And The Winner Is......

...cor blimey and thrice indeedily!   Today is the day to announce the winner of the blog candy giveaway... and WOW, 104 comments in total!  Thank you all so much!  *there were 110 but 5 were duplicates and one was spam, so those were excised for fairness' sake*     I fed the total number of comments into Random.org and this is the result he gave me:  The winner is.... Comment #16 which is from Valerie.   Congrats to Valerie, please pop your postal address over to me by email and I will send your goodies out to you this week.    
**EDIT**   Valerie, if you click on my Profile, it will give you my email addy.... hear from  you soon :O))

I had a cracking weekend at Birds in the Barn in Essex, teaching on Friday and Saturday and then a fabby demo day yesterday... and, I am fair pooped.  For, you see, something happened on the way home!   A couple of weeks ago, Jane, the Sat Nav, fell sick... and Mr Tom-Tom suggested we return her to them and they will fix her up.  So, errrrm... I am LOST without Jane, she is my little guardian angel, she gives me directions and never huffs or rustles maps at me when I go wrong (which is oft!)   Anyways, knowing I have been to BITB several times, I figured I would be ok, just so long as I got back onto the M11... there's this roundabout, well, a set of them, and you have to go in ever decreasing circles around them, lane changing and all that malarkey.  Well, me and Ferdy were managing just fine, negotiated the roundabouts and were soon tootling along the M11 (in the right direction too) when I spied one of those big flashing orange hangy-over-the-carriageway-signs telling me that the A14 was closed from J26 - J21.   Now, knowing I had to go along the A14, and being as I am ever so prepared *not* and didn't have a map, I decided that I would give Grim a call... he would know A) if it was the bit of the A14 I needed and B) a different way... being a bloke and good with directions and all that.   Anyways... bless him... it is a relief that he has free minutes on his moby cos I would hate to think how much that call would have costed.... he got his map (I heard rustling but no huffing, he is good like that too) and told me which exit to take to go on a diversion.... and then, clever old stick that he is, he got the iPad thingyjobbywotsit and got Google Earth so he could actually see road names and landmarks and such like.   Well, it must have been over 30 mins that he guided me through the countryside... I tell you what, there's a place called Kimbolton in Beds that is gorgeous... all windy lanes and pretty houses, we may have to visit there!   And he even didn't growl at me when he was giving me yet more directions and I yelled "Oh NO! There's a rabbit.... "  which thankfully, decided not to run in front of Ferdy.  Phew!  Then, I was driving through a village called Hilton and I could see a cricket pitch on the left hand side of the lane.  And on one side of the lane were some cricketers, then I sussed that I had actually just driven through their game of cricket!  They were all togged up in white and all that too!  Whoopsie-daisies!!!    Finally I made it onto the A14 (after the road block) and got home, a little later than planned (ok, nearly an hour later) but in one piece... and the moral of the story.  NEVER send your Sat Nav away for repair when you have to drive your car ... even if it is only for 3 miles...  And... always keep your phone juice topped up... and... erm... get a map for the car.... you know, just in case!  And on that bombshell, I shall say... thanks for looking... TTFN!

Hels x