And so it continues....
Will begin today's blog by continuing my 'media memories'. As I did several progs for Indoors, Outdoors, not quite sure if I've got them in the right order, but am pretty certain the second ran like this.
Due to the large demand for fact sheets the producer decided to ask me to do another spot on the same show. Considering I really didn't want to, don't know why I agreed, but I did. When the director turned up with the camera/sound men, he asked where the yellow plastic (clear film) was that he had used last time to cover the kitchen window - this avoids sunlight hitting the cameras. Silly me, thinking they would never return, had cut up the plastic to use to cover our children's school books. The director was not pleased AT ALL.
Unfortunately it was a sunny day, so he had to ask the assistant cameraman (a young man) to take a kitchen chair outside, wearing an overcoat, and then stand outside, on the chair, holding the coat wide open to shield the sun from the kitchen.
It was at that time - 3.30 in the afternoon - that mothers were walking past our gate on the way to collect their children from primary school and I expected at least one would report the incident to the police as there had been a 'flasher' in our district fairly recently, and certainly the young man on the chair looked exactly as though he was 'flashing'.
Having been fitted with a cordless mike I was able that day to move around easily, but unfortunately, when I had to go to the bathroom, they hadn't switched the mike off and heard me talking to myself, saying rather rude things about the director. Luckily they saw the funny side of it.
That filming also brought in another 36,000 requests, so I was asked back several times, and think it was the next time, when I'd had to do a lot of baking ready to be seen, that I'd placed all ready on the kitchen table to be filmed. Don't know why to this day, but fate must have intervened as for some reason just prior to going to bed I decided to move all the food into the hall and place it on a table in there, covered. Then went and had a bath and went to bed. There was only our youngest daughter and myself in the house, B was working away from home that week.
Next morning I got up early, ready for the camera crew (they came about 8.30am) and went into the kitchen to get myself a cup of coffee. When I opened the door there was water dripping from various parts of the ceiling. The carpet on the floor was sodden. The table where the food had been previously was covered in water, so if I'd left the food there it would have been no use at all.
I dashed to the room above the kitchen and that also was soaking wet. Water dripping from that ceiling and so I went up the loft ladder to discover the ball-cock in the tank had stuck after I'd had my bath and had kept filling until the tank overflowed ALL NIGHT!!
I couldn't sort it myself, so turned off the water stop-tap in the kitchen, and began to mop up. When the film crew arrived they managed to get up the carpet (it wasn't fitted), and threw that in the garden, and despite my plea to 'can you film it tomorrow', they said it had to be done that day, so I did everything I had to (four times as usual) with water continually dripping on my head - although fortunately not visible when viewed on TV.
I'd written the recipes out for all the baking I'd been doing for that particular programme (and there were quite a few of these), and the director asked me to take them to the local TV studios in Leeds so they could send them to him by internal mail. So this is what I did.
A couple of days later there was a knock at the door and it was the director asking for the recipes (he'd been filming Geoffrey Smith for the same programme and G.S. lived near Harrogate). I told him I'd already sent them to him, but we checked and they had lost them!!!
So as I hadn't kept copies I had to type them all out again and send them by first class post. The next day the postman delivered them back to me as for some daft reason the post office had not read the address on the front, which had a stamp, but had read the tiny little label on the back that gave my name and home address as sender. So had to post it again (without the label this time). But it got there in time.
What came next. Think it was the producer suggesting I wrote a cookery book, but needed her help as I'd never written one before. She (Erica) was brilliant. Got Penguin to publish it, and edited all my scribbling to make it readable, so we wrote it together, Erica being co-author.
With the success of that then came the suggestion that the BBC made a series to be filmed in our own kitchen, the programme to be called The Goode Kitchen and it goes without saying that this too really didn't run smoothly at all. So watch this space for details.
Now am replying to comments - for which I thank all of you who send them. Just love reading each and every one.
Think your Spam must be canned esp. for Canada Margie as we don't have nutritional info on our cans (or any listing of ingredients either), unless they have suddenly decided to do this and Tesco are still selling 'old stock'.
A welcome to Ivy, who was able to take a ten year old dog, and three years later still excellent company. Like the sound of a Labrador/Pointer cross. I expect most gun-dogs 'cross' well, and certainly there are lots of Labrador x Poodles that are truly lovely, both in looks and personality.
As Hazel (and other readers have commented) filming does take a long time, far longer than expected. Only the best bits are shown, and due to clever editing they often appear to run continuously. More cameras are used in studios, not always 'on location'. When we watch local (or national) news where a presenter is talking to someone, we see the face of the person, then the picture switches to the presenter who is probably nodding or saying something, then back to the person again and repeated this way. What happens is the presenter is filmed separately, doing the 'nods and winks' (as they are called) and saying what needs to be said, then these are edited into where applicable. Zena Skinner did a lot of 'nods and winks' at the end of filming, so these could be edited in. But it seems quite seamless when viewed. Extremely clever.
Am sure there are rescue centres who will allow older people to take animals than need good homes, especially if the animals are also old.
As to mobility problems (as mentioned by Sairy), I have seen several folk in Morecambe, scooting along on their mobility scooters, with little dogs sitting comfortable between their feet, sometimes even sitting in the basket at the front, and I've also seen men in scooters trundling along holding the lead of a larger dog that is trotting by the side, so presumably it is possible to give exercise to a dog even when the person can't move without some sort of help.
A welcome to Christine (Germany), who is asking for suggestions for an English main course. Am not sure how many euros to the £ (or is it £s to the euro?). My first thought was 'roast beef with Yorkshire pudding', but perhaps that is too heavy a meal for August, and also too expensive. But if priced by the slice (meat) might fit into the budget. Obviously it would take longer than the time allowed to cook from scratch, but the joint of beef could be cooked in advanced, then sliced and reheated in gravy, the Yorkies would take only 25 minutes to cook, and roast potatoes not much longer. Other veg could be cooked during that time.
Second thought would be 'Cottage Pie', but would that be impressive enough? Third thought was Fish and Chips with mushy peas.
Or maybe hot Cornish pasties with salad, or Ploughman's Lunch? Can readers give other suggestions?
How lovely to still keep cavies Alison, and to find two new babies in the hutch one morning. Cavy babies are delightful, they are just miniatures of their parents, eyes open, able to run around almost immediately.
When we used to breed guinea pigs (cavies), unfortunately two of the mothers died almost immediately after giving birth, so I took all the babies (five from each mother), and put them into a wooden drawer, lined with soft cloth, and put this in front of the living room fire. I sat up all night feeding each with warm milk using a fountain pen ink-dropper. They all thrived, and although I had to stay up several nights giving them three-hour feeds, they soon grew big enough to leave overnight, and they continued to grow.
When they settled down to sleep for the night they would line up along the side nearest the fire (the warm side), cuddling up to each other, and during the day would wander around the drawer.
One day I got up from my chair after feeding them, and crossed the room to go into the kitchen, and heard the babies scrambling out of the drawer, they all followed me in a line as I went into the kitchen, and as I stood in front of the sink doing the washing up, they clustered round my feet (in slippers) most of them sitting on top of my feet, then when I went back into the room they all followed me again and jumped back into the drawer.
I must have looked like a mother chicken with all her chicks following her. Shortly after I put them into a hutch that I kept in the house for a while, then moved them all into larger ones in a shed outside.
Nothing much happened in the Goode Kitchen today other than I got up late (due to taking too many painkillers making me sleep longer) just having time to get ready for my coffee morning with my neighbour, then finding Norma the Hair had text me to ask if she could comel at 1.00pm instead of 2.00 (overlapping my chat with my friend), and once Normal had left, then had to prepare B's supper - his choice today was liver, bacon, cabbage and small potatoes. The potatoes I'd cut in half (some into quarters) and pre-boiled them, steaming the cabbage on top. This time is was a 'hispi' cabbage, this being pointed in shape, similar to white cabbage but considerably sweeter (B loves it). Then dipped the chunks of liver in flour, fried these in a pan, the bacon frying in another, then I put the bacon on top of the liver and reheated the potatoes and cabbage in the bacon fat, timing it all so the liver was just cooked (cooked to long it gets tough), and - as ever - it filled a small meat platter that I'd put over a saucepan of water to heat while everything was cooking. With HP sauce that is one of B's favourite meals.
My supper was salad (what a surprise!), with some seasticks. Cheated a bit as I'd cooked extra bacon and cabbage, so I had some of that as well. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
It's now exactly midnight, and after a mixed day of cloudy dry weather plus showers, the same is forecast for over the weekend so will probably spend some of tomorrow baking. Whether it is due to the temperature being lower, not sure, but my knee is not quite as painful as it has been, still hurts a lot, but manageable. I will ask B to get me some of that Voltarel Gel that Christine mentioned and if it works will let you know.
As I now take Saturday off from blogging, my next 'chat' will be written sometime on Sunday, but whether that will be during the morning/afternoon or evening I won't know until the time. Then - if I can remember what happened (it's so long ago) the trauma of making 'The Goode Kitchen' will be told. Enjoy your weekend. TTFN.
Due to the large demand for fact sheets the producer decided to ask me to do another spot on the same show. Considering I really didn't want to, don't know why I agreed, but I did. When the director turned up with the camera/sound men, he asked where the yellow plastic (clear film) was that he had used last time to cover the kitchen window - this avoids sunlight hitting the cameras. Silly me, thinking they would never return, had cut up the plastic to use to cover our children's school books. The director was not pleased AT ALL.
Unfortunately it was a sunny day, so he had to ask the assistant cameraman (a young man) to take a kitchen chair outside, wearing an overcoat, and then stand outside, on the chair, holding the coat wide open to shield the sun from the kitchen.
It was at that time - 3.30 in the afternoon - that mothers were walking past our gate on the way to collect their children from primary school and I expected at least one would report the incident to the police as there had been a 'flasher' in our district fairly recently, and certainly the young man on the chair looked exactly as though he was 'flashing'.
Having been fitted with a cordless mike I was able that day to move around easily, but unfortunately, when I had to go to the bathroom, they hadn't switched the mike off and heard me talking to myself, saying rather rude things about the director. Luckily they saw the funny side of it.
That filming also brought in another 36,000 requests, so I was asked back several times, and think it was the next time, when I'd had to do a lot of baking ready to be seen, that I'd placed all ready on the kitchen table to be filmed. Don't know why to this day, but fate must have intervened as for some reason just prior to going to bed I decided to move all the food into the hall and place it on a table in there, covered. Then went and had a bath and went to bed. There was only our youngest daughter and myself in the house, B was working away from home that week.
Next morning I got up early, ready for the camera crew (they came about 8.30am) and went into the kitchen to get myself a cup of coffee. When I opened the door there was water dripping from various parts of the ceiling. The carpet on the floor was sodden. The table where the food had been previously was covered in water, so if I'd left the food there it would have been no use at all.
I dashed to the room above the kitchen and that also was soaking wet. Water dripping from that ceiling and so I went up the loft ladder to discover the ball-cock in the tank had stuck after I'd had my bath and had kept filling until the tank overflowed ALL NIGHT!!
I couldn't sort it myself, so turned off the water stop-tap in the kitchen, and began to mop up. When the film crew arrived they managed to get up the carpet (it wasn't fitted), and threw that in the garden, and despite my plea to 'can you film it tomorrow', they said it had to be done that day, so I did everything I had to (four times as usual) with water continually dripping on my head - although fortunately not visible when viewed on TV.
I'd written the recipes out for all the baking I'd been doing for that particular programme (and there were quite a few of these), and the director asked me to take them to the local TV studios in Leeds so they could send them to him by internal mail. So this is what I did.
A couple of days later there was a knock at the door and it was the director asking for the recipes (he'd been filming Geoffrey Smith for the same programme and G.S. lived near Harrogate). I told him I'd already sent them to him, but we checked and they had lost them!!!
So as I hadn't kept copies I had to type them all out again and send them by first class post. The next day the postman delivered them back to me as for some daft reason the post office had not read the address on the front, which had a stamp, but had read the tiny little label on the back that gave my name and home address as sender. So had to post it again (without the label this time). But it got there in time.
What came next. Think it was the producer suggesting I wrote a cookery book, but needed her help as I'd never written one before. She (Erica) was brilliant. Got Penguin to publish it, and edited all my scribbling to make it readable, so we wrote it together, Erica being co-author.
With the success of that then came the suggestion that the BBC made a series to be filmed in our own kitchen, the programme to be called The Goode Kitchen and it goes without saying that this too really didn't run smoothly at all. So watch this space for details.
Now am replying to comments - for which I thank all of you who send them. Just love reading each and every one.
Think your Spam must be canned esp. for Canada Margie as we don't have nutritional info on our cans (or any listing of ingredients either), unless they have suddenly decided to do this and Tesco are still selling 'old stock'.
A welcome to Ivy, who was able to take a ten year old dog, and three years later still excellent company. Like the sound of a Labrador/Pointer cross. I expect most gun-dogs 'cross' well, and certainly there are lots of Labrador x Poodles that are truly lovely, both in looks and personality.
As Hazel (and other readers have commented) filming does take a long time, far longer than expected. Only the best bits are shown, and due to clever editing they often appear to run continuously. More cameras are used in studios, not always 'on location'. When we watch local (or national) news where a presenter is talking to someone, we see the face of the person, then the picture switches to the presenter who is probably nodding or saying something, then back to the person again and repeated this way. What happens is the presenter is filmed separately, doing the 'nods and winks' (as they are called) and saying what needs to be said, then these are edited into where applicable. Zena Skinner did a lot of 'nods and winks' at the end of filming, so these could be edited in. But it seems quite seamless when viewed. Extremely clever.
Am sure there are rescue centres who will allow older people to take animals than need good homes, especially if the animals are also old.
As to mobility problems (as mentioned by Sairy), I have seen several folk in Morecambe, scooting along on their mobility scooters, with little dogs sitting comfortable between their feet, sometimes even sitting in the basket at the front, and I've also seen men in scooters trundling along holding the lead of a larger dog that is trotting by the side, so presumably it is possible to give exercise to a dog even when the person can't move without some sort of help.
A welcome to Christine (Germany), who is asking for suggestions for an English main course. Am not sure how many euros to the £ (or is it £s to the euro?). My first thought was 'roast beef with Yorkshire pudding', but perhaps that is too heavy a meal for August, and also too expensive. But if priced by the slice (meat) might fit into the budget. Obviously it would take longer than the time allowed to cook from scratch, but the joint of beef could be cooked in advanced, then sliced and reheated in gravy, the Yorkies would take only 25 minutes to cook, and roast potatoes not much longer. Other veg could be cooked during that time.
Second thought would be 'Cottage Pie', but would that be impressive enough? Third thought was Fish and Chips with mushy peas.
Or maybe hot Cornish pasties with salad, or Ploughman's Lunch? Can readers give other suggestions?
How lovely to still keep cavies Alison, and to find two new babies in the hutch one morning. Cavy babies are delightful, they are just miniatures of their parents, eyes open, able to run around almost immediately.
When we used to breed guinea pigs (cavies), unfortunately two of the mothers died almost immediately after giving birth, so I took all the babies (five from each mother), and put them into a wooden drawer, lined with soft cloth, and put this in front of the living room fire. I sat up all night feeding each with warm milk using a fountain pen ink-dropper. They all thrived, and although I had to stay up several nights giving them three-hour feeds, they soon grew big enough to leave overnight, and they continued to grow.
When they settled down to sleep for the night they would line up along the side nearest the fire (the warm side), cuddling up to each other, and during the day would wander around the drawer.
One day I got up from my chair after feeding them, and crossed the room to go into the kitchen, and heard the babies scrambling out of the drawer, they all followed me in a line as I went into the kitchen, and as I stood in front of the sink doing the washing up, they clustered round my feet (in slippers) most of them sitting on top of my feet, then when I went back into the room they all followed me again and jumped back into the drawer.
I must have looked like a mother chicken with all her chicks following her. Shortly after I put them into a hutch that I kept in the house for a while, then moved them all into larger ones in a shed outside.
Nothing much happened in the Goode Kitchen today other than I got up late (due to taking too many painkillers making me sleep longer) just having time to get ready for my coffee morning with my neighbour, then finding Norma the Hair had text me to ask if she could comel at 1.00pm instead of 2.00 (overlapping my chat with my friend), and once Normal had left, then had to prepare B's supper - his choice today was liver, bacon, cabbage and small potatoes. The potatoes I'd cut in half (some into quarters) and pre-boiled them, steaming the cabbage on top. This time is was a 'hispi' cabbage, this being pointed in shape, similar to white cabbage but considerably sweeter (B loves it). Then dipped the chunks of liver in flour, fried these in a pan, the bacon frying in another, then I put the bacon on top of the liver and reheated the potatoes and cabbage in the bacon fat, timing it all so the liver was just cooked (cooked to long it gets tough), and - as ever - it filled a small meat platter that I'd put over a saucepan of water to heat while everything was cooking. With HP sauce that is one of B's favourite meals.
My supper was salad (what a surprise!), with some seasticks. Cheated a bit as I'd cooked extra bacon and cabbage, so I had some of that as well. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
It's now exactly midnight, and after a mixed day of cloudy dry weather plus showers, the same is forecast for over the weekend so will probably spend some of tomorrow baking. Whether it is due to the temperature being lower, not sure, but my knee is not quite as painful as it has been, still hurts a lot, but manageable. I will ask B to get me some of that Voltarel Gel that Christine mentioned and if it works will let you know.
As I now take Saturday off from blogging, my next 'chat' will be written sometime on Sunday, but whether that will be during the morning/afternoon or evening I won't know until the time. Then - if I can remember what happened (it's so long ago) the trauma of making 'The Goode Kitchen' will be told. Enjoy your weekend. TTFN.
posted by Shirley at 11:05 pm
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