Monday 3rd September: "Stand By For Action! 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5..."

As anyone who has looked at The Long Push Facebook page will know, we've been away on the family holiday, and had little or no wi-fi access while we were away. Hence the lack of updates, but now....now I'm back and the weather forecast is looking GOOD for this weekend, 8th/9th September, so...

COUNTDOWN HAS BEGUN!

This post is the first of a 'blog a day' diary this week, leading up to setting off on the full 100 miles of  The Long Push 2012 on Saturday! Only a dramatic change in the weather will postpone it this time, and then only by a week or two, I reckon. But the aim is...this Saturday.

So before I get onto the daily diary stuff, I need to catch you up on the last two weeks.

STORY OF A DONATION - THANK YOU (Part 3)
The week before going away was typically hectic, as the week before any family holiday is. There's all the laundry, tidying up before the neighbours come into feed the cats, (is it REALLY that long since I cleaned the toilet??)  laundry, taxing the car, renewing the insurance on the motorbike, laundry, packing, finishing off any loose ends at work and did I mention...laundry? Add the additional factors of a strange illness contracted by Rachael and an over excited boy on the autism spectrum, along with his 10 year old sister and I think I gotta  "... engine runnin' hotter than a boilin' kettle", as the Beastie Boys once chanted.

There was something else too!

Pat, outside Parkside Court on June 1st

When I first told  the mother of a friend of mine about The Long Push 2012 she immediately said "We'll organise something for that", before I'd even finished speaking! Pat and husband Brian live in a retirement block here in Southport called Parkside Court. I call into the block when I'm at work and so many of the other residents know me as well. Pretty soon Pat, Brian, Gill and some of the other residents had organised a garden fete for the Queen's Golden Jubillee celebrations in June, and Pat, (without my knowledge) had gone all over town, asking for items from shops and businesses to offer as prizes in a raffle and tombola at the event, with the proceeds going to The Long Push 2012/Families Connected. I only found out about the prizes the night before when I called round and saw this HUGE pile of stuff all over the floor Pat and Brian's flat! To cut a long stort short (a first for me) the sun shone on the day of the fete and £170 was made towards The Long Push. Pat, being Pat, wasn't happy with that though. Oh no.

Brian and Pat on The Long Push stall, doing good business

The  owners of the retirement block traditionally will double any amount that has been raised for charity, through the residents. Pat's aim was to raise the total to £250 in the hope of securing a £500 donation towards The Long Push! And she had a plan.

Pat was planning to organise a 'Cream Tea' afternoon for the residents, in support of The Long Push to try to raise the extra £80 to reach £250. Originally she planned to do this after I'd done my journey, but then she sprung the date on me of, 22nd August, the week before our hols! But, no problem, I arranged with work for some time to go and attend (which kinda went wrong, but I ended up ok in the end) and I arranged for Carol McKiernon, the head of the Families Connected By Autism to come over, to meet the residents and speak about the charity. I hastily got some photos printed off and stayed up 'till midnight the night before, mounting them onto a board, as Pat had contacted the local press and arranged for them to be there to take a photograph, so I needed something to show what the journey was about. (The board is a lot straighter than it looks in the photo!)

The hastily prepared LONG PUSH 2012 photo board

Running around all done, the afternoon was a great success. The wife of the new warden, Paul, at the block baked some beautiful scones specially for us, both Carol and myself spoke about the charity and The Long Push journey and Pat and Brian had purloined more raffle prizes to be won. I think almost everyone there went home with a prize! And the Southport Champion photographer turned up and took a photo, so all was good.

And the result, the money from this event was added to the original £170 to make a total of £350! A potential donation of £700 to the charity fund if doubled by the management company of the building. Incredible!!

So, HUGE thanks to Pat and Brian Froggatt, to Paul and his wife for their help with the food and posters for the event, Ruth and Len and all the residents and friends and relatives who paid their £3 to come in and support The Long Push 2012.


Thanks to all the people and companies who supplied prizes for the two days:

Residents, families and friends at Parkside Court,
Lin Canavan,
A base computers - Jude and Keith,
Claudes of Churchtown,
Staff at Albert Road Tesco - organised by Juliette
Boots at Chapel street
Boots at Central 12
Asda
Debenhams
Beales
Marks and Spencer.

Carol and myself can't thank you all enough. You have given the charity fund an enormous boost. Thank you all so much.

Right, it's now 10.00am and I have a million things to do today. I'll put up the August Vital Statistics post tonight, and tomorrow I'll tell you a bit about how we got on at Butlins this year.