The Lancashire HotPot.

Ha ha ha! Bet you all thought I’d fallen off the side of the earth because the programme was awful and I was too embarrased to show my face didn’t you?? Well you would be right. No I’m only joking, but never, ever believe anything you see on television ever, ever again. And if a director comes along and say she is going to do a sensitive portrait of your lives, box her ears and send her packing…

So firstly I agreed to do the programme if they agreed to promote BrocanteHome (So I’m shameless, what are you going to do about it??). It didn’t happen. Secondly I was told that the programme included a variety of other "housewives", including a man with seven kids and a high flying career wife, and a woman who led an exclusively organic lifestyle. Neither of whom appeared on the programme: mostly it seems because they were making space for a range of  other lunatics including a nutty lady who believes in fairies, an Essex Girl, and a woman who lives on chocolate!!

We were on in the first ten minutes: the first wacky household to be featured. Except we weren’t wacky. We were kind of normal: just how strange is it to cook your partner a meal at the end of the day??  I spent the whole time hiding behind a glass of champagne my lovely friend Kath had brought round, only peeking out to see exactly what I was up to on national tv, when to my mortal shame, the voiceover described me as a "Lancashire Hotpot".

A Lancashire Hotpot!!! I may never regain my dignity.

It all went downhill after that. I was seen feeding Finley in the middle of the living room floor because they didn’t want me to mess the table up before they were ready to film breakfast. Then carrying my famous pink bin bags out the back door and then to my horror, out of the backyard and into the manky shared path where the bins are (I didn’t even know they had filmed that.), and finally, bizarrely, eating our fake evening meal at eleven o’clock in the morning with the curtains drawn- (I never close the curtains and it looked a show!!) the window’s blacked out and the poor darling production assistant on a ladder holding a black out curtain over the door.   

It was all very wierd and disjointed and apart from the fact that we all live in houses, there was no common thread between me and the other women at all.

That said: Finley looked gorgeous, Mark was a sweetheart, and though I turn out to have a seriously squeeky voice, it really wasn’t that horrible, the house looked sunny and we looked exactly what we are: happy with our lot.

But I will never do it again.

P.S Please excuse the quality of the photographs above: I was trying to photograph the tv, so you could get a feel of  what was shown, but plainly it didn’t work…