The Secret

For around a month Mr Myasthenia Kid aka Jay and

I have had to keep an enormous secret, I won’t lie

it’s been incredibly difficult. Some of the first people

I wanted to tell were you my blog followers.  We

had been sworn to secrecy and we didn’t want to jeopardise

it, so as best we could we kept the news to a smallish

group of people. However now the secret is out and

I can share it with you.

In the UK there is a channel called the Sewing Quarter,

you can check them out on YouTube as the 4 hour

show is downloaded daily. Jay and I have been watching

it since it started being broadcast by Sky Television in

January this year. The channel sells fabric, sewing

machines, quilting accessories anything really to do

with sewing by machine or hand. It also however has

excellent hints and tips for people of all abilities and

I have learnt loads from watching the show, much more

than I could have done by reading books as you have

things demonstrated in front of you. The main reason

I think a lot of viewers watch though is due to the main

presenters John Scott and Natasha McCarty, both have

very different presentation styles but they are equally

enjoyable to watch. They also have a guests on that

demonstrate the items that the channel is selling that

day. It is after all a channel that exists to sell products,

it has no outside advertising so to exist it must make

money, that is the way of the world.

Back in January Jay and I were decorating the lounge

and whilst we were doing that we had the sewing

channel on as it was their birthday week. They had

lots of special offers, competitions and a sew off

between Natasha and John - hilarious. Well whilst

we were painting Jay must have been listening quite

intently to John, as a few weeks later I was sewing

in the kitchen and jay piped up “ As Rachel is finishing

off her Easter wreath, I will take you through today's bundles”.

I had to stop sewing I was laughing so hard. I mentioned

it on the Sewing Quarter fan page and people started

asking for a video. I posted something along the lines

of if John Scott mentions Jay on the show then he will

do a video. So this happened - sorry for the poor quality

of the sound and shaky camera work, I have recorded

it using my phone straight off the TV.

We were mentioned a few more times during this

week, much to our delight so on the Sunday Jamie

decided he would do his first video.

It went down exceptionally well with the fans of the

show, to be honest it went a bit crazy! Later than

evening whilst I was in bed Jay came rushing in to tell

me the head honcho at the channel Neil Garratt had

sent him a message on Facebook and what should he do?

You see Jay is not brilliantly tech savvy, he can operate

Facebook but he had no idea he would have to accept

a message to be able to respond to it etc. I was in

shock and looked at his phone to see that indeed

Neil had messaged him. I accepted the message

and then handed the phone back to Jay to let him

read it. It said that they wanted Jay on the show to be

alongside John and that we had to keep it quiet as

they wanted it to be a surprise for the fans. Jay had to

email him and one of the members of staff form the

show would be in touch with us.

Within a few days it was all set in motion that Jay and

I would travel to Birmingham and visit Sewing Quarter HQ

and that Jay would be on air on 12th March. It was all very

exciting but oh so difficult to arrange and keep a secret.

Especially when Jay had to organise time off work and

I had to organise a dog sitter for Mollie and Frankie.

Hayley the lovely lady that we were working with offered

us a hotel room for the Sunday night but as we had never

left the dogs overnight before ( and they are old doggies now)

we didn’t feel comfortable doing that. We decided we would

travel up that day and do it all in one as we had when we

went to the Emma Bridgewater Factory in October last year.

When Jay did the first video and I posted it onto the

Sewing Quarter Fans Page on Facebook people had

asked for more. Even people who had never seen the

Sewing Quarter but were friends with us on Social

Media asked for more when I posted the video to my

Facebook timeline and Instagram. So to keep Jay

relevant and the fans happy, we recorded another video,

plus we had been mentioned a few times on the show

by John Scott ( which we always got an enormous kick out of).

The second video went down as well as the first,

which was a huge relief!

My planning and organising went into military operation

mode, my anxiety has been up through the roof since

suffering a series of bereavements at the beginning of the year

/ end of last year. My need to control everything as much as

possible was in overdrive. I am sure Jamie must have got

sick to death of my ever-growing to do list that seemed

to cover every minute aspect of our lives! New shirts for

Jamie had to be bought as John is famous for his flamboyant

shirts, Jay couldn’t appear in his usual conservative style.

Thankfully my best mate from primary school Sharon,

offered to look after the dogs as soon as I told her

what had happened. She like everyone else that

knew what was happening said it was about time that

we had something nice happen after all we had been through.

Ellie offered us a car to use should something happen to

ours, she also said she would be available to assist Sharon

should she need any help. So many people offered us so

much help and support it really was amazing.

The time between knowing that we were travelling to

Birmingham and getting there seemed to at the same

time to pass very slowly but also very quickly. It was

so exciting but the excitement was stopping me from

sleeping. From Monday night onwards this week I have

been out for the count before 7.30pm. I am totally exhausted

and in a lot of pain but it has been worth it.

Jay made a final video before our trip to Birmingham

When this one went up, so many of our friends and people

on the fans site were saying “when will they be on the

show together?” and that kind of thing. I just kept saying

nothing that would give the game away, although it was

getting harder and harder to keep this secret. I will

admit on Friday last week I did message a few people

and let them know that Jay was going to be on the

show. People were beside themselves with excitement

and were so happy for us. It was really lovely to know

that all these people were delighted for us.

There is so much more I could tell you, I will probably expand

more on the experience in next weeks blog post but I am

aware this post is already getting quite wordy and its been

the most I have written in months.

So from the Sewing Quarter Monday 12th March 2018

here are Jays appearances:

This one is my favourite, its Jay closing the show with John

We would both like to say a massive thank you to everyone

at the Sewing Quarter HQ, especially Hayley Marshallsay,

John Scott and Deborah Simms.

The Sewing Quarter is on Channel 678 Sky Tv, 78 Free view, online at www.sewingquarter.com between 8am-12pm and YouTube from the afternoon on which the show aired.