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!

Sharing resources

Pluto very kindly sent me a video of a French lesson from his school to help me as I cover a maternity leave in French.

Phil Packer

Major Phil Packer, an officer in the Royal Military Police, was injured in a rocket attack in Basra on 19 Feb 08. As a result of the accident he lost the use of his legs and is now a paraplegic with what are classed as catastrophic injuries.

Originally told he would never walk again, there have been positive improvements and it is his aspiration to walk the Flora London Marathon from the 26th April this year over a two week period, on crutches.

He does this in an attempt to raise £1million for Help for Heros, a charity launched in October 2007 by a group of friends and service relations who wanted to do something to help the wounded coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq.

This makes my 'dander for life' efforts pale into total insignificance. Please, consider sponsoring him

I'm in love

The most perfect partner a girl could ask for; good-looking, intelligent, slim, sexy, entertaining, musical, does exactly what you want and doesn't answer back. Or snore.

We are inseparable

Ohhhhh la la!

So I am teaching French. Finally all those years of intensive study of the French and their rugby physique has paid off.

And I kid you not, the first unit I am teaching is parties du corp! Well, my accent might not be up to scratch, but you should see my visual aids :-)

View from my window

The offending tree

Hey-ho, hey-ho; it's off to work I go

I am about to start a long stint of work. Tomorrow is the first day of a maternity leave I am covering which will keep me gainfully employed until next January! Although it seems like a long (very long!) time, it has the advantage of being broken down into two sessions; the first from now until the end of June and the second from September until January, so that will help it seem just not quite so intensive.

Of course, I don't get paid for July and August, that's because being a substitute teacher, I only get paid for the days I work and not holidays. Not that this worries me as I have a bit of a Joseph thing going on whereby I store up during the time of the fat cows.

Resigning a very well paid, full-time job with nothing to go to was a big step off the edge of a high cliff, but one which, for health reasons, just had to be taken. However, if you believe things are 'meant to be', then this was definitely one of those things.

Since I resigned, I have been extremely fortunate in that I have had plenty of substitute work and could have in fact been gainfully employed virtually every school working day. And there's the added advantages of having the flexibility of being able to say 'no' if or when I need to and of having much less stress and therefore no more brain-rot. But don't for one minute think that I take any of this for granted - I know there are subs out there who are getting little or no work.

So it's off to work I go. Anyone care to guess what subject I will be teaching ..... ;-)

Postcrossing

A couple of months ago we started (another) new project called Postcrossing. Basically, you send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person somewhere in the world!

It's been a big hit with the kids and we are charting our progress on a big world map on the wall of the playroom and here on our special Postcrossing blog.

Worth a look if you are into collecting stamps, postcards, or have kids who like the idea of penpals but not the enthusiasm for writing long letters!

Update on No. 2395

In preparation for 'Dander for Life', I bought my first pair of trainers in 25 years last week. Do they ask everyone if they want life insurance with them?

I have some frankly unbelieveable news to share about my fundraising. Sit down and get yourselves a cup of tea or a whiskey before you read on.

When I set the total I hoped to raise at £100 I reckoned that, although ambitious, I would at least be able to make up many mysterious donations to myself in order to achieve that total and not lose face!

I can hardly believe that, so far, I have managed to raise a jaw dropping £124.00 for Cancer Research UK. And although some of the names on the list look pretty mysterious, I swear none of them are me!!

Together we are helping Cancer Research UK work at preventing, diagnosing and treating cancer. What can I say, other than a big, BIG thankyou for your support.

Ali

Here's politician I would vote for

There's been talk of having a homecoming parade for the regiment of two soldiers shot dead in Antrim last month. Surprise, surprise - Sinn Féin was the only party to object.

The motion was put forward by the Ulster Unionist councillor Adrian Watson. You got to love his response to Sinn Féin:

"You don't have to get out of your lazy bed to come down and be offended, just stay away."

Couldn't have put it better myself. Well, OK ... I might have used something a bit stronger than 'lazy'.