Happy Friday! I’ve had a bit of a lucky week this week, so you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be playing the lottery tonight, LOL. Here’s what happened.
Last Saturday, I completely unexpectedly entered the local model-boat-race… and won (nearly). Photos below!
On Monday, I was awarded the Sunshine Award by my rocking friend, Karen Soutar ~ thank you, Karen, and please find my SUNSHINE POST response and nominations below!
Last but not least, I also won tickets to the Waddington Airshow in a competition at Siren 107.3 FM. This, for the woman who never wins anything! You can see why I simply have to play the lottery tonight…although you might argue I’ve had my lucky three!
Winning the Boat Race
One of my greatest regrets about my time at Oxford University is not having joined the College Rowing team. I had two good reasons, though. One, I can’t swim, so rowing isn’t an obvious pastime for me. And two, I really struggle to get up at 5 a.m.. But as a result, I missed out on all the boat racing fun.
I made up for it last Saturday! Dunholme, a village nearby our home, hosts a fabulous village fete every year, and as part of the fete, they stage a boat race on the little river running through the church yard. Anyone is welcome to construct a boat out of any kind of materials and race it, for a small fee.
Needless to say, the kids constructed massive entries featuring several milk bottles, cereal boxes, egg boxes and what have you. Their boats did well, but they didn’t win.
I didn’t have an entry. I had no intention of entering. But observing the winning boats, I tried to explain to the kids where their constructions had gone wrong and was met with incredulous stares.
“What do you mean, Mummy, a bottle with a sail would have done better?”
Well, there’s no better way to teach than to show. Right? So in between races, I commandeered a soft drinks bottle (empty), four lolly sticks (sans lollies), and one random wrapper. I made two holes in the bottle, stuck the lolly sticks in (two per hole) and fashioned my sail. At the last minute, I remembered to add a few little stones for ballast to ensure my boat would stay upright.
The second-place-winning entry.
Yes, I know it’s not in the water. I hadn’t taken my camera! This wasn’t planned!!
I paid my 50p, I entered and….
I came second place! (I would have come first but there was an interference…anyway, water under the bridge!). I’m mighty thrilled, and I got a mug to prove it!
My offspring were incredulous, but gleeful on my behalf. Will they remember this lesson for next year, I wonder?
The Sunshine Award
It’s been a while since I’ve last been able to accept an award nomination. Here’s a big, heartfelt Thank You to all you lovely bloggers who bore with me when I had to pass on your lovely, kind and gracious nominations over the past few months owing to time constraints, deadlines and other calamities. You know who you are ~ and you know I love you!
However, on this occasion, I had a clear week and I thought it was time to have a bit of fun again!
Therefore, a huge thank you goes to the awesome Karen Soutar for nominating me for the Sunshine Award. A fellow rock lover, Karen and I were introduced on Twitter by the lovely Julie Valerie, and we’ve been rocking and chatting together ever since. We have many things in common, but there’s one crucial difference… which you’ll find imminently.
To accept the award, I have to tell you ten random things about me, and pass the award on to ten fellow bloggers. Here goes!
1. I don’t drive. Weird, but there you have it. I’ve blogged about this some other time, but the upshot is, I don’t drive. Karen, on the other hand, is a driving instructor! So if I do ever get overcome by the urge to pick the steering wheel up again, I know who to turn to for refresher lessons.
2. I’ve not watched a whole episode of Star Trek since I was a child. And then, I believed quite firmly that all the cast were wearing pyjamas because Captain Kirk’s uniform looked exactly like my Dad’s sleepwear.
3. I can’t swim. Well, not really. I do a hapless little backstroke that keeps me above water, just.
4. I once hitch-hiked across Germany to see a rock band I desperately wanted to see despite having no tickets, or no accommodation at the other end. When my then-boyfriend realized that I was serious about going after this band, he joined me on my trip, much to his mother’s distress. I know, let’s not go there. We got to see the band alright. Sadly, the story doesn’t continue at all like Sophie’s story does, so we’d better draw a veil over this.
5. I’m a sucker for seafood. Everything but squid, eek, no thank you.
6. My favourite fruit is a strawberry.
7. I invented orange-and-cranberry cocktails. I swear I did. I was mixing orange juice with cranberry juice before that notion ever made it into public consciousness.
8. I don’t own any tech gadgets beyond a basic mobile phone and a laptop. No iPad, smartphone, tablet, iPod or other device in my house. (Yet)
9. I’m a member of the society for the appropriate use of the apostrophe, as well as the appropriate use of their vs. there, and less versus fewer.
10. I have a love-hate relationship with serial commas and participle phrases.
And the Sunshine award goes to…
An Author’s View
Brook Cottage Books
Eve’s Chick Lit Reviews
Cosmochicklitan
Everything Books and Authors
Forget the Housework
Jersey Girl Book Reviews
Julie Valerie
Sheryl Browne
The Adventures Within
Okay nominees, how it works:
Use the award logo in this post. Link to the person who nominated you (hey, that’s me! Woo hoo!). Write ten pieces of information about yourself. Nominate ten fellow bloggers who positively and creatively inspire others in the blogsphere. Leave a comment on the nominees’ blogs to tell them about the award. Have fun!
PS ~ if you’re too busy for this award, or if you can’t accept it right now… don’t worry. It’s only a bit of fun, and I won’t mind if you have to pass. Honest! 🙂
![Source: BY (WT-shared) Gnomy96 at wts wikivoyage [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://nickywells.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/the_deep__hull.jpg)
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Nicky Wells: Love & Thrills 
NO COMMENT? (Look in your Spam)
A Little Help From My Friends…
Dear friends and fellow bloggers,
You know me, right? I’m a prolific commenter, most of the time. I usually have an opinion, and I love hanging around blogs. We’re all friends here in the blogosphere.
Ham turned to Spam!
However. At this time, I’ve been relegated to Spam. Yup, everything I might try to say to you on your lovely WordPress blogs currently most likely ends up in your Spam folder. Why?
WordPress uses something called Akismet to protect our blogs from Spam. Occasionally, Akismet tightens its criteria or logarithms or whatever it is they use, and legitimate, innocent bloggers such as myself end up on a blacklist. Completely randomly. Completely without reason. For I’m not Spam, right? Not fair, uh-huh, but that’s what happens.
How did I find out about this? Well, let’s say I spent time yesterday leaving comments on people’s blogs, as is my wont, and they didn’t appear. The blog would say, “posting comment” and then… nothing. No “your comment is awaiting moderation”, just nothing. This got me thinking and Googling, and hey presto, there it was, the hypothesis. Am I on a blacklist of some kind? Does WordPress think I’m Spam?? I Facebooked with one of the bloggers and she duly found me in her Spam folder (and restored my comment: thanks!). Hypothesis confirmed; panic stations!
I’ve contacted WordPress, and they’ve been very helpful but there’s not much they can do. I’ve contacted Akismet but their contact form is like a big, black hole and I don’t even know if my message got through.
No Way Out?
Meanwhile I’ve been advised conflicting things. Some say, hold off on the commenting altogether for a while. Others say, comment and ask the blog owners to retrieve your message from Spam and approve it. Apparently, that action sends a message of a ‘false positive’ to Akismet which will eventually (in a few days? weeks? months?) prompt Akismet to take me off the blacklist. (Have I mentioned that I hate being on any kind of blacklist? I’m deeply distraught!).
I’m not alone in this. Check out this post, for example (or try Googling the phenomenon, but this link is faster, LOL):
http://dukeo.com/how-to-get-off-akismets-blacklist/
Instructive, huh? So where do I go from here?
Hope Against Hope
Well. I’ll comment a little less, perhaps, but I will remain your active friend!
Perhaps you could check your Spam folder every once in a while to see if I’m languishing in there. Perhaps, if you find me, you might mark my comments as THIS IS NOT SPAM and approve them to restore them to your blog. I would really, really love that.
Hopefully, one day I’ll become a happy, one-click-and-my-comment-shows blogger again. In the interim… don’t forget to check your Spam folder every once in a while, just in case. Thank you all for your support!
🙂
39 Comments
Posted in Miscellaneous
Tagged Akismet, Blogging, Comments Blocked, Innocent, Wordpress