Bone marrow appeal for Nottinghamshire leukaemia boy

The family of a nine-year-old boy who has raised thousands of pounds for charity are hoping a bone marrow appeal will help save his life.

Archie Andrews, of Nottinghamshire, has fought against leukaemia since he was three, and recently suffered a relapse.

He has helped with fundraising events for the Queen's Medical Centre child cancer ward in Nottingham

To read more about this story please follow this link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-19769424

Important note*

The Anthony Nolan Trust will now accept donors aged from 16 to 30 :-)

Want to save a life? Click HERE!
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Wonderland Car Show 28th and 29th May 2011. We will be there!

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Myself and Scarlett will be heading off to Southwell Racecourse over the late May Bank Holiday (28th - 29th) after we received an invite to attend the show for free from the organisers.

Camping is available and so, if time and the weather permits, I will be attending the show on both of the days to promote the work of Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research.

I have a few idea's to enhance the trailer at the mo, but as per usual that all depends upon the time I have to make things happen, and of course the financial implications of the intended mods. I will not be changing the graphics this year as it seems pointless to spend time re inventing the wheel especially since the current design is still looking so good!

Sounds like a great event and will give the Capri Boys a chance to see what a REAL sports Coupe looks like! (I wrote this to see if anyone actually reads the blog!. I am sure that if they do I will have a few Capri Owners commenting upon my...well, comment!) :-)

To get more details about the show click HERE.

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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What a strange drive home it was last night!

I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was! Something about the strange half light caused by the overcast sky mixed with the presence of 2 complete and very bright rainbows hanging in it.

As I drove along the Mansfield bypass the road seemed to shine in an iridescent way,the oil covered surface itself also reflecting a weird rainbow like sheen. I passed by a group of 4 cyclists using the cycle track that runs along the road and noted how their Yellow,Purple, Green and Red coats stood out so brilliantly in the sunshine that occasionally broke through the unsettled sky

It wasn't until I got as far as Rainworth and saw the magnificent sight of 5 giant wind turbines standing proud and turning slowly on the rolling Green hills of Nottinghamshire that it finally came to me where I had seen this image before, many years ago, but ...........

...hang on

.....wait ..........oh my god No!

, Nottighamshire has turned into TeleTubbie land ....................aggghhhhhhh!

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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?..................... :-)

My name is Andy Ward :-)

Not sure why I posted this.May be something to do with the fact that I did what most people do at some time whilst surfing the net, and typed in my own name....my name appeared quite a long way down the list, so I just wondered if naming this blog entry "My name is Andy Ward" , would push me up the ratings list :-). How conceited is that ....lol !

Anyway, my name is Andrew Ward,I am 43 years (old?) and my home town is a village/town called Mansfield Woodhouse in Nottinghamshire. Just thought i would tell you that also....:-).

Andy

Air Ambulance Gets new website.

This is sent on behalf of Jim Vicarage, LNAACT staff at headoffice,

Hi Everyone!
The Lincs and Notts Aor Ambulance has just launched it's new website:

http://www.lnaact.org.uk/

You may have heard our adverts recently across Smooth Radio East Midlands. We have launched a text campaign to coincide with this. If you text the word "FLY" to the number 80039 you will automatically donate directly to the service. You will be charged £1.50 with all proceeds coming to us after your sending charges have been paid.

Please feel free to pass this on to anyone and everyone!

I am in the process of getting the website up to date so if anyone has any pictures or events that they feel could be used please let me know!

Many thanks,

Jim Vickrage
Nottingham Fundraiser

This is great news as the service has been lacking a website for some time now.

And so to the Bank Holiday ....thank goodness for that !

So here we are, it's Good Friday and the bank holiday has now officially begun, however i am (yet again!) suffering from an awful head cold, complete with sore throat, runny nose and headache...wonderful!.
Anyway, at least i haven't got to fight my way to work this morning, and as an added bonus i even managed to have something of a lie in also, not getting up until 08:20.....bliss !.
Now, i am lead to believe that Bank Holidays are historically supposed to be a time when folk get down and dirty...doing DIY (Do It Yourself!) repairs and maintenance to their homes and gardens.Me ? Well i am not one for spending my free time doing anything that can be left until another day....like all of the work that is still outstanding in the kitchen,bathroom,living room etc,etc, so i will be actively trying to do now't (or "nothing" for those of you who don't speak Nottinghamshire slang!).

The hospital that i am employed at is currently in the throws of a major move, from the old building which it has occupied for between the last 25 and 60 years (depends upon which dept you are housed in!), to the new, ultra modern £320 million new hospital.
Of course it sounds quite simple doesn't it ? Build a new hospital, move all of the facilities and patients into it...job done.....or maybe not!.
The reality is that unlike most "corporate" relocation's, hospitals have to spend a lot of time "deep cleaning" the "New" building, before they can even consider moving patients and medical services into it. If you have ever had a look around a new building before the cleaners have had a go at it, you will be aware that builders are not really too concerned about the amount of muck that they produce whilst building a new construction, just as long as it is finished on time.Imagine then scaling up this scenario from a 3 bedroom detached home with 16 windows, to a 600 bed hospital with over 3000 of them!, each floor,wall,ceiling and surface must be cleared of dust and paint splashes, and the building has to be "clinically clean" in time for all of the medical paraphernalia and patients to be rehoused in the wards and departments.
This week i was engaged in the task of receiving, unpacking,building,testing and inventorying of 50 new hospital "Acute" medical beds, the ones that are electrically operated and are seen in all modern hospitals.The beds that we have decided to purchase are made by a company called Sidhil Ltd, who are a small/medium sized family business that are based in Halifax UK.The beds are coming in waves of between 20 and 40 at a time each week, and we have (i believe!) ordered approx 200 of them, so i guess that inventorying them will be a large part of my working days for the next few weeks!.
I have taken a few snaps of the work that is going on in the towers at KMH, these are where the new wards will be located, and these are currently the focus of more work and preparation than i guess anyone outside of the hospital could possibly be aware of.So,if you would, please spare a thought for all of the dedicated hospital staff that are engaged in this very intense, very physically demanding, but sometimes overlooked area of hospital life, and, should you ever find yourself in one of the wards of the "New and improved" Kings Mill Hospital, just remember just how much work has gone into making your stay a pleasant one :-).