Strange goings on.......

First of all, let me apologise for the recent lack of posts. In mid-May, I went on holiday to the South of France with my family for a week. We had a lovely holiday - lots of sun and sand

and my granddaughter experienced the joy of making sandcastles for the first time

but unfortunately I was taken ill with breathing difficulties on the flight home, and had to be taken to hospital where I was diagnosed with a chest infection and diabetes, so I've not really been feeling well enough to concentrate on blogging this week.

However I am gradually recovering from the chest infection  and beginning to learn how to cope with the diabetes -  no more entries to the Magnum competition for me! So I'm back.... now on with the blog.

And why is today's blog called "Strange goings on...."? Well, after  asking you what your best and worst prizes have been, I thought this time I would ask what your strangest comping experience has been.  Maybe a competition that had a strange task, like the World Worm Charming Championships  or one that won you a strange prize, or took you into a strange situation - like the compeer who measured the length of The Mall with a ruler, or the one who took a shirt apart to count how many stitches were in it.

It's a toss-up for my strangest ever prize. It could have been the pair of remote controlled vibrating knickers that I won in one of the very first web competitions I ever entered. Goodness only knows why I entered! But Internet comping was new and exciting to me and  I was so thrilled to see a competition to enter that it didn't really matter what the prize was. It was rather alarming to see the pack flashed with a sticker saying "Now! Washable!" - the idea of non-washable knickers is even more disturbing than the idea of vibrating ones. I still have them - they have been  a valuable ice breaker at many talks I have done about comping.

The other was an afternoon spent making pizzas in the window of a takeaway. Lots of passers by stopped to stare, especially when the staff were attempting to teach me the trick of spinning the dough on your hand. By the end  of the day I was covered from head to toe in flour and tomato sauce, but they let me keep all the pizzas I had made, and gave me the same number of professionally made ones, plus  vouchers to go back for as  many again. My daughters, who were then teenagers, had spent the afternoon cringing with shame in the back of the shop, but they and their friends made short work of all the pizzas.

So, have you been involved  in any strange competitions, or won any strange prizes? I'd love to read your comments.

And finally, here's a young lady whose reaction to a win was pretty strange.