Please Sponsor Me!
 

I know everyone is feeling the pinch, so let me start off by saying that if you cannot spare any money then a message of support in this thread would be lovely.

Mum and I are doing the Gemstone Midnight Walk on behalf of the Florence Nightingale Hospice in Aylesbury. It's a six mile walk that begins - surprise! - at midnight. Given Mum's walking pace we will still be walking when the sun comes up, but this is not a race. It's the sort of occasion people dress up for - in pink - so for once I will not be the most arresting person there. Still, I am going to spray pink streaks into our hair, I will have a pink top hat (fascinator) and Mum will have bunny ears. We even get breakfast at the end of it :yum: although I appreciate it will be more of a croissant-in-a-bag affair. We'll have to get Dad to drive us home past McD's...

This is a big event locally - nearly as big as the Race For Life (Mum has also done that). People open up their houses to provide toilet facilities, roads are closed, people get out of their beds to cheer the walkers on. It benefits a number of different local hospices, although in our minds we are walking specifically for the hospice Mum's friend Breda died in.

Mum is already going great guns on sponsorship, she has friends and rellies near and far. Me, I've only just set up my JustGiving page and am now worried about the fact I am supposed to raise £100! I'm not in competition with her, as we both know she will raise more - I just want to meet my target.

I will be posting photos afterwards of course.
Possibly just close up photos of hot sweaty faces, given it wil be dark.

Anyone who would like to donate please follow the link to here. That's a link to my JustGiving page. This is the official blurb:
Note - you can PM me for my PayPal details if you'd rather. I have a paper sponsorship form too and I swear most solemnly that every penny received will be properly transferred.

Thank you in advance, lovely people.

Well done both! What a great thing to do.

I've donated. It's a brilliant system. Very user friendly, I've donated through them before when other friends have been doing stuff.

Thank you and thanks to my other Dwellar sponsor.
I'm already up to £100 = halfway there :)

joogaddi maing

I can see it, Jim.

well, you're a cunning linguist.

I still dont get it.

say it out loud in a mexican accent

The first bit: you got ?....but after that I'm still baffled.

Damn, for a while I could only hear it in Italian, but when I thought of an Italian saying it I only heard Al Pacino. Now, I got it, man.

yes, you do got it.....maing

man? ohhh

Thanks for additional donations!
Previous post (by me) implied I had £100 and was halfway there. In fact I had £50.
I now have £91 and promises. I am delighted, as will the charity be.

Mum has £138 already, with many more promises, which means between us I expect we will get £300. Which is brilliant, as Mum baulked originally, expecting to raise about £10. We've already paid a sign-up fee, so that the organisation does not cost the charities.

Every pound (dollar) is useful.

I wish I could help but my Dentist currently owns my soul.
But good luck to you and your Mom! I see you passed your goal!

Congrats!

I can only offer my best wishes since I have been laid off from the Bates. But you go, girl!

I have reached my target - in fact I am £1 over :)
£101 for the Hospices.
To be honest I blagged it with Mum; I knew she could raise the money, but wasn't sure it was possible for me.
I will continue to bump because the money is for charity and not for me, but I don't intend to make a nuisance of myself.

I know it's not possible to financially support everyone and everything, so written support really does mean a lot to me. Anything posted here helps me, and any amount of £ or $ I raise helps dying people leave this world with love and respect. People you will never meet. I think that reflects the calibre of people in the Cellar.

Sorry, I'm a tad sentimental tonight. Mum took the plunge and is now volunteering 2 days a week at a nursing home which specialises in patients who are frail and/ or suffer from dementia. She did try the hospices but there are training and counselling qualifications you need first.

I might not always praise her to the skies, but she is a good woman. And when she told me that she agreed to two days a week because that's what I was doing when I volunteered at my school I got all tearful.

Thanks to everyone.

ETA I have tried to figure out the way to thank people via the website, but it seems to be reliant on Facebook. Or I am just a plum. LJ, if you have received about 5 automated emails please forgive me. And the rest of you have nothing!

AE, you must be a British Dwellar, but I have no idea who you are. Feel happy to stay Anon but accept my thanks. PM me if you'd like me to know who you are.

The website sends out your automated response, telling donors they are angels (already?! But I've not gone yet!!!)

Proof positive. I am a plum.

£100 huh? How much is that in real money?;)

Just remember babe, whenever a woman like you feels the need to do something like this, and run, jog, or walk as a way to help her fellows in a selfless act of charity, she will be followed by an angel....



...who is checking out her ass.

£136 now (that's 212 of your funny money!). And counting ...

Nice goin!

This is known as the guardian angle.

@ SamIam

I thought you dumped that dive and got the heck out of Dodge with your partner in crime? Are you still in Dodge or did you manage to break free?

Just another reminder that I am doing a sponsored 6 mile walk at midnight tomorrow night (Saturday 14th) in aid of a local hospice.

Again, thanks to all who have already donated and/ or left messages and sent PMs of support.

The bad news is I have a raging sore throat and swollen glands, and Mum's knee is playing her up. But we're not quitters and the staggering amount of money we've raised between us (she's had nearly £300 now if she includes cash and cheques) is a definite incentive.

The good news is that the temp looks quite reasonable and was may miss the rain. Hard to get accurate weather reports. Well, it is anywhere, but especially here as the Vale has its own little micro-climate. Within a 4-5 mile radius the weather can be quite different - rain/ no rain, snow/ rain, sunshine/ showers etc. I am taking a brolly and a waterproof. Mum suggested binbags but I think those will be too hot! I'd rather go for a marginally heavier rucksack.

So if you haven't already sponsored me and you would like to, go to www.justgiving.com and enter Cherry Olney under the name search. My page is at the top - you'll probably recognise me from the photo anyway!

Well we did it :)
We got a taxi home from the finishing point (only a mile, but uphill) as Mum's knee was throbbing. But all in all we managed well.

There was a great atmosphere, and I understood why so many women bought flashing bunny ears from the charity - it was amazing to see them stretching out in front and behind. We had cars beeping their support all round the course, as well as people on pavements and even children waving from windows.

For a while we walked with a lovely chap, who was there to mark the last of the 13m walkers (we were 6 miles and not at the back, although not far off!) He was quite strict on road crossing, which baffled me as you could hear a car coming from miles off at that time of night, and I'm quite casual about road safety anyway. He said a number of times "I know ladies, but we're only concerned for your safety after all." I told Mum next time he said it I was going to tell him I might slip getting into bed tonight, so perhaps he should follow me home. That genuinely horrified Mum (who saw it as a direct invitation, not banter) so I kept it zipped!

We were dropped off at Aylesbury College by Dad.
Checked in and given water and a banana (bleurgh!)
Then hung around for a.g.e.s waiting for it to start.
In their defence it started bang on time. I'm just impatient with a 1.5 hour wait. But you have to allow a lot of time for registration because some people will always turn up late.

Nothing to do but take pics.

Then outside for a warm up.
Someone from a local Rosemary Conley (slimming and fitness guru) franchise led a couple of dance routines. Mum and I and some of the ladies around us were laughing really hard. We were closer to the starting point than the stage and simply could not make out what she was doing. When she ducked down we couldn't see her at all, and even standing we could only copy her arm movements.

But it was all very jolly.

I wish I could convey to you the sense of fun and camaraderie. But I guess anyone who has been on this sort of sponsored event already knows.

I couldn't really take any photos from this point on.
In the settings for the darkest situations the camera needed to be held very still - not likely when you are walking.

We had a great time, although some areas were really quite dark (another reason for bunny ears) and there were puddles, mud, overgrown areas where you were required to walk in the road and all the rest. Still, it was a well-planned route and Marshals every few hundred yards (you could always see one front or behind). We stopped for a pee at a designated stop (local pub, sadly closed in other aspects!) and Mum moaned that this put us at the back of the pack, then moaned that she felt vulnerable if we didn't catch up with the group in front, and that she was being carried along too fast when we did. Overall she was very good though, especially as I know she was hurting by the end.

Back to Aquavale where we were signed out, got a goodie bag (mostly adverts!), a medal and hot chocolate and a croissant or pastry. And another banana. Bleurgh.

And home. Just under £400 between us. A lesson in how kind people are if you ask.
Mum says she can't do it again next year as you can't keep asking people to give you money. I've suggested we work as Marshals. I'm sure they'll allow us to work together, or inside. That way we support the Hospice without having to be supported ourselves. I'll see.

My medal.

I'm glad you and your mum had such a good time in such a good cause. I'm sure they'll snap up your offer to be marshals next year!!

Well done Sundae and Mumdae!

Awesomesauce. You both totally rock.

midnight walk??? they give out medals for "night-walkers"?

Looks like you guys had lots of fun. Congratulations! I knew it would be very dark, that is why I had hoped you received the flashlight before the walk. The dim setting will only light your watch, but the second setting would really light up the road. Perhaps you didn't think of bringing it? If you still haven't received it, please let me know. I really would like to contact the company. It really should reach you by now.

I wonder why you keep on going bleurgh whenever you mention a banana. It's great source of potassium and would help prevent the muscles from cramping up from walking for a distance. Then I remember that you don't like bananas, hehe.

You two raised a great amount. :) I see nothing wrong with asking for sponsers for a good cause. People will be more than happy to help. Furthermore, how would people which charity to give if you ask? :p:

No, I haven't received anything yet, darling.
I knew you'd sent something, and I have kept an eye out, but no flashlight.
(which reminds me, got something from Clod over the weekend - must post pictures and thanks!)

I used my no-batteries-needed panda torch :)
It's really just an emergency torch for the bedside, but it was enough to show where the puddles were.

Oh Tulip I hate bananas.
I don't care how good they are for me.
I would have to be literally starving to eat one.
I know this because I have been ravenously hungry, no other food available and still been unable to swallow a single bite. And when I say hungry I mean seriously food-deprived-on-silly-diet hungry, not fancying-a-snack hungry.

Yucky.

Oh God, this made so many thoughts race through my head;)

Gives a whole different meaning to holding a torch for someone :mg:

lol

Oh Sundae, you are naughty.

Oh yay! I was getting nervous that it was taking too long.