Certified

Yesterday, Mike and I had a lovely jaunt into London to visit the people at Guinness World Records for a little get together and to be presented with my latest certificate.

The weather was reasonably kind to us but there was a bitter wind and I had to pile my hair up on the walk there 'cos it kept blowing all over the place.

That's the green jacket I found in Hastings recently

We were seated near their kitchen where they have a get-together for all their staff each week. There was lots of food preparation going on, chairs being laid out and there was a screen displaying photos of record attemptees before, during and after the London marathon.

As they scrolled through the photos, I realised that I hadn't included some of the ones that they'd taken of me on my blog and had only put them on Facebook so here's my favourite.

Getting checked out by a GWR adjudicator (captioned by me!).

"My goodness Redhead, that's a mighty fine ar$e!"

There was time to catch up with Damian beforehand. He's looking askance 'cos I've just told him I'm doing another marathon this weekend (technically it's an ultra as it's over 27 miles) and that I'd done a double marathon 2 weeks before London.

Mike was clicking away all the time and I like the strange photos rather than the posed ones.

I look as if I'm doing the hair-flicky thing but I think I was just turning to look at the food!

Heading back to Mike. Behind me are 3 other runners who achieved  GWRs in London

We've been having a few issues with the camera misbehaving recently and a lot of the photos were fuzzy which was annoying. Plus, every so often it starts doing an irritating buzzing thing where the screen image jumps around. I think it might be time for a replacement!

Here we have Craig, editor-in-chief of the Book of Guinness World Records with the record holders for fastest marathon in full body costume (the tiger), as a bride (male - he grew the beard especially!), as a fireman (wearing full kit including the heaviest boots ever and breathing tanks - his helmet was incredibly heavy too) with me on the end.

The tiger with his face mask on. He had to cut a hole to breathe but there were no holes for his eyes!

I chuckled at this one showing the bride adjusting his cleavage!

We each explained our reasons for choosing what we did, each with our own charity to support. When it was my turn I started by explaining how the blanket was started on the morning of the marathon and how I'd intended to attach the chain to it but the chain was too big! 

People really seemed to identify with the metaphor of the crochet chain linking people with dementia together and then the blanket wrapping them in love to tell them they are not alone. I also had to explain that I had undone a lot of the chain already to continue working on the blanket and that I would be able to make another one out of the remains.

Explaining the blanket

A quick crochet demo

Lots of fun bits about avoiding the speed bumps and kerb stones

Then there was a question and answers session with the staff, Craig handed us each our certificates and then we had a group photo taken.

Damian and I had a good old chin-wag about things I could do in the future. He said I should be in marketing 'cos of my tendency to think laterally. I explained that it has always been my forte, having an over-active imagination!

In the previous photo Damian was trying to fit my GWR certificate into this fab bag which came complete with 2014 GWR Book of Records and the Gamer's edition.

Thanks everyone for such a warm welcome.

Then it was time for a walk down memory lane into Soho, which used to be the centre of the music industry and was where Mike had a studio for many years. We'd booked ourselves a table at the Red Fort, an Indian restaurant we frequented on a regular basis many years ago.

It didn't disappoint!

My starter of lentil patties