelle kindly worked out series of exercises and stretches to help with that and to keep me going.
Yesterday I walked to a supermarket 5km away before doing my shop, getting a taxi back with it all (I'm not THAT tough!) and walking another 2km across the afternoon on assorted errands. I wouldn't have done that 6 weeks ago.I probably couldn't have done it. I definitely need some more suitable shoes but otherwise I'm glad I'm doing this.

Write an essay.
In fact, I've written two. Sort of.
The first was in answer to a gcse question as an example to my son of what would constitute a full answer to an essay question. It was fun. I liked pulling together the quotes and framing my arguments. However, it was pretty basic stuff I know inside out and backwards.
The second thing wasn't quite written in essay form, but close enough for my purposes. My mentor at Radio Leeds assigned me a half hour segment of radio to analyse. I spent 6 hours on it, listening, pausing, rewinding, listening all the way through - I must have heard some bits 4 or 5 times. I listened to competing programmes for context and reviewed my notes from the Women in Radio Event too. Then I wrote about 1200 words analysing the styler, techniques, choices made and news priorities of the half hour. I found it an immensely useful exercise and I enjoyed the whole process.

There are still plenty of other tricky things to tackle some day, of course. But now I've done a few I'm going back to attempting more fun stuff. I have a couple of them to blog about in the next few days.
Have a lovely weekend,
Jay x

At the Heart of West Yorshire

Hello webby friends,

Happy New Year, hope you had a lovely break and that your "Oh God, I'm back to the grind" feelings were fleeting.

Over the holidays I met with the Deputy Editor of Radio Leeds, Katrina Bunker, to discuss bringing my  radio presenting dreams a little closer to reality. Katrina was so friendly, knowledgeable and practical I came away brimming with plans and hopes. The first of these was a session shadowing Andrew Edwards as he put together and presented his 3 til 6 drivetime show, which happened yesterday afternoon. I couldn't have asked for a better introduction.

Andrew and his producer Tim Daley were firming up their running order when I arrived at 2pm. This first hour was very technical, getting audio ready, queuing up the songs for the various regular features, finishing scripts, confirming guests. They explained the software they used, how things were sourced and decided upon. I met their reporter Daragh, political editor Lou, Paul with the weather and the news and sports reporters. Harry Gration from Look North is a big enough local star that when I got home 4 people asked me if I met him (yes I did. Awesome tie!)

My head was spinning a little, trying to keep track of all the information. The technical side wasn't the main focus, of course, but it was a lot to take in at first sight. Tim and Andrew were very patient in the face of my total lack of knowledge and probably ridiculously naive questions. The software available to them was amazing - I'd love to have a play on that music archive! It was like the world's greatest record collection at the touch of a button. And news feeds - the Rip and Read news stories Tim showed me conjured images of an old fashioned world of telex, cigarette smoke and "hold the front page" urgency.

As Andrew said, the complete trust between the two of them in one another's competence and support was a key part of the success of the show. The Editor (or Deputy, in this case, as Editor Rosina Breen is on secondment at the moment) gives them the freedom and creativity to put the show together, they have utter faith in each other's ability to get their bits set up ready to roll and they make a very complicated set of tasks look effortless as it goes on air.

Once the programme began, I sat in with Andrew in the studio. Geez, he's good. Radio can flatten sound  as it comes out of tinny little speakers, I've noticed. As he talks, Andrew modulates his voice through its range to keep the sound interesting and avoid any monotone dreariness. He must talk to the clock in order to keep regular bulletins in their rightful place, I'm sure he must. But not once during three hours did I feel he was rushing something nor spinning it out to cover the last few seconds.

I made a note of the language Andrew used - partly to spot patterns and partly because I do love words. He was positive and encouraging, but not in a false "hey there, pop pickers! Here's another smashing tune..." way. He talked of fond memories watching old Sci Fi programmes, hearing new versions of old favourite songs, being pleased to see regular guests for the first time this new year.  Any negative comments were in a warm, self-depreciating tone - "Are New Year resolutions a pile of rubbish or am I just being an old grump" - to act as a foil to other contributors.

I thought about this a good deal.

Television is demanding. It's a toddler clamouring for attention, it wants you to look and listen and not do much else but pay attention to it. Radio is a friend sitting at your kitchen counter with a cuppa, chatting to you while you do the washing up, or keeping you company as you potter through the house and garden. It doesn't mind if you can only listen with half an ear for a bit, or if you've only 20 minutes to spend with it.

To choose to spend time with it, you want your radio pal to be good natured and friendly. You don't need someone grumpy or overly upbeat - both can suck the energy right out of you. You just want someone who is nice to listen to (and occasionally talk back to) and who chats about things of interest to you. Quite a lot is said on the BBC training web pages about picturing your listener, and I guess that's who I see: my friend Jean washing the coffee cups in  her tiny kitchen, or my friend Kirsty making packed lunches and feeding the kittens, or Liz and Andy driving to and from work.

After the first chatty, informal hour of the programme I joined Tim at the producers desk as the more news heavy part of the programme began. It was a quiet news day, so Tim had time to talk to me about how radio had worked in the past and where it was going. He was really interesting and insightful (although rather intimidatingly dismissive of music on the radio. I am NEVER telling him any of my favourite records. Ever.) Local radio has an interesting position, he explained. It has one foot in the easy, "give people what they want to listen to" camp and the other in the Reithian "tell them things they ought to know." How national stories and events affect them, here in West Yorkshire, is of more relevance than getting drawn into the media'n'politics bubble that some national radio programmes inhabit.

Tim talked about how pressures from cutbacks, the loss of new, young listeners as kids no longer rely on radio as their new music source,  and changing technologies are all things that will radically change the role radio has in society. To have a future it needs to be proactive in finding new ways to matter to us. Tim's eloquence and knowledge made him a fascinating person to talk with. Broadcasting is entering an interesting phase.

For the final hour I sat in with Andrew again, less intimidated by the screens and control panels but equally absorbed by that most interesting of all skills, Making Hard Things Look Easy. Professionalism like this always thrills me - it's part of why I love some actors, or skilled bakers, or other skilled craftsmen and women - they do something with such apparent effortlessness that you are fooled into thinking anyone could do it. They wear their expertise lightly.

People came in to do their bit - weather, sport, promotion of that night's Look North. There was friendly banter, some pre-recorded segments and between it all Andrew threading various bits together into a cohesive unit. At the end he cleared up, returned all the settings to neutral for the next person to use the studio, and talked to me about what I'd seen and learnt. As I walked out into the driving rain, I couldn't stop grinning. My head was full to bursting. More than ever I know that this is something I want to do.