It's 22:05 when I'm starting this blog after an excellent 7 days; iTunes has just started blasting out Elton John's 'Saturday Night's Alright (for fighting)' and I've had a wonderfully hectic day.
Let me take you back to last Saturday though and remind myself glibly that the last 7 days started with my first ever non-stop 30 minutes of PT. It was also my 50th birthday so I had cards to open & a couple of surprise presents too. Saturday turned into Sunday before I knew it so Lucia and I grabbed a meal out before watching a DVD at the apartment we'd rented.
Monday was the Test match at Nottingham, courtesy of my girls. The last live match I went to Sir Geoffrey of Boycottshire scored his 100th hundred (on-driving Greg Chappell for four at Headingley) so it's been a while since I joined a line of thousands snaking through a city centre, past shops not yet open and cafes closing after offering a "special Test Match breakfast" ..... hmm go figure ..... and pubs bursting at the seams by 11am, then suddenly I'm sat in a green oasis watching England 'spank' India.
Who would have guessed yours truly came back with sunburn given the cloud cover!!
Tuesday was work and yet another bl**dy sno-globe for my 'collection', with 'Shig' at the smaller Starbucks in the Manchester Arndale Centre confirming a fundraising day (including a new Frappaccino dedicated to my Trek) and Dave at the larger one telling me their plans for a fundraising day too. All that and then a rare treat when I got home; a DVD with my girls (Source Code, in case you wanted to know).
Wednesday morning was with the SMileS SMS team (see previous blog entry) - lashing Paul to those tyres was strangely satisfying ........ my thanks to the team for their Twitter posts
......... and a 6th person contacted me in the last week to tell me they were going to donate as a result of the feature in Beyond Magazine (but I'm still waiting for the donations to appear so my total remains static at the time of typing). Wednesday evening was gym-night with a solid hour and a few pints of perspiration shed!! I know, nice image huh?
(Oh yeah, Alice Cooper's 'School's Out' is playing now. In case you're interested.)
Thursday was work and then we come to today. Ahh yes today. Well the good bits were a 90-minute meeting with my boss this morning to talk through an exciting extension to the scope of work we're currently doing followed by a quick chat with the lovely Anna from the Individual Restaurant Company confirming the fundraiser in Harrogate Restaurant Bar & Grill (November 3rd 2011 .... mark it in your diary).
I also met my friend and ex colleague Nick Passman who is a risk assurance guru in my eyes; useful chat about life and work. The only downside was he told me the sad news about the British student Horatio Chapple; trying to defend his friends from a Polar Bear that had strayed into their camp he punched the bear on its nose and it attacked him, sadly mauling him to death. He and the survivors were flown to what will be our base camp (see below).
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| Longyearbarn; our base camp from which we'll fly to the 89th degree after ski-trekking here to acclimatise |
Brings home one of the dangers of the Trek if you're not protected by a guide with a gun. My thoughts are with his family and those who also suffered the trauma of the attack and its deadly outcome.
After some more work I drove to meet Sara Benson of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign and Oliver, a new volunteer who will be helping me to fundraise. Maybe more about 'Olivers story' in a future blog. I need to design a leaflet and get 1000 of them to him asap so guess that's my work cut out for tomorrow before I set off to Manchester.
A quick visit to see the Heart Research UK team, David Miller at Bartfields and to leave a copy of Beyond Magazine for Chris Allen at Blacks Solicitors, and help push a Mercedes 2-seat sports car that had broken down up a hill, then home.
I also went tyre-dragging tonight; the first mile I've done for a while and with a 14kg and a 7kg tyre lashed together. Jon Gregg came along for a go; this video is the short story of his climb up the slope in Rothwell Park. I really like Jon; hard-working, decent, honest and supportive .... and he's also going to see if he can get any reindeer sausages to create a North Pole sandwich to celebrate my Trek.
And that represented the highlights of a truly great week ...... and I even got to pretend to sack Andrew at work; can life get any better? And now, as Queen sing 'These are the days of our lives', I'm slipping slowly into a sleepy daze and know it's time for bed.
Tomorrow sees the start of another week with a 30-minute PT session at Iveridge & you just KNOW that's going to be a helluva way to welcome in the weekend. I've just had a brilliant week but if you feel you're having a bad one, just remember that there are some perfectly normal people who have much worse days; wardrobe co-ordination can be memorable for all sorts of reasons .... try not to have nightmares. Sleep well.
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| Geoff Major brings you a Public Clothing Warning; let's just call it part of my service to the community |
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