ABC Wednesday - J

J is for JACKAL

Back to the safari yet again this week. Who would have thought that I would get so many letters from just one holiday




If you want to participate in ABC Wednesday, pop along to Mrs Nesbitt's blog of the same name and either share some of your own photos or simply visit the other participants and enjoy their stunning photos

Ramblings from the weekend

On Saturday Mrs DeeJay and I went to the theatre at Dartford again, this time to see Dennis Locorriere (the voice of Dr Hook). It was a fantastic evening of a solo performance by Dennis singing many of the Dr Hook songs (of course the encore was Sylvia's Mother) plus many other songs both published and unpublished from his solo career which he has been performing since about 1999.

Sunday was spent partly gardening and at the allotment, picking probably the last of this year's runner beans and tended our newly planted winter vegetables and clearing the rest of the plot of weeds. I really don't know where the rest of the time went!

On Saturday morning we also continued our charity run training (my 3rd run in the sequence) when we completed a full 10k, so I now know that I can actually do it. The training was obviously working as it was getting easier each time but I had a small (or I hope it is small) setback this morning when we went for a 6k run. I had to pull up about half a mile from home as a niggling ache in my knee had become very painfull to run on. As I write it is still painfull but not swollen and not actually in the kne joint but somewhat beneath it. I have an appointment with a physio for later in the week and sincerely hope that it is recovered within the next 3 weeks.

Are they allowed to say that - in a PC world?

I just have to share this with you all as it really cracked me up this morning on the way into work. It unfortunately probably does not translate quite so well in other countries idioms and also in straight text probably does not appear as funny as it did to me on the roadside.

As I passed a garden centre there was a very large advertising banner hung at the front advertising WINTER PANSIES.
The funny part is that due to lack of space a second advertising banner was pinned across the bottom of it so the whole read as follows

WINTER PANSIES

STAFF VACANCIES

My eyes have been opened

To the world of sidebar widgets, gadgets etc
Who knows where this will all end, perhaps with a blog full of gimmicks and no posts!

As you can see I have discovered what is a whole new world to me and I am experimenting with the temporary widget for my charity run and two visitor tracking ones.

I will try to keep it at that for now but I can't promise that I won't be tempted by the next sexy one I discover

Charity Run

I have been boring and pestering all of my friends and work colleagues with this, so I decided that my blog readers shouldn't get away with it.
Thanks to relentless peer pressure from Mrs DeeJay and many of the guys I share my gym with, I finally succumbed and agreed to enter a 10 kilometre race in October. It is unfortunately, (and that was the reason for my reticence), not a 'fun run' directly in aid of charity but a rather more serious athletic club run with some very serious times posted in last year's event.
So having been badgered into entering, I decided that I would not let the opportunity go to waste and have set up a JustGiving.co.uk fund raising page in aid of The British heart Foundation. This way I am doing something positive with my efforts and in addition I am closing off all possibilities of backing out!

The little widget on the left allows you to see how my fund raising efforts are progressing and more importantly will allow you to donate if you feel so moved to do so.

I have so far done two training runs of 6.5k and 7.5k respectively. The first one was a killer although not at the time. I foolishly did it early in the morning on the same day as I played a round of golf in the evening and on the following morning found I could hardly walk down the stairs because my thighs were so painful. The weekend's allotment digging seemed to cure that quickly and Monday morning's run went without a hitch. I now need to increase the distance to reach 10k before 12th October and also to up the pace a bit as I am currently looking at a race time of between 60 & 70 minutes. I would ideally like to get it down to around 50 minutes if I can.

Please comment and give me encouragement as at this point in time I feel desperately in need of some

ABC Wednesday - I

I = Incredibly Informative road sign or "S**t the cat is out of the bag now!!!



If you want to participate in ABC Wednesday, pop along to Mrs Nesbitt's blog of the same name and either share some of your own photos or simply visit the other participants and enjoy their stunning photos

An offer I CAN refuse

I received the following in a mailshot that was trying to tempt me to take a short break in Ireland.
Now I know it is unkind and everyone seems to rejoice in making fun of the Irish, but when you see items such as the one on the left, is it any wonder.

Read the pricing offer VERY carefully!

ABC Wednesday - H

H is for Hyena
In this case a very dejected one who had been chased off of a lion kill in the Ngorongoro Crater
It slowly ambled past us not 10 feet away!

So much to write about, so little time to do it!

Despite a shocking weekend weatherwise, Mrs DeeJay and I were quite busy.
Besides our usual fun packed weekend of shopping and boring household things, we visited a local theatre (well actually some 40 miles away) to see Le Grand Cirque This short video struggles to do it justice as it really was mesmerising and stunning the agility, suppleness and balance that these performers had. They are apparently all ex professional and world champion gymnasts and boy does it show! We made a full evening of it by having pre-show dinner at an Italian restaurant and finally getting home again some time jsut short of midnight.

We seem to have a full schedule of upcoming entertainment already booked for September and October with the next show featuring Dennis Locorriere of Dr Hook fame, Joe Brown and his Bruvvers providing a blast from the past, Status Quo (well OK that is my own annual pilgrimage that I cannot persuade Mrs DeeJay to attend again after the bashing her ears took last time) and finally Mick Fleetwood's (of Fleetwood Mac fame) Blues Band.

Despite the weather I managed to get to the allotment to pick yet another bumper crop of runner beans which is surprising seeing as how late I put them in and how slowly they developed.

I also entered into a local 10k race which will take place in October that I will run for the British heart Foundation charity. I know that 10k is not really that far, but this is not primarily a charity run but is a proper athletics event with lots of 'professional' runners in it. I may need to find somewhere to hide when I eventually cross the line :-)

ABC Wednesday - G

G is for Giraffe
I am not going to let you all forget my safari trip as I have even more letters covered with my wild animal photos

If you want to participate in ABC Wednesday, pop along to Mrs Nesbitt's blog of the same name and either share some of your own photos or simply visit the other participants and enjoy their stunning photos

The end of a terrific 10 days

Over a week ago I drove to Somerset (south west England for my 'foreign' readers) to collect my Mother for a short break. She is 87 years old and suffers badly from osteoarthritis. She consequently doesn't get out very much as she cannot walk any distance, cannot climb stairs or even stand in one place for more than a few minutes at a time.
At home she is very self sufficient with many household gadgets etc and even a stair lift. I was extremely concerned about her being able to negotiate our stairs as even though with a modern house and downstairs toilet facilities she would still need to climb them every night for bed and to descend them every morning.
Although it fairly tugged at my heart strings to watch, I should not have worried as she was so determined to visit that she had practised at home climbing her own stairs by leaning forward on her hands and stepping up one stair at a time and only needing any assistance at all when reaching the top and needed to stand for the last two stairs.
My company, who I know I bitch about quite a bit, is actually very good at catering for carers and I was able to work at home for 3 of the 4 day week that we had in the UK last week thanks to a public holiday.
It was a pity that the weather was not any better than it was as Mum did not have the opportunity to sit out in the garden very much, but at least did have 10 days with us, which to someone who lives on her own and is over 220 miles away was a real treat for her.

I took her home again on Saturday which was as you may have guessed, the hottest day of the year and had wall to wall sunshine from the time we woke up to the time I got home again on Saturday evening. So what did we get to do but join in with all of the returning holiday makers in a 3.5 hour trip there and a 4 hour trip home again! Still the 3.5 hours was even more quality time spent with Mum talking about something and nothing and making her happy.
On arrival at her home I then did some odd maintenance jobs around the house for her, took her out to get her coming week's grocery shopping and had a lovely lunch sitting outside at a local garden centre cafeteria.
I also enjoyed my solitary drive home taking several country roads and lanes to avoid the even bigger queues, navigating mostly by instinct to rejoin the major routes when I knew that they had become multi lane.