The curious case of the dog with the missing head (or is it just me who finds technology confusing?)

I love my computer but trust me I am useless with technology. I thought I was OK. In fact at one time I was really good. But that was back in 1982 and I was working in binary to make my own computer programme for the Hertfordshire Computer Diploma (Grade 1).
Things move fast in the IT world and now some 27 years (Berlimey is it THAT Long??!!!)  later, I am hopelessly out of date and frankly struggling on a daily basis just to keep my head above water.
I mean look what has happened to my Avatar - it's headless! It never used to be headless and now it is and to be honest it's not really portraying me at my best. I look ridiculous.
I even struggle with my Canon SLR Digital Camera. I was given it for Christmas three years ago and I just can't get to grips with it. I fear it has more to do with the fact that I did not choose it myself and the little problem I had with the internal mirrors, which in the end cost me £250 to replace. It now sits rather desolately on a shelf in my office gathering dust. I studiously try to ignore it because every time I notice it, I feel very, very guilty. It's one of those things I have on my "To do list" that I must get round to sorting out.

• Pick up camera box
• Take out camera
• Hunt for instructions
• Remember no instructions given as camera bought off e-bay as a job lot by friend of family and sold on at a discount price (Might be why I had to spend £250 and the fact there was no guarantee!)
  
• Search for instructions for five year old digital camera on line
• Realise that instructions for similar new model have nothing at all to do with the camera I own
• After two hours note that if I put "antique digital camera" in the search option I might possibly find I have more luck in tracking down user manual
• Find instructions on weird Korean web site but just when I think I can press download realise that I need to find $19.99 for the priviledge
• Get frustrated by the fact I have forgotten really memborable password for Pay Pal account
• Set up yet another account with Pay Pal
• Type in new password only to find that it is already taken
• Scream!
  
• Choose new new password and cross fingers
  
• Start to download instruction manual of 538 pages of which only three are in English....

All that sounds easy compared to trying to work out how to fix your own avatar. It is NOT easy and try as I might I cannot seem to find anything out there in the great wide ether known as the web to help me - well nothing I can understand. There are 39.6 million hits on Google for "Avatar problems" and I am not trawling them all. I mean I DO have work to do you know!
So for the time being I am known to the whole wide interweb as the blogger with the avatar of a headless dog - that's if anyone recognises that it is a headless dog and not a vase or something.

P.S. Can anyone help please!!!!!

Salutatory lessons in blogging (or how to wreck your family life with the click of a button)

I’ve not posted recently because I am in deep trouble. I don’t think I meant to do it deliberately but I posted when I wasn’t thinking. That post has caused a lot of heartache even though those that read it probably thought it was pretty harmless - but there again those that read it were not members of my immediate family.

I have read about tiffs with friends and family and even bosses and work colleagues but never thought it would happen to me. I thought I was good at this game by keeping names out, not posting pictures and keeping my blogging antics - well private. But privacy on the Internet is basically an oxymoron and you can never be too vigilant.

• Lesson 1: Blogging is NOT like writing in a secret code in a diary that you keep under lock and key in the safe. It is out there and sooner or later someone you know and care about is bound to read it.
  
• Lesson 2: Publish and be damned. Always re-read your posts before you hit publish and ask yourself: “Will anyone be hurt or offended by this if they read it?” And more importantly if you do and they do will the resulting flak be worth it?
• Lesson 3: The truth will out. Always be truthful when you blog especially if you mention your family, friends or boss. That witty one liner never said at the time but you wish it were…well just because you wrote that it did doesn’t mean that it happened in real life and it is extremely embarrassing if you get caught out.

I think with those three lessons now firmly embedded I should keep myself out of trouble but even that aint necessarily so. Only the other week I had to edit a post even though I was praising the company in question to the skies for a brilliant piece of customer care.

• Lesson 4: You can’t please some people.

Great Expectations

It’s never good to have high hopes is it? Knowing what was to come after we arrived at our final destination in France, I had spent hours trawling the internet, researching, refining and finally choosing the best place to stay for our one night of freedom on the way down to Brittany.

I worked hard on Dear Charlie for months to allow me to do this and to spend something in the region of £200 for the privilege. This was going to be the one night that would make the next seven bearable. It was going to be fabulous, stylish, charming – it turned out to be unremarkable, uncomfortable and just a bit tedious especially for the Boys.

I should have known as a friend remarked so sagely when I trilled about my wondrous find: “Gays and children just don’t mix.” I hate it when that happens. You tell someone about all your plans and you are really excited by the whole prospect and then they pour cold water on them – oh but how right she was…

The thing is that we don’t go on holiday often basically because we can’t afford it with everything we earn going straight to the money pit that is our home or else on the boys’ education. It’s a lifestyle choice (or the fact that we are too proud to say we’ve cocked up somewhat but I believe that that IS a kind of lifestyle choice too). Anyway we pretend we don’t want to go on holiday and would rather stay at home. But really I long to go on holidays. I love to visit new places and try out new food. I like exploring and just getting away from it all. I like being abroad if only for the fact that I adore coming home again. But enforced staycations – well come on. Who are we kidding here?

So having the opportunity to go away, even if it is with the in-laws was just too good to pass up and it was all supposed to be so perfect….

But when the start of your holiday doesn’t quite match up to your expectations it seems kind of prescient. We arrive at the Chateau and well it is rather bijou, more hunting lodge than castle. But things look up when our host offers us a drink although I should have worried a bit by the fact that he darted inside to do this leaving us to struggle with our baggage and to dump it untidily in the middle of the hall.

We were left bereft and had to venture into the house with some trepidation to find him with open bottle of champagne talking to two other guests. I was slightly non-plussed to be handed a glass of insipid white wine instead of champagne but didn’t get much chance to drink it as the boys rushed in having been released from their seven-hour confinement in the car. Let’s say they were overjoyed to be free and their exuberance was palatable.

The look on the owners face said it all and my heart did a double flip and belly flopped to the bottom of my stomach. Despite being forewarned about my boys and despite me being reassured that children were more than welcomed – it was clearly not the case. Although no words were said it was made abundantly clear that children and probably my boys in particular we barely tolerated.

I asked feebly where we were to stay and my host graciously deigned to show me stepping over our luggage at the bottom of the stairs raising only one eyebrow, and then preceding me up two flights of wooden stairs wincing at the sound of the two small elephants that accompanied us on the trip.

It sort of went down hill from there on in really. What with my boys shouting out they needed feeding, entertaining and of course needing a poo, and mine host was sort of there in the back ground - wincing. A lot.

And the final straw was being handed the bill the next day and realising I had to pay nigh on £15 for a couple of glasses of warm white wine and two small cups of orange squash that both my boys had pronounced yucky. I felt terrible with no way of redeeming the situation.

However, the gods move in mysterious ways and the next morning as I was about to leave and in the middle of shaking hands with the patron, I caught a glance out of the corner of my eye of a tray with our glasses on from the night before, still sloshing with wine.

I am afraid I disgraced myself unutterably and I probably ruined any chance of ever returning to the establishment again. Reader, I sank both glasses there and then and proceeded to wolf down the boy’s rejected orange squash as well to the horror of all. I have no idea what made me do it but I caught Dear Charlie’s eye and that was it we could hardly suppress our giggles. We made an excellent departure, heads held high and on to the next adventure.

Euro tunnel fires, Bio diesel and killer seaweed – why do I always think the worst?

Why is it that I always think the worst? My Boys go with their Dad to visit Granny in Yorkshire and until I know they are there safe I worry. For three hours I worry, I can feel my grief welling up at the thought of losing them all in some freak accident on the A1 involving a high sided Eddie Stobart artic called Dolly Mae or Sally Anne.
I feel the emptiness and I wander their rooms touching their clothes, straightening their beds and putting their toys away.
I can’t settle at all, the TV can’t distract me and I daren’t leave the house in case I get the call from the police or they come round for a visit. I watch the clock incessantly. I have a bath, I read, I restart my elliptical manoeuvres round the house.
I pounce on every telephone call, curt and almost rude with those who ring for a chat too close to the time when I know they should be arriving. Then of course I miss the all important one, I’m outside putting he chickens to bed and it takes me half an hour to check the ansaphone and it’s fine they got there and then, well then I can go to sleep can’t I without a care in the world, until it’s time for them to return.
Now my mind is working overtime about our trip to France. Firstly a kindly dear overhearing me chatting about my trip as I cancel the newspapers in the Village Shop says that wasn’t there a fire in the Channel Tunnel recently and how she couldn’t bear to be trapped underneath all the water. I laugh, albeit a bit nervously, but on the walk back home I start to hyperventilate at the thought of thousands of tons of seawater rushing to swamp me and mine and all the people running screaming along the train but to no avail – strangely the vision looks very similar to that scene in the Dennis Quaid film The Day After Tomorrow when New York gets drowned.
Then my in-laws call to warn me to remember NOT to put bio diesel in my car or was it Gazoil and how will I know which is which? I have visions of my beautiful new car dying and the moment juste on the Autoroute and being flattened by a giant German Juggernaught because of a mistake made by me on the forecourt.
Finally just as I am getting to grips with the inevitability of the vacation, my Mother rings to tell me all about killer seaweed.
Apparently and this is true, tons of sea lettuce is washed up on the shores of the Cotes D’Armor in Brittany and it then rots giving off a bad egg smell. But the killer thing about it is that the sea washes over it leaving the seaweed covered in a layer of sand that then dries forming a crust and it is when the seaweed is rotting and the crust breaks from the pressure of animals and even people walking across it that hydrogen sulphide escapes totally over powering you and making you unconscious and even making you fall in a coma. Obviously the closer to the ground you are the more quickly you will be overcome. Several dogs have died and the Prime Minister of France has even stepped in saying that something must be done.
I can tell you after looking this up on the web, as I did not believe my Mum, my brain has been in overtime. I think I can probably keep my children safe by basically never letting them get more than three feet from me but what of Dear Charlie? The man is on a health kick and insists on going off running. How am I going to be able to protect him – I really, really do not want to be off running with him at 5.30am every other morning and besides who will prevent the children from chocking on their cereal or falling off their bunk beds?

Silver Dream Machine

I am now hooked on getting the most miles per gallon out of my car. I’d like to think this will make me a better driver, safer, more considerate and a better bet for my insurer. But I don’t think so.

Nope. There is a tiny, iddy biddy bit of a glitch about all this, although it will help me save money on fuel and of course make me feel all warm and green woolly as I can do my bit for the environment - even if I am driving a turbo charged diesel around the country lanes – what they have done is kinda distracting.

It’s all VW’s fault, honest! They’ve got this computer thingy in my new Volkswagen Bluemotion Golf Estate that tells me how efficiently I am driving. Of course, the better I do that, the better my miles per gallon is and it tells me in real time too - there on the screen, in front of me; all in bright, angry glowing red so I can see it even in the dark.

It also has a clever arrow icon that comes on telling you when to change gear but I think it’s a bit slow on the uptake and I am already a little ahead of it. I tried to follow it on the drive home from the showroom earlier today, moving through the gears as, and when, it suggested. It got a bit exciting on the very steep left hand corner at the top of the hill where there is a reverse camber in the road and it told me to change up to fourth. I sloshed round the bend mightily fast with the big back end doing a cracking imitation of J-Lo shaking her derriere.

Good thing was I also got to test the ABS braking system at the same time, as I narrowly avoided ploughing into a tractor carting corn off the field next to the road. The farmer was pretty impressed too as he stopped to wave at me as I darted past – a flash of silver, a swirl of dust and all at 54mpg.

I don’t think that the short four-mile run from Barnards to home has helped me to get accustomed to the sheer size of the new car and I think I was a tad previous when I overtook the Tesco courtesy bus - but there again things are supposed to look larger in your rear view mirror are they not?

I was sad to say goodbye to the VW Polo but to be honest it was a bit of a mistake to buy it in the first place. The BIG idea last year was to exchange my beautiful but defunct Land Rover Discovery for a car for everyday rather than every eventuality. However, we went too far on the scaling down side and it became a bit of a problem deciding whether to bring home the weekly shop and the children at the same time. Eventuality I solved the problem by getting a lovely aerodynamic Thule Roof box and the shopping, rather than the children, came home in that – but it was usually a close run thing. Space was a premium in the Polo and with two booster chairs in the back there wasn’t much between, which usually led to much Argy Bargy, screams and whining and me blowing my top and vowing to attach the boys to the Thule just for the sake of some peace! Needless to say this was one threat my boys practically begged me to carry out. But, as I have said to them in the past, the purpose of a parent is to continually disappoint its offspring.

Another problem that came with the Polo was that I could not for the sake of love nor money get Bog Boy my youngest’s Mclaren buggy in the back without twisting the chassis and/or scratching the rear window – suffice to say Bog Boy learned to walk distances a tad earlier than his brother.

But these were minor day-to-day problems and easily outweighed by the fact that the savings on running costs compared to the Land Rover were in the region of £150 per month on fuel alone. Then there was the fact that being a much smaller, closer to the ground sort of vehicle, the school run was done considerably faster and dare I say it more safely, with less queasiness than previously.

The decision to get a slightly more spacious vehicle came about after the annual camping trip to Wales. This was when my husband, Dear Charlie, became personally aware the problems of trying to accommodate four dogs, two children, one Kyham six berth tent, four sleeping bags, four wet suits, two boogie boards, two double lilos, four pillows, buckets, spades, teddies and food for a small army - as he hates to shop when we are down there - all into a vehicle with a somewhat limited cubic capacity.

We still managed to get down there and back, not once but twice just to make sure. But the second time down we took the sports car too tossing a coin for who would drive the Mazda MX5 and have the relative luxury of only having to cope with one vomiting whippet plus sundry goods.

So, as with all decisions in our nuclear family, once made plans have to be put into action as swiftly as possible. It is with many thanks to the long-suffering folks at Barnards in Stowmarket, in particular David Webster, that within the space of three weeks the exchange was made.

Getting the score (or why it pays to play sport at prep school)

There are many unwritten rules at school and not just for the children. I have just come back from the secretary’s office fuming at the injustice of it all. Thinking myself well organised and ahead of the game for once, I popped in to return the Holiday Sports Club form.

“I’m sorry your too late – there’s no more room.”

“What do you mean too late? The form said get your reply back by Monday -it’s Thursday afternoon and you only sent them out yesterday!”

I am given a pitying look and before I can say anything more in my defence she answers the telephone and I realise I am being summarily dismissed.

I flounce out of the office and although I would dearly love to slam the door I am prevented by the mechanism at the top - mentally I berate Health & Safety.

Normally I would not be worried by this setback. So what if my son can’t play cricket and football during the holidays but it matters - trust me

The car park at picking up time at the end of term had been alive with rumours about the latest 11-year old sporting prodigy at the school. He was spotted at a Cricket match by one of the leading private schools’ sports masters, who was acting as umpire, and there and then the boy was offered a bursary. As the child was already accepted at another school the father approached the aforesaid school to say sorry that the child would not be accepting the place as he had been offered a golden opportunity elsewhere. Short story long the school he was meant to go to offered the boy a Sports Scholarship on the spot without even seeing him play only for the other to offer a full Scholarship. It was, as they say, too good an offer to pass up – what a position to be in especially in the light of the Recession.

How I had laughed at the increasing number of mothers dolled to the nines who had come to watch their little darlings at After School Sports Club. I thought it was because everyone had heard that the new sports master Mr French was rather dishy and more excitingly, recently divorced. Now I realise that it was for far more sinister motives -to secure little Johnny a place on the Holiday Club list.

Those lucky enough to get into the Holiday Club will get the notice of Mr French, which will stand them in good stead for the rest of the year, and those with sporting prowess no doubt will be fast tracked. For sport at school is not just about keeping fit and working as a team it is about the kudos the top teams bring to the school and about the rewards that those individuals can earn – those unwritten rules of life.

The more I learn about the system the more I realise that it is a far cry from the civilised and polite environment I had always thought I was paying for. Getting ahead here is not about money, it’s about being cut throat, determined, even underhand. It was quite obvious that the word had got out and there had been a run on places even before the rest of us were officially told.

Luckily I have been given an even better tip off. I have found out that if I want my son to get the best sports teachers in the school he will have to secure a place in the Under Nines’ A or B teams by the time he’s eight otherwise he’ll be taught by the Gap year student and have even less of a chance to succeed.

So I have grabbed the yellow pages and frantically called up all the Cricket, Rugby and Football clubs in the area expecting them to laugh at my pretension but lo! they even have Under Six training sessions and my boy is signed up for the next three years. If you can’t join ‘em - beat ‘em…

The Last Great Show On Earth (or reasons why it is the last Royal Show ever)

Well in a few minutes I'll be on the road heading for the last Royal Show ever - bit of an historical moment I suppose, a bit sad. Maybe it's been on the cards for years. Farming is a sideline and no longer as important as it once was - but should we really have given up on the Royal? Should we really give up and give in at a time when our rural and urban societies are still so divided? Surely shows such as this are important to bring these two disparate tribes together. And where better than at The Royal, which brings together all the best from the whole country?
I don't know.
I haven't been to The Royal in 20 years - the last time I had just finished at Seale Hayne Agricultural College and got wildly drunk and landed up asking anyone who was anyone to: "Gi'e us a job".
I got taken on by Farming News but to this day believe it was really all down to the fact I was wearing a very tight white T-shirt and my more obvious attributes sealed the deal rather than my scholarly mien.
I wonder how it has changed....the Show, folks not my attributes: they remain the same (or at least that is what Dear Charlie says!)
Some time later - actually the next day...
I can understand why it's the last one. Not because it is not a great day out, it was and anyone who is within an hour or so do go because you will be so welcomed and it will be such fun.
I spoke to loads of people there from livestock folk, trade stands and retailers, from the guys picking up the litter to the punters walking around - there are lots of reasons why they think it's the last one but probably the most telling thing I saw was the Flower Tent.
Twenty years ago you had to pay extra to go in and when you did it was like walking into a sultry Eden, heavy with the perfume thousands of exotic blooms. At every turn there were simply stunning flower creations, sculptures and concoctions in every hue imaginable and plenty that defied description. I used to be so jealous of all that talent as however much I try I just cannot make flowers do anything but die in a vase.
Now when I walked in it felt half empty, lack lustre and the grass underfoot had not even been mown. It was full of weeds ready to trip you up. At one end there was a table where a florist was preparing to demonstrate the art of flower arranging to a few desultory show goers.
There were some lovely displays but no care had been taken in their placing, there was no drama, no anticipation and to be frank one felt that well - they had given up. Perhaps this really was Eden but after Eve had eaten of the apple.
Down the cattle lines and in among the pigs and sheep there was a much livelier atmosphere but also a kind of desperation; I felt that everyone was looking for that last rosette confirmation that they had been there, when something great had died.
Somewhere along the line something went badly wrong at The Royal Show for I can tell you other shows I attend are jumpin' The Royal Welsh, The Suffolk and The Great Yorkshire Show seem, at least to me the mere punter, to be packed out and thriving.
Yesterday I asked what had heralded The Royal's demise and these were tha answers I got:
Too much emphasis on the corporates
So busy chasing down sponsorship that the fundamentals were forgotten
Letting a management company in who alienated the smaller trade folk
Lack of care for the details
Cutting corners on hospitality
In essence failing to care for the members, their wants and needs and letting greed get in the way. But there again haven't we all been doing that?



PS. If you are still waiting for my report have a look at The Best of British Mummy Blogger Carnival over at http://britsinbosnia.blogspot.com/

Are you a Saint Mummy? ( or Why I will never be canonised…)

“Are you a Saint Mummy?”
As much as I would have liked to say: Yes! I had to admit that no, I was not and probably never would be.
I always feel the discussions I have with The Boy on the school run must be a bit like travelling through Helmand Province; you have to tread warily as you are never quite sure where the next bombshell will land or indeed if you will get away with none going off at all. While that may keep you on your toes, it is quite exhausting and I will admit I am very relieved when I am back in the relative safety of camp and can escape the more generally lobbed questions round the dinner table leaving it to someone else to take the full brunt.
But it got me thinking. Are there any Saints who were also parents? I asked Google - No results found was the reply. Looking on it logically I shouldn’t have been surprised but I am not one to give up so easily. So I decided to check out if there was a Patron Saint for parents and lo and behold St Rita of Cascia came up in 0.43 seconds. But what I found rather disconcerting was that St Rita is better known as the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes.
With that happy though to sustain me I pottered downstairs to re-enter the fray that is my daily life. In the few minutes of my absence a situation had occurred between my offspring that required my immediate mediation.
Bog Boy, my youngest and most determined, had taken over the hammock under the tree and was not allowing his elder brother to join him. I was requested to reason with him. Bog Boy is just three. No one reasons with a three year old, especially one that has such a rigid view on the right and wrongs of fair play. He also knows that he has a strong hand to play being: A, the smallest, B - the youngest and C – the most blue eyed and blonde headed of my two children.
Assessing the situation as I clear the garden of Dog doings, I start off softly.
Me: Be kind boys, both of you can play in the Hammock
BB: No
Bog Boy responds without hesitation from the shroud he has made within the Hammock.
Me: Go on Bog Boy let your brother in
BB: No
Me: Let your brother in Bog Boy
BB: No
Me: Bog Boy share!
BB: No
OK a straightforward tack isn’t going to work and I see that Bog Boy is getting entrenched. Bribery!
Me: Do you want to have any treats Bog Boy?
BB: No
Well that was quicker than most days, usually we manage to have a discussion about what treats are on offer before he makes up his mind whether to give in or not. Today it is definitely a “Not” day. Revert to Plan A: straight forward ask.
Me: Bog Boy let you brother in the Hammock.
BB: No
Me: Let your brother in Bog Boy
Getting a tad more exasperated as I miss scoop a Doing and nearly tread in it.
BB: No
Me: I’m warning you …
Bog Boy raises his head from the depths of the Hammock and peers at me as if to say ‘And…’
He looks at what I am carrying and well a thought suddenly crosses my mind and it is far from saint like.
Me: Bog Boy if you do not share the hammock with your brother I am going to dump all these Doings on you.
I leave my children playing happily in the hammock under the tree together a picture of filial bliss.

Going Topless...

There is something wonderful about going topless; it’s exhilarating and, well just liberating.
Dear Charlie says I don’t do it often enough and complains that I am not exactly spontaneous. In my defence I have been known to do it abroad while on holiday, in fact I went topless on a train all the way across France on our honeymoon.
Yesterday I went topless on the school run and had to endure looks of approbation from all the other Mummies who either couldn’t or wouldn’t do the same.
I blame the credit crunch and the eco-stasi.
Mostly the eco-stasi.
The eco-stasi would put the kybosh on most things really but I suppose the thing that drives them nuts is when people flaunt it.
Yesterday I flaunted for all I was worth and I felt great. I had a smile on my face so large the sun probably had to put shades on.
It was absolutely fabulous!
I do love driving sports cars. I especially like driving my own without the top on. I know it’s not the thing to do, that I really should be trying to save the planet and not drive a thirsty little fuzz bomb around the lanes of Suffolk scaring all the locals but I really really needed to blow off a little yesterday and well it seemed so harmless.
It’s not the fastest sports car in the world and for sports car aficionados it probably doesn’t rate at all but for me it’s a taste of all the things I once was or thought I was before children, before commitment, before mortgages and well before I knew the planet really could be saved by regulating how I drive and remembering not to put black plastic bin liners in the recycle bin.
Babe, as she is affectionately known, is an 11-year old Mazda MX5 – the first of the non-pop up headlight versions and she is so sleek. I love her lines. She is a work of art to me and if it wasn’t for her Dear Charlie and I would never have got together in the first place – seriously!
Way back then DC had a problem he couldn’t get a girlfriend and he wouldn’t go out with me in case he ruined our friendship despite the fact that that was all that I had longed for, for years. But hey there are none so blind who cannot see.
So that summer Operation Girlfriend was launched. DC underwent a makeover, went to cordon bleu school to meet girls and bought a car. Having looked at Mercedes, BMW, MG and the like, he finally settled on the new Mazda MX5 ‘cos he could fit his golf bag in the boot.
The car was to act as a lure to attract attention, preferably from girls, and in preparation we decided a road trip would be a good idea. So Dear Charlie and I hopped in the Mazda and drove through France down to the Pyrenees and fell in love – finally!
So when I drive the Babe magnet, I cannot help remembering what she means to me and now 10 years of marriage later it reminds me how thrilling it all was to be free and topless of course!

Memoirs of a Marathon - How could I have done it without you?

To the Cheshire girls in all their fake tanned glory
With streaked blond hair and make up awry
With “Daddy’s booked us supper at the Ivy!”
And champagne on ice you really should try me
To the men who ignored it and the boys who couldn’t help it
And the clitter and the clatter
Of the train full of chatter
As it rattled its way further and farther
Silence loomed and so died the laughter
To the back streets round Greenwich full of hope and ambition
Of the boasting and preening
Of the Vaseline and sun screening
For the shade of sweet Spanish Chestnut on the uphill walk
The hum of humanity and chastened talk

To the Conductors, the Guards, the Marshals and Scouts
For the banter and the cheers putting fear to rout
Of the queues for the loo and all that endless waiting
Last minute stretches and anticipating
For the news on the tannoy of the official start
Then the waiting again ‘til its time to depart
Slapped in Pen 9 right at the back
“Move over Darling, cut us some slack!”
Squashed by a donkey, squeezed by a pear
Isn’t that Superman just over there?
Scuffling, shuffling, retying laces
Hoping to find some more familiar faces
Then the realisation that the crowd is thinning
There’s the start line and our marathon is beginning.

To the boys and the men and the girls in the bushes
Giggles and laughter cannot spare your blushes
Caught short at the start I couldn’t help grinning
An army of backsides saluting the beginning
Past the chapels and churches
And kids on their perches
A sprinkling Holy Water to make you run quicker
Blessings from the Fathers, the Rector and Vicar
Past trumpeters and cheerleaders
And transvestite speeders
Clapping and calling
Hallooing and caterwauling
On up past the Barracks and down the far side
Feeling quite good now and into my stride

To the Rhino, The Nurse and good old Tobermory
Paddington, Rupert in all their fine glory
Panting and puffing and pushing on through
Each plodding resolutely one of the few
High fives and low fives
Things to make us re-vive
Madness, Survivor and Don’t Stop Me Now
I start to sweat and to mop my brow
Past pubs and clubs and backyard parties
Handed out sweeties and half melted smarties
Over pingers and bleepers
Are we speeders or creepers?
Now under dark bridges with fantastical drummers
The sky, now so blue, like the height of full summer

To the ones who ran in the memory of others
Of the brothers and sisters, of fathers and mothers
“Running for Emily” “Running for Dad”
“I’ll never forget you – I’ll make you glad”
The amputee soldiers ran nevertheless
The roar of the crowd was unceasing ceaseless
Willing them, urging them, forcing them on,
Their rights to be a hero, a conclusion forgone
Running for the animals, running for the kids,
Running for the blind and those on the skids
Water Aid, Arc, Epilepsy Action too
Age Concern, Scope and Dreams come true
To celebrities and showmen, to Pete and to Jordan
For keeping your cool: “Respect for you. Yo Man!”

To the ones who sprayed water on a baking hot day
Our bodies sang relief what more can I say?
The sun was relentless beat down on our heads
Our legs felt like iron and our feet like lead
Pain now set in and joints they were creaking
Our throats so dry we didn’t feel like speaking
Over Tower Bridge now we come face to face
With those who are running a much faster race
Our thoughts they turn blacker we’re only half way
So what does it matter if we walk part o’ the way?
Walking or slogging
And limp start jogging
Now we face demons of all our own making
To run or to stop: it’s our choice for the taking.

To the girl in the pink dress who called out my name
How much you did help me to rekindle the flame
Exhausted in body I could hardly reply
I gave you a thumbs up as I struggled on by
I started to dig deep down deeper than ever
To find in myself a reason whatever
Though tired and lonely and aching and more
I picked myself up from down on the floor
Now my legs started pumping
And my heart it was thumping
From a walk to a jog
To a constant hard slog
Each yard it got better and better and better
The girl in the pink dress: I’ll never forget her.

To the drink station volunteers and gallant first aiders
The homeowners, the publicans and East End traders
To the woman who offered the cheese and ham sarnies
You pitied us all and thought us all barmy
You chattered and nattered and cheered us along
“Keep going there luv the end’s now not long!”
To the singers and bands, the DJs and jocks
For Up Town Girls, Sex Bomb and heavy metal rock
How you kept us all going
Even when we were slowing
Chanting and clapping
Singing and rapping
Calling our names shouting for more
The roar of the crowd is hard to ignore

To the last half mile of this very long run
It’s been quite exhausting and well…really great fun!
Now there here just ahead of us rises Big Ben
Towering over the multitudes and the policemen
Cordoned and guarded we’re funnelled on through
Tamils on the left of us calling for their due
Tourists on the right of us cheering us on
“Move your self girl - get a move on!”
A runner on one knee
Calls will you marry me
The woman in the yellow dress
We all hope she said yes!
Now up past the Palace in glorious sunshine
And there just ahead of us is the finish line.

To my sponsors and their generosity
Because they know me or out of curiosity
It was done in just five hours and thirty-six
No cheating I promise and no tricks
Each step, each yard, each mile
I will remember all and smile
Now to the best bit of the day
To Caroline what can I say?
A bath was drawn, champagne was served
It was far more than I deserved
And so to family
And so to friends
I’ll thank you now as I thanked you then
I’ll thank you all again and again and again.