Mission Accomplished!
Well, I’ve done it, walking a little like John Wayne with sore soles of my feet, calves, thighs and shoulders. This 45 year old with only half a brain, neurological dysfunction and SMART syndrome has successfully managed to plan, navigate and physically walk the 63 miles, carrying everything that I needed for the 3 day duration of the walk from Bowling in Glasgow to the Lochrin Basin in Edinburgh. The best bit is that, with the exception of some rather poor periods of dizziness and poor balance, a right leg that kept threatening to give way, a brief period of laboured speech and a little bobbling while waiting in the bus stop with Allie to go home, I did it without an epileptic seizure, without a neurological seizure, and without even a hint of a SMART attack. I didn’t even fall into the canal and have managed to raise £747 for the Disasters Emergency Committee. But that is £253 short of my £1,000 target. To those that have sponsored me, thank you so very much indeed. For any who were speculating and holding on to see if I would actually complete the walk, do please sponsor me and help me reach the £1,000 target. This was a truly demanding challenge, physically and cognitively, and certainly worth the £15 a mile I was hoping to raise. Do please donate if you haven’t already done so, the people of Indonesia so very badly need our help.
www.justgiving.com/fundraising/beatthebeastchallenge
Thank you so very much to all who donated to my Beat The Beast Canal Challenge Just Giving Page. The great news is that with your support I reached my target of £1,000 having just squeaked over the target by £2.00 but with a further £197.50 pledged in gift aid, the total raised from my walk was £1,199.50. The money is winging its way to the Disasters Emergency Committee Indonesian Tsunami appeal and will help to:
- Purchase 47 family hygiene kits to help prevent the spread of disease
or
- Feed 23 families of 6 for up to 2 weeks
or
- Vaccinate 1,199 children against deadly measles
and help provide clean drinking water for the hundreds of thousands affected by this disaster.
It was hugely encouraging to hear of the sponsorship tally rising day by day so I thank you all very much.
I must also take this opportunity to thank my wonderful wife Allie who, despite being in her final year of her hard work towards achieving her PhD, not only dropped everything to write and post the updates as the walk progressed, in order to help generate some good sponsorship, while also encouraging me to keep going as mile after mile of beautiful but never changing canal became endlessly lonely, but came to join me for the final 8 miles. The horizon almost never changes except for the occasional cyclist appearing only to whizz past in a colourful flourish. So with little to look at or hear, and no-one to talk to, mile after endless mile on tarmac paths, carrying everything I needed for the 3 days walking, started to become an uncomfortable and lonely existence in which it was all too easy to convince myself that I may as well not bother. That nobody cared. Thank goodness for modern communications. To hear from Allie the wonderful messages of support that were coming in, and the hugely generous donations that were coming in as Allie quizzed me for updates for the Facebook and Just giving pages gave my half a brain enough meat to chew over, to encourage it and keep it going.
So thank you to Allie and to all who wrote messages of encouragement and to all who donated. Sadly I cannot see who the anonymous donations were from, nor for how much the donations were, but Allie was able to work out that some were particularly generous, so to you too I thank you.
Thank you to my old Company Sergeant Major in 2SCOTS, Mick Green, for being the one and only person who came to walk a couple of miles with me on the canal.
Finally, I would like to say a huge thank you to my dear friends Toby and Carol, and Philip and Karen, who answered my call for help and provided accommodation, food, transport and wonderful company for the Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. Marvellous. The good news is that I am physically now fully recovered and with the exception of some minor Twobbles on Sunday, I am neurologically fully recovered too.
Now I have some work to catch up on.
Thank you.
Archie