Not So Fearless, Really

When I started this blog my idea was to challenge myself to do more, to explain to anyone interested how I did it (and the mistakes I made) and above all to get back in the habit of writing. I love to write. It's enormous fun.
I've written a fair few tutorial things and had a super time doing it. But I've only done one thing that scared me - applying for Women in Radio -  and that went so well my whole view of my future changed.

Perhaps it is time to step up and do more.

Believing that most things are better when you have a list, I'd better get organised. There are things I don't like, things I am scared of, stuff I truly believe I can't do, things I had a bad experience of when I was younger and never returned to, things I'd love to do but think I'd fail at, things that seem too hard - or awkward, or just plain un-fun - for me.

Here goes:

JAY'S LIST OF TRICKY STUFF

• Reading Lord of the Flies
• Reading any Russian novels
• Reading William Gibson and knowing what on earth it means
• Eating anything aniseedy
• Eating meat
• Keeping my opinion to myself (!!)
• Watching a scary film
• Playing a video game
• Having a driving lesson
• Taking guitar lessons
• Learning to quilt
• Knitting something other than a scarf
• Making something I could wear
• Writing a will
• Giving up wine
• Finding an exercise I don't hate
• Losing weight
• Keeping the house clean - actually CLEAN - for more than 12 hours
• Doing daily exercise for a month
• Having more than a handful of friends read my blog (although I am very grateful to you all!)
• Saying No to a favour without prevaricating
• Trying a singing lesson
• Writing an essay
• Writing a short story, even if I never show it to anyone
• Travelling to somewhere other than the First World
• Going somewhere I don't speak even a smidge of the language
• Go fishing - I'd love to do this but I am also squeamish of the aftermath

Hmm. Not quite the fearless woman I like to pretend to be.

Some of those things won't happen: too expensive, too difficult or taking more time than I currently have spare. I'm unlikely to take up driving just now because we don't have the cash. Snap for foreign travel. And a scary film... I get nightmares. Shocking ones. I wake up sobbing and terrified like a small child. I'm not sure I'm up to a scary film.

I just typed out reasons not to do most of the things on that list, actually, but deleted them. Of course I have many reasons not to do them - they are the things I shy away from. I've spent years justifying why I shouldn't do them. But that's hardly in keeping with my goal to try stuff.

So, what now? Where should I start?

Chasing rainbows

Hello, webby mates,

Last night we went on a wild goose chase. Mark, the kids and I went out chasing rainbows at night - the Northern Lights. We knew it was a slim chance, we knew the kids would be horrid the next morning but we did it anyway and it's one of the things I love about our family.

About 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon there were talks of the Northern Lights being visible in Britain. Not the North of Scotland, but right down into England and North Wales as well. I know newspapers like to whip up a bit of drama when there is only a slight possibility of something happening, so I tried to lower my expectations. It didn't work. Even a whisper of the aurora had me bouncing on my toes with excitement.

I once almost saw the lights in Canada as a kid. We lived in Southern Ontario - about the same latitude as Milan - so in 15 years my parents only saw the aurora borealis twice. The first time I was a toddler. The second time I was about 13. My parents woke me up to see but I was so groggy with deep sleep I couldn't focus and fell back into my slumber without registering the sight at all. I have regretted it ever since. Like many people I have promised myself that one day I will finally see them. Whatever it takes.

Over the past few days the sun had thrown a strop. This solar activity resulted in a coronal mass ejection, or CME. This meant that electromagnetic particles and a plasma of photons and electrons were sent out into the solar system. As a CME hits Earth it can cause a display of the aurora to be seen beyond its usual boundaries.  Add to this the fact that we're in the peak of the 11 year aurora cycle and there was cause for cautious optimism. Or "Northern Lights To Be Visible In Cotswolds" if you are a headline writer.

Obviously light pollution and cloud cover would  prevent us from seeing the lights even if they reached England. However, if I'm prepared to save up to go to Scandinavia to see the lights, getting clear of the city is nothing. It was a school night, so as responsible parents we should consider the effect of a midnight jaunt on the children's education.  On the other hand, seeing the aurora would be pretty darn enriching. Far more so than the PE lessons 2 of the kids faced today.
Mark and I talked it over and decided to risk it.

He assembled the telescope my Very Excellent Mate SJ donated to us this week. I looked up areas within an hour's drive north of us with little light pollution and a clear forecast. Our best bet seemed to be Sutton Bank in the North York Moors National Park. There was patchy cloud cover forecast with some clear spells and best of all it is a Dark Skies Discovery Site, meaning it is recommended for star gazing.

I filled hot water bottles and flasks and we drove out about 10pm.  The Aurora Watch website and the NOAA were busy downgrading the likelihood of the lights being visible as we made our preparations. However, Miss B was giddy with excitement at a late night adventure and even a slim chance was enough to keep me motivated.  We set off into the darkness.

The drive went by quickly. B fell asleep within about 5 minutes. There was little to see until we arrived in the National Park area, when we had to swerve to avoid a large hare. Hare are ENORMOUS in comparison with rabbits. It was very cool.

The star gazing was more than cool. It was very, very cold. Those hot water bottles came into their own!
Our 14 year old was very proud to have focused the telescope on the bright moon and we took turns peering at the craters.  Jupiter was the next brightest thing we saw, which was also pretty neat.  I saw a shooting star. Obviously that called for a rousing chorus of The Shooting Star song by They Might Be Giants before we retreated to the warmth of the car to wait out some cloud cover.

 I read aloud from Miss B's storybook, the lads played on their tablets and Mark played chess against his phone. Whenever the skies cleared we'd bob outside again - Mark and our eldest playing with the telescope and me staring to the north horizon willing it to light up. We lasted until 12:15 am, when the cloud in the north had thickened and the Aurora Watch index made it clear there was nothing likely to happen.

Somehow, although seeing the Northern Lights would have been beyond wonderful, we still headed home in good spirits. We'd been out adventuring. We'd gone somewhere new, and we'd stayed out on a school night and didn't even care. The younger two fell asleep in the car again; Mark and I drank tea from the flask and chatted as we drove. By1:20 am we were home, huddled up under duvets drifting to sleep.

Of course this morning was difficult. Of course the kids were late - although not our insomniac eldest, who broke with his usual habit and got to school on time.  Filling in the school's Late Book, I decided to be honest about the reason.

Reason for Lateness: Irresponsible parents.

A quick catch up

Hello webby pals!

Sorry I've not posted for a few days. If I wasn't working I was asleep, which left little time for blogging. However, I've a spare half hour now and I thought I'd do a quick round up of the last week's events.

When I bake it is usually to order. People ring me up or email me, and agree what they want and for which date. All my cakes and biscuits are pre-sold, which means there is no wastage. With ingredient costs being so high at the moment, this is a definite advantage and allows me to work for a small profit whilst keeping my cakes as affordable as possible.

However, every year there is an exception to this business model: the school Christmas fair. I bake like a fiend and take a stall there, donating either a fee, a percentage of sales or raffle prizes like a Christmas cake to the PTA. I almost always sell out of cake. I enjoy that 2 hour stint of selling to the public, offering samples, chatting and persuading as best I can. It makes such a nice change from working alone in my kitchen with the radio for company.

Now that I have two kids in our local high school I thought I'd have a go at their school fair as well as my daughter's primary school. It is a bigger event which lasts longer, so I prepared proportionally more cake for it. Lots of cake. Lots and lots.

I did 20 chocolate gingerbread cakes, 35 boxes of Christmas cupcakes, a good stack of hot chocolate spoons, a couple of chocolate malteser cakes and a large iced Christmas cake to raffle off. All the decorations were hand made. Rolling tiny holly berries from red icing is a pretty tedious job, by the way. I'd not recommend doing more than 100 unless you have something really good on the radio to keep you occupied.  And the dratted sparkly glitter on them gets everywhere. Still, I like things to look and taste beautiful and beautiful takes time.

I spent 42 hours in the kitchen in all.
I couldn't manage a photo of the whole stall without getting my fed-up "why am I helping on a Saturday morning when I could be sleeping" son's face in the picture, and he prefers to remain anonymous at this stage, so here are 2 quick snaps of the display. The left side held most of my products in order that the right had space to let people fill in the raffle tickets.

 

Unfortunately, as well as 3 commercial cake stalls they'd booked, the high school had a PTA cake stall selling donated cakes and biscuits. Donated means they don't have to recoup ingredients cost, so they were priced accordingly. With about 1600 pupils across the primary and secondary campus, the PTA had many families to cajole into donating cake. I've never seen a stack of baked good so high in my life.  By the end they were selling them off at 50p for three cupcakes.

Hand crafted cakes made with butter, free range eggs, real vanilla and good quality chocolate cannot compete with that. People went for the pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap option on the whole, except those buying  for a gift. I sold very, very little - enough to recoup my ingredients cost, but not much more.

I sold some of the surplus to the deli and some friends. The chocolate ginger cakes would freeze, so they were fine. The rest I gave away (or we ate!) because all those hand made decorations would collapse if I tried to freeze them. It was a low moment.

Since then I did a day's work in the garden mending fences and mucking out the pets in the cold sunshine. That did wonders for clearing my head. In essence, I lost nothing but time last week. I can't get that back again, so why not kiss it good-bye and move on to things that are more productive. I shook off the disappointment and looks ahead. There was plenty to catch up on.

I've done a little more of the Christmas and birthday shopping, sorted out some paperwork, taught two clubs (glass painting and cake decorating respectively), tried to catch up on all the household chores I'd ignored while I was baking like a mad thing and spent some time relaxing with my kids.
Miss B and I finished reading On The Banks of Plum Creek and started By The Shores of Silver Lake. The Big Lad chose to cash in his reward for a half term of getting to school on time, so we all watched Despicable Me 2  together. There were cupcakes for dessert three nights in a row.  Not a bad few days, all things considered.

Now my focus is Friday's Women in Radio workshop. Eek. Thanks to my marvellous parents - coming over from North Wales to look after the kids while Mark travels back from London - I can go to Birmingham tomorrow afternoon, work out where everything is, potter around their Christmas Market or go to the movies and get up at a reasonable hour for the 8:45am start. I'm meeting a couple of the other attendees for a coffee before hand. From the little we've chatted on Twitter they seem lovely, so that should be a good start to the day.

I'm vacillating between excited and intimidated. Some of the other women who are going seem so professional and qualified. I've just got myself to offer. Yikes.I asked one of the BBC presenters who will be taking part what I should do to prepare. She says all I need is enthusiasm and questions.

I can do that. I've got loads. Wish me luck!
Jay x

I did it!

Hello webby world.

I hope you are all splendiferously happy and glowing with health. I am extremely giddy and excited because I got wonderful news and I can hardly believe it!

Remember this? My application to do something that may one day lead to the slight possibility of some work in a new field? It was to attend a workshop run by the BBC for women interested in presenting local radio programmes.  It isn't a job, but who knows, one day...

Anyway, there were only 30 places, with a third earmarked for existing BBC staff. Applicants had to record 2 minutes on a given topic and submit a proposal for a daytime radio programme.You had to pass the audio part for them to look at the programme idea, and after that the CV. I sweated blood on that 2 minutes of audio. It is VERY hard to do without any umms and errs.
As my neighbour said, my application was the longest of long shots because all the media graduates and experienced people would be applying. I had resigned myself to not making the cut because it had been 3 weeks and I hadn't heard anything.

Then, last night, I got an email offering me a place.

Charles M Schultz draws happiness best

I am still in denial that I could be good enough to be chosen - I am half expecting to get a follow up email saying sorry, it was a mistake. But YAY YAY YAY! Someone listened to my clip and liked my delivery and style enough to read my proposal and like that too!

Although I would be bloody ACE on local radio because I love my city so much and enjoy sharing my enthusiasm with others. And you get to find out about  - and go to - all the super events and meet interesting people doing fab things, and get paid for it! How bloody marvellous would that be?

Fangirl gush - to be picked by the best organisation in the whole wide world as worth listening to, even just for my 2 minute audition clip, is amazing. I utterly love the BBC as anyone who reads my blog will  know from my frequently references to it and to iPlayer as the greatest thing in society. And it is the home of Jenni Murray, my total heroine and Queen of Radio. I feel like Jenni blew me a kiss and wished me luck.

So, on December 6th I will go to BBC Birmingham for the day to listen to speakers from BBC Radio, meet presenters, producers and managers of local radio and see what I think. I don't know if anything else will come of it but I'm OK about that. For now, just getting this far is wonderful.

J xx

A Different Dream of Life

Hello webby friends.

This weekend I did Fearlessly Attempt something. Well, not fearlessly, precisely. I was extremely nervous and fretful about it but I managed it in the end.

I applied for something. It isn't a job, it's something that might eventually lead to a slight possibility of some work. But I would LOVE to do it. It's very me.

To apply I needed a CV (which I do not have), a proposal and an audition clip. 11 1/2 hours later I submitted them.

A picture totally unrelated to the topic
 but added because this entry was looking dull

 I had tried to get the work done much earlier in the week, but I kept finding other things to do than knuckle down to it. So there I was, on the final day for applications, still with most of it to do. Suddenly the reddish hard water stains on the grouting on the base of my shower seemed really offensive. I found myself on my knees, bleaching and scrubbing them furiously as it was obviously essential they be removed that very minute.

That is waaaay more intense than my usual "let's sort out all the unmatched socks" routine. I may have created a new benchmark in procrastination madness.

I sat down  to start, then panicked at the thought of it all. I checked with Mark and my Very Excellent Mates that they would all still love me if I bottled it and didn't apply. They made reassuring noises, but pointed out I'd be furious with myself if I didn't at least try.  My Most Excellent Friend Rachel - she of knitted moustache fame - asked me the crucial question - WWJD?

What would Jenni Do? Jenni Murray, Queen of Radio and all 'round total heroine.The main character in that 50 Shades bunkum might have an Inner Goddess; I have an Inner Kick-Ass Feminist.  She is remarkably like my Outer Kick-Ass Feminist but with fewer fears and less comfort eating.  Jenni would apply, obviously. And so would I. I knuckled down to work.

The easy bit was the proposal. I researched, wrote, edited, sent it to the Very Excellent Mates to look through, and my VEM Ali, who edits stuff for actually money,  suggested a few tweaks. So far so good.

The recording took many hours. Listening back to the first one shocked me.

I would like to state publicly to all the people I talk with that I am *so* sorry about my voice. I know I talk all the damned time but I had no idea my accent was so weird! I've lived in the UK for 27 years now, you'd think the Canadian bit would have vanished completely, wouldn't you. Actually, it would have been fine if it had stayed, too. But this mixed up, meandering accent is a bit odd. I'd not realised quite how much of a hybrid it is. It rather freaked me out.

Anyway, I worked and fretted. I wrote, recorded, deleted, started again. After 30 attempts I had to take a half hour break because my voice was getting hoarse. When I finally decided I had something workable I tried to open the CV Mark had cobbled together for me. It wouldn't download. I couldn't believe it.

Because Mark is a total hero, he typed one out again while I lay sprawled on the bed too tired to think straight. It was 23:24. The deadline was 23:59.

We sent the whole lot off with a whole 35 minutes to spare. Phew.

So even though the odds of getting a place are slim to none, and even though it drove me crazy trying to do it, I am chuffed with myself this week. Jenni would be proud.
J xx