OH MY WORD!!!

Can you believe it? This time next month it will all be over!

This event has been in the pipeline for so long that it almost doesn’t seem real anymore but here it is 3 weeks (and 1 day) to go! This time, three weeks from now and I will be in London (or very near it if not there yet!) ready to leave at silly o’clock the next day! My dad has bought a bike carrier for the back of the car and the other day, we tried it out. Now, considering that we are both (reasonably) clever people (and that dad is an engineer) it still took us the best part of 2 hours to put the thing together and assembled on the car! Could have been worse (especially with the instructions that were provided!) we could have left it until the day we left!

Penni, my mum and dad are coming to London on the Tuesday and are going to try and follow the ride to Dover. Then, when I am on the boat they are going to my aunt’s house in Kent for the night and are going to travel to Paris the on the Thursday. There was talk about 6 months ago that they were going to hire a Winnebago and follow the ride all the way (although I didn’t ever expect that to happen!) but instead they are going to make their way straight to Paris, stay at my cousin’s flat and I will meet them there (hopefully!) on the Saturday. David has arranged a flight over on the Saturday morning and a hotel for that night and the plan is for the 5 of us to go for a meal that night as it will be Dave’s birthday before travelling home on the Sunday. So, one way or another we are sorted. It is nice that my parents, sister and Dave will be there when (if) I arrive under the Eiffel Tower but it seems to have been one of the most difficult things in the world to organise! It has made the training seem reasonably easy!

On that subject, training has been going well. I am averaging 20-25 miles every time I go to the gym as well as doing some of the other exercises to try and build up some other muscles and the other day I did 40 miles but that is the furthest I have done and I know that I need to build the distances that I do, but my heart has really not been in it – especially since I found out that Penni can’t come too! Don’t get me wrong I am over the moon at being aunty Jo, but we were spurring each other on for the bike ride and it would have been brillo to do it with her – but as I said in my last post, this is the only thing that I would let her off for!

Fundraising has taken a slow turn recently – my mum is planning a jewellery party to raise funds but we are still waiting for the lady who runs them to get back to us with a date – hopefully it won’t be too long – but I am still being delighted by people’s generosity! The just giving page is up to £3,475, I have a sponsorship form at my desk with £75 worth on it, there are still donation pots to collect from 2 shops in Holton Road and a pub run by the sister of one of my colleagues and the receptionist at the campus I used to work in has a form for me as does the campus office of my current campus so I think we should more than meet the £3,500 target we set when we broke the last one of £2,500 – but as you can imagine, (and as I always say) I want to raise as much as I can!

Still – I can’t be too down hearted, the money side of things is looking very good, the folks are going to meet me in Paris and it is a very worthy charity that is getting the money! Although I am really starting to worry about the physical act of getting there! It certainly will be a challenge – I think I will jump out of a plane next time; at least it would be all over and done with, no preparing mentally and physically for months!

Oh, enough – I’m sure it will be fine – in 3 weeks I will be wondering what in the world I was worried about and will be enjoying going to the gym to get thin and fit for the wedding instead! 300 miles in 4 days – I ask you, what kind of fool was I in the first place? Penni said last year when I came out with the idea that it wouldn’t be as easy as I thought – why didn’t I listen?!! Ah well, no good thinking like that now – need to be the train in Dumbo (I feel like a Dumbo!) “I think I can I know I can”!

Right, until the next time; take great care and don't forget our fundraising page http://www.justgiving.com/joandpenni
Loadsa love, Jx