The full 12

I haven’t been sleeping the best that last few weeks, last night I went to bed expecting more of the same… I went to bed at midnight and woke up at noon today! I slept a full 12 hours I can’t remember the last time I did that. However I went for a run after I got up in preparation for the Ukraine rely team for the Belfast Marathon and now feel I could sleep another 12 hours! [For you information: Sponsorship forms will be available at the information desk as of this Sunday…Im not putting myself through this pain for nothing!]

Ukraine news

After a very hassled week the Ukraine team has been confirmed at 36 people. Flights were booked on Thursday- the first step complete the next task is visa applications! Today also was a last minute Bag Pack in Forestside Marks and Spencer’s- They phoned me on Tuesday Morning so I had to finalise the team and organise a fund raiser in 4 days! Today we raised £859.51 [Not bad for 10 people in 4 hours!] So far our fundraising for Ukraine has hit a total of £3581.85 which is FANTASTIC! With 2 car washes planned and a rely team in the Belfast marathon we should make our target no bother. Slava Bogu

Orange revolution:

I stumbled across a very interesting programme yesterday. It was a called ‘see hear’ on BBC 2. It’s a programme for people with hearing difficulties and is presented in sign language, with subtitles and narration. It turned out to be based in Ukraine and looking into the presidential election. It was reported in our news that the elections were rigged and that the news reporters in Ukraine were being told what to say by the Russians and current Ukrainian president to be biased towards one side. The girl the programme was focusing in on in Ukraine was called Natalya who worked for the only news channel who had translation into sign language. Natalya felt guilty about translating lies so she decided that she was would tell the truth. She tied an orange band around her wrist to show her support for the revolution against the government and when it came to translate she revealed her orange band and translated that what the reporter was saying was a lie and explained what was really going on in the elections. It seems that because of her the news spread through Ukraine that what they were watching on the news wasn’t actually true. Some time after that her life was in danger [Programme didn’t really go into detail on that] President Bush flew her to Russia and told her that Yushchenko [newly elected president] would be ok and so would Ukraine. Pretty Fantastic story I thought and one that never came out on the news here to my knowledge anyway. You can read the full story on the following link- Kiev Post

Stranded

I was working on Friday and at 5.20ish my boss told me to press the button and close the shutters little did I know that there was a sign in the doorway. I looked up and saw the shutters coming down diagonally instead of straight I got to the button as soon as I could but it was to late the shutters came off the runners and we were trapped!! [No one could get in, no one could get out!] My assistant manager and I were stranded for 3 hours! Had to phone maintenance in England who then phoned a sub contractor in Portadown to come rescue us. Good job there wasn’t a fire as when you open the emergency exit door there is a brick wall! Also good news this week I managed to lay my hands on Coldplay tickets for Dublin in June- Something nice to look forward to on the run up to Ukraine.

Certain dreams better not come true...

It’s not good that 5 months before the Ukraine team goes I am already dreaming about things going wrong! I’ve had four dreams so far:

1. The team are about to get on the bus at the bottom of my lane [don’t know why my lane but hey it’s a dream!] and suddenly the team start to run up the road! I wait about for a few minutes giving off about how it wasn’t very funny then decide to go up the road after them. Only to find a few team members who inform me no one is going- I have to cancel the trip and no one even cares the trip is cancelled!

2. Outside Kiev airport- It occurs to me I had not organised anybody into teams: No one knew where they were going or what they were meant to be doing, and the team start fighting about who should be in whose team- in the pouring rain!

3. We arrived in Kiev airport and I had forgotten to send away for the Visas so we were not allowed to enter the country and had to get back on the next plane!

4. Searching for what check in desk to go to at Dublin airport to find that I had got the flight times wrong and we had missed the plane!

I hope none of these actually happen! Dream 1 would be the most worrying as I hope I wouldn’t be stupid enough to forget to send for visas or spilt people into teams. Ill make sure I triple check the flight times before I book and before we leave for the airport!!