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Day 59 has been spent walking 4 miles with the dog and in the gym doing some cross training circuits while reflecting on the lessons learnt from last night after a most incredible show of support and the formulation of an apology.

The Cricket Club Annual Dinner and Awards was a smashing night. I was apprehensive about going as this was to be my first night time engagement since brain surgery 18 months ago. My first night in a pub having a giggle with friends for what seemed such a long time. I wasn’t sure that I could get through it without having some form of minor seizure or worse more serious seizure and putting a dampener on the night. However I had been seizure free for a couple of days and had not in fact even been feeling the fuzziness for a while. In fact I could almost have gone as far as to say I was feeling clear headed. I was feeling great so I was going to risk it for a biscuit and go.

I was very glad to have gone from the start. The Red Lion Pub is the sponsor of your cricket team and with it the natural choice of venue for the dinner and was on great form. It was warm and welcoming with a wonderful cacophony of happy noise drawing you in as one walks in to the door. It was the sort of noise that having only one ear working can fill me with dread as it makes it almost impossible to hear what is being said but quickly found that the advantage of being surrounded by friends was that they all knew what was wrong with me so spoke up and directly in to my offered good ear in order that I might hear them. Before I knew it Alistair had bought me a glass of red wine. After spending such a long time drinking only a small port glass of red wine with the news each evening I was nervous about drinking such a large glass of wine but I had drunk that much in a day before at my sister Isla’s wedding and survived so was pretty certain that it would be fine if I stretched it through the evening and was certainly very grateful. It was after all Doctor’s orders because of the resveratrol found in red grape skins, enhanced by the wine making process, that is said to attack cancer cells. That was an order I didn’t mind following and besides it’s meant to be good for heart health too!!

We sat for dinner and were looked after beautifully by the Red Lion. The food was excellent and the conversation flowing. I was sat between Tony and Graham and enjoyed catching up with Tony but sadly Graham was sat on my deaf side so I had little chance to talk to him. The awards presentation started with a summary of the matches and some amusing moments from Scott McDonald the club Captain and was then followed by a break before the awards presentation led by Chris Whithead. I had been talking to Chris who as an aspiring Soccer coach was thinking of taking up a post in Canada. My story of the day spent with the cowboys on the prairie sprang to mind and so I started looking for it on facebook during the break on my phone. It took forever to load and then we were back in. I placed my phone in my jacket pocket and sat back to be entertained and cheer on the deserving award recipients. One of the beautys of the game of cricket, with every ball bowled and it’s result so carefully recorded, is that there is no argument about the winners of best bowler, best batsman, best fielder et al. But it could therefore have been a dry presentation but wasn’t. Instead Chris, through copious amounts of hard work reinforced by a level of powerpoint, photoshopping and video editing and coupled with a very strong and dry sense of humour, delivered the most fantastic and funny awards presentation. I was loving it and as they were sadly drawing to a close I got the biggest but most extraordinary shock of my life. Chris had made up a new award for most courageous innings. He was referring to a paltry score of 11 I made in the match against Kippen while on chemotherapy and struggling somewhat but determined to beat the beast and make the head work again. I talk about that particular innings in which it was frankly a miracle that I survived the first two overs at all in my welcome to the Beat the Beast Challenge video on facebook and the brilliant Chris had edited out that element to play to the audience and then in a rousing call to arms that grew in strength and passion by the second offered me up as the recipient of the most courageous innings award but also encouraged all members of the club to get behind me and support the challenge. The result was the most wonderful standing ovation from the whole club that went on for such a long time the cacophony of applause washing over me like waves in the sea. I was hugely humbled by what I had just heard and what I was now just witnessing. I could feel the positive energy of these, my friends, flowing towards me, willing me to succeed in my mission to Beat the Beast and in so doing try and improve the lives and life chances of so many more people. I couldn’t look up as I felt that the emotion of the moment would overwhelm me so sat, at a loss for words by this incredible accolade. Once it had rippled to a halt the young Chris, for whom I had been searching for this Canada story for, piped up with further statements or witness accounts of how he couldn’t fathom that I was playing, or trying to play, cricket under such circumstances that day and I just felt that I had to say something, anything and quickly before I made a fool of myself and started blubbing. It was a strong urge and I was perhaps regretting the warming effect of the glass of red wine but I decided to read Chris the story about the realities of the hardy life on the Canadian Priairies and the prairie oyster. It was a short funny story and brought some laughter as it hastily concluded but the timing of the story was so wrong. In the emotion of the event I had lost sight of what was being offered by the club and what therefore I should have given back in response.

So here is my apology and response to the club’s amazing gesture. Firstly to Chris who went to such a huge effort to provide me encouragement and bang the drum in support of the challenge. I am so very sorry for not responding in the manner that would have been appropriate after such a wonderful gesture but lacked I think the courage to stand up and humbly say thank you without showing too much emotion.

To the entire club who stood in response to Chris’ stirring speech and offered such a long and heartfelt ovation I am so very sorry for not finding the courage to stand up and humbly say thank you without showing too much emotion. It was foolish and showed little faith in myself or in you all that you would of course have understand why my eyes were streaming.

What I should have said last night and what I offer now is that it has been a hard fight this last two years with some desperate moments and I had come to the club to use cricket as a much needed distraction from the anguish I was so often feeling. Not only did I find the distraction but I found an incredibly welcoming group of players that brought me in to the very heart of the club and the village and offered me their friendship. You offered me an award for the most courageous innings of the season. An award which of course I not only accept but for which I am hugely grateful. For it is not courage that saw me come to try to relearn to play cricket again it was the team, it was your determination to see me succeed, it was your encouragement that gave me the courage to walk out there through the fog of Chemo and try and score some runs.

So thank you. Thank you to Scott,Jamie, Chris, Dheraj, George, Ken and all of you that work so hard to make the club viable and such a wonderful place to be. Thank you all so very much for such a wonderful gesture which I truly don’t feel I deserved but has given me further encouragement to get out there and try and beat the beast and improve the lives and life chances of so many more people.

If you haven’t already done so do please come and find me with your partner on facebook at beat the Beast Challenge. Pour a glass of wine or make a pot of tea and watch the welcome video in the about section then the very short charities video underneath it. Then pour another glass of wine or mug of tea and move across to the posts and starting from Day 1 read up on the journey so far. If you truly like and support what you see please like the page, share the page and do whatever you can at work or at home to raise awareness of the challenge and secure some more sponsorship because I guarantee that every single penny raised goes directly to the 5 charities I am fund raising for.

Snow dusting the nearby peaks
Snow dusting the nearby peaks

2 miles walked with Georgie this morning.

A good cross training circuit was had in the gym at the McLaren Leisure Centre today. As I walked up to the leisure centre I noticed that the first snows had dusted the mountains. Winter has finally arrived and changes the mountain climate considerably. It is going to have to limit my mountain work until I can find an escort with considerable experience above the snow line and source the additional equipment required. There is still plenty I can be doing but I do very much hope to be able to find a way to keep going in to the mountains. As I started to fret about it I suddenly remembered how much of a hash I had made at trying to send the apology I have made above to the cricket team by email. I ended up having to send it again and then really should have sent it again but instead decided not to as I would then have had to send a fourth email apologising for filling up their in tray!! So now another apology. Sorry for clogging up your in box!!

After the cross training circuit I had a Mocha and a flapjack in the leisure centre watching a football match and being entertained by a troupe of giggly young children who played so nicely together and whose continual infectious giggling raised my spirits considerably along with one of the young boy’s sisters who proceeded to point out each of the stars in the night sky on the back of a chair covered in dark blue fabric with gold freckles. So I sat being entertained by the giggling of children, the cheers of a football match and the mist swirling around the mountains outside. There are some advantages with having to wait for a bus!!

A good physical day to be finished off by Jamie Oliver’s Lamb Meatballs with chickpeas in a tomato sauce and served with a lettuce and radish salad but only after a final 2 miles walked with Georgie this evening in which I was so very fortunate to catch the dusk of a calm and warm evening around the Ponds. I was enjoying the smells of the woods, the chattering of the birds as they settled to roost, the flapping of water as a small bird or mammal fritters away from the bank in to the safety of the pond. The rustling of the leaves in the trees then as a drip went down my back and made my shoulders roll in response I was reminded of a reflection from the book ‘Iona Images and Reflections’ given to me by the Iona Community to support and inspire me through the darker days of the challenge. In it Neil Paynter wrote:

‘God was telling me that if I just stopped, just glanced up from me a moment, there was a world of deep experience and communion waiting. People behind newspapers and office desks dying to talk, sunsets ripe as fruit. Life in all its fullness.’

‘I became aware of the choice of every moment: Looking up, or looking down. Reaching out, or folding in. Flying away, or standing firm. Feeling or unfeeling.’

‘Living or dying.’

— Neil Paynter

I have chosen living in order to try and improve the lives and life chances of so many more people and as a result, as so many of my posts and photographs will testify, am discovering and enjoying life in all its fullness and am hugely thankful to God for every day he gives me and to you all for joining me on this journey and making this possible.

Have a great rest of weekend.

Yours aye

Archie