As Promised!

I am a woman of my word and so for those of you who said 'yes please' to another 'Mighty' photo - here you are! (As nobody said 'no' then I can hardley deny you can I?)

As for the choice of photo - well you have Gumbo to thank for that! I've heard he is a 'hip' man and so in thanks for his sponsorship for Amsterdam - here you go!

Boo Hoo! Wingwalking is a no-no!!

Wingwalking is something which has always had a huge appeal to me! It has been on TV so many times and I would love to try it!!

At one point in my life I even considered joining the Utterly Butterly wingwalking display team for a summer - but as usual I shied away ...

So, as this is obviously my 'now' time - I emailed the only wingwalking team in the country - Team Guinot!

They have replied to say that it is possible (yippee!) and that after training I would be expected to perform a 12 minute aerobatic display in front of friends and family!!

WOW! Thinks me! Let's do it!

So - I download the application form, compare height, weight, waist measurement(!!) to the required standards ... and read the T's and C's - where I find the price ... £550 ...

Oh - I knew it wouldn't be cheap but I'm all disappointed now!

I reckon I'll have to put wingwalking to the bottom of my list and treat myself to an extra lottery ticket instead!!

Triple Congratulations!!!

This is a special entry for three very good friends who have each had their very own success this week! Good News comes very rarely and this week I have had three doses of it!

The first is for LISA - a huge CONGRATULATIONS for landing the job which you so deserve! The students of York College don't know how lucky they are!

The second is for SHARON - who has had a really awful summer and who so needed a break! CONGRATULATIONS on landing the perfect job for you at this time!!

The third is for KAREN - who also turned 40 this year and really needed a boost! CONGRATULATIONS on your fab new job in fundraising! I knew you could do it :-)

To my three good friends - well done!
You are all fantastic!

Hip-Hip-Hurrah!
Hip-Hip-Hurrah!
Hip-Hip-Hurrah!

Fumbling Around in the Dark!

It's a long time since I last fumbled around in the dark I can tell you - I tend to know where I'm going these days ;-) but anyway - here we are on a Sunday night fumbling...

So how did I end up here? Well it could be a long story but I'll try to be concise cos I know you're all dying to get to the juicy bits!!!

Well, I got a text from Lisa first thing this morning (Sunday) saying ...'how do you fancy doing a geo cache this afternoon?'. Well I didn't know what one was and not being one to accept an invitation without having at least an inkling what I was letting myself in for I thought I'd better find out!

So, Geocaching is a series of 'treasure' boxes hidden around the country. The idea is that you follow directions and find the treasure box, taking something from it and leaving something of your own in its place! Completely free and great fun!

We first did one on Skipwith Common which was a good introduction as Gary, Lisa and the boys had done it before so we knew what to do and where to look. The second one we went for was near Elvington Airfield and was entitled 'Bombs Away' - it was a bit tricky but we found it in the end!

We decided to do one last geocache on the way home and picked another close to our last location. The trouble was that it wasn't as easy as it seemed! We spent ages looking and in the end we had to split into two cars and Lisa took Emily, Isaac and her youngest boy home and Gary and Aaron came with John & I in our car and we continued looking...

Time was getting on and it was 5.30pm by the time we parked up as close as we could get. We had picked up a Travel Bug from the last cache and needed to stash it safely...

A travel bug is a token of varying description (they are all different) which carry a 'dog tag' with a registration number for you to track on the geocache website as to its travels. Many have come from foreign parts (geocache is a worldwide phenomenon) and many have already travelled around the world! The travel bug we left at Fulford came originally from Switzerland, the one we had found earlier in the day had started its journey in Ohio!

The bugs are registered on the website and you can track where they started and where they've stayed and where they are now, even who has handled them and helped them along their way :-)

Well, anyway, this walk was a bendy one and took us along unlit paths and towards Fulford Golf Course, what a route! It kept on getting darker and we found ourselves walking along an unlit footpath through a wooded area with pheasants or grouse or something flying overhead as we startled them from their roosting place!

We went over a field and passed by a huge electricity pylon... along the side of a field and onto the open golf course... we saw a shape of a man out on the course - he shouted something to us but we couldn't understand him so kept heads down, changed direction and kept walking...!

We carried on over fields and past bunkers, treading in puddles and squishing through mud until Gary's GPS device eventually had us within a few feet of the hidden cache...!

Well, all credit to Gary cos we would have given up ages ago - he was determined to find it! We read and re-read the clues and eventually decided that there was only one real location - Gary took his mobile phone in hand and used it's light to search the area!

It was pitch black and the only noise was from the nearby A64 - close enough to hear but completely useless if we had needed help!!!!!

Eventually he found it - I sha'n't say where cos it will take away the fun of anyone looking for it another time who happens across this blog as a clue!

Anyway, we filled in the log book (a record of who has visited the cache, when and what their thoughts were), left the travel bug along with a gift of our own and started back... the journey back was more straightforward (good job really - I was needing the loo and couldn't just nip behind a bush like the boys did!!).

...and so this is how I came to be fumbling around in the dark on Fulford Golf Course - with my main man and a buddy ... and his young son who was almost wishing he had never been brave enough to join us!

When was the last time you fumbled around in the dark?

Three Cheers for Wills and Harry!

What a fantastic journey Princes William and Harry will have on their latest adventure and what better way to raise awareness of Prince Harry's Charity 'Sentebale'.

If I could ride a motorbike I'd fancy having a go myself - did you see Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman on their 'Long Way Down' trip? What a superb way to travel!

Go Boys - your Mum would be so proud, I know your Dad will too :-)

They're ready!

Email from Leigh! My photos are ready for my final, final decision! (I know I already made my choices but this time I need to choose whether to have colour, black and white or sepia effect on the finished item!)

Decisions, decisions! (a sense of 'deja vu' here me thinks!)

The colour ones make me look quite tanned which is nice cos I never look that way usually but the black and white ones are really classy (am I allowed to say that about my own photos??). I quite like the sepia effect but that always make me think of old photographs and I'm trying to reverse the aging process here not the other way around!!!!!

I thought about putting up another photo here to illustrate the different styles but I'm hanging on because I've got a 'friend of a friend' thinking over whether to sponsor me or not and he's keen to see another piccie as 'encouragement' - If I do show another it should be as a reward - don't you think :-)

Anyway, I'm off now cos lots do do... busy, busy, busy!!

Looks like a few of you are keeping up with me and my antics - I'm always interested to know what you're thinking - don't be afraid to make a comment :-)

Sponsor Me?

Well folks! It's time for me to formally request your sponsorship!

PLEASE CLICK THE LINK TO THE RIGHT - just above the hit counter!

A JustGiving Page has been set up for the Amsterdam cycling trip and so I must humbly ask if you would donate something towards the total?

We are hoping to raise a total of £30,000 between 60 of us - that's about £500 each! If I get 500 people to sponsor me £1 then I should be OK :-)... or 50 people at a tenner each would be good too:-)

The link will let you donate now using plastic and you can even leave me a Good Luck message at the same time:)

But seriously ... every penny helps! Marie Curie received a donation of £37,000 from last years trip - it would be great if we could raise something close to that amount again!

Alternatively just email me and I can add you onto the paper sponsor form and I'll come and collect after the event in June next year!

a BIG THANKYOU to Matthew and Lisa who have got me off to a great start with £20.00 - Thanks folks x

Thankyou in advance - please be generous!

Mindblowing!!!!!

Have you ever re-discovered something which you had forgotten you had? and therefore taken pleasure all over again in finding it?

Whilst standing in the garden late last night, admiring the starlit sky, I made up my mind to read a little more of one of my favourite books. The book is entitled 'Skywatching - the Ultimate Guide to the Universe' by David Levy (co-discoverer of the Shoemaker-Levy Comet).

In this book is a post-it note of something I once read and which struck me as being so incredible that I had to make a note of it!

I thought I'd share it with you!

"Given the size of the galaxy there is a high chance that alien life forms are out there, so why have they never bothered to contact us? (That's the 'where is everybody?' question - known as the 'Fermi Paradox').

A Danish physicist has now come up with an answer... 'give them time'

Using a computer simulation of the Milky Way he has calculated that 8 alien probes, travelling at 1/10 the speed of light (30,000 km/second) and each being capable of launching up to 8 sub-probes, would take 10 BILLION YEARS to explore just 0.4% of the galaxy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just think about that for a minute.....
8 probes with a total of 64 sub-probes...each travelling at 30,000 km/second...would take 10 billion years just to explore 0.4% of the galaxy!!!!

I don't know about you but that blows my mind!

It is something I read ages ago in a copy of 'The Week' magazine (Issue 598 27-01-2007) and which I found quite staggering!

...and yes I have done the calculation - to explore all of the galaxy (not just 0.4% of it) would take 250 BILLION YEARS!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!M I N D B L O W I N G !!!!!!!

See what I mean??

And so now you get an idea as to how tiny the earth is, in the scheme of things!
Do you still wonder if there is life out there...?

Anyway - just thought I'd share that with you :-)

Windsurfing Video - Animoto Magic!

I finally got around to working the animoto magic on the photos from my windsurfing day at Rother Valley!