Making It Real

This morning a parcel arrived. A rather heavy parcel. A parcel I've been eagerly awaiting.

I tore open the packaging like a kid at Christmas. There were leaflets and stickers and balloons and banners. There were funky, pink collecting tins and tee-shirts and my running vest...

O.M.G. My running vest!

It hit me like a double decker bus. I'M REALLY DOING THIS!

I sat on the floor surrounded by fund raising paraphernalia and slowly it began to sink in.

My husband's been asking me, almost daily, for the last two weeks 'Has it sunk in yet?' At first the answer to that was always 'No,' but slowly I began to nod and a tentative 'Yes, I think so,' would escape my lips, followed quickly by a confident 'Of course,' and he'd just smile. Andy had realised what I was refusing to see. It hadn't sunk in, it hadn't sunk in at all.

OK, Drew, you don't need to look so smug. Everyone gets to be right occasionally, even you :)

So I'm sitting here a little shell shocked, but that's OK, I'll get over it. I've got a couple of collecting tins leering at me every time I look up and they're not about to let me forget I've got work to do!

Baby Steps

If I'm being honest, this whole marathon/fundraising thing is a little bit daunting. Exciting, obviously, but daunting all the same. It's a lot of money to raise isn't it? £2,500. Two thousand and five hundred pounds. That's enough to give anyone sleepless nights, not to mention the thought of running 26 miles.

But then I had a thought. Yes, sometimes I do actually think. I can do this flylady style. And that means taking baby steps, doing things just a little at a time.

I've been looking at the whole amount, thinking how on earth am I going to raise £2,500? Ideas have been spinning around my head so fast I've been looking at the world through a blur, a haze of collection tins, coffee mornings, boot sales and rummage sales and cake sales and, and, and, and....

Stop. Breathe. Think baby steps.

£2,500 is not that much, not really.

All it takes is for 2,500 people to give £1

or 1,250 people to give £2

or 625 people to give £4

or 500 people to give £5

or 250 people to give £10

or.... well you get the picture.

When you look at it like that it's not half so frightening.


Thank you so much to everyone who has already donated, I've been bowled over by your generosity.

Your support means a lot. :)

Going For Gold

Wow! I'm really doing it. I have to admit it's taking a while to sink in. I'm really going to have my work cut out between now and next April. April 21st 2013. That's when I run the Virgin London Marathon.

I have a golden bond place to run for Tommy's which means I have to raise a minimum of £2,500, half of that by December 31st 2012.

Scary stuff!

Why am I putting myself through this? That's simple. I'm doing this for Dillon, for his parents, and for every parent. Every penny I raise helps Tommy's research into the causes of miscarriage, stillbirth and premature birth. The statistics are shocking. In England and Wales in 2009-2010 around 241,055 lost a baby during pregnancy or birth, with 10 babies stillborn and 97 born pre-term EVERY DAY. Every step I take, every penny I raise, will take them just that tiny bit closer to reaching their goal of halving the number of babies that die during pregnancy and birth by 2030.

Dillon's little life was far too short, but he fought for every second of it and he's my inspiration. So if I get a little nervous about reaching my target amount of money, I'll just think of Dillon. When the training seems too tough and the weather too bad, I'll think of Dillon. When my legs ache and my feet are sore next April, and the finish line seems a million miles away, I'll think of Dillon.

You can help me reach my target by going to my Virgin Money Giving Page Every Penny Counts to donate.

Thank You.