Bunting and Shopping Trolleys and a Bit of Hacker Time

First of all I'd like to say sorry for neglecting this blog of late. It has been fairly quiet on the telly job front recently and I have been busy temping my way through life by mainly manically grinning at people as they walk past my reception desk in a very scary fashion. However I have set up another blog in my absence about all the crafty things I make in my spare time so if there are other prolonged periods of inactivity on here I'll usually be posting pretty pictures on there. Here's the link if you're interested: The McPoodle Blog

Last week was a bit more eventful however. On Bank Holiday Monday I was making bunting and colouring in fruit with a load of kids and the BBC Outreach team at a charity event in aid of The Christie. It was a very hot sunny day (remember those) with good music and more importantly good bunting...I like bunting a lot, you may have noticed.

On Wednesday I was helping out at an event at MediaCity called Made in Studio where a whole host of celebrities and producers and other important people of the TV world sat in a panel in front of an audience of even more important people of the TV world and discussed pressing issues regarding studio based television. I got to stand in the green room with Richard Osman which was quite an exciting thing for me...I do love a bit of Pointless and it turns out that he is as tall as he claims to be! Then I got a wee bit tipsy with Sam and Mark at the after party and regaled them with the story about the time when I was on the same series of Pop Idol as them (I really should stop doing that, it was a whole decade ago now and I need to move on with my life already).

Then on Thursday and Friday I got to make props for the CBBC show: Hacker Time and generally get excited about working on a show with the coolest puppet on CBBC since Edd the Duck. I also got to traipse around Manchester City Centre with a huge long shopping list and one of these...

Yes, that is a very sexy granny shopping trolley pictured above. The photo was taken by the checkout in ALDI as I was waiting to buy a pair of highly attractive granny slippers...working for CBBC makes you the height of cool don't you know! I also wandered back down to the studio on Sunday to see some of it being filmed at the meet the main dog himself. Here is a photo of him taking a quick power nap during the lunch break.

And so concludes my brief round up of last week. This week I have mainly been sending out a million job applications and getting annoyed at my internet when it crashes every five minutes. Ho hum.

The Great British Bunt Off

Sadly, alas, the Great British Bake Off is over for another year and it has filled a void in my heart where lots of bunting used to be. In fact every single job I've been on this year (bar Dickinson's Real Deal) has involved me putting up and taking down bunting in some way and what with the Jubilee and the Olympics, the whole country has been covered in little triangular flags and I personally love it.

I am well aware that the bunting that has been used to decorate public places and shops won't last for much longer, winter is drawing in and soon 2013 will be upon us, a new year with less things to celebrate as a nation and I fear that next year will be severely lacking in the bunting department. I worked out some time ago that I couldn't bear to not have it in my life and after visiting my dad complete with hire car I saw my opportunity to reclaim my sewing machine and take it back up to Manchester with me so I could start making my own.

It has been years since I used my sewing machine, firstly it's very rare that I get a chance to go down to my dad's without taking the train and after trying to lug my knitting machine up with me on public transport a few years ago (Birmingham New Street was a particular nightmare and I was racing against the clock to get home before Doctor Who started) I wasn't prepared to go through the same stress and muscle work out again. Secondly I had decided years ago that the tension on my sewing machine was buggered and instead of getting it fixed I let it gather dust for a decade in the corner of my room.

After introducing my sewing machine to my little flat for the very first time and discovering that it worked perfectly fine (thus meaning I didn't have to find someone to repair it for me after all), I started trawling through fabric shops. A day later I ended up with this...bunting that can be enjoyed the whole year round and a good way to break up horrible characterless white walls. I'm already thinking of setting up a Folksy account and dedicating all my spare time to making tonnes of the stuff to sell online because soon there will be no more room for bunting in my flat and I'll still want to make more, probably to the point where I will no doubt trip over it and break my neck...a bit like those crazy cat ladies before they eventually get taken to homes and their animals are carted away by the RSPCA.