Confirmation - the 'greatest tickets on earth'..........for Judo! Woo!

Copy of my confirmation email below from the London 2012 Ticketing Team for 2 tickets to watch Judo at next year's Olympics. Relevant info deleted and no, not interested in selling, swapping etc.

We are very pleased!

 
Dear VANESSA 

Congratulations! You have been allocated some of the greatest tickets on earth!

This email is from the London 2012 Ticketing team, confirming that your Olympic Games ticket application has now been processed. Your new Olympic Games ticket reference number is

We are delighted to confirm that you have been allocated the following tickets to the London 2012 Olympic Games:

Sport: Judo
Session code: JU001
Venue: EXCEL
Date/Time: 28 JULY 2012 
Price category: C
Quantity: 2

Total number of tickets: 2
Total cost of tickets: £70
Total cost of merchandise: £0
Delivery charge: £6
Total amount charged: £76

To plan your travel to your Games event, please read Travel

If you have any questions regarding your Olympic Games ticket application, please use our Frequently asked questions

Please include your Olympic Games ticket reference number, which can be found at the top of this email, in all communications.

We will give full details of your seat location when we send your tickets in summer 2012. For security purposes, your tickets will be billed and delivered to the address you provided in your ticket application. This must be the same address at which your Visa card is registered. If you need to update your address, please contact the London 2012 Ticketing team.

You will be able to apply for remaining tickets on the London 2012 ticketing website from 6:00am on 8 July to 6:00pm on 17 July 2011.

There are still lots of great sports available in the second chance sales window, including Volleyball, Wrestling, Football, Handball and Hockey. Please read Availability for a full list.

The application process for second chance sales has important differences to the application phase which ran from 15 March to 26 April 2011. Please read How to apply for full information.


Thomas Cook Games Breaks
As the official provider of short breaks to the Games, Thomas Cook still have a limited number of Games Breaks available. Thomas Cook Games Breaks start at £99 per person and include official tickets, accommodation in London hotels and a range of other services. Find out more at the Thomas Cook website

Don't be fooled by bogus websites and organisations claiming to sell tickets to the Games. London 2012 will never contact you directly to ask for personal or financial details in relation to your ticketing account, or ask you to reveal your ticketing account password. To check whether a website is an official sales channel use our website checker.

This email is generated automatically, please do not reply.

Best wishes and congratulations again,
London 2012 Ticketing team

How does your garden grow?

Our vegetable patch - waiting for the first shoots!

How rubbish has the weather been this weekend? On the positive side, you could say it has been tropical - really hot one minute and then showers the next. Except the showers are not the lukewarm kind you get in say Indonesia. It has felt like October at times!  Wimbledon starts tomorrow so the weather is just about right I guess.

After the action packed events of Portland last weekend, Mat and I have spent most of this weekend working on the saga that is our Japanese garden. Weeding, cutting, trimming, mowing and sawing. There is still loads to do but we are slowly denting the mammoth task of prettifying it all and we also managed to get some planting done.  Woop! 

I'm very excited about our vegetable patch.  As it is so late in the planting season, we have gone for a variety of salad leaves, green beans, mangetout, purple sprouting broccoli, pak choi and 'ping pong ball' courgettes. I got very 'Good Life' writing on the label sticks and very much looking forward to seeing and eating the fruits of our labour. Just call me Barbara Good!  Thank you very much to Marc for lending his strength and helping shift our granite bench over to its rightful position. And as for the pick-axe wielding - I'm impressed!

Highly recommend the Fiskars Weed Puller for a bit of weed pulling action. I saw the advert and fell for the hype but this product really works so go and get one if you want to 'pull' next weekend :-)

Edward Scissorhands eat your heart out



Mat & Marc planting the cherry tree

Strange brew

Thank your god it's Friday and all that. And that I'm tucked up in bed.

The weather is atrocious (cold, wet, windy) and I'm heading to sleep as tomorrow I am going on my first outdoor climbing trip to Portland - the climbing mecca of the south coast. Or something like that. I don't think I have mentioned it on here, but I have started climbing again.

Back in the harness again

Nothing too strenuous mind - I'm doing routes akin to climbing a ladder. I know my physical limitations at the moment and I am taking my time getting back into it. I have done two sessions so far and have enjoyed both. Portland is more out of curiosity and if I really don't like it, there's always the view to enjoy.

It has been a strange old week. Mostly because amongst the routine and general busy-ness of work, there's been the matter of my 6-month post transplant re-staging. 

I had yet another bone marrow biopsy on Wednesday - a different part on my hip bone this time but the same hideous, painful procedure and another MRI scan earlier to check on my bones. I know I have to go through it all as it is necessary to keep an eye on me but sometimes, just sometimes I really wish I didn't have to go through any of this. 

I know I laugh and joke and make light of it but in reality these are fairly heavy duty medical stuff to go through. I not only find it all physically challenging but pretty hard going psychologically too. I'm not asking for sympathy, just asking for a bit of slack. And understanding. 

I'm rather hoping that my complete remission from three months ago continues but you never know with this disease and as the 6 month mark is key, I'm keen to pass this particular test. I'll let you know in 2 weeks what the result is.

In the meantime, Mat and I made the most of the nice early evening weather earlier by traipsing over to the Kyoto Garden in Holland Park - a beautiful Japanese garden in central London. Mat was hoping to get some planting ideas  for our own garden and it was definitely worth the trip as it is beautiful - small but perfectly formed. And a peacock even made an appearance. Strange brew indeed.

More news to follow this weekend. Watch this space. 

In the meantime, enjoy the pics of the Kyoto Garden below.

2012 Olympics here we come!

Save us a seat!

We have 2012 Olympic tickets! My application was one of the lucky ones who got randomly chosen by the Olympic ticket chooser-machine-computer-thingy-whatever and Mat and I are either off to see the Judo or the Field Hockey competition. Confirmation will be made at the end of this month.


Not exactly the glamour sports but having had a conversation with someone who had experience of applying for tickets to the Sydney 2000 Olympics, we were advised to go for the least popular events to boost our chances of getting tickets. And I refuse to pay silly money - bankruptcy is never a good look!


Still not quite sure how it is all allocated but I am pleased that we will be there for a once in a lifetime experience. And we found out that the Olympic Cycling Road Race route will go past outside where we live so we can be there waving our flags and cheering on the cyclists - and it is all free!


All very exciting and something else to look forward to in 2012...

Regular blogging resumption...

Yes, yes, yes I know I have been a bit slack with my blogging. But now that life is relatively getting back to a bit of a routine, I hope to resume regular blogging again.

Although in saying that, this post will be on the short side as I am a little tired and need my sleep following a fun packed birthday weekend for Alex in Buckinghamshire and a lovely family lunch in a beautiful village in Kent on Saturday. It was all go and a great time was had by all where we met some fantastic people and chowed down on delicious food. Nom, nom, nom!

It's weekends like this that make me appreciate even more what beautiful countryside we have in the UK. When the sun is shining and the birds are singing, the green rolling hills of our fair isle is hard to beat in terms of scenery. Abso-bloomin-lovely in my opinion and worthy of comparison to the beauty of exotic rice terraces.

Get me, I'm getting poetic. I think it is time for sleeps.

More blogging soon. Over and out for now. 


 

One year on

One year on and still eating cake

As you may or may not have been aware, this time last year, specifically the 19th May I was told my devastating cancer news. Well, a year on loads of things have happened, my hair is turning into a mini-afro and I am pleased to say that I am still here.

 

Lance Armstrong calls his day of cancer diagnosis 'Livestrong Day' and me being shameless, thought I would adopt this for me also.  I am sure he wouldn't mind :-)  He would understand I'm sure. Since that day, I have tried to live as strongly as I can each day although it hasn't been easy. In fact, sometimes it has been bloody difficult and downright impossible.

 

Anyway, as the years go on I hope to mark 19th May in some way although my head was a little all over the place this year because of one thing or another to 'commemorate' it fully. I dressed up with the intention of going out with Mat but I wasn't really up for it this time around.

I even wore high heels for the day. Only because I remember being told that because the tumour was pressing on my spinal cord they had to deal with it asap otherwise I may be paralysed.  And the only thing I could think of at the time was not being able to walk in high heels ever again if I was in a wheel chair! All a bit ridiculous now but it's strange what goes through your mind at the time.

 

Mat bought me a 'Konditor and Cook' Apple and Strawberry Crumble Cake (see above) complete with lighted candle to mark the occassion which made me smile. It was delicious but strange to eat a crumble as a cake?!

 

As you may have gathered we got back from our amazing Indonesia trip all ok. Our stop-over in Singapore was eventful only for our visit to 'Raffles Hotel' or specifically the Long Bar there for a 'Singapore Sling'.  Yes, it's a cliche but it would have been rude not to. I probably wouldn't go again as it is a little touristy and contrived but it had to be done really - another one ticked off the tourist list!  As an aside, the band playing on our visit were very cheesy but in a good way albeit circa 1976. I half expected the Bee Gees to turn up in their white suits during one of their sets they were that retro.

 

Anyway, depending on what religion you may or may not believe in according to 'the Rapture' the end of the world happened yesterday. Well, either I got left behind or I am living in some weird purgatory state. No matter. I've got a few things left to do in this world yet and happy to wait for the Rapture to come and get me until then.

 

 

Mellow madness at peaceful Pemuteran

Four new blog posts today including this one! Sorry for the delay but dodgy internet connections and expensive wi-fi connections are all to blame. Start from the bottom up :-)

Wed 11^th May

I think the hardest thing I have had to do today is decide which fruit juice to go for. Watermelon or papaya? Pineapple or lime? Decisions, decisions.

It has been quite busy for me today. I got up. Had a delicious breakfast. Showered. Bimbled about a bit. Put my bikini on. Sun cream on. Hat on. Sat on the beach on the sun lounger. Adjusted the sun lounger. Read a bit. Walked around for a bit. Went out and had lunch. Then walked around for a bit more. Back on the sun lounger. Had a virgin colada. Spa session. Said hello to the turtles. Walked around the surrounding area. Then dinner. An episode of ‘House’ on the laptop. Then sleep.

It’s tiring being this mellow ;-) Mat’s itinerary was pretty much the same except there were a couple of dives and snorkeling sessions thrown in.

We like it here :-)

HAIR UPDATE

As an aside and just in case you were wondering, my hair has taken on a life of its own. It is growing nicely but it doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. 

Some of it is straight but the bulk of it is curly. Yep. Curly. As in woolly. As in like sheep. Mat finds this highly amusing. I have this curly horn thing going on just above my left ear!

Please try not to laugh too much when you next see me. I’m blaming it all on this heat and humidity.