All I do is win!

Happy New Year! I come bearing happy salutations and great news. Whilst 2012 was clearly not my year for winning: 2013 is! So what, I hear thee ask, have I won? Well gather ye round for I shall tell thee. Ist thee sitting comfortably for I shall begineth...

Towards the end of 2012 I had amassed more than 400 entries into online competitions on one website for prizes ranging from a Holiday of a lifetime to various new cars to a copy of the Shades of Grey books. I had entered the lottery religiously and I had committed to several raffles. But it was none of these that came good (quite relieved about the Shades of Grey if I'm honest). 

No the competition I have won was actually linked to another of my challenges. As I intend to meet Ben Ainslie (Olympic Sailor/ handsome fella) I have been following him on Facebook in case he one day declares he's opening a fete near by or some such similar. Now the nice people that run Ben's page had a 12 days of Christmas competition (which of course I was entering every day) and on the 2nd Jan I received this email: 

"Happy New Year Liz! I am very pleased to let you know you won the signed JPMorgan BAR cap on Day 11 of Ben & Rita’s Christmas Countdown! Congratulations"

The 2nd highest prize no less! As you can see when the parcel arrived there were also badges, stickers and some Port/Starboard socks! Ok so a cap isn't exactly a Holiday of a lifetime but it's still a prize and I intend to celebrate accordingly (unless another prize is won which is easier to celebrate).

So now I have to work out what an appropriate celebration is. Should I go sailing? Or as it's a baseball cap should I watch some baseball? Perhaps I should have a pilgrammage to Lymington to try and find Ben himself? What do you think is a suitable celebration for this prize?

In other exciting progress news my family/friends were very helpful in buying me presents over Christmas so I now have The Godfather trilogy and 2 box sets of Poirot (plus fake moustaches) ready to wear and watch. Also thanks to my kind friend John and my big bro Pete I also have on loan all of the Star Wars films and a costume to wear. So look out soon for I shall be scheduling in some DVD watching weekends and I'd love you to join me.

You Win Again

Today, if I had no conscience, I could have crossed off a challenge. If only my parents had brought me up to lie, cheat and steal I could be ticking off number 12: Win a competition and celebrate accordingly.

At a trade fair I ran into a couple of my former colleagues. I'll call some Chris and Bjorn (for those are their names). They were chatting to a somewhat dull man about something I didn't fully understand. I stood and listened and after the appropriate amount of time excused myself but just a few moments later the aforementioned dull man... I'll call him Nev (Not because that's his name...just because that strikes me as a dull name)... came up to me and said the golden words to me
"Would you like to enter a competition?"
Now if you've read my previous post on this challenge you'll know that those words are like the red flag to a bull or a bottle of St Tropez to an Essex girl. So far I have entered 360 competitions through one of those competition websites (this is in less than 3 months) and I even gave up £3 of my last £4 in November for the chance of winning a Pudsey Bear. I really do go crazy for a competition so Nev offering me another opportunity to win...well he wouldn't have to ask me twice. He did have to explain the rulesmore than twice though as, bless Nev, a Gameshow host he will never make! So I filled in my entry form and he kindly then said the words that led to my inevitable downfall: "Shall we fill in forms for Chris and Bjorn too?" 

Well, had I been a statistician I may have said "No!" to this question, clearly I'd be lessening my odds of winning but because I was excited for them to potentially win I declared "Absolutely!" and Nev and I filled in the forms putting my phone number as the contact on all 3 entries.

You can imagine what happened next. I'm working away at my desk when the phone rings. 
"Hello, It's Nev here! Good news!" 
My interest in what Nev has to say has never been higher...I squeal delightedly.
"Bjorn's won a prize!"
My heart sank slightly. A lesser person than I would have felt robbed, frustrated with Bjorn but thankfully I'm a pretty good loser and to be honest I was just delighted for my friend to win something. After all if I can't win it I'm glad it's going to someone lovely. (Plus it was only a £10 gift voucher!)

So I arranged with Nev where to leave the prize for Bjorn then, as he didn't even know he'd entered the competition I claimed the prize for myself and spent my tenner

...only joshing! 

Had I been more Machiavellian perhaps I would have done this but instead I emailed Bjorn to tell him he was a winner of a competition he had no idea he'd entered and told him where he could pick it up. Because that's what friends do. 

Besides if you believe in Karma you could say I have just raised my chances of winning one of those 360 online prizes now! Perhaps next post, instead of a Bee Gees track as a title I'll be posting one by Hot Chocolate (and I don't mean You Sexy Thing!).

RIP

It is with deep regret that I write the obituary of the 40b440 plants. The plants, known individually as Nasturtium, Marigold and Morning Glory sadly lost there lives after a tragic night in frost conditions. They were just under three months of age at the time of death and will be sadly missed by their black fingered gardener, Daybarkle. 

The plants, which had been thriving only a few weeks previously had been moved indoors due to inclement weather but were put outside to gain some much needed sunshine during the daytime. However, their neglectful gardener failed to remember to bring them inside when it turned dark. They were discovered covered in ice and clearly in a deceased state. Despite best efforts to revive the plants they were declared dead on the scene. 


Daybarkle plans to hold a small service for friends and family of the deceased only. Floral donations may just be seen as insensitive on this occasion!





On the plus side Spring is only a few months away now so I guess I'll be planting some new seeds then and having another go at the challenge.

Here's a little sneak preview how one of my other challenges is progressing...

                                                                                                                 ...more on this soon!

Tequila!

If there's a lot on your mind it's there to help you forget,To relax and rewind and leave behind the regret,First sip makes you well before you know it it's time,And you're saying to hell with the salt, lemon and lime,Salt, lemon and lime, time Tequila, 

That's the curse of Tequila.....

(Terrorvision, Tequila)

It may seem strange to you that I could have reached the age of 38 and never have tried Tequila but the truth is that I am one of those people who is full to the brim of common sense. This has been both a blessing and a curse in my life. I recall being a teenager and a friend's mum going round the group saying: "Vera, you're so pretty; Elsie you're so glamorous;  Liz, you have so much common sense". Not what you want to hear really but I guess it was true. It's for this reason alone that I've never been drawn to trying Tequila. Clearly it's the sort of substance that fools people into thinking they're fine and then BAM! I've never wanted to be locked in a small room with Jedward and Jar Jar Binks...and I've always suspected that a Tequila hangover may well feel like this.

So it was with a certain trepidation that last night I faced the challenge of trying Tequila. My team mates in this challenge were some trusted old chums: Sally (who kindly donated the Tequila...complete with tiny Sombrero lid and took the photos); Lucy and Doug. 

We wanted to do it properly so we squeezed a little lime on the back of hands, applied the salt and prepared ourselves for the potential horror. As it turned out only Sally had tried it before...and she had declared she wouldn't be doing it tonight. This did not speak well for the challenge. 

 

We prepared ourselves and on the countdown of three licked the salt, downed the shot and sucked our lime.

We'd done it! Challenge 2 of 40 complete. Easy as! It is an odd flavour and experience but was surprisingly fine.

Needless to say my common sense kicked in at this point and whilst Lucy and Doug went back for more...

 I happily declared that I'd achieved it and wore my tiny sombrero with pride.

On to the next challenge then. Hopefully I have a week off work soon so I'm hoping to complete at least 3 that week. (If anyone has the Star Wars films or the Godfather Trilogy and can lend them to me that would be a great help). 

To give you a little progress on some of the ongoing challenges: it's good news and bad news. I've now walked 9 miles of the Cheshire Ring (volunteer companions still very welcome) which is good (just 88 miles to go). The bad news though is my plant growing. When I last posted a picture it was all going so well, but the frost was due so I brought the window box inside and things have gone down hill ever since. Whilst the Marigold's have flourished the Morning Glory is virtually dead and the nasturtiums are a few days away from extinction.  My claim was that I couldn't cross off the "grow something" challenge until one of them had flowered. This is looking less likely by the week. Will I manage to turn things round? Probably not!

Picture Perfect Walk

The Winner Takes It All

Now some people have rightly commented that some of these challenges I have done before. It is true, for example, that I once made a costume for one of the witches from Macbeth. However, this isn't about doing all new things: it's about having fun!

Most of my my challenges are definitely new to me but one that is an old friend is Number 12: "win a competition". I am one of those annoying people who wins things. So far in life (amongst other things) I've won two holidays, a lovely Parker pen and pencil set, a Guildford flames hoodie, a voucher for Macdonalds, a record token, several boxes of chocs/bottle of wine and 48 packets of crisps. I'm sorry, I know it seems unfair that I seem to take the prize home more often than you but answer yourself this honestly: Do you enter many competitions? I enter loads. Really I do. For example this morning I have entered 62 online competitions. Can you say the same is true for you? So is it any wonder then that I win more competitions than you?!

Now it's not to say that I am lucky in all the competitions I enter. I doubt very much I'll win any of the 62 but you can't win if you don't take part. Plus my luck is clearly directional. I am freakishly lucky at raffles...in fact if you see me buying a raffle ticket you probably shouldn't bother getting one yourself as I'll be winning that. But if you ask me to cut the pack in cards I will always lose there. I am good at cards however so lady luck serves me well there....but you know the old saying "lucky in cards: unlucky in love"? Well trust me it's a saying and in my case it seems to be spot on. 

I'll confess that it's not every day that I enter 62 competitions (and I dread to think how much junk mail I'm going to get as a result of it) but as it's cold out and pay day isn't until tomorrow this was the only one of my challenges I could think of attempting today. Plus a lot of the prize draws I took part in were for things that could help me with other challenges should I win the prize. I entered to win a trip to a French vineyard; money to spend at HMV/Amazon (need to get those DVDs after all); a couple of camcorders (fitness video). I also entered anything I could see that would help me get a vacuum cleaner after mine wasn't working very well so I took it apart and now it's worse/smells funny/ and I have a leftover screw! 

So will I win any of these? Almost certainly not. But someone has to win and why shouldn't it be me? This is just the first attack. If this doesn't work I'll try again and then I'll start on the local radio competitions too. Of course the big worry is whether this particular challenge will become a "watched kettle never boils" type of challenge. When I'm not worried about winning I win loads but when I'm trying to win will I suddenly become as successful as the UK in Eurovision (post Katrina and the Waves)? 

Watch this space to see if the winner takes it all. 

Vierzig vor vierzig

This week I decided to have a fairly impromptu trip to Berlin to cheer on a friend who was running in the marathon. Berlin is a surprisingly delightful city and much cheering was accomplished. But this was not the only thing that was achieved. For I am pleased to declare that...

I have completed my first challenge!

After my practice at Bury Market when I spotted a little street market I decided to check it out. With my haggling head on I scanned the stalls eager to find something I wouldn't hate to have in my home. I finally settled on some cute little prints of animals. Sadly nothing to do with Berlin but I could at least picture it in my home. I asked how much...she said 10 Euros. Taking a breath and being brave I said "Would you take 8?". She paused. The fierce negotiation battle had begun. What number would she come back with I wondered? I held firm remembering Martin Lewis' instructions for haggling "Don't fill the silences"...I braced myself for her counter offer. "Ok" she replied! OK?! Well that was unexpected. I left with my purchase in hand and a mixed feeling of achievement and frustration I hadn't gone in lower still. But mostly feeling pleased that after almost a month I had finally achieved my first challenge.

Here's a little pic of my purchase:

But that's not all...I also managed to do my first dance in a capital city:

Not the most flattering pic but I'm salsa-ing away happily near the Marathon finish line here. And as if that wasn't enough I thought you'd like to know how my plants are coming along (get ready to be impressed!):

On the far left is my now dying heather (we'll pretend that doesn't exist for a moment) Then from L to R I believe we have Marigolds, Morning Glory and Nasturtiums. Now I'm a little concerned that I may just have planted these at a very silly time of year as frosts will be upon us soon enough so any tips for helping them survive would be appreciated. My theory is that I cannot cross the challenge off until one of them flowers. 

And lastly as you may have noticed I have learned the German for 40 before 40 - 1 down, 9 to go! (So glad I didn't go for 40!)

So what next? I honestly have no idea. I still haven't begun my Cheshire Ring walk but assuming it's not too damp this weekend I may try and do some of that. 

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