The Smiley Milers JOGLE: The Night Before (Damo)

Thursday 17 July 2008

The Night Before (Damo)

Well this is it, the night before we leave for Dumfries and then a small sleep over friday and heading upto Wick on Saturday ready for the Sunday morning start. I am all packed and rearing to go although I have just had a minor panic at the thought of leaving my wonderful children (Isabelle 3 and Olivia 1) and of course Lynn (the very supportive wife). I have now got plenty of photos of them to take with me to look at over the next 10 days until I see them again in Monmouth.

I am now very excited at the thought of starting on Sunday and even though I have made the most organised packing list available to man I am still sure I am going to have forgotten something (note to self: don't forget the bike). What is a great feeling tonight is the fact that we will be starting our challenge with the knowledge that we have surpassed our £10,000 target and we are actually on about £10,500 and counting....how fantastic is that. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those people that have very kindly sponsored us and have been so generous with their support of us....so thank you to each and everyone of you....you know who you are.

Also thank you to Hampsons Van hire for giving us so much support with the van, CalMac Ferries for funding all the costs of our ferry crossings, EON for providing us with cycling gear and more importantly match funding, Quorndon Brush Ltd for such huge sponsorship and Andy for providing the signage on the cycling tops.

I plan on sending a blog each evening covering the days events and hopefully some photos as well so please come back regualrly and provide comments as we like to know people are reading our blog.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my wife Lynn who has put up with me for the last 6 months spending every waking hour either training, planning and organising or talking about this challenge...and also for her support in completing some of the actions....particularly pulling together the JOGLE info folder which provides us with all the details we need to know to get us from one end to the other....

I will sign off now and the next blog you read will be of us having started our journey....here goes....

Toodle pip for now
Damo

1 comment:

sr said...: Good luck guys. I hope you have better weather than myself and have a tail wind all the way.

Stu; 18 July 2008 at 16:23

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Steven: The mere fact that Steven has left this in MY capable hands (his wife!!) to write probably says more than any words I could find to describe him.

He is the 'Birthday Twin' of David (although he has asked me to point out that despite how he looks he is in fact 14 years younger than David!) and likes to do 'stuff like this' to keep him on his toes, in actual fact I think he goes through 'mini crises' every decade (in the 90's he ran the Nottingham Marathon, bare minimum of training before and has never since ran again) and now this...although I can safely say the training has been going v well (particularly for me as I can Ebay/ Facebook for as long as I like!).

I'd like to tell you what he does for a living but I haven't got a bloomin' clue (and to be honest I don't think he does either...), he 'prices' stuff so far as we know.

Like David he is a TOTAL fidget ar*e and this will give me a little peace and quiet for a couple of weeks as well as raising shedloads for charity-bonus side effect really!

He went to 6th form with Damian (and his wife and myself where we all met and fell in lurve...yeuch!) and Jen, although he has dumped her (calls her 'my mates wife!') in favour of David.

Steve's main goal, apart from completing the cycling of course, is to find a place where he can drink beer every night.....

NUFF SAID!
Adios and Bon Chance!!!

Damian - Breaks all things IT

David: is a lean, mean, exercising machine. Why would you want to sit and relax in your living room when there is....well..... SOMETHING to do that would expend some energy?! He last made this journey as part of a relay team – running the length of the country. The JOGLE on cycles is on Dave’s wish list of ‘things to do before I’m 50’ and as this milestone age occurs in October 2008, it means it’s now or never. In other words, this is all his fault. David is a Building Surveyor by day but really longs to do something away from the construction industry as he’s ‘been doing this since he was five when his dad bought him a wheelbarrow for his birthday, and he considered himself lucky.. blah blah blah blah.’ He shies away from crowds and hates being centre of attention ..... the way he hijacks the local karaoke evenings whilst dressed up as a woman illustrates this fact clearly!

Jen: is married to the lean, mean exercising machine, but isn’t as lean, or mean and doesn’t exercise half as much! However, she does hate to be left out ..... of anything ..... at any time, and would rather eat her own cycling helmet than watch Dave do it without her! It’s the same sort of philosophy as she uses when he goes to the pub – if he thinks he’s going without her, he’s got another think coming! Jen is a Quantity Surveyor (counts bricks) and is also desperate to get away from the profession, but anyone who knows what a QS does, needs no explanation of why this is the case! Jen is using the JOGLE training as an excuse to do her most favourite thing (apart from spending time with Dave, of course) – eating crisps or any form of potato!

Laura: 24 Year old Website Marketer. Don’t ask her what one of these is, after 8 months she is still unsure of why she was offered the job. A lover of Animals and nature with a tendency to get a bit mixed up with fantasy and reality, she lives with Jon and their Cat Ted. Seeing this as a great opportunity to behave like a child again, she is always doing something slightly unusual in her spare time, whether it is painting, writing a book, playing video games, making curtains or ‘gardening’ (digging up stuff).

Laura gets very enthusiastic about everything that she does … even if she doesn’t go about it in the most conventional way. Don’t leave her alone for too long though, she won’t always admit when she is unable to do something she was very sure she could and will just find a ‘different’ way. (Putting up a fence with a hammer, saw, spade, 3 rotting posts, some rocks she dug up and a ‘not so keen’ eye for a straight line? – somebody stop her quick before she hurts herself!).

Jon: 24 Years old Metal Turner and Machinist. Jon machines large pieces of metal so that they can be used in pipe work for Gas and Water. As a lover of cars he spends some of his spare time cleaning, polishing and driving his own and is certainly not afraid to exercise his knowledge of engineering if there is a car that needs a new …anything putting in!

Jon’s enjoys playing tricks on people - especially when they are too blonde to notice straight away (not mentioning any names – Laura) so beware - if you see him with a manic grin on his face for apparently no reason, it’s a lie when he say’s he is ‘just happy to see you’ – he is up to something.

Jon’s choice of career and his practical nature are actually quite brave considering his an unusual knack of hurting himself. He is never normally without some kind of bruise, gash, burn or loose fingernail and his new craze is ‘tweezering’ splinters of metal from his fingers…nice!

Thursday 17 July 2008

The Night Before (Damo)

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