A quick fundraising update

Wow - a couple of people have said they are thinking about doing the trek. I could have TREE AID company!

Just in case you're thinking about it and worrying about raising the cash (as I was), I thought I'd bring you up to date.

I sent out about 100 begging emails and letters to family, friends and people who have crossed my path (see blog entry number 1 - I really have been shameless).

So far, 37 peope have donated a staggering total of £2,483.43 (including Gift Aid). Some via Just Giving, and some with cheques. Thank you everyone. And thanks also for your messages of support which have been really lovely to read. I have thanked each one personally, mostly with a phone call - which has also been great fun. 6 more have promised to donate in the future, and others, I'm sure are just getting round to it.

I have also emptied out my piggy bank (VW camper van savings fund, actually) which produced £32.23 in 1p, 2p and 5p coins.

And sold off unwanted stuff in one car boot sale and to a vintage clothes shop (I know it was only a matter of time before they came back into fashion) to the tune of £70.44 and counting.

And made soups and salads for donations at work, raising £208.74 so far. I've had to pause on that for a while, because of time constraints (the garden calls in the summer months, and I have just received the key to my half an allotment - though haven't done anything there yet.) I will take it up again, because I really enjoyed doing it.

Grand total to date: £2,794.83
Plans for the future include more selling stuff (others have offered to donate for another car boot), running a quiz (thanks Helen for the questions), a 'pop up restaurant', and the film show.

And anything else that I or anyone else can think of that is legal and fun.

And I have a corporate sponsor . I know. It's so grown up! Thank you so much Rachel Demuth and friends at the Vegetarian Cookery School. We haven't worked out the details yet, but they have offered to make TREE AID their Charity of the Year. Hooray! And most of my recipes for soups and salads were theirs (not the abortive pea one I hasten to add. And they were tasty. Very tasty - ask anyone at work. (Cookery books and restaurant also fab - and I'm not just saying that - honest.)

I really want to get up to £4,000 now if I can.

By planting and protecting trees at the edge of the desert, we can hope to prevent the awful conditions that we can now see so clearly in Somalia.

So be bold - why not join me. You don't have to be a Grumpy, young people also accepted.

More desert ...

So when Bryony said that she was going to promote the trek as a fundraiser, my first thought was: 'wow, I'd really like to do that'.

My second thought was: 'But I'll never be able to do it'

and my third to 34th thoughts ran something along the lines of:
'I'll never raise that amount of money'
'It'll be killingly hot!'
'I might have done it a few years back, but I'm too old now'
'I can't do it on my own'
and so on.

Luckily, my 35th thought was: 'I've always wanted to go to the desert. I'm 57 ( I was then). If I don't do it now, just when, precisely, do I think I'm going to do it?'

So, now it is then.

The Desert

I don't know why the desert holds such a fascination - I've never been to one, and I don't even really like the heat that much.

But it does.

Listen to this, from the trek organisers:

There is no landscape on earth like the desert! From stony flat expanses scattered with ancient fossils, to perfect wind-blown sand dunes, broken only by the occasional oasis...

The desert and its incredible night skies provide a feeling of space and of solitude, of nature’s power and the transience of mankind, that is both awe-inspiring and humbling. This will be an unforgettable and life changing challenge.

Life reduced to the very basics. Just sun and sand, with no time for the fripperies that can daily consume us.

As I get older, I find simplicity in all things ever more attractive, letting go of all the stuff -  the material and emotional baggage that accumulate over the decades, even across the generations.

As the Desert Fathers said:

'Why do you beat the air and run in vain? Every occupation has a purpose, obviously.

Tell me then, what is the purpose of all the activity of the world? Answer, I challenge you!

It is vanity of vanity: all is vanity.' 
St. John Chrysostom 

and who would want to argue with them?

Wonder Woman

Wow.

Overtook 5 different cyclists on the ride home yesterday. That is serial overtaking.

Feels like I'm developing super powers.

And another thing ... Realised that over the course of the last blog I had covered about 31 miles in all - which coincidentally is I think 50km - i.e. half the distance of the trek. And it wasn't at all bad.

So I'm thinking the distance will be fine - the real challenge must  be doing it on sand - which I can train for, and in the heat - which is a bit more difficult. Should I do all my walking from now on in 5 sweaters?

More training

Been off air for a while, but only because I've been doing lots of hard training. Well, not so hard, I guess.

In fact mostly very pleasant.

Last Saturday did a walk for about 5 miles or so in the beautiful coutryside outside Bath. Again without the benefit of John and his GPS everything is an estimate, but we did finish up by going up Solsbury Hill (625 feet, according to wikipedia, an ancient iron age hill fort, and scene of the 1994 protests against the A46 bypass). Also inspiration for Peter Gabriel's 1977 hit song, which rattled around my brain the entire time - I only wish I knew more than the first line.

Then it was off to Skomer Island, just off the Pembrokeshire coast, on Monday to see puffins - not strictly part of the training, as it has been on my list of things to do before I die for years, but the camping was really by way of training (the guy at the campsite sussed within seconds that we were 'not seasoned campers' - his words), and also taking photos (which I normally can't be bothererd to do, usually because they are so disppointing).

We got the damn thing up - now how do we get in?

 A short walk after the rain on Monday evening, followed by a 4 mile circuit of the island on Tuesday. Those puffins are really, really cute.

Is this cute enough?

Perhaps if I flapped my wings?

  Then a glorious 8 mile-ish trek along part of the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path before setting off home on Wednesday. In the sun!



Wave goodbye to the beautiful Pembrokeshire coast



Summer came on a Wednesday this year in St Brides Bay

 And there's more.

Sunday, a proper serious training walk along the River Wye (part of it), starting and finishing at The Kymin, the National Trust property right at the top of a very big hill just outside Monmouth. At least 12 miles, Martin said. Although we did cheat a little at  the very end, and get Sarah to come in the car to collect us for the last mile and a half. (I wasn't going to mention that, but I feel a duty to my reader/s to be absolutely honest.)

Bridge over the River Wye - Kay gets nostalgic for Nepal

And it was hot! "Stay indoors" advised the tabloids to the elderly, obviously in serious danger death by heatstroke, according to them. I wonder what pleasure they get from terrifying people in this way. It's not sport.

That's probably enough for now.

Back soon.

Phew!

Overtook my first cyclist going home last night.

Uphill.

Makes a pleasant change.

He didn't know we were racing, of course.

Still, pretty impressive, I feel.

The sand walking was good - didn't have the benefit of John and his GPS, but reckon I did about 8 miles in 2 hours in one session - from Boscombe pier to Hengistbury Head and back. It really is much harder work on the sand, and uses a whole bunch of different muscles. I was aching from my little toe up the side of the leg - which is where I usually ache after ice-skating, so you might be right Leila, it could be good exercise after all. And I walked on the soft sand for most of it - not cheating by  walking on the wet sand.

By the way, does anyone know what the gear on the left hand on the bike is for? I have a grip on the right that has the numbers 1-7 on it, which I'm quite happy with, but the one on the left moves, but just has little lines on it - and seems to make no appreciable difference when I do twist it by accident.

Sand walking

I'm off to sunny Bournemouth for a week's holiday now, so I won't be checking in on the computer.

But I will be beach walking as part of the training.

Glo tells me it's the best there is for desert trekking - and she should know, having done a trek in Sinai a couple of years back.

See you in just over a week, fit and tanned, I hope.