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CITY 2 SUNRISE
My friend’s friend’s brother is one of four mates who have embarked on the motorcycle adventure of a lifetime across South East Asia to raise much needed funds to help educate abandoned children in Cambodia.
They have a website if anybody is interested in either sponsoring them or following their journey which sounds mega exciting. Here is the latest update:-
BREAKING C2S NEWS.
ONE RIDER AIR LIFTED OUT OF THE JUNGLE;
THE OTHER THREE SPEND THE NIGHT IN A LAOS GAOL
Details are sketchy as contact with the boys is limited to text messages and broken phone calls.
‘Johnny’, the rider who replaced Tom on Sunday, had a freak encounter with a concrete pylon in rough off-road terrain in the remote jungles of northern Laos on Wednesday afternoon. He came off the bike, severely broke his leg and had to be airlifted out to a Bangkok hospital. He was operated on Thursday and reports out of Bangkok are that he is resting post surgery until he is strong enough to return to Australia.
The medivac helicopter raised the concerns of the local Laotian Police force and landed the 3 boys (Geoff, Paul & Mat) in gaol overnight on Wednesday with their passports confiscated. It would seem that the locals had never seen a helicopter and were mistrusting of how and why the boys had arranged for it to be in their jungle!
After exchanging the obligatory ‘incentives’; the boys were un-arrested late on Thursday, and have their passports back. They are now faced with the dilemma of how three riders get four bikes out of Laos and across the border to Vietnam. So far the solution looks like it goes on the roof of a bus on Friday morning!
What happens next will be the next news flash! Stay tuned!
To get more information the link is http://www.city2sunrise.org/
DIARY OF A MARATHON RUNNER
28. February 2010
Having asked my lovely friend to write about her experience and her training regime over the next eight weeks or so leading up to the marathon, here are her first thoughts on the matter:-
Marathon training
I should start by explaining who I am and how extraordinary it is that I am even thinking about writing a blog on marathon training let alone actually running one.
I am a 40 year old mother of 4 girls who are 13, 12, 10 and 2 and I have spent my entire lifetime avoiding any serious physical exercise and by just doing the bare minimum to get by without being 25 stone. The closest I got to exercise was regularly drinking copious amounts of wine and dancing in a ridiculously embarrassing manner with my friends.
Anyway that’s all changed. After having my youngest daughter and really not looking that great in a bikini having had 4 caesareans I realised I really should do something about it. So a friend suggested I join her and some other friends in the park one morning with her new trainer. The trainer being an ex-para who now made a living making middle-aged suburban housewives lie down in the mud in all weathers doing press ups, squats and burpies combined with huge amounts of running and sprinting.
My first session didn’t go that well as I was wearing a grey cashmere jumper and yoga pants with 4 silver “Tiffany”bracelets up my arm. It’s not easy doing the “seal” crawl on the soaking wet muddy ground in December without getting your afore-mentioned jumper seriously muddy and then clogging up your bracelets with mud too. When I mentioned this to the ex-para he wasn’t exactly sympathetic. I also told him I hadn’t run since I had been at school and then I had been quite smart at avoiding doing it during PE too. He told me I would change. I didn’t believe him.
So that was a just over a year ago. I have been training with him 2/3 times a week since then. I have lost a stone and a half and I am running the London Marathon in April.
Continue reading and leave comments...ANNA VALENTINE FASHION SHOW
15. February 2010
There is a two page spread in this weeks “Hello” Magazine all about the Anna Valentine Fashion show I was on the committee for. I AM NOT FEATURED. They chose Camilla Parker Bowles, Anna Valentine, Rupert Everett and Lulu Guinness over me. I can’t think why. Gutted.
However, the Hello photographer did take some pictures of me and my friend talking to Camilla about the Maggie’s Cancer Care Centres and my friend very kindly sent them to me. Sadly, I can’t really show you the dress properly – I forgot to take a picture of the whole thing – which is another very good reason why I can’t give it back.
If you want to read about her new collection it’s featured on Vogue.com
In the meantime, since a few of you have requested a photo, here was me having my first royal moment since I met the Queen in Hong Kong thirty years ago with my friend Jo in the foreground:-
THE DUCHESS OF CORNWALL ATTENDS ANNA VALENTINE’S CHARITY SHOW
12. February 2010
What an amazing evening we all had last night. Anna’s new collection is truly beautiful. Her clothes were elegant, understated and as exquisitely cut as ever. The event was held in the Royal Courts of Justice – the long corridors had been lit by hundred’s of church candles which lent a wonderful [...]
Continue reading and leave comments...ANNA VALENTINE FASHION SHOW
11. February 2010
Holy shit. I have now taught three classes in a row including a 1-1 with a client who has MS. I have now rushed home to do the following in preparation for the Anna Valentine fashion show tonight:-
Make myself look half decent which involves:-
Removing about a ton of body hair
Working out how to [...]
HELPING HAITI “EVERYBODY HURTS” VIDEO
10. February 2010
Be warned. You’re gonna cry and then make sure you make a donation – there’s a link just to the right of the video. It’s very, very easy:-
Continue reading and leave comments...MY CHILDREN’S FRIENDS
18. January 2010
I took my children to Gourmet Burger Kitchen for lunch yesterday. I had heard on the radio that they were doing a promotion together with Capital Radio so you get your second burger for £1.00 if you pay a £1.00 donation to “Help a London Child”. Therefore everybody’s happy and I’ve added the link just for ease. We downloaded two vouchers but it didn’t work. Only one per meal. I did consider, momentarily about sending two of my kids to sit at another table to save money, but that seemed a little unreasonable. I LOVE going out for meals with my kids. OK it’s expensive to feed them all out, but every once in a while it is SO worth it. You get to chat without any stress.
My son told me all about the party he went to the night before. It was at his friends house. This boy lives with his Grandmother. His mother is in prison for hiring an assassin to kill his father after finding out about his affair. My daughter then went off on her story “that’s so similar to my friend who lives with her Grandmother – her dad is in prison for killing her mother with a knife and she clearly remembers seeing it happen even though she was only three. I have to be really careful what I say to her and try and be really sensitive – I can’t mention parents or anything. He only got 11 years and apparently he’s coming out really soon, but I don’t think she wants to see him”. I could see my teenage son looking puzzled. Sensitivity is not one of his major features. BUT STILL. Do you think I should start paying more attention to their friendship groups? Should I be concerned that both my children seemed to be hanging out with the children of murderers? How awful for those poor kids (not mine, the ones who are living with grandparents). That really is an argument for thinking through the “all actions have consequences” mantra before carrying out something so devastating.
My youngest child was really pissed off as he had nothing of such major interest to report so went into a total sulk because nobody was listening to him. He kept trying to say clever things and his older siblings just kept looking at him with such derision or falling about laughing that he began to get really cross. Perhaps I should suggest that he find a few murderers to hang out with – it would make him so much more interesting.
We also had an interesting conversation about being the Queen. My daughter thought she might just marry Harry “he was a real minger when he was 10 but he’s OK now”. She mulled over the idea of being the Queen and what sort of things she could do. “I’d have my face on all that money and I’d own all the swans in the country, so I’d dye them all pink”.
Continue reading and leave comments...
8. March 2010
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