Seafront Walk – June 10th 2009
SEAFRONT WALK 2009
Just to let you know that the seafront walk went ahead on June 10th as arranged and we managed to collect £850 in sponsorship money. Everyone was keen to do the walk this year and hoped it would be a beautiful day like the one we had in 2008. It was a few weeks later in the year than before so I thought the odds were it could be. Just as well I hadn’t put a bet on!
Well, when I say it was raining that was putting it mildly it was absolutely torrential you know that type of rain that you can barely stand up in let alone walk! I waited as long as I could before phoning everyone to tell them that I didn’t expect them to turn up in such terrible weather. I was sure their sponsors would understand and that it would be fine as long as they completed a 7 mile walk at a later date although it was unlikely that we would all be able to do it together.
However, I should have saved my breath because apart from those with very young families and a few making long journeys the rest said they wouldn’t dream of not even attempting to do it. The drive to our venue alone proved difficult enough as the roads were awful but gradually text after text came in to say the ‘die hard’ were on their way but may be a bit late as their journeys were taking a little longer than usual!
At last one by one they turned up at the agreed meeting place but trying to get out of the car and hold up an umbrella proved impossible prevented by not just the rain but the strong inshore winds. I felt so cold I put on four layers of clothes and even managed to fit a large NET t-shirt over the top of my cagoule! I looked a proper sight but nothing to the one that appeared from behind the car park wall! It was that of my ever reliable sister-in-law determined to enjoy the day regardless of the weather dressed in an outfit that would not have been out of place in a ‘sue pollard’ lookalike competition!! I’d dismissed the idea of taking balloons in this wind and didn’t expect any of the children to turn up anyway. How wrong I was as from my niece’s car out jumped 9 year old George and 6 year old Mollie ready to face the storm, ‘I’d have come for you even if it was snowing’ said George. Bless him, how lucky am I, I thought? I assumed that taking the buckets would be a waste of time as no one would be out in this weather but my husband had optimistically put them in the boot, ‘just in case’ he said! So the children took one each.
The consensus of opinion amongst the group was that we should at least make a start if only to the ‘cockle sheds’ which were approximately half a mile away where there was some shelter from the rain and if it got too bad then we would all complete the walk another day and thus be eligible to claim the sponsorship money. We waited for a break in the clouds to take a photo just to prove we tried and what a motley crew we looked! However the only moans came from the girls complaining about the rain making their hair go frizzy, typical!
So off we went. Now, I’m unsure as to whether I believe in miracles or not but I must admit I called in as many favours from anyone who was listening that morning. I promised I’d be a much nicer person to the local cats that use my garden as a public convenience, I’d clean out the fish tank before it resembled pea soup and not eat half of my granddaughters Easter eggs ‘because too much chocolate is bad for you’, (I know I do feel guilty though!) I even frantically searched the ground for signs of white feathers that my mother in law insists is my late father in law coming to visit! Well all I can say is that if it’s him that visits my garden he always brings half a dozen friends with him but in desperation I even scanned the ground that morning hoping for a sign but decided that even he wasn’t likely to come out in this weather, I remember he hated the rain! However, my scepticism and pessimism was soon challenged when once we started to walk I actually thought I saw a slight crack in the clouds and was sure the rain felt lighter. I questioned my niece’s husband, a local, who assured me that weather like this was in for the day and had been forecast for the whole week. Well I can confirm that he and the forecasters were WRONG and that someone must have been listening to me that morning. I could hardly believe it, a blue sky could be seen between the black clouds, the torrential rain that had been falling since the night before was no more than a light shower and suddenly the sun began shining through. I was beginning to worry now how I was going to keep all those promises!
As we walked further on so the sky got bluer and the sun got hotter and I was now down to my first layer of just a t-shirt. Thank goodness we had decided to take the buckets. The seafront began to fill up with more and more people and the buckets began to rattle with their loose change. We certainly didn’t have to compete with any other charities in bright t-shirts this year!
We finished our walk with a celebratory drink outside the pub overlooking the sea when some youngsters sitting nearby came over and emptied their pockets and purses into our buckets while quizzing us about NETS. We were just commenting on how nice they were when a woman came over with a little boy in tow and put £20 in the bucket whilst explaining that she had just brought her son home from Great Ormond street after getting the all clear from another rare form of cancer. He didn’t have NETs she said but was grateful for the care he’d received and wanted to help others with cancer. We all felt very humble and gave her a big hug, not just for the generous donation but because we felt so elated for her and her little boy and their good news. It really reinforced the fact that we’re all in this fight together regardless of what type of cancer we have and that maybe one day with enough research we can beat them all completely. I know we didn’t do any major feats like climb a mountain or make a parachute jump but I think everyone enjoyed the day and they all agreed that the walk had been worth it and hopefully will remain an annual event for us. Now as for those promises ……. I’m just off to clean out the fish tank but where did I hide those Easter eggs and do you know where I can get a cat loo for the garden!!
