Jeni Barnett

Carcass on....

2013-05-20T16:08:26Z

The bloomin trains have been useless on the last two Sundays. I've had to drive in. Consequently by the time I've done a three hour show and driven back 50 odd miles - and I do mean odd - I'm cream crackered.

I've taken to lying on my back, my legs in the armchair, my arms splayed out mid way through a Jim sentence I'm usually away with the fairies.

This week I had four fab female guests.

DAVINA MACKAIL. She did my papers, we talked all sorts as well as Feng Shui, she's an ex nurse but now spends time clearing peoples houses, traumas and going up into the mountains of Peru to talk with peruvian Shamans. I love her. Check out her website.

KATHY LETTE cycled in to talk about her book THE BOY WHO FELL TO EARTH and to discuss the mother/teenage daughter relationship. She makes me laugh, but she is so much more than her sassy wisecracks. I love her. Check out her new book.

KEREN SMEDLEY, agony aunt and author of a self help coaching book for life after 50+, was on the end of the line for my listeners, as well as imparting sage like wisdom about living, not giving up, and changing things if they don't suit. I loved her. Check out her website.

Then I had the impeccable CHARLIE DORE and JULIAN LITTMAN, singing songs from her latest album CHEAPSKATE LULLABYS. Julia's guitar and her voice were haunting. It is a delicious album, really good to cook to. Check out her new CD.

By the time I got home the sun was out. The dawter was preparing a Sunday roast for us, so Jim and I went across the road for a walk in the orchard. The apple trees were bursting their buds, the smell of pink apple blossom tinged the air.

Round the bend the grass was full of blue bugle, bluebells, and blue speedwell.

I forgot my camera.

Over the style and there was some cheeky cherry blossom. Down the hill and the wild garlic is now flowering. Huge pompoms of white flowers, the white against the bluebells which were now throwing out their scent even the old git could smell 'em, looked ravisihing in the afternoon sun.

Buttercup yellow, fields of nettles, and then into the cool dark tunnel of old trees with gnarled roots.

I intended to walk there today and take some pics but in the end I opted for a rulk round the back road in the rain.

Shopped for bits, made a stirfry, made a bed, made a mess and then settled down to work.

They'll be more work tonight, but all being well the weather will have brightened up tomorrow and I'll nip down the orchard.

The old man is at the garden centre buying more grass seed. The Frog is on his way from Dartford, the dawter is laid up in bed with a horrible head cold, I'm about to make chicken soup with the girls left over carcass from the sunday lunch.

I've never used a carcass before. Be interesting to see whether it has any taste at all....

I'm told this is a powerful week to begin projects, complete projects and project projects...Good luck with yours and fingers crossed for mine.

I'm of now to Carcasson - sorry put the carcass on....

Naughty gee-gee

2013-05-17T17:07:01Z

A pot of liquorice tea next to me.

Fennel and tarragon soup made and ready to eat. It's a delicate pea green. Or should I say its a delicate fennel green - no because the bulb is white.

Red Thai curry paste, home made, in the fridge, ready to smear over the fish which is sitting in a bowl of lime and orange water. Pollock smells too fishy for my liking so I've disguised it with citrus.

Tonight B and her besty are getting drunk to watch The Eurovision song debacle. I dare say I will get roped in to provide nibbles and comment.

I thought I may just start the evening off with fresh asparagus from the asparagus farm.

As you would expect I chose the bent and curly over the jumbo

I nearly bought hollandaise sauce to go with them, but it's not my favourite taste. Too vinegary. So just a paper bags worth for whoever decides to sit and eat.

Griddled in olive oil with a fresh farm egg fried in just too much butter, and slipped over the top.

That'll go down a treat, which will be more than I can say for most of the European offerings that will be hurled at us by Mr. Norton over the telly waves.

Yesterday I drove to Crawley for the funeral of John, a gentle, artist, who loved his three children to distraction as well as a bit of huntin', shootin' and fishin'.

I met Jackie, his ex wife, when I was 13. She was a skinny little thing with very straight hair cut in a school girl bob with the customary fringe. Being tiny she gave the imression that butter wouldn't melt. She was as bossy then as she is now. We got on famously.

She thought I was an anarchic rebel; no proper uniform, ladders in my regulation thick, Lyle stockings and a refusal to take my 'Ban the Bomb' badge off.

She later discovered I was the poor girl whose parents couldn't afford to buy the uniform, and that my anarchy was less about challenging authority and more about a total lack of a grasp on reality.

We couldn't be more different. She from an upper middle class family with a wooden panelled hallway and me from the East End with a market trading father who had a propensity for wood chip.

We've been friends for 53 years.

I arrived at the Crematorium, the sky low and grey. The first sign I read said absolutely NO artificial flowers to be used anywhere at all. The second sign was blue-tacked on the window of the waiting room.

John's children wanted to honour his love of horses. He loved to hunt - I told you we were chalk and cheese - but his eldest daughter always discouraged him saying that he couldnt ride well enough to navigate ditches and fields. So as a final tribute to him she hired two horses

with John lying in state in a fancy carriage.

The children walked behind the sombre procession.

The wind was cold and the assembled mourners shivered as the horses slowly walked to the chapel and stopped outside the doors.

I asked if I could take pictures and the general consensus was a massive yes. The left horse started pawing the ground with his hoof. The Boss, who walked in front of the carriage, looked up at the coachman who was actually a woman under a big blanket, and nodded in dismay.

Was it the weather, the occasion, too many people? Whatever it was the horse took it upon himself to lighten his load at the proceedings.

It went on for at least a minute. The mourners couldn't help themselves, even the desolate children had to laugh.

'John would have loved it.' said jacky.

As the puddle got bigger Jacky's brother said.

'Well at least that horse isn't suffering from any prostate problems.'

And then it was all over.

John's best friend told the story of John's fist visit to Jacky's family.

John was an artist with long hair. It was 1969, he wore flares and a vest, not to mention a row of beads round his artistic neck.

He took his seat at the family dinner table.

'We wear ties when we sit and eat.' said Jacky's father. 'We don't do armpits at Sunday lunch.'

The following week John turned up in his vest, beads and flares with a tie perfectly tied around his naughty neck.

He and his father-in-law became firm friends.

I left the Effingham Park Hotel leaving the gathering to their smoked salmon sandwiches and fancy pastries. The smell of cheap soap and cigarette smoke was too redolent of my years on the road staying in, empty anonymous hotels.

I took a promotional booklet from the waiting room. 'ASHES into GLASS'. The creation process explained in detail of how to 'Hold your loved one close to you always'.

Your 'loved ones' ashes can be made into rings, pendants, cufflinks or earrings and all the prices include engraving and VAT.

I wondered whether to have God's Gift made into a paperweight? That's assuming he goes before me. If I pop my clogs before him there isn't a hope in hell that he'll have me fashioned into a pedant. He says I've been a weight round his neck for 36 years. 'So why change the habit of a life time' I simpered.

Till death us do part eh?

Keep off me Groyne.

2013-05-16T20:00:42Z

I did all me bits and left the house at 9.30. The weather looked kind so I didn't take a coat, although in case of inclement cock-ups I've got a gardening jacket in the boot I picked up for five quid.

Got to Brighton in no time and parked outside the middle daughters house. She's in London rehearsing for the CLOD ENSEMBLE, which they're taking to the Brighton Festival. She doesn't want to know whether we are coming or not so I'm certainly not going to reveal anything to you lot since none of you can keep a secret, all I'm saying is I'm busy on the 22nd.

Anyway the daughters delicious man was in, gave me a parking permit, kissed me sloppily and went back to his writing.

I skipped down hundreds of steps, walked through Bond Street and arrived at my hairdressers, with four boxes of cookies, for my eleven o'clock appointment.

RUSH do my colour. I actually go to PIERREPOINT in Archer Street for my cut. That famous street in SOHO, just behind Shaftsbury Avenue where all the musicians used to gather in the 50's. DAN THE MAN is perfect for me. You know what it's like, 'find a good hairdresser and stick to them like superglue'. I need him not to die anytime soon.

Brighton's MJ is a superb colourist though, she's got lovely cerise hair and a great line in chat. I had two pots of camomile tea, read about Richard Bransons son's wedding in 'HELLO' ( Sarah Ferguson and her girls looked anything but wood nymphs in the wedding wood, but at least they tried.) Had a wonderful head massage, MJ gave me a blow job and I ended up looking about forty-seven-years younger.

I decided I would do my 'SNARKY PUPPY' training on the wide open pavements towards Hove. So I set off with my little brown bag of liquorice roots I'd bought from The Lanes, marvelling at the shining sun. With the music blaring in my ears my body was ready for a RULK, a cross between a run and a walk.

The Brighton Ship is all along the prom. I quite like the yellow rusty look of it. I took deep breaths and all my senses were satisfied. Ozone for the nose, salty air for the taste, The 'Puppies' for the ears and the sea a delectable green for the eyes. Forget 'touch' I was too busy Rulking and wondering just how warm the water was.

I saw one mad swimmer walk out of the water, less like Daniel Craig more like Reggie Perrin. Dripping from his plunge he navigated the sharp pebbles like they were hot coals. I could see his sharp intake of breath as the stones stabbed his slippery feet but I couldn't get close enough to see his goose pimples.

I ran for an hour clocking the things I wanted to photograph. One lone, blue-sailed boat was out bouncing over the waves. The blue against the green was startling, although I needed to be in a dinghy next to him to get a proper shot.

By the time I had got to the end of the exercise lane I had to run round in circles to complete my hour. I knew I looked daft running backwards and forwards in front of Hove Angling club, salivating, I couldn't help myself the smell of their fish and chips was almost unbearable, I very nearly dropped in for a quick angle and lunch. In fact I've got nostalgic stomach pangs just writing about it. Then I saw the word GROYN.

Why?

Say it long enough and it sounds like a bad grin.

The sun had brought everybody out. Mothers and babies, mothers and toddlers, mothers and fathers, aging couples arm in arm, I left the old git's arm at home. I missed him and Jackson as there were so many dotty dogs being walked.

This gorgeous bloke was advertising his circus for the Festival, he had just dismounted his bike - a Penny Farthing - and the girl had just put down her hula hoop.

There were loads of joggers, and groups of runners doing interval training; sweaty workmen were renovating the ubiquitous beach huts, which looked dashing in the sun. Not many of them were occupied but just before I got to the third set of public lavatories I spotted Rachel and Chocolate, who were thrilled when I asked if I could take a pic of them. Rachel is the one reading.

Banana boats.

Bandstands.

And abandoned beaches.

Blue skies. Barks.

And blue plaques.

Clara Butt and Vesta Tilley lived next door to each other in St.Aubyns Mansion block.

'Land of Hope and Glory' was sung by Clara in a deep contralto voice whilst Vesta was hopping around in her drag doing male impersonations. Can you imagine the clipped conversation over the Kedgeree and Devilled Kidney's.

I wanted to eat seaside food but in the end I bought a tub of dehydrated kale dipped in wasabi sauce and a bag of dried Turkish mulberry's.

By the time I got to the car my legs were like carrageen right up to me groyns, and it was 4.15. I got home at five to hear the news that David Beckham had retired. Won't be long before he'll be walking arm in arm with Posh down the prom popping a cockle or two.

Chance ad be a fine thing.

Wild Garlic

2013-05-14T14:16:18Z

Taking and uploading pictures has become all consuming.

I have so much work to do but I chose to climb into my little red car and drive 25 minutes to Plawhatch

Park amongst the wild garlic, take pics, snip a few leaves and flowers with my Swiss Army Knife, which happens to be my car keying.

Then I shopped for all these lovely vegetables. That's how they are displayed in the shop I didn't buy them all. What are you thinking? But they look so healthy and organic I almost want to lick the screen.

To get my blood sugar back to normal I have put myself on a juice fast. As I write I'm drinking liquorice tea and digesting Jerusalm artichokes, Brussel sprouts and English carrots. Worra cosmopolitan shake.

I'm putting off the real work, which is like doing an English exam only more stressful. Just after I took this picture a posh woman stopped her car to ask me if I was okay. As I stood in the rain taking pictures of garlic I chirruped 'Never been better'. She drove off up the road you can see.

The old man's out tonight playing with his ukulele, so I will have a whole evening to catch up on all the work I'm avoiding doing.

But this pictures lark is brilliant. I hope you're enjoying seeing them as much as I am taking them.

BTW our meeting yesterday was so positive that if I were to allow myself the indulgence of indulging I would be in the dulge right now.

All we need now is some sun..... when we do get some I will take a picture of that unusual event rest assured.

Joni's call.

2013-05-13T11:07:01Z

I couldn't get 'Snarky Puppy' up today, something went wrong with my itunes so I decided to walk through the houses, past the school, left past the police station and right up to Chapel Green. past the church, right down into the town.

The wind was cold but the sky was blue.

Shopped for some veg. Brussel sprouts are out of season so I had to buy frozen, the organic carrots had heavy feathery leaves on so I asked for two bags.

Started walking home.

The smell of newly mown grass hit me in my nostalgic gut. The smell of teenage angst, Paul Tinkler and my first snog in the back row of the now defunct cinema in Borehamwood High Street. The smell of future possibilities and unknown territory.

I carried one bag in each hand which reminded me of my mother. We thought nothing of walking two miles each way to shop. Thought nothing of putting the groceries in string bags to walk up the hill past the Grammar School, the farm and the three bus stops.

The bus came once an hour. If you needed to be somewhere in between then thumbing a lift was de rigeur. Or waiting for Major Evans to leave his house.

Major and Peggy Evans had a son called Brian. Big Brian Evans was just a little too fond of his food. He was just a little bit wobbly. I played with him, my brother and Christopher Bertrand who lived the other side.

Chris was often seen to stand at his bedroom window and expose his youthful vigour to alighting bus passengers. Innocent fun back in them days....

We played in the fields, climbing haystacks and being chased by the farmer. Me and my brother strangers to the ways of the countryside being East Enders and all.

When it rained we played 'Truth or Dare.'

My forfeit, on a rainy day in 1958 was to put my hand in Big Brian's pocket.

Big Brian's pocket had a hole in it.

When my finger ferreted down into the murky depths of Big B's holey poche Brian's forfeit became evident. I ran home to my mother and vowed never to play with the boys again. Aged nine, I was a girl of principal and stuck to my word for many long years.

Anyway waiting or missing the bus - the 358 - meant Major obliged. Major was, according to my parents, a little tight. When we got past the farm, outside Anna Neagle's old house, just where the hill started to descend Major turned off his engine and freewheeled down to Potters Lane.

A trick I sometimes do when we are out of cash. I think its a little bit dangerous. But hey I learnt my habits from the 1950's when life didn't feel quite so on the edge. Saving on petrol was applauded.

I was having all these thoughts as I marched home with my two bags. I used to offer to take one of the string bags off my mother but she always refused saying:

'It evens me up.'

I don't know whether she was just allowing me to walk hands free, or whether she understood the law or ergonoimics. At any rate she was bang on.

Having a bag in each hands does do the balance a world of good.

By the time I got to the farm by the bacon wagon I called Gods Gift and asked him to collect me. Time was at a premium, I was really hungry and the bags had taken on weight.....

This particular farm has yoga retreats and all sorts, the first time I stumbled on it I walked into one of the rooms. A white silk, geometric pattern, sewn onto a black velvet background, hung on the wall.

'We are not alone in the Universe' read the script underneath the picture. I made a hasty retreat.

The farm I walked past as a kid had fresh milk churns in the kitchen. Kittens running around and the smell of chickens and fresh eggs. The fantasy farm for a child who read 'Anne of Green Gables.' and believed that families really did call each other 'Darling' whilst eating soft boiled eggs with soldiers, as they sipped from bone china tea cups behind sparkling white net curtains.

Nobody ever called anybody darling in our house. We did not have bone china tea-cups, my parents ever the Bohemians, preferring 'Melaware'. And there wasn't a net curtain in sight - we had Ventian blinds, if you don't mind..

There are a lot of those kinds of houses near where I live now, although outward appearances are deceiving. The Twillage is in the 'Guinness Book of Records' for the highest divorce rate in the UK and is a well known location for 'swinging' - I'm told.

All of which is deal-able with, what I can't stomach is the fact that 90% of the locals have bricked and tarmacked their gardens to make room for cars. Joni Mitchell called to me;

'Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone They've paved Paradise and put up a parking lot.'

This little bit of Paradise has been adulterated and transformed into a residential parking bay. Flowers, however, have managed to stake their claim and are still around, as you can see.

To quote the Tora;

'Behind every blade of grass there's an Angel willing it to grow.'

So up yours gravel and concrete, the Angelic hoards are still winning.

Gorse Code

2013-05-11T14:30:00Z

The wind is up. But that didn't stop us putting on the old anoraks and going to King Standing, where we always walked Jackson.

The dawter left at 10.00. Taking her life and music with her.

I'm struggling, at the moment, my blood sugar is too high but I will not resort to the drugs. So today it's just green juice and more green juice. Exercising and thinking positively AND trying to remember that the body will heal itself if I don't stress.

I read up about tomorrows show. Antiques and Stephen Sondheim.

WHAT HAVE YOU GOT IN THE ATTIC? WHAT MUSICAL WERE YOU IN AT SCHOOL?

Them's the questions. Join me from 9-12 on 0207 224 2000. BBC LONDON 94.9.

The first musical I was in was 'HMS PINAFORE' by Gilbert and Sullivan. The school production featured my mother, my brother and David Green, who I fancied like mad.

He had teddy boy curly hair and a little retrouss� nose. We performed it over three nights, I can remember holding the pauses until the laugh came. Nothing like it....

I got great reviews saying I was the new (13-year-old) Doran bryan. But that I couldn't sing for toffee.

I'll show 'em I thought. And so began my self taught singing practice. I would sit in the rocking chair opposite my father's new qudraphonic stereo system, the first in the street, four speakers in four corners of the room. He listened to gospel and jazz I listened to Dionne Warwick until I got her intonation right, I copied her unashamedly.

By the time I had got Bert Bachorach under my belt I'd moved out, gone to drama school and had my first fag. Then I moved onto James Taylor. His songbook under my arm wherever I went. When I met him on the sofa at TVam, and he dedicated a song to me I had an arrack of the vapours.

I earnt my living as a singer until 1980 when telly beckoned. The lovely Barry has never forgiven me for giving up acting. Who knows I may just resort to playing old ladies in anoraks as I get older.

The gorse today was so pungent. Coconut aroma in the wind. Dark grey clouds around the copses, and the tiniest droplets of rain in the air.

'When gorse is out of blossom kissings out of fashion.'

Thank Heavens gorse has been throwing out it's yellow flowers for as long as we've lived here.

The old git doesn't seem to mind as long as I'm not wearing lipstick.

'Not bad for an old bint' he said as he caught me in the gorse. That blue anorak was bought in 1992 by the BBC for my trip to Iceland. It's a bit frayed at the edges but then who isn't?

Radio Kent

2013-05-10T17:13:37Z

I woke this morning just before the alarm.

Did me Tibetan 5, got dressed, ate an avocado and left at 7.20.

Even with tractors and rush hour traffic I still arrived on time at 7.30...

Parked my car in the underground car park, in the designated BBC parking spot. Went upstairs, rung the bell and was at work.. My first ever broadcast for Radio Kent.

I could have not been made more welcome.

From Clare and Steve, the producers, to Adam the engineer, from Paul the boss to all the other folk who danced along with me.

The programme was so well thought out. Our first phone in was about Boris Johnson's island airport, which has been denied yet again.

Bluebells, the 'Birds and the Bees', and a BBC documentary which is being aired on BBC 2 tonight, all about Jane Austin's Regency Ball in 'Pride and Prejudice.' The whole affair is being recreated - sounds fascinating.

Then we talked about a robbery in Belgium; a gang of thieves chucked a safe out the back of a van and �1 million Euros went flying through the air. People snatched and clasped rolls of money. One woman swept thousands of Euros into her hallway. Others dashed and grabbed. but the cops were none to happy about it so they threatened to arrest the unknown looters with two years imprisonment if they didn't hand over the stolen loot. The reporter said that the money had belonged to two old age pensioners who had removed all their money from the bank and bunged it in their safe, thinking their was going to be a crisis � la Cyprus. We wanted to know whether you would have handed the money in or stuck it in a sock under the mattress. I know what I would have done, but then I wasn't asked the question.

We discussed teaching youngsters about sex and love and rock and roll. I learnt the facts of life after my brother told a joke about Nelson and Lady hamilton. I was 7 at the time. Needless to say I didn't understand it.

My father told my mother to take me into the kitchen to explain it to me. I still didn't understand the punch-line or anything my mother taught me. There's a book written by the doctor from the embarrassing bodies programme which teaches parents how to reveal all to their teenagers, not literally of course. As if they don't already know eh? That's the teenagers not the parents.

We talked about the beautiful bluebells all over the place and then told the story of the ten year old girl in Ramsgate Lily-May Allen, who drew a grid of hopscotch, in chalk, on the pavement and was cautioned by two cops who threatened to arrest her for criminal damage.

RECLAIM THE STREETS I say. Let the children play and caution drivers with messing up our roads.....Lily-Mays father has complained about the police behaviour. I don't now what you think but I'd rather have chalk on the ground than skid marks.

Gods Gift and the dawter met up with me and we had a coffee in Carluccios. I could barely contain my excitement. I hope they have me back.
Leaving work and a coffee in my local - haven't done that for years.

Wonderful.

Then the dawter and I spent money on clothes and lunch and arrived home within the minutes.

This is my first attempt at downloading photos. Once I get the hang of it, I promise you Lindy I will put up pictures of my walks.

Windswept

2013-05-09T12:23:33Z

I went to bed at 4.00 and bang on 7.15 my body clock went off.

I wanted to eat the pillows and stuff the duvet in my ears.

I got up anyway and did my Tibetan 5.

Meditated for long enough before I fell back to sleep until 9.00.

Then without further ado it was up and out.

Blimey but I had to go back in and put on a sweater and a fleece. I grabbed a jute bag and set off for the orchard. My hands stuffed into my cuffs. My hair in a ponytail meant my ears were as cold as cherry tomatoes straight out of the salad drawer. Although to tell you the truth I never put tomatoes in the fridge. They are on the dresser in a big plate (I bought my mother from Portugal) nestled in with avacados, onions, apples, oranges, lemons and a trio of limes.

Instead of 'Snarky Puppydom' I thought I would be responsible and listen to Radio Kent. I heard less than more since the wind and hills mussed up the signal.

Everytime I did hear a voice it made me jump.

The advantage of the buffering meant I could hear all the birds, trilling and whistling their way into the day.

The apple trees to my left were just bursting into pink, the apple trees to my right were as white as snow.

Through the windbreakers, which were taking a hammering, past the pear trees and then right at the yellow sign. Little blue speedwell dodged in and out of some scruffy dandelions. When I got to the style I had a moment to honour Jackson. When he was a puppy he could squeeze through, jump over or find a way round it. As he got older we had to abandon the walk. I still miss him hugely.

Down the hill where the kids always rolled, I counted 15 new molehills and marvelled at a tree that had been cracked and split by the wind. It's broken boughs were still full of white flowers.

Through the holly bushes and past the stream. The water is high and the wild garlic is flowering all along its banks. I chose my patch of garlic, thanked the Universe for providing me with supper, and put the handfuls of pungent green leaves and white flowers into the jute bag. Not quite big enough to hang on my shoulder but as light as leaves can be.

I'm thinking of making nettle soup, and collecting some dandelion leaves for a salad. I have all that in the garden though, no comments please about my weedy gardening skills. There are loads of nettles round the top shed. You're only meant to pick the new leaves like a tea picker in Darjeeling. I think I may have left it too late.

Radio Kents conversation was about potty training....Mercifully I lost the signal again.

Right at the little bench and through Forest Clump. The name given to the gnarled walkway when the dawter was little. Kids are great when they don't complain about exercise. To get her to accompany me on a walk now is like trying to prise open an oyster with a feather.

I kept my balance even though the conversation turned to child abuse. Luckily I only had a few minutes of that before buffering saved me.

Into the shade and past a car that had a tarpaulin thrown over it's windscreen. Held down with four plastic water bottles one on each corner tied through the guy rope holes. I wonder if they'll survive this wind.

Delicious green moss covered the banks. Moss is like coffee. It's never as smooth as it looks and it's never as tasty as it smells.

Back to the other side of the valley and home. An hour later I was ready for breakfast.

The dawter didn't know whether I had eaten so I ate the left over salmon from last night, she had the other piece and the old man had a beef and onion sausage sarnie. The three of us sat round the table, they convinced me to cancel my beauticians appointment saying that I didn't have anything that should be removed. I begged to differ but cancelled it anyway. �150 quid saved.

Had I booked for reflexology and a mini massage I could have saved myself a lot more.

I'm at my computer now knocking off the outstanding bits of work, and by that I mean work that needs to be done not outstanding as in oscar winning.

Although never say never......

I've chosen my music for SUNDAYS SHOW. Ian Dury, 'The Faces' and Stevie Winwood. You'd be a fool to miss it, we'll be dancing on the tables.

Mr. Cat

2013-05-08T23:56:26Z

Unbelievably I didn't get up till 11.00. this morning.

The weather did not entice me out of the bed. My only excuse is that I didn't go to bed till very late having been energised by MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG.

It's a terrific production. The cast are strong, the direction slick and the audience up for it. The show works backwards. Three friends - in show business - relive their lives in retrospect back to the 50's.

It's Mr. Sondheim at his most cutting.

When they get to the last song, full of optimism and dreams I cried. All their joie de vivre having been sapped by the industry.

Squeezed past the applauding Japs in row 'J' before running to get the 10.30 train from Charing cross.

Rescued an Evening Standard from under the seat and managed to do at least half a dozen of the cryptic crossword clues.

The old git was waiting in the station car-park. I didn't recognise the car since he's had new wheels put on it. so I waited outside the supermarket whilst he was waiting the other end.

When I finally got up I did my Tibetan Five, meditated and went downstairs to a breakfast prepared by the dawter, who is recovering from living the life of a 26 year old. We ate guacamole, bean salad and a big green bowl of leaves.

At 11.00 this evening I realised that I hadn't fitted my run in so tomorrow it will have to be up with the lark.

We drove to PLAWHATCH to take the milk bottles back, buy raw honey, and delicious organic brownies, NOT FOR ME, then stopped on the roadside to pick some wild garlic. The flowers are out now.

I was meant to be going to Johnny Phang's book launch of THE PEPPERPOT CLUB a beautiful recipe book. It was in West London but I didn't finish my work in time to get there. I would have been reunited with the Food Network and the lovely Barry, who I haven't seen for ages. He is heading up a new telly channel and is chained to his desk most of the time. Felt rubbish that I'd let Johnny down.

I made dinner of griddled salmon ( I only ever cook it for 8 minutes. Knowledge courtesy of Mitch Tonks, most fish only like 8 minutes max. ), with those wild garlic shoots cooked in olive oil on a high heat, oyster mushrooms with garlic and cracked black pepper on a low heat and sweet potato mashed with a tiny bit of organic butter from Plawhatch. The orange, green and pink looked lovely on the plate. I passed on the mushrooms.

Jim went off to his ukulele rehearsal and I did my thing before sitting down with the girl and talking about life, art and why I've unsubscribed from most of Sky.

I am thinking about the next Potty Politics - please check out all eleven of them, although numbers one and two are dreadful we didn't know what we were doing - but I have a speech to finish before I get to it.

I had another idea today for a tragic comedy, after talking to my lovely cleaner. I nicked some of her life and promised the names would be changed to protect the innocent.

I want to reveal it but it's too soon. Joanne Harris uses twitter, and all her thousands of twitterererereres, to try out ideas on. When she writes her novels they become part of her process. I'm not sure the telly world is quite as generous. One whiff of a great idea and thirty three thousand vultures will steal it in broad daylight. So when It's commissioned, or bought or scrapped I'll share it with you.

Talking of stealing we have a visitor. MR CAT. He's moved in next door. He's old with arthritis, and a gentle temperament BUT we have had to resort to locking the cat flap.

He slips in, under our noses, and silently eats Emmy's dinner, or whatever he can find on the work surface. Cat tins get knocked over and licked clean. The cat biscuit box gets knocked over and the contents crunched. He peers in the cat-flap, if he catches our eye he disappears, but when we aren't looking Mr. Cat creeps in shiftily and licks Emmy's dish clean. She hisses, he squeezes out the cat flap and she runs up upstairs. She spends most of her life now sleeping on our bed. Which would be okay but everything is covered in fur and paw prints.

It's a game of cat and mouse.....

It's 1.35 a.m. and I have a full card tomorrow so I had better get to bed.

At 4.30 I am gong to my beautician who will set about making me look young with whatever machines she has to hand. I will be battered and bruised for my debut show on Friday.

It's a good job it's radio. For all my Kentish bloggers. You'll be able to see me in the studio if you come to Tunbridge Wells, and peek into the BBC studio window. You'll recognise me by my black eyes, swollen cheeks and turban......

Band of Bloggers.

2013-05-07T12:21:42Z

Thank you so much, to all of you that sent me messages.

Not a crisis, not a teaser, but I just needed an acknowledgment that life does still exist outside my little cottage.

This morning there was no donkey, the yellow primroses are giving way to tiny purple wild violets, bluebells, cuckoo flowers and little white mouse ears. Pink, white and blue everywhere. I think the cold, wet winter has done all the plants good.

I timed myself - 24 bars of track five - running past a little copse of wood anemones, The trees are surrounded by little faces of white petals all pushing their way to the sun. Which was out until I got to Frog Spawn Bend.

Marched up the hill past centurion rows of Dan-De-Lion. 'Wet the beds' as we called them when I was growing up.

Talking of which, I always have to stop off in the outdoor pursuit centre to use their public loo. I'm drinking three litres of greens everyday. Finally I'm back on my old regime. Which is a massive relief.

Part of my absence has been dealing with GLICLAZIDE. The diabetic drug I resorted to. My doctor's known me for twenty odd years - and I do mean odd - but he is a Western Medical practitioner, so drugs are always the first port of call. I had got so stressed and out of whack that I had to do something to regulate my body. I trust him, but I hated taking the drug.

Apart from the weight gain my two big toes ( slap, bang on the Liver meridian) had developed fungus, my skin had turned a sallow shade of mustard and my hair was as lank as damp vermicelli.

And then I interviewed a brilliant professor on my BBC show who noticed my bloated belly and said....

'Get rid of it.'

I confided in him that I was taking the Gliclazide jobby to which he replied.

'It puts weight on, which is the last thing a diabetic needs to do. Come off it.'

I had put on nearly a stone and was eating less than a gerbil. I panicked.

'Come off it.' He insisted. 'Do it with diet'.

So on the train ride home I googled the drug. There are support networks for people trying to reduce their intake, and a break down of all the side effects.

So I smashed through my panic, took it slowly, and quietly reduced the dose. Introduced my old way of being. Added to which I haven't touched sugar, bread or coffee since February 10th, that Lent Fast really helped.

So over the last three weeks the bloating has finally started to go, and my body is readjusting to it's old self.

When you get to my age conversations always start with, 'How's your back?' 'Hows your blood?' 'Hows your father?'

So when I fell last week - with a mighty SLAP, and two old gents tried to help me up, the irony of lying prostrate next to Oscar Wilde at Charing Cross, was not lost on me. As I bit the dust I knew I had damaged myself. Got to the train with one minute to spare, sat down and there they were. Two huge, bloody grazes on my knee, arm and the biggest bruise waiting to happen on my little fat belly - sorry big fat belly - the inscription on Oscar Wilde's monument spoke to me:

'We are all born in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.'

I was doing both.

I am, however, much more balanced and back on track. I'm eating raw honey to mend my pancreas. Trying not to eat after 7.00. And nibbling on greens like my donkey friend.

My thinking is clearer, and the weather has done me good. Too much sun and I can't work, I just want to be lazing in the garden. Which is what I did in between stuff yesterday.

The old git scarified the lawn and put down some grass seed.

I did my second mow of the year. The lawn was covered in daisies. My mother loved them, always upset when I cut them.

"They are so pretty' she would say.

She'd love my new lawn mower. It's a big old bugger but I cannot get it low enough to cut the flowers. So now instead of having a cut glass lawn I've got a lawn that looks like its got dandruff. Not that I mind daisies - I love them - but I would like just one day of a perfect green patch.

Tonight I'm of to see 'MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG'. I've done with my green drink today otherwise I'll be merrily rolling into the cloakroom every scene change.

1.50 and time for a sykpe call with my writing partner. We are starting on a sit-com. I did wonder whether to write a sit-com based on an aging broadcaster, with no money, an even older partner and a 26 year old dawter who is a skint musician - but it's just not funny......

Donkey work

2013-05-06T11:41:10Z

Every time I run/walk I wonder whether to bother to write this blog anymore.

I go through a whole paranoid journey of not being wanted, being boring, being too old for this malarky. I run through why I should or shouldn't blog, and everything that goes with blogging. Like wearing mini skirts when you 80.

And then I get an idea and I think

'Oh! I'll write that...' because my lovely bloggers will be interested, and then I think

'My lovely bloggers don't exist anymore, because I have been so lax in writing regularly.'

And then I excuse myself because there are things I can't write about, don't know how to write about - and then I think if I write about my absent, commenting bloggers all my lovely bloggers will think I'm fishing for a reaction. Dying for comments. which in a way I am.

So, whether you are there or not, whether you care or not, whether I'm being read or not, whether I should just shut up, I'm writing this in the hope that just one little person will enjoy it.

A lot of it has to do with living back in East sussex. The stimulus is different. There are no boats, planes, cars, motorbikes or human traffic going past my window.

There's the distant rumble of the A26, and the occasional tractor trundling down the hill.

Theres always birdsong and the mumbling of Radio 4 coming from one room or another.

My days have a different shape.

A combination of thinking, writing, eating, sleeping (well not sleeping actually) walking, watching telly, the activities of the ancient crone, which I can't think is of any interest to anybody.

All of this was going through my brain when I set off this morning. The hot sun on my peeling shoulders. One day of working in the garden and I got burnt. I've never used sun cream but the ozone has thinned like my sensibilities.

I miss London and I don't miss London. I miss my flat and I don't miss my flat. I miss five days a week on the radio and telly and I don't. What I do miss is the peace of youth, none of which I felt when I was young. The peace of knowing that if you don't do it now you'll have another forty years to put it right.

Now I'm getting the peace of age, which is much more introspective.

Anyway I posted two letters, put on my headphones and started running.

I have been working on a speech for a new project. A dear man has decided it would be a good idea if I were to stand on stage and talk to people about survival. Not like Ray Mears eating grubs and whittling, but how I've managed to still be here.

One of the stories I use is of the donkey down the well. It's a lovely urban myth. The farmer decides to cover the donkey with earth as the well is too deep and the donkey too old to save..

As he shovels the earth the donkey starts to squeal, then the squealing stops. The farmer finally has the courage to look down the well. The donkey has been shaking off the earth, tamping it down and taking a step up. Finally the donkey gets to the top of the well, shakes off the final grains of earth and trots off merrily. The moral being - well you know - life throws dirt at you and blah blah blah.....

So here I am in my shorts and vest, 'Snarky Puppy' pounding in my ears and just when I get to the bend, behind the gate, standing all alone, looking at me is a scruffy little donkey.

I turned the music off and tentatively held out my hand. Two flies were buzzing round it's doleful eyes. He didn't move. so I tickled his head. Then stroked his nose. He just stood there in all his dusty glory. I stood for ages, just cooing at him, and he let me play with his mangled mane.

When I walked away so did he, gently turning back into the field.

Now that is something you wouldn't get in Battersea

Tools at the ready

2013-04-27T14:32:00Z

Idiot alert.

Wind flowers ARE not WOOD SORREL . Wind flowers are WOOD ANEMONES.

From now on my days as a botanist are numbered!.

Update on the puppy: Gods Gift has gone and got himself a job. Nine months of being a Thespian in London and Bath.

His dog whispering skills were needed to train the little pup. And given my insane work timetable I wouldn't be around enough to tickle it, feed it, walk it and sleep with it. SO we've had to let this one go.

Sods law, every time we walk we come across another little brown blob.

There is next year, and I'm not giving up.

Thank you for your comments about Watch Wiv Muvver. I'm starting on number 12.

Just come back from the orchard but not before the excitement with the police.

I'd just driven to PLAWHATCH to get my raw milk, yoghurt and organic veg, and turned into our road. At the roundabout a cop car was speeding with it's blue lights flashing.

Took off my seat belt, to park, and there was a white van outside our drive, a police car, and a dog patrol car. Not to mention the helicopters hovering overhead.

The van had driven up our drive, couldn't get out the other end, the police had been informed of a gang, were waiting on the road and a suspect had been apprehended - (get a load of my police speak).

Apparently the gang had been nicking stuff out of local garages.

Nothing to fear, although Gods Gift, being old and deaf misunderstood our next door neighbour.

'They've been robbing some tools." said J. 'Blimey' said the old git, when he came in. 'Must be serious stuff, they've been nicking from St. Pauls.'

I am trading him in for a new one half his age.....

Wind flowers

2013-04-25T19:58:22Z

So I realised that when a blogger blogs they need to be accurate.

I have been merrily running past the little white flowers believing them to be aconite.

They are crowding the verges and filling the hedgerows. They are NOT ACONITE.

They are WIND FLOWERS aka WOOD SORREL. So there. Just in case you thought i did only talk a load of bull. Whatever they are called they are divine little white 6 petaled flowers with pinky backs.

relieved I put that right.

So now, dear all,

Finally after weeks of resting Miss de Mina is back.

Watch wiv muvver is up and running and waiting for you to please share.

I don't know how to share properly, coming as I do from a deeply selfish culture, but I trust that you do.

So do me a favour and Make Miss D into a virus with her potty politics 11.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FudnLE8CKs

thanks in advance.

Jeni b

Miss De Mina's agent.

Wild garlic

2013-04-21T17:09:22Z

Sometimes I wonder whether walking in the country isn't the most boring thing in the world.

No people.

No madness.

No River.

No London.

And then the sun comes out and baaam!

The palest of yellow primroses have completely overtaken the grass verges - not to mention my garden.

The yellowest of daffodils that have finally come out of their tight green buds.

Seriously buttery celandines that are about a month late but there they were stealing the limelight from the whitest of white aconites. Some had decided to shrug their shoulders and turn their pink backs on the sun. I don't blame them the sun has been pretty miserly this year wouldn't you say?

And just when you thought it was safe to go back into the hedgerows out flew a squirrel, two sparrows and a swallow. It felt like a 'B' movie with a cheesy director who shouted ACTION. I laughed out loud.

Today I walked the orchard.

I was stood down from the Marathon so Gods Gift and I made the most of an unusual Sunday together.

Past the budding apple and pear trees, round the bend, over the style and down the hill through a slalom of mole hills, the size of mountains.

Down the slope and the stream had been re-banked. The water was screaming its way round bends and through the wild garlic.

I took a jute bag and picked enough garlic leaves to make wild garlic pesto, wild garlic soup, and just enough left to shred into a salad. I could hear myself thanking each leaf as I pulled at it, tearing it away from the white flower buds. Two old buggers foraging for supper. Better get used to it what with the way money is at the moment....

Then we had lunch in our local pub. Interesting the whole place was packed with families, with grannies and grandpas, the beer and wine flowed. The sun shone and there didn't appear to be a hint of a recession anywhere.

The dawter arrived from London. Told us we didn't look comfortable in the place, well we weren't actually, but the food was good.

I've got nothing against people who have saved well, and looked after their pensions well, but there was a smug aroma that swirled around the place. The smell of dispassionate complacency, with London only 51 miles away it was clear the 'haves' had it over the 'have nots'.

My garden is primrosed out. The Tulip Tree and the Magnolia Stellata are popping their buds. The lawn is covered in daisies and the vegetable beds are waiting to be planted up. If the weather warms up the Magnolia flowers wont turn brown.

I'm writing Watch Wiv Muvver 11 and picking the ants off the computer. The 'oosbind tells me they like electrical equipment. They'll have to go I'm not sharing my lap top with nobody.,

The garden was thick with frost this morning, the sun melted it, but now the temperature has dipped again.

I'm off to make me soup. I've made the pesto, but neither the old man or myself will eat I'm too full of Salad Nicoise and he's up to his neck in roast beef.

Wild Garlic Pesto.

Take a load of freshly picked leaves.

Brazil nuts - I'd run out of walnuts.

A little bit of leek.

A hunk of raw cheese - chedder.

That much olive oil

A soup�on of salt.

And a squirt of Agarve syrup

Whizz it up and......

Bob's your aunties brother.

Tastes lovely and is as green as my valley.

To all you marathon friends - well done.

And to the rest of you have a good week.

Boston.

2013-04-16T16:15:03Z

The Boston Bombing had me turning away from the television screen

'Some of you may find the images disturbing' said Sophie the newsreader.

It wasn't so much the images I found disturbing as the incredulity of fifteen seconds of devastation that has ruined the lives of hundreds of people. Domestic, Foreign, Al Quaeda, or Right Wing Fanatic, it makes no never mind.

We have arrived at a point in our civilised society that we take it for granted that pictures will be beamed around the world. Images of death and destruction. That earthquakes, famine, flooding and bombing are so much part of the fabric of our lives, and that they are reported so graphically means we no longer flinch.

Writing the menu of the news, deciding which horror should go first in the running order, almost as flippant as writing a shopping list.

We have to be responsible for each other lest we care less and less about each other. As one hurt follows another we must be reminded that each hurt is our hurt.

'I am you , and you are me and we are us together.... '

How ever that song goes.

If we cannot be responsible to and for the World around us then what hope have we?

When I was small we HAD to say the Lords Prayer, every day in school assembly. All of us, the boys with big ears that stood in front of me, the teachers, the prefects, the pianist who played the accompaniments for our hymns. I sung along with the Christians, the Catholics and the other Jews.

I could have been exempt but I liked the singing together, the praying together. Not that I 'm religious in any way, but with one voice we praised breath and life and sun and seeds. We harmonised about morning breaking and those in peril on the sea. Standing at the wooden lectern we read to each other and listened to messages of hope and humanity. We sung together, listened together and shuffled out into the corridor together.

If we do away with a sense of communal bonding, if we continue to hide behind screens, earphones, laptops and lies the likes of the Boston Bombing will become ever more commonplace.

When the security services are omnipresent at funerals, marathons, marches and gatherings then we have lost our way.

Condolences to everybody who came within an inch of that blast. And may the families of the dead and wounded be comforted that millions of us do not approve of a society that has become so utterly care-less.

Death at the Ritz

2013-04-10T17:32:02Z

I have finally mowed the lawn.

Cleared the woodshed.

My mothers three plants have just about survived the coldest of times. although I'm not too happy about the Rosemary.

I have taught the old man how to make soup, and by gum he's good at it, we've been dining off Squash soup with turmeric and chili.

Last night I bought up a whole Italian meal from Camisa in Soho. The dawter and I drove home and five of us dug into - artichokes,zucchini, aubergine and freshly made pastas. Not to mention the best Italian Jammy Dodgers ever.

The huge block of Parmisan is sitting in the fridge ready for grating, or is it shaving?

My feet are cold but I am still alive.

I try and get to this blog but I have so much fiddling & farting around to do that by the time I'm ready to write I'm falling asleep over the computer.

Whilst pruning the dead plants my next door neighbour came running into the garden to tell me about Mrs Thatcher's death.

Watching footage from the 80's made me cry. Watching the pain of the miners, watching the excesses of the bankers. When the Tories got in I had just started working in television,big shoulders were all the rage, and WALL STREET was the hit film. Over the years we watched mobiles get smaller and communities die. The politicians don't get it right. Isn't it time we all stood up and spoke of humanitarianism. Of Justice and compassion. Isn't it time we chose egalitarianism over elitism. Cos the divide between the 'thems-that-have' and the 'thems-that- have-not' is getting so wide that we'll all fall down the chasm.

Today, I can't say anything that the pundits haven't already said. From Russell Brand to Andrew Marr everybody has their own opinions about The Iron Lady.

An old lady of 87 died lonely in a fancy hotel in London. Neither of her children beside her. She reaped what she sowed. Coming to the end of a life without friends or family. Her own big society having dwindled and shrunk to but one carer and a heap of flunkies.

May she rest in peace.