Result

The sun shone, my nose stopped running and apart from two unexpected, huge blisters that kicked in at the 7km mark, the whole experience was pretty good.

Made it round the Hampton Court 10K in aid of Cancer Research in a fairly respectable time of 56.10. No records broken - in fact it could be my slowest "official" run ever, but given I was about to pull out on Tuesday, I'm well chuffed. J came to cheerlead, which in actual fact translated as keeping me company before and after, and sun-bathing whilst I was running, but who can blame her?

I'm now signed up for the Reading half marathon in March next year and am waiting for confirmation I haven't got through the ballot for the London marathon - in which case I may enter Edinburgh instead. But for now, I'm enjoying just getting home from work and sitting on my bony arse. It's like at school after I finished my GCSEs - I felt I should be doing something productive, but had that warm, fuzzy feeling that it was done and dusted and I was justified in doing absolutely nothing. Magic.

Thanks to Jude, my sister and my mum for sponsoring me! It's cos of you I bothered turning up at all....

Something fishy...

Imagine my shock a few minutes ago when I opened my tea-time scampi to discover a piece that looks like AN ACTUAL FISH! Is it a sign? Considered calling the local paper or trying to sell it on Ebay...but I'm too hungry

10K on Sunday....

I have stood up, been counted, and declared, "screw you Mother Nature! Man Flu shall not stop me!" My Bestival cold is still in full effect and I had seriously considered pulling out of the Cancer Research 10K on Sunday, but the thought of waking up on Sunday (no doubt with a hangover) knowing I should have been there, the training I have been doing and the knowledge that two people sponsored me persuaded me to have a tentative jog this evening. I made it 7.5km and decided that I could just about manage it round the course.

I'll be puffing along at the back with the fat chicks, but at least I'll have done it.

Bestival

Ah, so it was all worth it in the end. All the stress of getting the ticket melted away in the baking hot sunshine on the Isle of Wight. This time two weeks ago I was getting ready to go, ensuring everything was packed (except, unfortunately, for the Pritt Stick that would have made my fancy dress costume marginally less rubbish looking than it ultimately was).

A few niggles aside - the positioning of the main stage (at the top of a steep hill?!), the noise bleed from nearby stages, and most of all, the farcical departure procedures on Monday - I had an amazing time, as did the rest of the posse.... There were the usual tales of debauchery which due to a "what goes on tour" pact I am unable to divulge, but we all came through it with brain cells and - by and large - memories intact.

Highlights for me were Friendly Fires, Klaxons, 2 Many DJs, Speech Debelle and a couple of moments down at the Afterburner stage - Rob da Bank playing classic after classic on Saturday night (I never realised what an amazing tune 'Bonkers' by Dizzee Rascal was until I heard played 'properly') and closing off proceedings on Sunday night dancing and hollering along to cheesy pop in the Jim Beam bar. Of the headliners, I have to admit that I left Massive Attack after about 3 songs to go and dance my socks of at Optimo, and departed Kraftwerk after a similar amount of time on Saturday night - sacrilege I know, but I was on the road to falling asleep after overdoing it the night before and my heart just wasn't in it. It took the aforementioned Mr da Bank to drag me back from the abyss and keep me going until 2am. Elbow, thankfully, were as epic as I hoped they would be, and listening to 'One Day Like This' even now sends shivers down my spine.

The fancy dress was a bit of a disaster - stuck together with parcel tape, it looked for all the world like I was wearing some cardboard with a washing up bowl on my head and a pair of wellies wrapped in tin foil. Mercifully, Mr Spoon was by definition a space explorer built from assorted kitchen detritus, so I like to think I pulled off a far more authentic costume than the plentiful other Spoons I saw wafting around the festival. Someone thought so anyway, and somewhere on the internet there is a photo of me taken by one of the 'proper' photographers doing the rounds - as yet I've been unable to track it down though. I gave everyone a chuckle anyway, so I would call it a result all round....

Only downer was the queue to get out - bedlam that resulted in a 4 hour wait in the sun for a taxi. The only bonus was that we weren't in a car - my other mates were, and Craig and I were back in Portsmouth having a beer and some lunch whilst they hadn't yet moved an inch in the car park. Having all left together at 10.30am, I left Craig off in Woolwich at 7pm, was home by 8, whilst they wended their sorry way into their drive at midnight. Took the edge of events for a few days, but as usual, the bad bits are all forgotten now.....

I survived

Bestival. 2 Polish weddings. First day of new job. Done.

4 hours to get out of the festival, 17 hours of Polish train travel and a Bestival-related headcold later, I can finally take some time to relax and look back on the last week and a half....

Got some Bestie photos here....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tattie_chomper/sets/72157622427807070/

Will update more about the fun and frolics on the Isle of Wight and in Polska over the next few days. Suffice to say it was all worth it.

Just another nondescript evening in London town

Will I ever get tired of this view?

C'mon boys!

Yep, all that needs to be said for tonight's crunch game against Slovakia is.....

COME ON NORTHERN IRELAND!!!!!!

Bestival calling...

Yep, finally, I have my ticket.

After calling Wightlink back again on Monday to be told the same vague shit about it "definitely being with me in the next couple of days", I asked to speak to someone who could tell me exactly what was going on. A very helpful supervisor called Henry finally explained that I was just the unlucky one (although not sure how many other people were affected) and he made sure my ticket was sent and called me back a few hours later with the tracking number.

Royal Mail then conspired to ramp up the stress levels that little bit further by having strikes yesterday and today in my area. Gawd bless the scabs' little cottons though, they not only tried to deliver it yesterday, but had the sorting office open this morning for me to pick it up (as it was sent special delivery). Swear to God, if this was some kind of cunning ruse to try and make me appreciate the weekend that is about to unfold, it has bloody worked. I can feel my stress levels rising again just thinking back to the whole episode.

But..... all that remains is for me to construct my Mr Spoon outfit, wake up tomorrow on time, get down to Pompey and get on that boat. It's on. Oh boy, is it on.

Wightlink fail

On 2nd June, I paid £225 to Wightlink in an attempt to be organised and take advantage of a combined ticket for Bestival and the car ferry to the Isle of Wight.

For the past 3 months, I've been looking forward to the festival, spending money on camping equipment etc, using my final holidays for the year and checking the news and line up information almost daily.

It is now the Sunday before the festival and my ticket still hasn't arrived. I was told at the time of booking that it would be sent out 2 weeks before it began. I called on Thursday to be told that information was wrong and that they were currently being sent out. I should phone back tomorrow (Friday) when they would give me a tracking number for Royal Mail. I mentioned that this was a bit inconvenient as I obviously work every day - the ticket has to be signed for so if it didn't arrive on Saturday I was going to have problems getting to the sorting office to collect it.

Sat in all morning on Saturday. Called Wightlink again to confirm that the ticket was on its way. Got told by a smug bloke called Will that due to an "anomaly" my ticket hadn't been sent out. What kind of anomaly? Just an anomaly. Obviously a company euphemism for "we've bitten off more that we can chew and can't cope with the simple task of matching up orders to tickets". They were currently trying to tidy up "all the loose ends", such as the fact they hadn't noticed I hadn't been sent my ticket.

I asked if they would have realised, if I hadn't called up to find out where it was? Will admitted it was probably a good thing I had. I asked him if he could guarantee that it would be sent on Monday? He guaranteed it would be. He also guaranteed that it would arrive on Tuesday... when, of course, I'm at work. So I'll need to go to the post office on Wednesday before work to collect it. That, obviously, is dependant on everything "Will" has told me being correct and coming true, which given my experiences so far I'm not counting on. If it doesn't arrive until Wednesday I'm screwed, as I'm leaving for the South Coast at 6am on Thursday morning.

There was complete ambivalence from Will as I tried to get him to see that it was perhaps poor customer service to be so badly organised. I can only imagine he'd had the same conversation with so many people he has grown cold to the amount of stress, annoyance and anger the situation has put me under. To be fair my incredulity at the situation saw me struggle for words to convey how I was feeling and I resorted to half-baked phrases like "farcical" - all met with the same weary, disinterested response. I'm now even concerned he'll deliberately ensure my ticket order 'disappears' as payback for my moaning. This is the level of paranoia I've sunk to.

I'm supposed to be getting excited, counting sleeps, making fancy dress costumes and day dreaming about this time next week. Instead I can't even think about the bloody festival because it gets me wound up and gives me a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Thanks a bunch Shitelink.

Ran 10km tonight

Got home from work, strapped on the gutties and off I jogged. I am a running machine!

Not literally, obviously. Things would be a bit weird if I were to lie in my local gym allowing people to run on the spot on top of me. Besides, if any item of furniture sums up my outlook on life, its a comfy plastic chair in the cafe, near the drinks machine and with a nice view of the swimming pool.