What!???? You may well ask.

Well, I was delighted yesterday when a number of very nice charitable donations came through onto the Justgiving site. Looks like I might be lucky enough to reach £1,000 in total, which would be totally fantastic for the charity – I don’t think they are that big an outfit really, and so everything helps. Anyway, one of the donations is for a very nice sum of money, and is in the name of Mrs Ariadne Oliver. Now I have no knowledge of whom Ariadne Oliver might be. They (whoever they are) posted this beside it:

” This is a devil of a business! Be sure you take as many apples as the porters can possibly carry.”

Confused? I am! I therefore did a bit of fishing and texted a few people to find out if they were in fact Ariadne Oliver in disguise. I just wanted to thank them sincerely, as it is a very nice amount as I said. All I got were some even more confused texts back. I think I embarrassed my boss as I asked him too:)

I therefore googled the name and came up with this:

“…Ariadne Oliver is a fictional character in the novels of Agatha Christie. She is a mystery novelist and a friend of Hercule Poirot. Mrs. Oliver often assists Poirot in his cases through her knowledge of the criminal mind. She often claims to be endowed with particular “feminine intuition,” but it usually leads her astray. She is particularly fond of apples, which becomes a plot point in the novel Hallowe’en Party……”

So I am none the wiser at all. If you are out there reading this, whoever you are, my sincere and massive thanks for your wonderful donation – it is hugely and very gratefully appreciated.

As we are talking about Bowel Cancer, I will give you some information about it here:

• More than 37,500 men and women are diagnosed with bowel cancer in the UK every year, making it the third most common cancer; this is someone every 15 minutes

• Bowel cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in the UK and more than 16,000 people die each year; that’s someone every 30 minutes

• 97% of all diagnoses are in people over the age of 50

• If diagnosed at the earliest stage, bowel cancer is highly treatable, with a survival rate of more than 80% over five years

That is some sobering stuff there. That is just one of the reasons why I am trying to help the charity. Therefore in the words of the immortal sir Bob Geldof, “show us your f**king money!” I am not sorry for the language or the shameless plug – I am trying to raise money for them after all, so whatever it takes. I’d shave my head and paint it apple green if it would help more people put money in. Hmmmm, there’s a thought…….Ariadne, what do you think????