Walk on the Wilde Side

Now, I'm not one for competitions. Firstly, I'm not terribly competitive. If you want to dash across that field, go ahead by all means. No, I don't care how far you can throw that stick. Excuse me? You want me to run? Secondly, I'm not much of a gambler. I did do the Trinidad National Lottery when there was an oportunity to win $13 million TT, and spent a pleasant afternoon spending the imaginary money, but wasn't terribly suprised when I didn't win. I don't even bother to do the Lottery in the UK. Quite frankly, I have more chance that Robert Downey Jr will walk into my local cafe, catch sight of me and fall madly in love. And let's be honest, that ain't never gonna happen. Blog competitions, I tend to pass on. Mostly because MJ is really scary when she wants to win something and I'm really not woman enough to take her on.

However, on the 22nd of July. XL changed my mind. He was offering an Oscar Wilde action figure. I thought 'bugger it' and entered. Of course there was the inevitable cat fight and I'm not sure Savannah has forgiven me. Ladies and Gentlemen, I won! No, really. I won. How excited was I?! I had to explain to my brother's family why I was jumping up and down and squealing like a teenage girl. They still thought I was bonkers. I don't think that has anything to do with my winning Oscar though.

XL posted the winner on the 28th of July. You may remember that I was in Trinidad at that time, caring for my father. Bless him, XL offered to post it out to me, which would have meant I'd never have got him. XL and I had a brief flurry of e-mails. I asked him to hold on to Oscar until I made it back to the Cold and Grim. Pretty much as soon as I landed in London Gatwick, XL was asking if he could post Oscar over.

Last week Monday, I got a note from Royal Mail telling me they were holding a parcel for me. Queue much girlie squealing. But, I was going to London to visit a friend on Tuesday and I knew I couldn't get to the post office for a couple of days. My night out in London turned into a few days as my friend and I got hideously drunk (my liver has written a letter of complaint to my MP) and staying on seemed like a good idea at the time. I finally staggered back to Norwich Friday night. Second thing, Saturday morning I went and picked up Oscar.

He was lovingly packaged, along with a really sweet note from Lola, RJ and XL. I was especially touched to find, Oscar hadn't got bored and munched the box of chocolates. XL had kindly included some postcards for Oscar to write home, which he declined to do.

Since then, Oscar has been regalling me with his famous quotes, the most applicable to me being:

'I can resist anything but temptation'.

The one that had me in stitches was: Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.

Many thanks to XL for Oscar, he looks quite content next to my laptop.