waking up nice and early after having just four hours sleep in the wonderful king size bed, marks the end of the birthday hotel treat – time now to hit the road and head further north to Leeds, the ITV headquarters to be exact .. for today is Emmerdale filming. Within half hour of motorway driving things come to a standstill, with a ‘car park’ type view ahead i switch off the engine and concentrate on some meditative breathing.

It was a three car accident, they get moved to the hard shoulder and we can finally pass (after a 45 minute standstill).  I’d left with plenty of time in hand, but now, it was going to be a close shave to catch my call time of 10.30am.

Remarkably i reach ITV headquarters in Leeds at 10:45am (the dogs took up the fifteen minute lateness else i’d have been bang on time).  As soon as I get to reception i’m wishing i hadn’t agreed to this. There are about 50 of us all herded in and i know this is going to be a bit of a dull filming experience (it always is when there are loads of people – and this is an ‘audience’ scene, so we’re just a herd of cattle really).

There’s me thinking we’ll be filming in HQ too but no, alas, we’re bumped into 2 mini buses and driven out 40 minutes to Ilkley Town Hall .. (this puts a bit more of a dampener on my day because my dogs are back in the van and i know we’re probably going to be on set until 6 or 7pm and i have futurejack rehearsals starting in Liverpool at 7.30pm and timing is not adding up) – but hey, that feeling of ‘trapped’ness’, it hurts more if you tussle with it, best to give in and stay calm.

So, we’re all bundled off the bus. This is where i am….

This is how i’m feeling …..

 

This is what i am involved in, filming for Emmerdale …

It’s about midday by now and we’re ushered into a back room where i sit off for about an hour, before one of the runners comes in and says, ‘we’re going to break for lunch now’ … to be honest, it hasn’t been a hard graft at all, in fact, i’ve done nothing other than mooch about, and now i’m going to be fed …

i forgot to take a picture before i ate it!  but it was Salmon and rice and broccoli and i got some Stilton and beetroot and rocket on the side!  very good food, the caterers were quite exceptional i thought …. didn’t catch their company name though else i’d definitely have given them a good plug!

Anyway, about an hour later, we’re shipped back on board to go 2 minutes down the road, back to the town hall

The rest of the filming goes pretty well (albeit i am really bored, and i realise i’m not good as simulating the cheering of contestants in an american style pageant come talent show) …. i find it somewhat creepy that parents could ever allow their pre-pubescent daughters to dress in skimpy leotards and tutus and tiaras with ploughed on make-up and glitter and false eyelashes to parade around for the ego sake of smug satisfaction of the self.  Per se, I do believe this was the case that Emmerdale writers were acknowledging/highlighting, (but to be honest it would be better not to promote this in any way shape or form, ever).

And so it was, ‘that’s a wrap’ called at about 6pm after much clapping, cheering, oooooohing, ahhhhhhing and moving around seats of the auditorium to make us look like an audience of hundreds rather than the forty to fifty we were …. i mostly hid behind my hands – if i don’t believe in something, i cannot pretend to, so admittedly this shebang made me feel dead uncomfortable, the whole time worrying about my dogs and getting to futurejack rehearsals but you know, time can sprint ahead and before i knew it i was back with my dogs and i spared them some precious moments before the drive back to Liverpool – i gave them a pack of salami between them, but my little Lhasa gorged it all so quickly, he promptly honked it back up, to which my cross-breed dived in and munched …. my day couldn’t get any grosser.

The drive home, another motorway pile up, more car park traffic jams and i finally arrived at rehearsals at half past nine, without my guitar so had to use my drummer’s which had to be mic’d up and my head was falling apart and i wasn’t in the best frame of mind, but we got an hour together and another friend arrived to my rescue and took me home to his flat where i could bathe in a hot bath, get a pint of snakebite and curl up on the couch for the night.

Tuesday was done and dusted!