Radioa Ga Ga
It’s been a fun, exciting, interesting and odd couple of weeks since I got back from Norway.
I’m still tired. Even after being home for more than 2 weeks. I’m still sleeping 9 or 10 hours. I’m still eating a lot too, though that is slowing down a bit. Possibly because I’ve eaten everything there is to eat. I’ve begun to exercise again. I’ve been out on the bike, back to the gym, swimming and I even went rowing. I’ve not had to ask Mrs P to slow down on the bike as I embarassingly had to last week. Though that may be because I went on my posh race bike while she was on her really heavy old bike.
Most excitingly I have been interviewed on the radio no less than three times now. Once by Kate Justice for her show on BBC Radio Hereford and Worcester and again by both Andy Jones and Bridgitte Tetteh at BBC Radio Berkshire. Andy played the interview on his show on Thursday 28th April and Bridgitte interviewed me on Sunday 1st May. Each of those interviews are available for 28 days. As I’ve said before, all of these shows have been playing my audio diaries since the beginning of January and were very keen to catch up with me when I got back. Below are the links if you wish to listen:
Kate Justice - BBC Radio Hereford & Worcester
Andy Jones - BBC Radio Berkshire
Thursday 28th April Link (Available until the end of May 2022 - Part 1 plays at 1:17:31 and Part 2 plays at 3:27:03)
NOTE: The Andy Jones interview is in two parts though Part 2 does repeat part 1 and then adds extra chat, so listen from 3:27:03
Bridgitte Tetteh - BBC Radio Berkshire
Sunday 1st May Link (Available until the end of May 2022 - Plays at 3:09:20)
The interview with Kate Justice was great fun. They wanted to do it face-to-face, so Mrs P and I headed up to Worcester and got to meet both Kate and her producer Oscar La Gambina. Exciting for both me and Mrs P who has been speaking to Oscar pretty much weekly since I have been away. Kate was brilliant at making me feel relaxed and asked such marvellous questions about our Norge på langs journey. A huge thanks too to her producers Oscar La-Gambina and Phillip Stoneman for all their help and support. Also, to the whole team for giving me the opportunity to share my audio diaries with their listeners for the last 3 months and more.
In the studio at BBC Hereford & Worcester with Kate Justice
Kate has been playing my audio diaries for almost 3 months
Andy Jones - BBC Radio Berkshire
The interview with Andy Jones for his evening show was pre-recorded on Zoom as BBC Berkshire are stil not allowing guests into the studios. I was a bit worried. Zoom? That’s video right? I know the audience won’t see me, but Andy will when he is doing the interview won’t he? Queue running around making sure that skis and outdoor photos are in the background rather than dirty washing and pictures of my granny. The tidy up took ages. I log in, I wave hello. There is no video. It is turned off. “Oh no…” said Andy, “…this is radio. We don’t bother with the video.” Damn I needn’t have had a shave. We chatted for quite a long time. About 20 minutes. I never expected all of it to make it onto the show. I was therefore very surprised and very pleased when he played the whole lot on his show two days later.
Bridgitte Tettah - BBC Radio Berkshire
Bridgitte Tettah on her Sunday morning show asked some great questions including possibly my favourite of all “How do you go to the toilet?” I’m not sure at which point she regretted asking, but it could have been when I described using a wide mouthed water bottle and spoke of the dangers of frozen pee bottles.
A huge thanks to Bridgitte and also to her Producer, Ed Farrar who organised the whole thing having played a big part in getting the audio diaries on Andy’s show over the last 3 months.
What else have I been up to? Well, as I said, a lot of sleeping and eating and I am slowly getting back into exercising.
There has also been a lot of kit tidying and cleaning and I am slowly, very slowly, getting through editing the 3,000 plus photos I took. It really is about time I sent some to Trond. The book too is slowly being written, possibly as slowly as the photo editing. Whilst I am clearly making slow progress in some areas I would like to add that my procrastination is going really well. There follows, by way of a little more prorastination, a short list of just some of the ways I have found to waste time:
Researching bee hotels
Going down those twin rabbit warrens called Instagram and Facebook
Watching episodes of Ghosts on the BBC iPlayer
Looking up the bios of all of the actors in Ghosts
Writing pointless lists
On that note, I really must get on.
Oh, I did do one useful thing. I updated the website. Check out the home page and the Norway section. There are now around 40 photos from the Norway trip in a gallery on the home page. Just click on the Norway link.
