Narnia Driving And Radio Ha-Ha Larder Love

Oh baby it’s cold outside! Yesterday was a BBC day and as I said in my last post I was there to talk about last-minute preparations for new year partying and making my almost instant lemoncello among other exciting ditties.

Well when you live up here on Walton’s Mountain you are always aware that extra time must be added to journeys to get off the bloody mountain in the first place and reach the normality of gritted/cow free/tractor free roads. Yesterday I did just that as the whole hill was a frozen wasteland of ice and whiteness. All very Narnia but a tad chilly and not great under the wheels of my little Mr Bean (car) and I definitely did not want to re-experience that hellish feeling of leaving terra firma and ending up upside down in a ditch – been there done that!

So I creep along the lanes avoiding sheep who have given up all ideas of living in the great outdoors and just want to pile into the sheds at tip-in-the-dip farm along the way. Eventually reach civilization and motor on a while singing along to the radio. Then I appear to be driving into a tunnel of white, where has the road gone, everything has vanished, it’s like being in one of those old Sherlock Holmes movies set in Victorian London with all that smog, only this is pristine white and there seems to be only me driving in it.

Feel it must clear sometime and press onwards to Glasgow. The motorway brings forth more cars so at least there is some company in the whiteness. Are we driving in the clouds, has Scotland vanished completely?

I arrive at the BBC studios beside the Clyde and you can’t even see 3 feet in front of you, the river has gone and the few people that are wandering about have the lost look of characters waiting to be written into a script. The fact that so many people are still on holiday adds to the ghost town feeling. The studios are only minimally staffed without the usual hustle and bustle and there is a laid back feeling about the place.

I’m going on air at 11.20 right after Gary who does the techy stuff and is talking about the must-have gadgets for 2015. There is a phone/text-in going on about people’s favourite gadgets with the show’s co-host reading them out from her screen in between chat. All is going well so far, I’ve got the lemoncello out and the lemon spiced nuts ready for tasting and just waiting to be introduced by Richard the host when something being read out makes me laugh.

“Mrs Brown (name changed to protect the innocent of course) has just texted in to say her favourite gadget is her circulation booster, 20 minutes with that and she feels like a new woman”, well I’m sorry only one gadget springs to my mind and I start to giggle. Richard is obviously thinking the same thing and as he is sitting opposite me we can’t help but set eachother off. By the time the co-host has finished the last text I am clutching my headphones and almost under the desk trying despirately not to laugh out loud. Richard isn’t fairing much better but deftly tosses the conversational ball into my court saying “And now we have our homecrafts expert Karon Grieve who is looking very happy this morning……..”, all I can do is squeak and then manage to pull myself together enough to start whittering on about the joys of lemoncello and by the end of 5 minutes of me managing to get lemons into everything the whole thing has degenerated into laughter.

The show ends with lemoncello all round and a release of all that pent up laughter. I head back to the car and the icy white-out and drive off to meet Sue for lunch. Still giggling like a teenager and feeling very end-of-termish.

Karon x