“Yes.  I am ’that lassie aff the telly’.  Of course I’ll sign the back of your, um… bus ticket.  Add me on Facebook?  Eh, yeah. Sure.  Why not?”**

Last year, I starred in a tv ad with my friend and business partner (whom, incidentally, I regularly refer to as ‘my other half’ baffling most people I speak to and causing headlines like ‘Making Love’ to appear above stories about us in the local press).  Her name is Clare Nicolson. Though you would be forgiven for thinking her name is Zooey Deschanel.  Together, Clare and I are ‘the Made in the Shade gals’.

So, there we were typing frantically on our respective computers at work one afternoon when a Crazy Exciting Mail swung on in to our Made in the Shade inbox. Adding many a high pitched whoop and cheer to an otherwise rather dark time, we grabbed the opportunity  and accepted our tv ‘roles’ as indie business champions, vintage obsessives and design geeks.  ”Oh wait!  We ARE indie business champions, vintage obsessives and design geeks! All we gotta do is act naturally!”  So we did. Well, you know.  Sort of.  Just like Buck Owens said.

Here’s the TV ad.

Just about every waking moment of our week long tour from one end of the UK to the other was caught on camera.  The premise of our journey? To visit some of the best independent businesses in Britain, get to know the people behind them and gather a collection of homegrown, handmade products to sell in our grand finale pop-up shop – all organised and co-ordinated using our snazzy E7 handsets (of course). I think it probably goes without saying, that we don’t get to hang out in distilleries every day (contrary to common cultural stereotypes) and similarly, regardless of the indie business values we proudly share with old-time fish wives, neither of us had ever gutted a kipper before.  You can watch a ‘lil 3 minute film of all the stuff we got up to here.

This brief moment in front of the camera sparked off a weird desire in me to be in front of it more and I set about planning a series of funny films for Carrie Not The Kind Of Girl You’d Marry.  Despite the best intentions and all those well laid plans – heck, we all know what usually happens to them – this is all I’ve come up with so far.  A crude gif file of me doing star jumps in my red jumpsuit.  That’s right.  A gif.  Of me.  Doing star jumps.  In my red jumpsuit.

Carrie Not The Kind Of Girl You’d Marry TV – coming to a screen near you.  Honest to goodness. I’m doing it.  I’m really doing it.

**No one EVER asked me to sign anything.  Or to be their friend on Facebook – but the ladies who work in my local corner shop did recognise me and I got pointed at by a group of tweenagers on the bus once who got very excited when I waved at them.  I waved at them like the queen just for fun.