5000+ woman can't be wrong

Today I had an amazing experience. I walked with over 5000 other pink-clad woman round Stormont Estate, Belfast as part of Cancer Research UK's 'Race for Life' in order to help raise money to find a cure for cancer.

I walked with woman who have survived cancer, women who have cancer, women who lost friends and/or family members to cancer, woman supporting friends and/or family members who are going through the trauma of cancer, some who work with people who have cancer, some who are working to find a cure and woman who just want to get rid of the disease forever.

I walked with people in wheelchairs, mums pushing strollers, women on walking sticks and crutches, pregnant ladies, toddlers, dogs and three pretty rough looking drag queens.

But everyone had one thing in common - it's time to find a cure. And 5000+ woman ... well, they just can't be wrong.

Thanks for your support. Today, we did a great thing.

Cancer Research 'Race for Life'

Tomorrow's the day

It has finally arrived. The intensive training programme ... never really got off the ground, but I did spend this afternoon lying in the garden 'acclimatising' to the current weather conditions.

My friend Etta and I spent some time on Google earth today hunting out a tree near the finishing line that was big enough for us to hide behind and then just jump and dander over the line when the first 'racers' came past, but conscience (eventually) got the better of us. That and the fact we didn't actually know where the finishing line is going to be ...

This has completely knocked my socks off: I have managed to raise £174.00 for Cancer Research UK plus a bit more with the 'fleece the Government' thingy and some cash donations.

I am totally, totally blown away, this has outdone ANY expectation I had, all I can say is a big, genuine thankyou to you all for your support, monetary donations and prayers for sunshine :-)

(sad to report, nobody has, as yet, donated any chocolate)

cheers all

Just checked the weather

All websites saying sunshine and temperatures of 20 oC for Belfast on Sunday :-)

Please God let that be at 11am precisely and directly over the Stormont estate. Thankyou!

More blogroll

Please note the new name on the blog. Peggy Bain is a friend I met whilst in Texas and a very funny lady.

She is also Nancy's other half in the Millie & Gertrude routine (although it's a bit like Ant and Dec; I'm not really sure which one's which!) That probably makes it appropriate enough that she falls right below Nancy on the blogroll.

Why I can't have football: Part 2

And if you think this is bad, you should read what they did to her husband here.

5 days to go

With only five days to go until the 'Race for Life' I have given up
any pretense of training and am instead asking everyone to pray that
the weather improves dramatically and it stays dry on Sunday morning!

The thought of being out in the kind of rain we've been having for the
length of time this is going to take me is not a happy one. Even for
charity.

Sometimes it's not easy being an Ulster rugby fan

And other times it's nigh on bl%dy impossible.

Now that Joanna Lumley has sorted out the Gurkhas, I wonder would she
consider trying to solve the problems at Ravenhill?

Sent from my iPhone

OK, so it's a bit rude

but this product, which is allegedly on sale in Irish supermarkets, is also hilariously funny ...

(read the bottom of the pack)

... nuff said

If music be the food of love ....

I'm a bit stuffed.

The Rev Garibaldi Biscuit plays a wee game about the tunes on your iPod. My iPhone is a relatively new acquisition and I haven't yet worked out (or had the time to work out) how to transfer my existing music onto it, so I have a mere 7 downloaded tracks to play with.

Ridiculously unbelieveable, I know. I shall work to improve that for next weeks round of the competition.

By the way, my 7th download was 'Life in a Northern Town' although not this (currently playing) traditional Dream Academy version. Back in the day I was more rock chick than disco babe and was a big fan of an American singer Rick Springfield, so when I discovered his version of this song on iTunes I just had to have it!

So go on, tell me ... what's the 7th track on your ipod / iPhone / phone / MP3 player / significant other music playing device? You never know, you might just inspire me for download no.8!

Dear Tooth Fairy

At 11.46am this morning Dolly lost a tooth. She performed the extraction herself, I think my hysterectomy took less time and was less dramatic, but that's a side issue.

We are all delighted the tooth has been successfully removed as a note had been written to the tooth fairy earlier in the week expressing concern that the tooth was so wobbly that there was genuine concern it might come out during the night and be swallowed.

I, for one, was not hunting that tooth out.

I have never been as close to a cow's arse

as I was at the Balmoral* show today. It wasn't a pretty sight, and as I tried to navigate nine excited children between two fairly squashed up lines of the animals, I did start to understand how Moses might have felt whilst negotiating the Red Sea crossing.

But in fact my overwhelming thought as we marched through what could definitely be called the 'splash' zone was if any of them (the cows obviously) as much as start to 'raise a tail' it's every man for himself, and I'm out of here!

I should mention that the experience was made all the richer by one student who ducked down under every beast, only to resurface and shout 'that one's a boy' or 'that one's a girl' much to the merriment of the farming folk around us.

Don't even ask what happened in the pig pens, or when they asked the farmer about his goats which were actually sheep, or how come the ASDA stand ran out of cake samples before ten thirty in the morning. All in a day's work!

* The Balmoral show is an annual event when the country comes to the town and literally set up farmyard in a large open venue in Belfast

Blogging on the go

Well, I can now blog on the bog so to speak. Not that I would you
understand, but I do have the technology to blog whenever or from
wherever I want. I shall try to restrain myself!

Victory!

Remember this? When Marks and Spencer started to charge £2 more for bras with cups larger than a DD, I was forced to join the paramilitary group otherwise known as 'Busts for Justice.'

To keep you abreast of the news, I would like to pass on that today M&S admitted they had made a boob. Customers have gone for the jugular and Marks & Spencer's unfair pricing decision has gone tits up. So there's a lesson for all you knockers who thought boycotting £10 meals deals wouldn't have any effect.

Read all about it here.

... happy birthday dear blog ...

My blog is three years old today. Originally known as 'Chemical's Blog', laterally 'The Diary of a Reformed Workaholic', it has been 36 months to the day since I posted my first ramblings thinking nobody would read them ... and three years and some 13,500 visitors later ....

Wow!

Did I ever think, three years ago, that I would make such great friends and acquaintances through blogging? NO! Did I ever think that blogging would take me half way round the world?? NO! Did I even think I would still be blogging in three weeks, never mind three years .... NO!!!

Thankyou to everyone who visits, reads, comments, look at the pictures or hides on this site. You could have no idea the difference your presence has made to me over the past three years. Yes Pluto, even you :-)

In honour of the occasion, have re posted my original rambling post below. Enjoy:

We were having lunch today when my sister-in-law (to be) casually suggested that I should have/keep/write (I'm not particularly IT literate, what exactly is the term I'm looking for here?) a blog. Blogging is new to me, in fact I've only ever seen two in my life, one of which belonged to afore mentioned sister-in-law (to be) and neither of which had lasted more than two months.

At least I don't have much to live up to then!

Anyway, I thought it would be good therapy for my poor confused mind, so here I am, blogging away (to myself, probably!)

I'm not too sure what to do now, but I have it on good authority that I should mention my interests. As such, I have spent the entire afternoon making up interests I could mention. I didn't come up with much, but thought that a good place to start would be rugby and geocaching, which are actually interests I do have.

An enthusiastic rugby fan, I support Ulster (Heineken Cup winners 1999; Celtic Cup winners 2002 and probably Celtic League winners 2006) first, Ireland second and any other team after that. I have relatives in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne who would have me say Falcons third, and if I thought there was a remote chance of them coming across this blog, I would. I am a season ticket holder at Ravenhill, the home of Ulster rugby, and also travel to a substantial number of away matches every season.

I am quite new to Geocaching. It has about a four week headstart on Blogging. Geocaching is a sort of hi-tech hide and seek 'sport' that uses GPSs and plastic lunchboxes full of old McDonalds freebies and the contents of last years Christmas Crackers. Some people take it very seriously, that said, it is quite addictive. If you are interested, and lets face it, if you are bored enough to read my ramblings, you probably need a new hobby, find out more here: http://geocaching.com/

I introduced my sister-in-law (to be) to Geocaching, I guess when she told me about Blogging she felt she owed me :-)

Off to paint my snails

Last week I met Dolly in the hall, armed with half a dozen bottles of brightly coloured nail polish. 'Where are you going with that?' I asked. 'I'm just going out to paint my snails' she replied.

No, it's not a typo.

Apparently some CBBC programme said if you painted snails in your garden with nail polish you could keep track of them better. So she did.

So, if you see a snail with bright red or glittery pink nail polish ... please take care of it; it's more than likely one of ours!