Thursday 15 March 2018

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.



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