Taking what's on offer

It's the end the Easter school holidays here in Leeds. The weather has been up and down but we've had a marvellous couple of weeks. Our city does us proud when it comes to kids' activities, and we were hard pressed to choose between all the events on offer.

I love Leeds. It would take a great deal to get me to leave it. I came here when I was 21, and had only a 7 month period in the last 24 years away from my city. I love the people, the theatre and arts, the beautiful buildings in the city centre, the sense of community in all the little villages that make up the city itself.

But most of all I love the things Leeds offers its citizens.

For many years I went to the free Opera in the Park in July, performed by our own Opera North. We'd enjoy the busking in the city centre through the summer weeks as part of a street performance festival. We've gone to almost every Light Night arts festival, heard brass bands in the park and tired the kids out at the Breeze roadshows offering them chances to try loads of activities and sports. Last summer we had a beach set up in the centre of town, complete with helter skelter and swing boats.  

This year Leeds is having a March of the Robots theme.  It is a series of events and activities to engage both adults and children in a playful way with technology, creativity and the cityscape. We'd already built cardboard 'Robots' at Light Night - Luke decided to be the robot, climbed in a box and had other kids write questions on it which he'd answer through a slit he'd cut in the side. When he was sealed up in it I named the box Schroedinger's Teen.

For the Easter holidays Luke went off to the Leeds Young Film Festival to see things for free as part of the jury. Mark took Miss B to a circus skills morning where she made new pals, learnt new hula hoops tricks, balanced peacock feathers on her fingertip and passed spinning plates back and forth. Z and I went to a workshop to build a sentry robot. 

It was AMAZING. We built a little computer using a clever little chip called a shrimp and a 'breadboard' to connects all the wires and circuitry. I was a little intimidated as I know nothing about electronics but I came out feeling as proud as Z of our joint effort. He now has a room guard with a heat and motion sensor that triggers a tune and flashing lights. "To alert me when siblings or, erm, other people come in," as Z explained to the interviewer.

Incidentally, Z hit new levels of geek that morning. He wired up and programmed his own computer, used different colour LED lights for eyes like David Bowie then inserted it into a robot form he'd decorated to look like My Neighbour Totoro if he existed in Minecraft universe. Yep - computing, music, anime and video game geekery in one activity. 

The next day meant even more free robot creating. We had a fantastic time building Doodlebots: little things with marker pens for legs that spiralled, lurched, glided or juddered across a paper floor. 80 odd kids built them and the sight of their diverse inventions making patterns across the paper was amazing.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Leeds will bring us next.

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

Say cheese

When I was writing that list of things I am nervous of or uncomfortable with, it occurred to me that I haven't told you about one of my biggest fears, and how a true artist helped me get over it.

There are almost no photographs of me. I ensure I am the one behind the camera whenever possible. My next tactic is to be the one who orders the prints from Costco, and I carefully select the ones I'm not in - or crop myself out if practical.  I've even gone so far as to remove pictures of myself and surreptitiously bin them when other people showed me photos.

I know women who've had those soft-focus movie star makeover type photographs and loved them. Those friends had sworn I'd love the experience - someone to do my hair and make up, pose me and style me like a Hollywood goddess. Or, in some cases, underwear model, perish the thought. They said it was really fun and helped them relax in front of a camera. I couldn't think of anything more dreadful than being styled as an actress - mutton dressed as ham.

I hated seeing myself.  I could only see all the deeply unattractive physical traits and no sense of who I am at all. I would even do my best to avoid mirrors; I came home from clothes shopping wanting to cry more often than not.

Then my perspective changed.

In early summer 2012 Mark commented that there was an interesting sounding event at a small art gallery in Leeds. He'd spotted it on Twitter - an exhibition called One Hundred and Forty Characters by photographer Chris Floyd.

Chris Floyd is a Properly Famous photographer. He has a number of his photographs in the National Portrait Gallery. He's photographed a Beatle and a Doctor and a whole host of other cultural icons. To promote the exhibition White Cloth Gallery was offering black and white portrait shoots by Chris for tuppence ha'penny.

I looked at the preview of the photos and they looked familiar. I  pulled out How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran from my bookcase. There it was - the cover photo, although colourised, was from the same project.

I absolutely love the cover of How To Be A Woman. The picture captures the personality, warmth and humour of Caitlin. I never look at it without smiling. So if I wanted a portrait of my kids, who better to take them than the man who took it?

Our eldest, Luke, loathed the idea. I could understand that. I thought it would be churlish to expect him to do something I was too scared to do myself, so with a last look at Caitlin Moran's picture as motivation, I rang the White Cloth Gallery and booked 2 sessions - the 3 kids then all 5 of us.

When we arrived that Saturday we had a look at the pictures in the exhibition. Chris Floyd has a wonderful style. There is nothing of him intruding in the portraits; they are sort of ego-less. Each exists to give a essence of the person he's photographing. They are so revealing - of personality rather than of flesh - but not invasive or awkward. It's clear each subject was enjoying being photographed.

I loved them, but was distracted by my nerves.

When we were first called in, the stiff and resentful posture of the kids made me worry this was a bad idea. This is how it started:

Hmm. 

Chris wasn't remotely daunted. He talked to the kids while moving them around, using the dynamics between them to play to their strengths.  Within a couple of minutes we had this:

They had loosened up, were mucking about and relaxing, and paving the way for some lovely pictures. One of my favourites is this:

Even Luke, stiff and scowling at the start, was having fun. 

When it was time for Mark and I to appear in the photographs I felt myself tense up. I felt slightly sick. A print was included in the price, so we would HAVE to have a photo, and maybe even show it to people. My fixed grin, my fat carcass, my lack of fashion sense, my plain face and double chins... all my faults there on display, ruining a portrait of my gorgeous kids and lovely bloke. Oh god.

It was all a stupid plan. What was I thinking? Chris was lovely (he signed my Caitlin Moran book too) but it was still ME he was photographing and I am not an attractive woman.  I mean, I am, I have attractive traits - I am enthusiastic, hard working, creative and a good mum most of the time - but if seeing my face reflected on my iPad screen makes me upset a photo of me would be worse.

 And then...

It was OK. I mean, I felt a bit weird being photographed but following instructions from Chris and keeping an eye on the 3 kids gave me enough distraction most of the time. Some of the things were silly - standing po-faced, then shrieking like banshees - and some were just about letting our relationships and the family dynamic come through.

Then I saw the finished pictures. We looked wonderful. We looked like us - ourselves distilled in a moment of time. The relationships between us, the way we feel about each other, it was all there. Our youngest riding on her brother's shoulders, messing with my hair; his amused face tolerating her imperiousness through his curtain of curly hair; my arm on Luke's shoulder to help him bear her weight; how Mark and Zach's eyes are just the same shape, although different colours; Mark tousling Z's hair as Zach laughs ruefully at himself. 

We didn't look perfect, but we looked both real and beautiful.

I looked beautiful.

I looked like what I am - a woman who is part of a busy, warm, playful family. I'm still fat, my double chins are there and you can't see much of my clothing to decide on my fashion sense, but I'm not plain faced. I've the face of someone who loves the people she is with and it shows. 

When Chris Floyd returned to The White Cloth Gallery in November, it was a large print of that final portrait that greeted people. As we walked in, the woman at the desk said "You look familiar, have we met?" "No, but you've been looking at me all week!"

We'd told so many of our friends not to miss the chance to be photographed by him that the gallery generously gave us that print at the end of the show.  It doesn't hang in our bedroom, for just us to see. It doesn't even hang in the living room, where we spend our evenings. It's in the hall as you come in the house, hanging alongside two more Chris took. Every visitor, delivery person, friend and neighbour sees Chris's pictures of us as they enter. They make me smile every time I look at them.

That experience had a broader affect than you'd think. I've posted pictures - including DEEPLY unflattering ones - of myself on this blog before now. That's something I would never have done before meeting Chris.  I don't try and run away from cameras, I don't crop myself out of any snaps we take.  

I haven't magically been transformed into camera loving model, but I don't feel scared of them any more. I see myself differently. I don't hate my appearance - or at least not most of the time. I still don't like mirrors much.

We gave White Cloth Gallery some money, and they gave us some photographs. But what Chris Floyd gave me was something altogether more valuable, something it took his skill and artistry to achieve. I didn't need a soft-focus makeover photo shoot to like my appearance better. The image of myself I carry inside my head is that photograph Chris took; loved and loving, broad smile, expressive face, and a good heart. 

Now that's a gift I wish I could give everyone. 

Note - all photographs are copyright Chris Floyd as per the watermark. They are used with his permission,  granted to me because he's a very nice bloke. Please don't repost other people's photos without permission, it's rather churlish. And probably illegal.

Conches and spears

I read Lord of the Flies today. Take that, Mr Brian Cooper, grade 6 teacher of Central Park, Dundas.

I was so traumatised by the half I stayed in the classroom for that it lurked in my mind as the stuff of nightmares. Even from a distance of 34 years I could picture the pig head on the spear, thick with flies, and the mounting terror as savagery overcame civilisation and decency.

It's a hell of a book: tightly written and justifiably a classic. The things that scared me as a 10 year old scared me again; I'm still a wuss with a vivid imagination. I felt tense, unsettled and almost dreaded turning the pages at times. I could hardly bear to read what I knew was coming next.

It's funny, slaying a bogeyman of your childhood. Lord of the Flies was a brilliant novel, dark and disturbing. Not like the monsters-under-the-bed I outgrew,  it contains ideas that should be frightening and upsetting. It was just waiting for me to be ready to read them.
I still think Mr Cooper was an idiot to read that book to a class containing a 10 year old - hell, we'd had Stuart Little as our quiet time book the year before -  but I wish I'd read it when I was in  my teens.

Paddington can have his sandwiches; I have other plans

Hello webby cronies!

January has a lot working against it. It's cold, dark and very rainy. Everyone is on a budget, or on a diet, or in a foul mood thanks to giving up fags, booze, wheat, joy - or all of the above. In our family it's also Miss B's birthday party on top of 2 nieces, my mum, my brother and Z's birthdays so it tends to be a busy and expensive month too.

But there are two bright shining January things that make me happy. The first one is my annual ballet jaunt to London with my Very Excellent Friend Bon, but I've already told you about that in detail.

The other nice thing is something I can share with you - Seville orange season! They are bright, aromatic and wonderful when everything else in season is an all too virtuous-looking dark green: sprouts, kale and so on.

Don't let that marvellous smell fool you, though. Sevilles are dreadfully sour and inedible when raw. They need to be cooked or otherwise processed. The obvious is marmalade, of course, and I had a pleasant afternoon making 8 jars of the stuff.

 Incidentally, I usually have to add a dash of pectin to my marmalade. I do all the recommended stuff like soaking the pips overnight and so on, so in theory I shouldn't need to. I've decided it must be that I use quite a lot less sugar than my recipes call for because Mark and my Dad - the real marmalade lovers in the family - prefer theirs quite sharp. If you are better informed than I on such matters, please to tell me in the comments section.

  Marmalade is all well and good for pleasing partners, fathers and bears visiting from Darkest Peru. What I really want to try this year is orange gin.

There are 20 or 30 recipes easily available through search engines. I went for 70ml of cheap gin, the peel but not pith of 3 to 4 seville oranges, 1 or 2 cloves and 125g caster sugar.
NB  - loads of recipes suggested anything up to 250g of sugar. I prefer my drinks less sweet but if you like sweet liquors, add more.

I have a small serrated knife - a mini bread knife with the rather ludicrous label "breakfast knife" - that I used for getting the peel from the orange whilst leaving all the white pith still on it.  A very sharp knife would do, too, but my veg knives all need sharpening. The oil that makes oranges smell so wonderful is all in that coloured peel. The pith just makes things bitter.

Tip some of the gin into a jug. Pour the sugar in the gin bottle and poke the orange peel and clove in too. Top up the bottle with the gin you put in the jug. Close the lid tightly and shake. Shake it every day or so for a couple of weeks then put it somewhere dark  like the back of a cupboard and forget about it.

By Christmas you will have a lovely orange gin.  I expect it is nice by summer, to be honest, but tradition dictates it steep for the year. Even after a week it looks beautiful, having taken a golden glow from the peel already.

Having made the gin, I had a bunch of pith-covered oranges sitting on my counter. What could I do with then? I can't juice then nor eat them.... Curd! I could make Seville orange curd! It would use up the juice, and as the hens are back in lay I had heaps of fresh eggs to use.

200ml lemon or Seville orange juice
zest of 2 lemons or normal oranges
125g butter
450g sugar
4 large or 5 medium eggs

Making lemon (or orange) curd is a doddle. First you juice your fruit. You need 200ml, so I topped up with the juice of 1 of the normal oranges I was using for the zest as well.
Break all your eggs into a jug and beat them well. Have a sieve to hand.

Put the juice, zest, butter and sugar in a large heatproof bowl. Sit the bowl on a pan of simmering water and stir until the butter has melted and the whole thing looks glossy and smooth. Keep the heat quite low, because if it's too hot the next stage will result in sweet citrus-y scrambled egg. Gently, Bentley, and it's easy as pie.
Pour the beaten egg into the bowl through the sieve - there are little stringy buts that hold the yolk in place and they can go a bit weird in things like curds. Beat the mixture well to combine. Keep stirring over that gentle heat until it is a think and creamy curd. It takes anything from 7 to 15 minutes in my experience. Basically stop once it looks like lemon curd!

Pour it into sterilised jars, seal, and fight with your children about who gets to lick the bowl. (Hint - you do. If they want to lick it, they can do the washing up.)

Supposedly you need to eat it within a month, and store opened jars in the fridge.  Ours never lasts that long.

Ta da! One bag of lovely aromatic oranges turned into 8 jars of marmalade, 2 1/2 bottles of gin and 3 jars of orange curd. Maybe January isn't so bad after all.

J x

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?