Supermen

So....following hot on the heels of my Wonder Women post, comes 'Supermen'.... Just 2 today, I'm sure there are more than 2 Supermen in the world, but these are the 2 I find myself thinking about the most at the moment.

When I first joined twitter, like most people, I found like-minded tweeps by doing a twitter search on words that interested me - in my case 'Cancer Research UK'.  I've come across many, many amazing fundraisers in this way, but this special mention is for Colin, @365er.  Colin came up with the idea for the 365 Challenge after he sadly lost his sister to cancer, and also had his own experience too!  A simple idea - getting sponsorship for rowing the length of the Thames, swimming the channel, cycling LeJog.....but all of these challenges achieved without leaving the gym!  Colin has personally raised £10k in this way, and has inspired others to do the same, and in total the 365 Challenge has raised over £30k for Cancer Research UK.  We were all shocked a few months ago, to learn that Colin had been diagnosed with cancer himself again, but he has not let this stop him and he is still frundraising and encouraging others throughout his current course of chemotherapy.  Please show Colin your support, especially through this tough time....together we will beat cancer.

In my previous post, I mentioned the lovely @sarahezekiel and her battle with Motor Neurone Disease.  In a bid to find out more about the disease, I did a twitter search on #MND and came across a tweet by @stickyparkour, mentioning his 1000 Miles of Parkour challenge, raising money for the MNDA.  Johnny has an amazing website with full details of his entire journey, but in short he is currently in France after running and jumping his way from John o'Groats in Scotland to Dover in just over 5 weeks.  He is still running as I write this, and is on his way to Paris, the home of Parkour.  I have followed his tweets closely over the weeks, and know he has been in incredible pain, but has shown unrelenting determination through darkness, rain, sleet and searing heat.  Having done over 800 miles of his 1000+ mile journey, I think this photo says it all and I hope it will prompt people to support him and this very worthy cause.

thanks for reading
x

Wonder Women

Fridays have become a bit stressful for me on twitter..... Like everyone, I love to be mentioned in someone's #followfriday tweets  It makes me feel that my time on twitter isn't wasted and that somewhere out there are people who might occasionally value something I have to say!  However, the stress for me comes when I don't have time do #followfriday properly, when I feel like I'm not reciprocating, or heaven forbid I forget someone really important! 

When I do a #followfriday, I prefer to give a reason for why I value that person or people, rather than just doing a #ff followed by a long list of names - I think while it's nice to be mentioned in any way, no one really pays much attention to a #followfriday list (am I right?).

So, what I have decided to do is to write a blog post each Friday, and attempt to put into words the reasons why I follow certain people/charities and what inspires me about them. 

Since I have rambled on somewhat in this particular post, I will stick to 3 Wonder Women for today (but look out for my Supermen post too!).

I have followed the @Childsi charity for sometime on twitter, but I follow so many charities, I didn't *really* know what they were all about, or who the people were behind it.  I knew they were about children (obviously) and were based in Uganda and that is was headed up by @LucyChildsi.  However, that vagueness all changed as I watched Lucy Buck's GMTV interview today.  It would take a whole blog post to detail the wonderful work of this charity, but Lucy deserves a special mention for her selflessness and her passion.  The way she described connecting with the babies in their care, inspired me today.....and I urge everyone to watch the short video and look deep into yourselves and consider what you can do for others.

I came across @sarahezekiel when someone retweeted the fact that she was up for a mashable award for Sarah's Story (which she subsequently won!).  Sarah suffers from Motor Neurone Disease - a cruel, debilitating disease which can strike at any time in seemingly healthy people.  The reason I find Sarah so inspiring is her amazing mental strength and determination not to allow the disease to beat her, and her tireless efforts to raise awareness of MND.  As I write this, Sarah is currently in her local hospice to try and regain some strength.... as with many twitter relationships, Sarah is someone who regularly pops into my mind in my 'real life', here's hoping she's home with her family soon....

My third and final Wonder Woman is @bubblybex who I'm sure needs no introduction to most people.  Bex is famous in the twitter world (and the real one since her recent ITV appearance!) for her #positivityispower attitude towards her cancer.  She has shared her cancer experience with her twitter followers with incredible openness and always with humour.... we may cry occasionally too... but then she'll make us laugh again!  Not only has she managed to raise an incredible £3.5k for Cancer Research UK through social networks, but she has created the cancer awareness and support network, @kickcancer.  There can't be many people who have never been touched by cancer in some way.  Please support Bex and her #kickcancer campaign....together we will beat cancer.

and if you're still here after all that lot - well done ;-)
xxx

pics....

So, I've bored everyone enough with details of my walks whilst training for Shine, so thought I'd share some photos I've taken on some of my walks.  Living in suburbia, just half an hour on the train from London, it's easy to forget we have some lovely scenery around us and are lucky enough to have not only The Thames, but also the river Mole within easy walking distance.... just 1 week to go til Shine in Manchester, eek!

River walks, grumpiness and sore feet....

As most people know by now, in less than 2 weeks, I'll be taking part in Shine - Cancer Research UK's night time marathon walk throught the streets of Manchester.  I've blogged about my reasons for taking part before, my first ever blog post in fact, so won't go into that again.... I just thought I'd share my training experiences and feelings about the event as it draws nearer.

The walk down to our local infant school is a little over a mile - a walk which I did most school days, and back, for 7 years (Now that my daughter has changed schools, our walk is slightly shorter).  When I originally decided to take part in Shine, I tried to envisage how far 26 miles would be, by imagining walking to that school and back 13 times - perfectly doable, I decided, although probably extremely boring!! 

I obviously didn't embark on that particular walk as a test, but decided to do training walks, building up distance over time.  I wasn't particularly fit before I started training, I probably walk a couple of miles a day anyway, but that's the sum total of my exercise regime!!  Some training walks I've done alone, some with my lovely friend @thornykate and some with my husband (both of whom are also doing Shine).  My first longish walk (6 miles) was done with @thornykate one rainy evening and we treated ourselves to a glass of wine half way, which was rather nice :-)  We've also walked along the river on sunny days, and visited our late friend Sarah at the cemetary, who is after all the inspiration for our fundraising efforts.....

Walking with my husband has been slightly more tricky, as we have 3 children, training together has involved asking my mum or mother-in-law to babysit!  Our first long walk together (10 miles!) consisted of walking to our local Tesco Extra, 5 miles each way.  What a miserable, dark walk - I was absolutely bursting for a wee by the time we got there, disappointed it was 'only' 5 miles and totally fed up their coffee shop wasn't open at 8pm!!  In the 3 weeks that followed, we managed some shorter individual walks and two 12 mile walks, both at night, and each rewarded with a visit to the chippy half way :-)  Unfortunately for my long-suffering husband, the last 3 miles or so of each of those walks involved much moaning and grumpiness from me.... but he's fairly well practised at allowing what I say to drift over his head ;-)

Anyway, our longest training walk so far - and likely to be the last long one - was 16 miles on Easter Sunday.  Not a perfectly sunny day, but it stayed dry and we were glad to be walking in daylight for a change.  A nice but muddy walk along the river to Kingston was nearly 10 miles.... it amazed me just how many families were out on bikes, boats, dog walking..... lovely to see!  Possibly one of the most difficult things about walking for any length of time with someone you've lived with for 18 years, is what to talk about... but we managed ;-) 

I have no idea, where my body is going to find the ability to add another 10 miles on to what we walked on Sunday.... I keep telling myself that the excitement and atmosphere on the night will carry us through, but that might be wishful thinking.  I know some people see a walking marathon as a bit of a cop-out compared to the 'real thing' (no way on earth I could run 26 miles!), but I can tell you it's not going to be easy....

I'm very excited about travelling to Manchester for the weekend and I do think it's going to be an amazing experience, albeit one ending with sore feet!  I'm really looking forward to meeting up with some of the other people I know through twitter who are also taking part, particularly @LurvlyLucy as we've been sharing training stories since we registered!! 

Anyway, we've almost reached our target of £800 - and if helping to #kickcancer means sore feet for a few days, then so be it.  Remember, together we will beat cancer.....

I Give Up!!!!

Despite the tone of the title, this isn't me being stroppy about something.... and steady on, keep those 'for a change' comments to yourselves!!  This is about doing something simple.... for good.... something that everyone can take part in!

So, one of my favourite tweeps @HaveFunDoGood posts a link.... and before I know it I've committed myself to giving up my all time, absolute, struggle to live without when they're not in season, confection - the Cadbury Creme Egg.  Not permanently, just for 30 days.... and why?  It's all to do with the 'Kick Bullying into Touch' campaign for the NSPCC's Childline. 

But why Creme Eggs?  Well, I decided if I was going to take part, I needed to give up something realistic (ie not giving up all chocolate, I would never stick to it!) yet something I'd miss (ie not coffee as I don't drink it!).  So, I settled on Creme Eggs - they'd not long been back in the shops, I'd already scoffed boxoads in the short time they had been available, and I decided it would probably do me good personally to give them up, as well as doing my bit for the campaign!

I started by completely banning them from the house - I told my family what I was doing and why and so basically they have taken part with me (unless they've been secretly eating them whilst hiding in a cupboard somewhere!).  Once the house was creme-egg free it was just a matter of avoiding them in the shops - which isn't easy given they're at every checkout, in every shop, everywhere!  Things became much easier for me on about day 10 when the lovely @JuicyJulesRocks joined me in giving them up - then I felt I couldn't back out!  Seeing her #nocremeeggsforthirtydays tweets kept me on the straight and narrow, and bless her, she still has a week to go (over Easter!!).

Anyway, day 30 came along and I settled down in front of Lost on the telly, with a jar full of mini creme eggs - I had 2 and have to say what I thought was going to be quite an exciting event, wasn't.... that was it, I didn't even fancy them for the rest of the weekend.  I did have a proper sized one today - just to be sure, as you would, and was left feeling equally unimpressed!  In fact I think my obsession might be cured....

As a lover of all good causes, I'm always on the lookout for new awareness campaigns, charity events, and fundraising ideas, and this campaign was an easier than expected way do do my little bit! 

The Kick Bullying into Touch campaign runs until 29th May (which just so happens to be my birthday!!), so there's still plenty of time to take part..... what could you give up?

Dog Food!

So this is somewhat of a departure from my normal charity ramblings (phew, I hear you say!), but as it was International Women's Day yesterday, I thought I'd indulge myself and give a snippet of life as a woman....
Yesterday we ran out of dog food, so I dutifully went off this morning and bought a big bag before my Shine training walk with the lovely @thornykate. If my husband had been around, I'd have asked him to bring it in - because it's 15kg..... (he's a big dog, needs lots of food!).  But anyway, today the dog needed feeding, hubby wasn't in so I lugged it into the kitchen to put it away, flicking the kettle on for a much needed cup of tea.

there is a point to this story, I promise....

The bag of dog food lives behind the rubbish and recycling bins in the understairs cupboard.... both bins were overflowing so I thought I'd empty them, put the dog food away, then put the bins back - made sense.  Took out the recycling and emptied it and noticed a dog blanket which had been sitting outside for 3 days which needed to go in the washing machine, so I picked it up and carried it into the utility room and put it in the machine.  On the floor was a pair of damp trousers needing to go on the airer, which was full, so I removed and folded all the dry things, hung up the damp trousers, then remembered there was another dog blanket outside the back door which could be washed with the other one.....  so outside the back door I went, shook out the soggy, filthy blanket to bring inside and heard something drop on the patio - the back of my daughter's toy hairdryer I'd been looking for for months!  So in the washing machine went the second blanket, on went the washine machine.  I found the backless hairdryer (conveniently in utility room) and located batteries, then realised why the back had been lost in the first place - a piece had broken off, so off I went to find the cellotape to tape the back to the hairdryer - what a triumph, little one will be very pleased!!  Then back to the kitchen to find I'd left the front door wide open, because I'd got sidetracked and not taken out the normal rubbish bin yet!  So did that, put in a new bin liner and finally opened the new bag of dog food!  Went to the tap to put some water on the food to discover dirty grill pan still in the sink so quickly washed that up, finished with faffing with the dog food and finally gave it to the poor starving dog.

And now I'm sitting with my cup of tea and writing this! 

So you see there's putting away the dog food.... and there's putting away dog food like a woman!

A happy belated International Women's Day to all you amazing women out there xxx

a thought for Tuesday....

OK, so I cheated, but if I'd titled this post "Charity Tuesday" most people wouldn't have even got this far!!  But now that you're here, please read on :-)

What is it about the mention of charity that makes people look away?  Yes charities rely heavily on donations from generous supporters, but they do appreciate that not everyone can donate money to every charity that asks.....  Where we can help, however, is by helping to spread the word, and that is where Twitter could be fantastic..... but often isn't!

So, not long after joining twitter, I discovered #CharityTuesday - what a great idea, a whole day dedicated to tweeting about your favourite charities and good causes and encouraging your followers to follow and support them!!  Fantastic idea.... but did you know that in the whole of twitterland last tuesday there were only 1156 #charitytuesday mentions!  And probably half of those were grateful charities tweeting back "thanks so much for the #charitytuesday, we really appreciate it"!

There are quite literally hundreds of charities on twitter who tirelessly reach out to the elderly, abused children, maltreated animals, children orphaned through AIDS, homeless people, terminally-ill/disabled/disadvantaged children, ex-armed forces, MND (ever heard of that? neither had I til I joined twitter, look it up!), not to mention those fighting to #kickcancer and help in #Haiti..... the list is endless.....

So what does it require from you?  Everyone supports a charity, right?  Or has at least heard of one, I hope?  Look them up on twitter and give them a shoutout and tell your followers why you support them, or about the great work they do - and don't forget to add a #charitytuesday.  If everyone on twitter did just one #charitytuesday mention, it would be trending in no time - and it would indeed be a worthy trending topic!

Happy Charity Tuesday :-)