Exhausting Fun!

WE WENT TO LONDON TO FILM THE CHRISTMAS AD...
THE MOST EXHAUSTING FUN I’VE EVER HAD....
EVERYONE PUSHED THEMSELVES RIGHT TO THE LIMIT....
REALLY STILL CAN’T BELIEVE I’M IN IT!!!!!

Hello everyone
This week I wanted to give you more of an insight into what goes on behind the scenes when making an extra special TV advert.

I have previously described how it felt to film the autumn 30 second adverts starting to be on screen from the end of September. At the time I was surprised how long it took to film and how much work was involved. After filming the latest Christmas advert over four days I now think those ones were easy! I don’t want to spoil the surprise by telling you exactly what we were all doing but will say it involved dancing, amazing costumes and about 100 extras.

When I look back now I don’t believe what I actually did and think it will only seem real once it airs on TV for the first time around mid November. None of us are actors, dancers, or singers; we really are just normal Iceland customers who have found ourselves in a very surreal situation quite unlike our normal lives. It’s such an amazing opportunity to show the world, and more importantly ourselves, what we are actually capable of if we put our minds to it. Being in a group really helped too as we all had our moments of self doubt, missing our families, or injury but the way we all supported each other and pulled together was amazing.

You have to remember we all have family lives; children and loved ones at home. For some of us with younger children it was the first time we had really left them for any length of time with others. We were all suffering from tiredness too as the days filming started early and didn’t finish till late evening, so all emotions were running high. Once in costume we couldn’t stray far from the set either for fear of being needed, or in my case for fear of tripping up and landing in a puddle or something and ruining our outfits!

The dance routine was also very mentally and physically tiring, as we had to concentrate hard on the moves, whilst remembering to smile, and watch the choreographers at the side without showing that we were looking at them! I don’t know how professional dancers do it. At one point I described it as a mixture of boot camp and the big brother house! However when you have gone through all that and come out the other side the reward you get is the most amazing sense of achievement you could ever imagine. It really is a priceless feeling. If someone had talked me through exactly what I would be doing for the four days step by step and told me the hours involved and asked me beforehand if I could do it, I would have instantly replied “I can’t do that”. Well the big surprise for me was I could, and did do it!

There is also a lot of sitting around involved when filming adverts and whilst you might think that bit sounds easy, once you see our costumes you will realise even that was challenging!It was in these moments though we really all got to know each other and discussed anything and everything, including copying each other’s accents, sharing jokes and life stories telling ghost stories and scaring each other! Considering how little sleep we all had compared to a normal week, the atmosphere was electric and full of energy.

We also celebrated two birthdays and an anniversary and found time to eat cake! I think at some point or other I experienced every emotion possible in those four days and even made up a few new ones! I nearly fainted, had a nose bleed, and got told to sit down with someone holding my feet up! It’s funny though, looking back now I just remember all the fun and laughter the most.

After returning to the normal world again and coming out of the limelight I went to the other extreme and went on a camping trip with my boys, Rob and his children to a lovely campsite on a farm in the Forest of Dean.

Completely off the beaten track with woods to play in, rope swings, cute baby piglets and the space to make real fires and toast marshmallows. Two other friends had also taken their children, so in total there were nine free spirits of various ages running around and getting back to what children used to do, before computer games and TV were invented. I sat there watching the sausages sizzle on the fire with my nice plastic wine glass and asked myself why we didn’t go camping more often. It really was idyllic with beautiful sunsets. Then the rain set in and popped my bubble, killed our new gazebo, and flooded the tents!

It was at that point I remembered why we don’t go camping more often!

Thanks for reading and please come back next week to read all about my next adventure, my life really is the most exciting roller-coaster ride at the moment!
Ellie
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Birthday and Christmas!

WE TOOK LUKE FOR A BIRTHDAY BOWLING TREAT....
TWO GAMES EACH AND A BITE TO EAT...
WE PILED INTO CARS AND STARTED TO RACE.........
REALLY SHOULD HAVE CHECKED EVERYONE KNEW WHICH BOWLING PLACE!!!!

Apologies for missing a week’s blog but what a jam packed two weeks I have had!

Since I last wrote, Luke has turned 7 and lost his two front baby teeth. He had a great birthday and amongst other things got the dreaded “Mouse trap” game, he had been asking for, for ages. I understand now why you always see this game in pieces at every car boot sale you ever go to. By the time you have assembled the numerous little plastic pieces, the children have lost interest completely and gone off to do something else!


We have decided the time of big birthday parties on bouncy castles has ended, phew! So instead, we invited a few close friends to come bowling. As usual I was totally disorganised and as we all jumped into our cars shouting “last one there is a Barbie doll”, it did not occur to me to check that everyone knew which bowling alley we were going to!

After waiting outside for 15 minutes the slow realisation dawned that our friends in the third car were on their way to a different venue 20 miles in the opposite direction! I was just about to phone them when I also realised I had left my phone at home on charge. Panic set in as I didn’t even know their number to use someone else’s phone. However, when you are used to regular minor disasters like I am you become very good at problem solving. In the end I got Rob to phone a friend of his, who lives next door to a mutual friend of mine and they lived next door to the people in the lost third car, to tell them to turn around; genius! The best part of living in a small town is that there is always a connection with everybody. And we only had to wait an hour while they drove back from the other side of Bristol in the rush hour.

Once we were all in the same place we had a fantastic night, the children were much more mature and sensible on their lane whilst the adults enjoyed getting very competitive and laughing at each other; happy days!

Christmas also came early this week as I went off to London to film the Iceland Christmas advert, over 4 days with the other “Iceland Mums”. You may remember me saying that I was amazed at how long it took to make a 30 second ad. Well now I know that was a walk in the park compared to filming a full minute Christmas extravaganza! There is so much to say I might have to fit it into two blogs.
Let me start by telling you about the “Iceland mum’s”. There are 17 of us in total and we will all be appearing in the main Christmas one. I can’t say too much about what we were actually doing as I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but I will just say a lot of sweat and tears went into achieving the end result, so it will be well worth watching! As a group we have become extremely close but are all still unique in our own ways. There is;
Amira, who kept me sane throughout the whole experience and stopped me from jumping the fence shouting “I’m NOT a celebrity get me out of here!” in the mad moments! She sees the best in everybody and never complains.

Lizzie, who has just become a very proud granny or “glammy” as she will be known. She speaks her mind and has a strong moral sense of right and wrong. She also has the biggest heart and is very protective of the people closest to her.

Eve, a great friend with a fantastic sense of humour. She can see the funny side of every situation in life, where some others might feel self pity and give up!

Alissa, always looks beautiful, even first thing in the morning after 3 hours sleep, great company and always with a story to tell; the most amazing accent of Dutch mixed with Liverpudlian.
Sue, the brightest eyes I’ve ever seen, always full of sparkle and life, and constantly looking after all the others.

Bev, beautiful and very talented although she doesn’t realise it. She overcame nerves and I hope she feels as proud as she should be for doing it.

Charlene, better than any prescription medication for cheering people up! A complete ray of sunshine, always full of energy and constantly laughing and making everyone else laugh too.
Victoria, very tactile and caring to others, has a dry sense of humour that saved us all in the exhausted moments.

Lisa, like a beautiful little china doll, her feet are so small she could have swapped her shoes with one of the children on set!

Sam, so down to earth and easy to talk to, a real gem, one of those people you meet and think you have known for ages, with a tiny waist approximately the same size as one of my thighs!

Natalie, the organiser; confident and in control, and calm in a crisis. You can depend on her and she puts others before herself.

Lorraine, you could write a book about her! As the oldest Iceland mum, a retired professional dancer and cabaret performer, she put us all to shame with her amazing energy and fitness. She could do the splits; dance for 18 hours and still want to go out afterwards! She had stories about everything and everybody, including Tom Jones, and kept us all entertained for hours. If only we could all be like Lorraine, she was an inspiration!

Melanie, Babs, Kim, and the other Bev came for one day of filming too.

Melanie was one of the other 7 finalists in the original competition and she and I have become very close, so it was lovely to see her. You just know when you “click” with people instantly and are on the same wave length and that is Melanie for me.

Babs is the only other mum who comes from my part of the country so it was lovely to hear an accent from home. Kim and Bev were lovely too but I sadly didn’t get much time to spend with them and am hoping to get to know them better as the “Iceland mums” phenomenon gathers pace!

And as for me.....well you’d have to ask the other Iceland mums!

So, now you know who’s who, please come back next week so I can tell you about the amazing, incredible, surreal, exhausting, invigorating roller coaster ride of highs and lows we all experienced making the Christmas advert. I would never have believed I could have done some of the things we did, and am so grateful to Iceland for pushing me right out of my comfort zone and proving to myself I have much more mental and physical strength than I ever knew.
Ellie
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Food testing and airport embarrassment!

AS I WALKED THROUGH THE AIRPORT PEOPLE WERE LOOKING AT ME....
WAS IT BECAUSE I WOULD BE ON TV.......?
DID THEY RECOGNISE AN ICELAND MUM......?
NO, IT WAS BECAUSE I HAD THE HEAD REST STUCK TO MY BUM!!!!

Hello, I thought this week I should start by telling you one last flying related story.

As I walked through the airport for the third time I was feeling pretty pleased with myself as I was being so much braver about flying. I was wheeling my case along amongst the business travellers with their lap top bags and thinking how confident, professional and sophisticated I must look now. I even felt as if people were looking at me, and it was as I was wondering how people recognised me when the TV adverts hadn’t been aired yet that a lady tapped me on the shoulder.

“Excuse me” she said ”I think you’ve got something there...” as she pointed behind me. I looked round to see that the bright purple head rest saying “South West Airlines” had attached itself to my bottom with Velcro!! It must have happened when I reached up to get my bag out of the overhead locker and it slowly sunk in how many people I had strutted past feeling confident actually looking like a bit of a wally! For some people this might have been very embarrassing, but luckily embarrassing situations seem to happen to me so regularly I now just find them funny, and just think of the good story I gave the lady to tell when she got home!

Anyway, this week I had a great new task from Iceland. One that means no travelling and involves all the family and some friends. We have been asked to become official food tasters on specific products. Each week from now on I will be sent a list of things to pick up from my local Iceland and give the food marks out of 10 for taste, value, appearance etc. I have told the boys it is now an official job and they will be paid 20p per item reviewed if they write it all down. As Rob is vegetarian I also enlisted the help of some friends and their children.

One of the items was a family barbeque pack which seemed like a perfect excuse for a little party! Everyone took it very seriously and gave me scores and quotes on every product. At one point we had 5 adults and 12 children in the house, so I think we were a legitimate test group. Luckily my house is well equipped for dealing with children and they were amused by playing on the trampoline, on the Wii and having a Lego building competition. Isn’t it funny though if you get out a box of Lego, it is always the adults who end up building things long after the children have moved onto something else. It was a lovely relaxed evening despite the unavoidable chaos of that many people in one space. I am looking forward to seeing the next list of products to test.

I have also been sent some exercises and a work out DVD in preparation for filming of the Christmas adverts in London next week. I have been trying to fit this in around work, school holiday entertainments, Luke’s birthday preparations, food tasting, general housework and making a short film of our lives for Iceland. Unfortunately this hasn’t left a very big time slot and it’s very hard to concentrate on exercises with two little boys laughing at you and Luke making helpful comments like “why aren’t you doing it the same as that lady on TV!” I am just hoping that my normal busy routine is a good stamina builder too when it comes to the dancing in London, but am determined to fit in a few more goes even if it means being laughed at.

So far this holiday we have managed two cinema trips, the first one just had one hiccup when Sam spilt the entire contents of his pop corn in the queue just as I was saying “Sam you are going to drop your pop corn like that”. The second one had a slightly bigger hiccup when the car petrol hose fell off on the way home and the fire brigade were called to close the area and hose everything down whilst we waited on a busy road in the centre of Bristol for the break down truck. On the plus side though the boys did enjoy meeting the firemen and seeing the fire engine! We are taking Luke and his friends bowling later in the week for his 7th birthday so am just keeping fingers crossed that goes smoothly!

I hope you can join me again soon to hear if all Luke’s birthday wishes came true, and to hear more about the exciting filming of the Iceland Christmas adverts.

Ellie
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