Mansfield boy given Life saving Leukaemia drug

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/leukaemia-wonder-drug-cures-british-6576878

Suerez...is that Uruguyan for "miserable tw@"

You would certainly think so judging by this picture taken outside Mansfield Town FC's ground today.
Feel so sorry for the little lad. Not because of Mr Seurez(s!) total ignorance...but because the kid actually looks up with wonder and respect to his heros...shame Seurez doesn't give a toss about his fans in the same way :-/.

PRAT!

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Search for Lost Sock Monkey continues

On the 12th July 2012 we lost my wonderful mother to Ataxia. Before we lost her we lost her brilliant sock monkey simply named "Sock Monkey"!.

It was lost in or around ward 35 at Kings Mill Hospital (Sutton-in-Ashfield), en-route (via patient transport ambulance) to Rose Lodge Care Home, or possibly in Rose Lodge (although the brilliant staff did carry out a "monkey hunt" for us!).

I cannot begin to explain what the return of the Sock Monkey would mean to us...it was mums favourite cuddly toy during her last few months of life, and we where extremely saddened when we lost it...more so when we lost her :-(.

If you do happen to see this strange yet lovely little chap/chapesse, could you please let me know? I would be more than happy to pay a reward for it :-)

Many thanks in advance. Andy

Merry Christmas to all :-)

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I have not been posting quite so often as I once did on the old S2M blog. These days I just don't seem to have the time to spend on it. I have considered closing it down as, after almost 4 years, it has served it's purpose to promote the trip that myself and Glen did back in 2008, and more recently to spread the word in relation to Leukaemia and Lymphoma news from around the world.

I am not sure that there will ever be an opportunity to undertake a Scirocco2Morocco2 (the sequel) in the future,that would depend a lot on my health, Glens health and the health of my bank balance (it's not a cheap undertaking!). Lets just say that I would love to have another go at getting Scarlett into Africa, just to be able to  close the book on that ambition :-).

Can I just now take a second to wish all of my readers a very merry Christmas and a peaceful and happy new year. Lets hope its a good one, without any fear......hang on.....was I just slipping into a John Lennon song?

Anyway folks, please keep sending your comments in to this blog, it's always nice to know that my ramblings get read at least a few times!.

Ho,ho ho......MERRY CHRISTMAS :-)

Andy

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NEWSFLASH.Madman in 23 year old VW Scirocco drives 43 miles to Mansfield in snow!

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Durocco.Awesome 4x4 twin engined Scirocco.I want one!.

Yes, this morning, against my better judgement I decided to attempt the 43 mile drive from Sleaford to Mansfield...and ,amazingly!,I made it -).

To be fair it had not really snowed much during the evening in Sleaford, so the car only had a very light "icing sugar" coating this morning. Mansfield though,as I later found out, was a very different story!.

According to conversations that I had with several people at Kings Mill who have been on site overnight, the snow has been coming down in buckets, the result of course is that most area's of the hospital site have perhaps 8-12 inches of snow, and, where the plough has pushed aside material from the roads, it can be found in huge piles over 2 feet in height!

Of course I did not know this as I set of at 7am, and, after making a brief stop at Cranwell service station on the A17,where I ended up helping them to open the pumps, I made my way to work.

The A17 was pretty clearwith only a light "slush" on the road surface,but by the time I got to Newark the depth of extra snowfall since last night was obvious and more of it was now on the carriageway.

The A617 to Mansfield was not that much worse, that was until I got to Bilsthorpe when the road became a little to white for comfort, and the dual sections of the road at the Rainworth bypass and the Mansfield bypass had been reduced to one lane, only used by idiots and people in 4x4's!.This was pretty much the way it remained from that point until I arrived at Kings Mill, but just as I thought that I had cleared all of the obstacles I found a few more in the last few hundred yards.

The slip road from the main carriageway into the rear of the site was very slippery, and as I pulled into the site entrance the incline as I went through the gate appeared to have not been cleared causing the car to scramble for grip.I managed to crawl up the slope eventually, but then when I turned into the compound where my Dept is located I found that the entrance to the Dept car park had been blocked by a huge wall of snow made by the snow plough!. I managed to "abandon" the car in another area, and after wading knee deep up to the entrance to my Dept I finally arrived at 0940...ish!.

More snow is expected today....i think an overnight stop at my folks house in Mansfield Woodhouse could be on the cards !.

A request to (some) 4x4 drivers

Please,please could you stop driving right up against my rear bumper as I try to make my way along some pretty awful roads!. Ok, I know you have a 4x4 and that I may be holding YOU up, but sadly I don't have 4 wheel drive (unlike Anson Clements Durocco!) so I have to be a bit careful. Oh, and to the prat (pr@) in the "60" plate Range Rover who decided it would be fun to spray all of the pedestrians on Berry Hill Road in Mansfield the other day...you are quite simply a total Tw@!

Have a nice day !

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Ryan Cano's having a Christmas Party!...are you going ?

If you live within a reasonable distance of Mansfield Woodhouse (situated next to Mansfield,Notts, but far more exclusive!)then you may fancy kicking off your festive celebrations by attending Ryan Cano's Christmas Party.
The party is being held at the Working Mens Club on Slant Lane in Mansfiled Woodhouse on Friday the 20th November and kicks off at approx 7pm.
Entry is £1.00 for adults and £2.00 for the kids, although the kids will all get to see Santa and be given a pressie....damn,wish i was a kid again ! :-).

If you have read about Ryan's story in this blog on an earlier post you will know that this is being held for a good cause, and sounds like a great night out to me!.I haven't been in this club since i was about 13...and that was a long time ago :-)

Here is a link to Ryan's webpage. Click HERE to go...........there!

I wonder if i could lie about my age?..................... :-)

Many thanks to the CHAD newspaper.....NOT!

Can I just say a big thank you to the CHAD (Mansfield Chronicle Advertiser) for confirming yet again that causes such as the 2 Anthony Nolan Clinics that are taking place next week, are less important than Mrs Browns cat being stuck up a tree, or the picture of a pile of old tyres !.
Nice to know that after months of planning my local paper bothered to promote the event without a picture, in the side box of a column, and all said, was summed up in 12-14 lines of text.

Perhaps in order to get these people to take anything seriously and find an article regarding sourcing potential life savers newsworthy i must paint myself green, play loud music and drive the Scirocco around the town square..maybe then the story would make at least page 10 !

WHY DO I BOTHER ?

*STOP PRESS*

On a more constructive note, can I just say a big thank you to a lady called Sue Harries at West Nott's College who proved to be a much more useful source of potential donor recruitment due to her upbeat and positive attitude that she exhibited when I contacted her ref publicising our event to the students at the college.

Sue = 1 CHAD = 0

:-)

Happy Birthday to me !

Yes, it is indeed that time again when you add one more year to your running total, and this now brings me up to the grand old age of 43!.
I decided to "produce" (!) another video to mark this event, and so with my characteristic imagination and creative flair i decided to document ...........my daily drive to work !.OK, before anyone tells me that watching a video almost 1 hour and 10 Min's long that shows my 43.5 mile daily commute, let me assure you that it has not been compiled in "real time"...i have speed ed it up somewhat in the style of the classic 1950's film "London to Brighton run in 4 Min's which was made in 1955...slightly before me...by 11 years!.
My offering was recorded on super high tech equipment that i installed in my Trusty Scirocco.....OK, i velcro'd my camera phone to the rear view mirror, but hey, the finished product is not bad for a first attempt.
The footage was recorded in real time, and the original film runs for 1 hour and 9 Min's, however due to some wizardry on my Lappy, i have managed to condense it down to slightly over 8 and a half Min's....if only the real trip took that long :-)
If you are familiar with the route,see if you can spot any scenery that you recognise.
And please, if you have happen to be lucky enough to own a Bugatti Veyron, don't try this on the way home :-)

This weeks ups and downs, and being a reindeer.

Ok, sorry for the large gap between the cars MOT and, well, everything that has happened since !, and some of it very important news.

Actually I have just realised that I have not posted owt on this blog about my little job the weekend before when me, Andy junior and Scarlet towed Santa through Mansfield Woodhouse to his grotto during the annual Christmas parade and fair.Great fun, but sadly blighted by the constant rain that resulted in myself and "mini me" getting drenched to the skin, and Scarlets antlers becoming very soggy ! (you need to see pictures to understand!).Strangely enough when we drove back home at around 7.30PM that evening it started to snow as we drove along the A17, and by 9.30PM, when I went out again to visit the local Tesco for a bottle of milk, there was a good 1" covering on everything, including the roads !.....if only it had fallen a few hours earlier and approx 40 miles North West !.

Anyway, back to this week,lets start with Monday.Erm, ok Monday was pretty normal really apart from the fact it was a half day due to me doing a little chauffeuring when I took a friend up to Birmingham for a hospital appointment.

Tuesday was pretty uneventful, but then we get on to Wednesday, more specifically Wednesday @12pm when I had my (previously cancelled twice!) meeting with a senior manager at the hospital to discuss my idea of hosting (in association with Anthony Nolan) a bone marrow donor recruitment drive as well as discussing the possibilities of setting up a programme for collection of cord blood from the maternity unit if at all feasible.

The meeting went very well, and I left feeling extremely optimistic about the whole thing.Lets just hope that the new year will bring some good news about my enquiry, and that soon a new donor clinic will be available to all those that would like to become involved in the East Midlands.

Thursday was my last day at work before the Crimbo break and to be honest I was feeling absolutely knackered with pains in my neck, a sore throat and felling very tired!, so much so that on the Friday morning I was down at the doctors to have a chat which resulted me being asked to go for a blood test on the 29th.

Not sure if it related, but I had a flu jab last Thursday, so perhaps that is also contributing to my current feeling of having a dose of "man flu" which of course we all know is the worst thing that anyone can feel...unless you are a woman of course !

Apparently I need to fast for 12 hours before the blood is taken as they want to check my cholesterol level at the same time, probably due to me mentioning to the doc about my love of a good Full English fry up :-).Come to think of it I am about due for a blood test now as I am supposed to have one every 6 months anyway.

The pain in the neck could be down to a little accident that I had on the 26th November whilst working in an operating theatre at the hospital.I was talking to a rep from a medical device company on a phone in the recovery area and, whilst moving between the said phone and a piece of equipment that i was getting the serial numbers from, I passed under a ceiling mounted microscope, forgot to duck, and almost knocked my ruddy head off...ouch !. I had tenderness on the side of my head for a week or so, but the pain in my neck remained after that had gone, so perhaps I managed to get some sort of "whiplash" as a result.Funny thing was that as I was leaving I mentioned my little episode to a member of staff and was told that it was not the first time that this had happened that day !.I think they need to put something soft and bright over the thing to prevent another accident like mine.

Today is Sunday.Saturday was pretty boring, I am currently waiting for 3 parcels to be delivered, 2 from Ebay and 1 from Glen.The one from Glen contains the final cut of the DVD that documents our trip in September, and I am really looking forward to seeing that :-).

Post office van just came into the street and then left without stopping.....oh well, just keep waiting i suppose.

Merry Christmas anyway.....nearly !

:-)