Isn't It Great To Be Alive

Good Morning World

Welcome to my blog for Tuesday 9th January 2017.  Isn't it great to be alive ?

To begin the day let's dip into my YouTube Channel and pick out my inspirational theme for today. Tuesday's are designed to be terrific you know. If you don't make your Tuesday TERRIFIC it will not work for you in quite the way it should.

Yesterday the blog achieved a readership of 213 - did you miss it ?

CLICK HERE

You naughty people who did read it, you very naughty people - I challenged you, I tried to inspire you to write your own blog but nobody has YET taken up the challenge. So anyway, let's have that Terrific Tuesday Theme.

Today's blog is all about The Mansion of Love aka Ronald McDonald House in Birmingham. I spoke yesterday with Libby, the house manager. We will be meeting up soon to sit down and plan the OurRebekah support for the first half of the year.  2017 ended on such a high with the delivery of gifts in our Secret Santa project we have a hard act to follow but have no fear some exciting things are on the drawing board.

Ronald McDonald House Birmingham, to give it the correct name or The House That Love Built to use the nick-name. Scrub both of those and use my description - THE MANSION OF LOVE.

Time now for the weather report. One of my LEONITE students, Andy, always gives his Facebook friends a personal weather report. Forget the Met Office, forget the invented and often wide of the mark fiction put out by the BBC - if you want to know what it is really like out there Andy's your man.

So what is it like today Andy ?

Thanks Andy.

At the top of the agenda for Libby and I  to talk about is Asda's Green Token Scheme which

was launched last Saturday for THREE good causes by Secklow Radio Roadshow. What a day that was, but I have already reported on that. We now have to build on the success of Saturday and develop the project for The Mansion of Love.

When you shop at ASDA in Bletchley, Milton Keynes, please ask for a GREEN TOKEN when you pay for your shopping at the checkout. It costs you nothing. Take your token then vote for OurRebekah at the Green Token Booth.  If you shop at Asda but not the Bletchley, Milton Keynes, branch you can still ask for a green token. Take it away with you then give it to either Libby or myself. We will post it in the Bletchley store's voting box. If OurRebekah wins the vote between now and the end of March The Mansion of Love gets £500. If we come in last it still gets £200.  THANK YOU ASDA

5.34am, pitch dark outside. Let's have some music to encourage the sun to get up and out of bed. This comes from my vinyl collection on YouTube.

Don't you just love that song ?

On Monday next week Tony Ingeldow and I will be playing music on Secklow 105.5 to celebrate the success of the Roadshow. We will be dedicating something special to

everyone who took part.

We put out collecting buckets at the roadshow where Asda customers threw in more than three hundred pounds. Yesterday I dumped the cash on Halfax Bank then divided the money between the three good causes represented on Saturday..

On Tuesday 16th Jabuary the boys at Sheffield Wednesday kick off at Hillsborough in an FA cup replay against Carlisle United. I, of course, support Sheffield Wednesday while Secklow Presenter Tony is a Carlisle fan. A bit of friendly rivalry there.

Every goal the boys score is sponsored within our BRUMMIE OWLS project for The Mansion Of Love. In November Tony came with me to Hillsborough to present the club with original vinyl singles of the club's two adopted anthems.

Complete change of subject...........................

What do you do with your empty ink cartridges from your printer ? Do you know that fluid ounce by fluid ounce printing ink costs more than the most expensive vintage champagne ?

What a con eh !

Can I have them please ?  For every cartridge recycled I can get a £1 donation for The Mansion of Love.

Yesterday I spent time writing more for my book The Bridge House. I woke up at half past one this morning with another thousand or so words for the story spinning round in my head.

When the book is published in May all royalties from sales will be given to Ronald McDonald House in Birmingham.  I am now aiming to have the book finished by the time Libby and I meet. We have to discuss proof reading and making a plan to launch the book in the summer.

The ending of the book I hope will come as a surprise to readers. I will say no more than that, I do not want to spoil the story for you. 

This song appears in one of the early chapters and will reappear soon, I am writing towards it.

Secklow Radio's presenter Frank Scarito, himself a Leoinite, is going to help with another book for Birmingham. In March children from Broughton Manor Prep School will be

illustrating the text from my book The Wild Adventures of Di Central Eating. We will then republish the book with royalties again going to the Mansion Of Love.

Within the story there is a lot of music. We are going to make a CD of the music, produced by Frank. then sell that to support the work of The Mansion of Love.

With the fantastic success of Secret Santa we will soon be launching an Easter version - EGGS FOR THE CHILDREN.

When Easter is over a group of us will be getting on a westbound 747 and heading for San Francisco where we have a fun run on The Golden Gate Bridge and a Hippie Party in Golden Gate Park. We will be linking up with Ronald McDonald House in San Francisco.

It has been too long since I was last in The City By The Bay. I am growing my hair ready for the party.

Returning from San Francisco we have in May a big - very big - mega big event happening in The National Trust's Stowe Gardens near Buckingham.  Both Secklow 105.5's presenters

Tony Ingeldow and Catherine Rose are helping me with a trilogy of events based at Stowe's Temple of Concord and Victory.

We will have an afternoon of Classics In The Park followed by a Doggie Treasure Hunt and ending up with a Retro Disco and BBQ. Nobody but nobody has ever held a disco in a location quite like this.

This is all happening on Sunday 13th May.

So Libby and I have quite an agenda for our meeting.

Libby loves having parties for families in The Mansion Of Love.  I am hoping to persuade her to let The Geriatric DJ hold a DISCO TOMBOLA for families.

What the heck is a Disco Tombola I hear you asking.

You will have ti wait and see.

Which picture do you think is best ?  The Geriatric DJ with or without the wig ?

Time to bring this blog to an end. Time to play us out. We do live in a beautiful world with beautiful people all around us. I am going to play us out with my favourite piece of music, you all know what it is. If we all lived our lives the way the words in this song suggest it would be an even more beautiful world.

Have a TERRIFIC TUESDAY.