What Would I Do Without My Mum?!

In her onesie

Just a couple of wee stories that happened in the last 12 hours that made me laugh so hard I had to dedicate a blog to my mumma.

So last night during an advert break, my mum was eating a Mars bar. There was a break in noise from the TV and all I could hear from the other sofa was a grunting sucking noise. I looked over in disgust but she was completely absorbed in her Mars bar and was doing some sort of weird symmetrical eating plan. I started laughing because she was concentrating on it so much and said "mum.. could you eat that louder?!" and in an Irish accent (bearing in mind she's northern English) just said so matter of factly "well you have to take it apart!!!!".. and then because I distracted her from the melting and went, still Irishly "Ah FECK I've lost some of it under my chins!!" and then foraged for a good 3 minutes!

Being E.T whilst camping

Then this morning, I come down from bed and without even saying good morning, my mum who is dressed in reindeer slippers and a huge dressing gown I bought her for Christmas, which she calls "her suit", threw her laptop to one side and jumped up exclaiming "oh thank God you're here I need to show you something weird!!"

Deathly afraid she was going to open her suit, I stood a little bit closer to the door I had just entered in case I needed to do an immediate u-turn. Then with a face both of concern and childlike glee, she rushed to the window and peeled back the hideous net curtains she insists on having on the large floor to ceiling living room window which, if the hideous nets were taken down, gives you a view of whole garden area.

Laughing hysterically

Beckoning me over with her suit still firmly tied up, thank Christ, I went to see what the weirdness in the garden might be. Shuffling together for a closer inspection out of the tall but relatively narrow for two people standing together by it window, she pointed determinedly and said "LOOK! What does that look like to you?!?".. she had pointed at a spot about 1 inch away from the window where a bit of snow had been meting off. I knew immediately what it was. "that's cat mum".

"No!!" she said excited to tell of her vision of what the snow mystery might be, "that there is a childs footprint!! and that bit there is a giants foot print!".... "a giants footprint, mum seriously! that bit is the cats arse and that childs footprint is where the cat had gone to jump onto the fence and skidded!"

Being scared of Jamie the mini puppy

She hunched over so the window was misting up from her breath coming out her nose which was less than a millimeter away from glass now and declared "ansolutely not. That is a childs foot print and that is giants. I won't hear anymore of it. CLEARLY there are mythical creatures living in our grid end of story."

And with that she sat back down, adjusted her "suit" to be more covering and continued about her day. That was until just this second a bit of snow fell off the roof above and whizzed past the window, making a thump noise just outside it. She shook so violently with shock that her laptop shot off her knee and she yelped "FUCK ME!!!.... SHITTTY DEATH.... GRRRRRR!" she then ran to the window and closed it saying "I better shut this. They might be on the roof!" She then looked down at the mysterious snow and said.. in Irish!! "Oh my God so... it's turned into a Scream Mask now! It's got a laughing face and eyes and everything now!! Just to let you know, if they need a human sacrifice, you're it".

Seriously.. what will I do with out and her mental ways?!

My Mummy with her Mummy

Getting Three Peaks Ready

Twitter me in a signed Jenson Button shirt

G'day darl. Howaya going? I am today, completely splendid and full of energy and beans!

I've come to the conclusion from hashtagging #threepeaks on Twitter (find me @F1_Rowlands) that I seriously, seriously need to up the game to get ready for the challenge. It appears from the many tweets from others about constant gymming and practice mountain hikes that quite simply doing a 45 minute walk up one incline to Tesco once every other week is not going to get me to the physical strength needed to climb three mountains in 24 hours. So my plan has been formulated...

Training at the same gym that Jessica Ennis does, Ponds Forge, I have joined up and will be starting the following classes as of the Monday after pay day...

Look at the size of the slide on the left!!! I am quite excited in case I see olympains

Monday - Boot camp.. I best get me arse in gear and apparently there is no where to hide in Boot Camp
Tuesday - 20/20/20 - this is swimming but being egged on at the same time. A full 2 hours!
Wednesday - break.. think I should let the muscles take a wee break today
Thursday - body pump.. apparently very good for the core which I will need lugging a backpack up hills
Friday - gym - treadmill. Set on flat for running, incline 3 for walking and the highest incline it will go for mock trudging! For a good hour and a half.

I reckon Saturday I will still do my big walk to Tesco but treadmills just aren't life like enough.. you hear many people talking about how they prepared for marathons on the treadmill and nearly died on the pavement. So yes, that is my plan. Unfortunately my plan means a 35 minute walk TO the gym... at 6am... and then a 40 minutes walk TO work!! But it's important. And I must succeed!!!!!

Yeah mine won't look anything like this

In terms of baking, this is going to go quite well I hope. I'm going to make cupcakes with yellow and blue icing, cornflake cakes and fat free blueberry muffings for those on diets. I have discovered Asda's smart price stuff is fantastically smartly priced and have worked out, if I sell each cornflake cake at 40p, for the cost of £4.00 to buy all ingredients which will make around 50, I only have to sell 10 to make my money back and will in profit for the charity make £16.. not much but if I can sell around 50 cakes a week,that's £64 a month which by the time July rocks up, that's £320 made for charity! Nay bad eh.

Go on! Even if it's just to see if it works...

I have a banner and flyers on their way, both free except for £5.40 P&P complimentary of Vista Print. Thanks guy.

And get this!! You can TEXT ME!! Your donation!! Text BEAR91 £10 to 70070 :D Or if you are a bit skint... you can send £1.00, £2.00, £3.00, £4.00 or £5.00.

Or you can visit the website https://www.justgiving.com/bearclimbshills and donate there. Everyone across the world can do it and in the currency you want which is brilliant for all of the amazing friends I have gathered across the globe :-)

But yes,, I will keep you all updated with how training is going and of course, if I pull in the gym. That would be great. And if there is anyone in Sheffield who wants to be my badminton buddy, I can get us a court for £3.00 on Saturday between 1-3pm.


Wish me luck!! or better yet.. sponsor me. Every £10.00 is an hours wage for a Marie Curie Cancer Care nurse to come and look after someone dying. Thanks dudes.

To Successfully Diet...

... is to not bother dieting at all. I wish to buggery that I was thin and could eat what I want but truth of it is, I frickin' LOVE food!!! Pies, stir frys, chicken dinners with all the trimmings, lamb steak with in season asparagus, pizza with double pepperoni, tomato soup...

Also I have a food blog.. how can I diet successfully when I have to make and update the food blog. And I got a new food processor for Christmas.. how AWFUL would it be to watch it gather dust??

I simply need to get a grip, go and exercise more often and eat less pizza. In stead of having a tuna butty with my soup, just have soup!

That's all I have to say for now.

What a Year 2012 was

Heya! This might not be the best blog in the world because I am totally distracted by the baby snoring and Mary Poppins. She looks so cute asleep... so does the baby....

Well what a completely insane year 2012 was eh. I went to the opening of the F1 in Melbourne and met my ultimate hero Jenson Button, I stood on a boat as two baby whales jumped out and played along side it, I snorkelled on the Great Barrier reef where a giant sea turtle came to swim under my legs, I went to Uluru both at sunset and at sunrise and travelled more than 48 hours on a train to get from Adelaide to Darwin. I saw St Kilda win a match at the MCG on my last day in Australia, I saw Andy Murray play Novak Djokovic in a thrilling 4.5 hour match in the Rod Laver arena, I swam in Lake McKenzie, saw crocodiles jump out the water at us to eat something, swan in the ocean with deadly box jelly fish and survived, surfed with dolphins in Byron Bay, went fishing for the first time and raced a pod of dolphins in the speed boat we took out, attempted to bungee jump, skydived and took a helicopter up to Franz Jospeh glaciar and hiked it for 4 hours where I  weaved in and out of ice caves before taking a thermically heated swim in rock pools. 

I saw the fireworks at the stroke of midnight shoot off the Sydney Harbour bridge and Sydney Opera House, I did a handstand opposite the Taj Mahal, I stood just one foot away from where Ghandi was shot and killed, I got parasites that nearly killed me, I climbed the Himalayas, I had a Fergburger! I played and spectacularly crashed on a luge in Rotarura, I zorbed twice, stood in a waterfall in Milford Sound during a storm, hiked to the top of Kings Canyon at 5am to see sunrise, saw my NZ family, stroked a wild dingo (don't do that, it was a very dangerous idea).. I did LOADS!!!

It was completely and utterly the most amazing year of my life. And this is why 2013 scares me to death. How is it possible to top that??? I'm so scared....

Resolutions. I will have to keep myself busy with them I guess...

Last Years Resolutions taken from last years blog....

1. Must learn to knit - oops...
2. Sky dive. It's been on here too many times so its being done! - DID IT!!!!
3. Go to the F1 - DID IT!!!!
4. Try an oyster... Sickening - No I can't do it, it's just too gross
5. Relearn French - I was too busy. But I have learnt to like Spanish
6. Learn and get a motorbike. This one is important - ah yes. I didn't get time to do this.
7. Be home for Christmas - achieved!!
8. Learn to fish.- done!

This years Resolutions

1. Learn to knit - it has to be done this year otherwise the world will implode. And mum bought me a starter kit. YAY!
2. Buy a house
3. Go to watch Man U at Old Trafford
4. Learn conversational Spanish
5. Go to Scotland
6. Go to Glasto
7. Doubtful but ambition is go spend 2 weeks in Egypt
8. Compete in the 3 peak challenge 

I think this is a reasonable set do you agree? What are yours?