IT'S WEDNESDAY.....

…..so you all know what that means - it’s “Girls About Town”.  We had a great show this morning and it was made even better because, having missed lemon drizzle cake last week, Jo made vegan chocolate brownies - but sadly, Clare, who is a vegan wasn’t there - so we had to eat her share too!

Jo had just taken the brownies out of the oven before she came to the studio, so the tin was still warm - and her own comment was that it looked like something from "The Quatermass Experiment"!  Those of you who are of a certain age will remember that the show was a British Science Fiction programme, but I put a shot of the said brownie in so that those of you who haven’t the faintest idea of what I am talking about will see what it looks like.  In Angela’s words, “Undeterred by the look of the vegan brownies, the Girls About Town” devoured them!”

Jo is at the top right “Daring to be different” and even poking out her tongue - actually I think she was just licking crumbs of the brownie off her lips, because it did have a “stickability quality” about it - especially around the teeth and lips - and probably later on the hips!  But who cares - it was fun and we all enjoyed it, as you can see from the various photographs in my collage today.

You can see me stuffing my face, eating my brownie daintily in the middle left shot and in the large photograph, going clockwise from the bottom is Vikki, who was really excited about the brownies (as you can see from the bottom left shot!), Angela, who is one of the “girls”, and brings a "touch of class" to the show, Karen, who was on the reception desk, but heard us talking about  brownies and came in to see what they were like, me and Jo, beaming all over her face - probably because we kept telling her how wonderful the brownies were.  

You probably think that the programme this morning was all about cake - and it was mentioned several times, but we did discuss other things too - including the beautiful Diamond Painting picture at the bottom middle of the collage and made especially for "Girls About Town".  This was made by Lyn Bayliss, from the Jovial Monk public house in North Swindon, who is very active in raising money, together with Sue McDonald, for the Wiltshire Air Ambulance and the Community defibrillator at the pub.  She told me this took her about 8-10 hours to make - and it is a wonderful work of art - not sure I would have the patience to place all those little diamond shapes, but she enjoys making them and told me that this is one of her favourites.

A special story about Lyn - and this happened last week when Jo, Clare and I were away, was that she proposed to her long-term partner, to whom she has been engaged for 20 years, over the airwaves!  How special is that?  She told him to put the reply in the window for when she got home - and sure enough, he had written “YES” in big letters on their front door for her to see when she got home!  So romantic and I think I might need to buy a hat very soon for the Wedding of the Year!

At the top of the collage you can see Vikki and her son, Morgan, who is also a Presenter at Swindon 105.5 and often does voice-overs and clips about what’s happening around Swindon.  He is only 9 years old, but is wise beyond his years and very confident.  He wanted a pair of red gloves and Vikki wanted some multi-coloured ones, so I took them over today - having made six pairs whilst on holiday, and made some more money for the radio station, which is run by volunteers and funded by donations.

It was a great morning and such fun to be on the programme today - and before we knew it, the two hours had gone and we had consumed most of the brownies - although Jo did share them around the various studios.

I wonder if Eleanor Roosevelt had brownies in mind when she said this:

“The purpose of life is to live it, 
     to taste experience (and even Jo’s brownies) to the utmost, 
          to reach out eagerly and without fear 
               for newer and richer experience.” 
Eleanor Roosevelt