Another side of Lesley Riddoch

A great Burns Supper at Portmoak

I was asked to the Immortal Memory by Dave Batchelor at the Traditional Burns Supper in Portmoak Village hall on behalf of the Portmoak Community Woodland group.  If you click on the image, you will be taken to some photos on my husband's Facebook page. It was a great night with entertainment all the way from a splendid but terrifying Address to the Haggis through traditional and not not so traditional Burns with a detour via bogs with Mike McGuinnes who had me in stitches. Really great night and lots of fun and my first Immortal Memory...phew.

Celtic Connections - today - Tuesday

I will be at the Exhibition Hall at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on Tuesday 29 January at 12.30pm in conversation with my old friend, Iain Anderson. I always find the Celtic Connections very jolly  and Mr Anderson is a great host - so the craic should be good. Make a wee note in your diary and if you are around - pop along.

Riddoch On the Bike Sundays 6am Radio Scotland

Great news for insomniacs, shift workers and Ministers. You can start Sunday mornings by listening to a rerun of the 13 part series “Lesley’s On the Bike” which captures the craic, colour, arguments and opinions I gathered during a cycle from Barra to the Butt of Lewis two years ago.

Thanks to John Fegan for his kind words on programme one – and for reminding me the repeats are being broadcast again!

I really enjoyed your programme on Barra. It's one of the few Hebridean islands I haven't visited yet but hope to get there this summer.

I listened to the programme this morning and it was the perfect tonic to a wet,windy sunday morning (6am). It was the humour of the islanders that had me smiling. Your comments on the complience of island men leading into one of them mentioning your dominant appearance in your cycling gear  made me chuckle as did the comments of the man in the cycle shop.  But what made me laugh out loud startling my sleeping wife was the the councillor talking about his laptop.

' it's water cooled, it's old''.

Couple that with remarks on mobile phones coming via Orange on a predominantly Catholic island and the guy who bought two phones with no reception yet just started my day of beautifully.

I'm really looking forward to the rest of your journey.

This week's Aftermath was found chained to a railing

This week's Aftermath is all about bells, paths and parkies and folding bikes. The crew get to grips with a series of bike related banter, as they say, in the trade. Check it out as Sean,David, Richard and Lesley try to make sense of cycling.

Horace Broon, John Swinney and Burns

What a luminous line-up for a hidden wee glen! The Glen Prosen Burns Supper featured Alan Cochrane, Daily Telegraph columnist addressing the Haggis, the Reverend James Weatherhead (former Moderator) as MC, John Swinney, Minister for Everything and local MSP with the Immortal Memory and Randall McAllister a former Episcopalian Minister with the Toast to the Lasses. John announced he was about to deliver the "Horace Broon" Immortal Memory -- after finding a Broons Burns Supper Guide in the Sunday Post. Sadly John lost the guide - and of course produced a tour de force of his own creation. Leaving the audience lost in wonder at the "dead ringer" for Horace Broon standing before us! Has anyone told the Finance Secretary he has a cartoon double!?

Your baby is ok...the Aftermath

Your baby is ok...Aftermath

The Aftermath podcast is now available and basically follows on the Telehealth theme with everyone telling a baby story. There is a fair bit of adult themed banter, the podcast bleeper was deployed once and a couple of serious points were made.

Burns suppers

This weekend I am off to Glen Prosen for a Burns supper and the memories of previous suppers prompted me to write about it in the month's No1 magazine. 

You can download and read it here.

A musical flavour to this week's Aftermath

This week's Aftermath is a torrid musical affair which includes broadband, unions, lurex and music. But not in that order.Check it out !

Happy New Year

Hogmanay

Why write about Hogmanay almost two weeks after the event? Because it’s taken a full week to draw breath since we got back from a fabulous, friendly, traditional and sun-kissed New Year on North Uist! We stayed in one of Neil Nicholson’s thatched houses at Clachan Sands and spent Hogmanay at the first properly run house-ceilidh I’ve been at for a decade. Ruraidh Nicholson (Neil’s big fisherman wee brother) and Abby his irrepressible wife played host to a wonderful assortment of undiscovered raw talent. But first someone had to get the TV turned off. And as soon as the bells had been and gone, I decided that someone was going to be me.

Lesley@feisty.fm bites the dust

Just to say that my old email address "lesley@feisty.fm" has shuffled off the mortal coil. Regarded by many official servers as the suffix of the devil the fm ending has caused emails to bounce back with increasing regularity. Hey ho – it seemed a good idea at the time for a gal who loves radio.

So from now on I’m ONLY contactable at lesley@feistyproductions.co.uk