Yet Another Canal Walk

A short walk, just 7.75 km up to Denham and back. A humid, overcast day and not a lot more to write about it. Bashful and I ate lunch during a telephone conference call between the Oxfam Trailwalker organisers and the walkers. Lots of questions about the checkpoints, signage and facilities as you'd expect. It seems that the Gurkhas prepare curries at several locations and the traditional completion meal is another curry. An interesting development, perhaps a bit worrying; I think I'll bring my own food. Other sage advice included waving arms at bullocks (which will be exhausting since we have a Bulloch in the team!).

Walkmeter linking into Facebook has a dark side. The volume controls are disabled when the iPhone speaks the comments posted on my 'wall'. Good outdoors. Awkward in meetings if people comment after a walk has completed. Very awkward.  Couple that to the sense of being stalked and I'm going to have to get off Facebook.

And if you have problems making a donation on the site, forget it, don't waste your time. Thanks anyway but even I was unable to donate today so I understand your frustration. But I'm really pleased to see we ten have reached £12,707.70 despite the intermittent problems on the site.


Thank You BOB! Once here and again HERE where the pain was worst! 

Grand Union Canal Stroll

I meant to add that lots of small donations are what I'm after. If I want to raise the Gurkha issue to lots of people, then it's better to have 50 donations of 10 rather than five donations of 100.

I thought I'd name the walks in honour of the donors; you, your children, your friends. I thought to suggest donations in proportion to the distance walked - so the frst walk with Lia on Sunday was 5km, the second alone on Monday was just 2.5 km. At £2 per km, donors would match £15 against those already walked.

So what I'd do is publish my intended walks in advance if possible and seek donations to match the distances. That way people could match what they could afford. Obviously the distances will tend to be bigger at weekends and worse, they'll get longer closer to the event. Early sponsorship is advised.

Nice and complicated, this gives me a focus as well as a 650 km training target. It sets the funding goal (£1300) at twice my requirement (£500).

Sponsor wanted: 3km

Coliemore Harbour

Be the first!

I need to raise £500 in sponsorship for walking 60 miles in no more than 30 non-stop hours across the South Downs in July. It raises money for Oxfam but I'm in it because it also assists the Gurkhas, who I think have been poorly treated and discriminated against for a century. They even get buried at the back of the British War Cemetries I've visitited.

I've started training this week and will be blogging so you can follow my progress. I'll probably do 60 walks in which I cover 500 km or something like that. I'll add maps and pictures like I've done before.

The first walk was 5 km around the Vico Road to Coliemore Harbour and as pleasant as it was to be walking with Lia, my lasting memory will be people that a few people were viewing and pointing at Dalkey Island. It fleetingly piqued my curiosity. Pointing forgotten for a while, incomprehensible snippets overheard in Dalkey village took on a new meaning when I heard it said that somebody was planning to drill an exploration well in the Kish Basin. The Sunday Independent carried an interesting but poorly researched article that seems to confirm something is happening. The thought that I might be able to sit in bed and watch a well being drilled is just a bit ironic.


Sponsored by Nessa - Thank you.