I know I said I was going to give you Level 2 training part 2 but Oh my! I have had just the best week so needed to share. It started as normal with the alarm at 6 am. Some flippin' cheery tweety birds, that chirp away from Darren's phone on his side of the bed. He sleeps through them every time and I have to give him a dig to get him to stop the little buggers and their bright early morning chorus. I then press the TEA NOW button on my retro Swan teasmade and lo and behold after a few minutes of gurgling and hissing a pot of tea for two miraculously appears on the bedside table.
That is most definitely the home comfort that I will miss the most while I am away. It is my most very precious gadget, you can have the microwave, dishwasher, toaster, hoover, washing machine, TV, xbox, nespresso etc but my teasmade is The Business, the dogs, the most important invention of mankind 🙂 Darren bought it as a kind of joke for my birthday a couple of years ago. He had asked me what I wanted for a pressie and I am not really into presents and material things so I asked for a cup of tea in bed. Anyway he struck gold, I think it is the best present I have ever had.
Anyway back to my week. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday went by in their normal perfectly lovely, normal fashion, household chores and the kids on Monday, Rachel's garden on Tuesday and Gerald and Fiona's gardens on Wednesday. All plain sailing so far. Then along comes Thursday and I have a meeting with April and Rachel from East Cheshire Hospice to discuss my fundraising efforts and how we can capitalise on the BOLD and DARING adventure that I am going to embark on next year. ( Rachel's words not mine, I think I said bonkers and stupid !!) Well before I knew it there are all kinds of plans being hatched. The first which involves me being the speaker at the Annual Winter Ball at Mere. Speaking in front of hundreds of people. With them all looking at me and listening to my story, amazing but oh so very scary.
So number 1 … out of my comfort zone…… public speaking!
Next up my fabulous friend from school Andy Lee had arranged a meeting with a friend of his Jamie Lundy. Jamie is a hugely successful business man and incredible photographer and all round good guy. While I was meeting him I was witness to one of his incredible acts of warmth and kindness and unbelievable philanthropy and generosity. Jamie, Andy and I then discussed the very real possibility of me, actual me, pioneering the use of the technical extreme clothing brand 7L of which Jamie is CEO. I will be provided with Gopro Hero5 Black cameras, batteries, memory cards and the associated gubbins to record my circumnavigation, trained how to use the little blighters and enabled to send my footage home from each port. But what a phenomenal opportunity to record my story.
So number 2 … out of my comfort zone ……. having my picture/ video taken!
Next up was an incredible £1000 donation to my chosen charity East Cheshire Hospice from the best clients we could have dreamt of….. Fiona and Gerald. I can't tell you how amazing this couple are. So much stuff going on in their own lives but still so incredible and generous. Their donation really gets my totals looking more like it and takes my overall fundraising to £1865 (£500 for Unicef and £1365 for ECH so considering I have not actually been anywhere yet other than Gosport a couple of times I am feeling pretty damned pleased with myself.
So number 3 … out of my comfort zone ….. bigging up my own achievements!
This week I also visited the amazing Wellspring Centre in Stockport, cooking meals for the homeless, more about that next week.