On the Road Again!

The challenge was for me and Reggie to walk 75 miles in May. It shouldn't have been that arduous even with a 14.5 year old dog. Instead it was me that fell ill and was unable to walk very far. After 18 miles in the first five days I was too tired or too ill to go out. Added to that multiple hospital appointments didn't help either. With almost three weeks of inactivity I was 20 miles short on 31st May. I carried on into June, gradually wracking up the miles. On the 7th I was about 400 yards short... on the 8th, 2.49 miles at Campers & Coffee saw me across the line.

I signed up for this and set the donation bar very low.  To do this in April will require completing 3.3333333 miles a day every day.   I am using the GloryFit app that came with my cheapo smart watch. From time to time it seems to lose the connection between it and the phone.  But is generally simply to reconnect.  One oddity is that often the stats on the app differ from the watch. The front page is a match but the stats don't match that either! Anyway to donate this is the link  https://www.facebook.com/donate/1096699247842940/ So far I have £5 from a very low bar of £50 donated. That was me!

I think this is my fourth week volunteering here.  I feed each one and then get them to have a cuddle to socialise them, them get them to work off some steam.  Once I have that under my belt I can take them for walks.  If you are in the UK, and want a dog, then look no further. Google Kent Greyhound Rescue and get in touch.  https://www.kentgreyhoundrescue.com/ The racing industry spits out dogs every week. Either too old to race or not good enough to win races. So there are always dogs needing forever homes. There are also bitches that have been used for breeding and once too old are dumped. The two brindles are reserved but there are loads more. If you get in contact, feel free to say that you heard of the charity from "Paul the Dog Feeder"!

I signed up for this charity run and made my donation. I was the 64th signee. Hopefully there will be more by the closing date of the 28th February. https://www.relayriders.co.uk/

I am not going to ask for money but just publicise this annual fund raising event. I have a subtle patterned jumper and Claire has one. Reggie might still have his somewhere. https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/christmas-jumper-day

All was going swimmingly well until yesterday.  Another Storm, oddly named Barra,  has arrived from across the Atlantic and this time it hasn't been as bad in the north as Arwen last week. It meant that yesterday we had torrential rain all day and high winds causing damage to property and trees getting felled.  https://news.sky.com/story/storm-barra-rain-snow-and-80mph-winds-forecast-to-batter-uk-amid-danger-to-life-weather-warning-12488486 What it also meant was that after five days of Santa Paws walks with Reggie that he missed out on his walk and we missed out on some valuable exercise. Still. We are alive and just cold.  We should be glad that unlike some of our countrymen and women in the north that we have power and light.  It's freezing cold and windy today, but in my lunch hour from WFH, my plan was to take him out for a little walk in the mud and tree debris across the canal, as long as the rain stayed off. But of course, it hasn't and it is lashing dow...

Didn't go. Sadly I was needed to fix an IT problem for my aunt. That it was lashing down with rain when I set off to drive to Maidstone, plus the spray on the M20 was horrific. By the time I got finished it was too late to get home and get out on the bike. All the more annoying was by then it had changed for the better. Still about 6°C as the highest temp of the day, but at least the roads had started to have a dry line. Instead,  I was walking the dog in Hythe when they were arriving at the hospital. Looks like the Lego will join the bears with the other charity at the Salvation Army.

I picked up these little guys at Argos today at around 3.45pm. By 4pm they had been donated to a local charity collecting at the Age UK place in Hythe. I ordered them for the Whitstable Toy Run on Sunday. Sadly, the hospital in Margate won't accept soft toys. These little buggers have travelled from China in a bag. 

I signed up for this today.  I am partly deaf in my right ear. I have no midrange hearing and that's where most sound in human life lies! Oddly, when there is a lot of noise, like the musak pumped out on stores and shopping malls, I can easily become disoriented. The problem I have is that the headphones I have all have the "on" button in the right ear unit. I have to have in/on both ears to hear the message that they are connected to my phone.  Okay not a biggie but sitting amongst a group of people is. I simply can't hear what anyone to my right is saying, so I try to sit with as many people to my left as possible! I have a hearing aid. It's rubbish. Does nothing at all. I was expecting a marvel of miniature electronic  engineering that went in my ear and made a difference. Does it buggery. So raising money to help people that are totally deaf and live their entire lives in silence get an assistance dog seems the least I could do. Twelve dog walks in...

Working from home ought to be a doddle. Work a bit, loaf about a bit in my lay-z-boy chair drinking coffee and in the evening moving onto the beer.  Sadly, it's not like that at all.  It does mean that when the shops are open I am stuck in the house working on the laptop. Although I do have the occasional coffee during the day! So I tend to use online shopping.  This is no different. I thought as we are a large group of bikers from all backgrounds that come together twice a year for Easter, when we collect eggs to be distributed to sick and deserving kids, and at Christmas when we have the Toy Run, that a toy that was biker themed would be a good idea. And so enter the Lego Stuntz bikers.  I ordered two from Amazon and once again helped Bezos build another rocket to fly to the edge of space.... His name is Wallop! https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08W5FWLYV/ref=pe_27063361_487055811_TE_dp_1 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08W5FWDRT/ref=pe_27063361_487055811_TE_dp_2...

The email confirming the amount raised by us walkers was too difficult to format into the blog. So instead I have found the online version and here it is: https://helpforheroesonline.org.uk/1DW2-7HJLL-1DC353D25F62C0CC72DFI93549386881FAA708/cr.aspx

The last update was on the 21st and so here we are almost a week later. Progress has been bitty to say the least. A couple of low mileage days saw the "over walk" reduced to very much nearer the average per day. The average per day is 100 miles divided by 30 days.  It comes out at a very reasonable 3.333333333333333 miles per day. So after 26 (I've not done much today yet!!) complete days the total walked is 97.24. The average by 26 should be 86.66666666666667 so I am over 10.47 miles up on the challenge.   I should be able to have that done and dusted by tonight close of play i.e. bedtime. Three days ahead of schedule. Donate: https://www.facebook.com/donate/649372989368455 Sign up: https://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/give-support/challenges/100-miles-in-september/ Update 1132pm Monday 27th September 2021 Mission accomplished. 100.30 miles completed of the 100 mile challenge.

An update on the progress of the challenge.  Like I said in the beginning, to walk 3.3333333333 miles a day isn't that hard, but to get donations has been harder.  Thanks to three Facebook and real friends I have so far raised £50 of my £100 target. So at the half-way stage, dog walking, I have completed 56.22 miles.  If I had stuck to the average I needed to have completed 50 miles. So I am almost two days ahead of schedule. https://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/give-support/challenges/100-miles-in-september/

This was always going to be a nice and easy walking activity and after 6 days we are up by quite a bit. The average is only 3.33 miles a day.  So with a few above average days and yesterday being very low (working!!) I am over 4 miles up. I am using Huawei Health app to calculate the daily and accumulative mileages. There is still a chance for some of you to donate  -  https://www.facebook.com/donate/649372989368455

I signed up for this. On the face of it walking a hundred miles in 30 days should be a piece of piss. It's 3.3333 miles per day.  Donate: https://www.facebook.com/donate/649372989368455 Sign up: https://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/give-support/challenges/100-miles-in-september/

A second 2.5kg pack of Bonio dog biscuits dropped off locally. This time for Kent Greyhound Rescue. We went around to a house and left them in the porch as the lady was out at the kennel. https://www.kentgreyhoundrescue.com/ That's just over 5kgs given away. Reggie will have to eat the rest.

Bonio is a dog biscuit in the UK, they may sell them elsewhere!  They are bone shaped biscuits and I usually buy a small box and that will last Reggie a while. Imagine my delight when I saw an offer to buy a 2.5kg box.  Per Bonio a saving over the small boxes. So I ordered one. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the box was actually 12.5kg...... Without my reading glasses I hadn't noticed that all important 1! So to get rid of some of them I emailed a few local dog rescue homes to see if anyone wanted a load of free Bonios. Incredibly, only one has bothered to reply. I managed to squeeze just over 2.5kgs into a tub that formerly housed wild bird fat balls. Claire and I drove round to Last Chance Animal Rescue in nearby New Romney and delivered the tub. As they are still not open to drop-ins we were unable to visit the dogs they have on site. maybe next month, with another few bags of Bonio!!! We already know this group as the last couple of Pet Food Runs I organis...

Managed slightly over the 60 miles with the dog, but many more without organised walks. More donations gratefully received  -  https://www.facebook.com/donate/139710528201889/10157803736686744/ Challenge Miles Walked: Total Miles Walked:

After the heatwave and temperatures in the high 20's Centrigrade last week and the subsequent thunderstorms that always follow a heatwave, we finally got out for a couple of long walks today.  Firstly to Folkestone Harbour Arm nd across the former railway bridge to the other side of the harbour. And then later in Hythe and along the beach that fronts the Hythe Ranges. Today is a non-firing day and as the weather was dry and overcast we had a walk along the sea edge. The total mileage today was about 6. Reggie currently laid out asleep. I have some photos to add but I am waiting for them to get uploaded by my phone to Google Photos and then I can add them here.   With Google looking to charge for photo the mantra has to be to upload once and use many times! They will appear here once they get their acts together! Martello Towers - front line defence against Napoleon's invasion. Back to...

When I signed up for this I didn't ask Reggie whether he wanted to take part. He is the kind of dog that does what we want and only needs a few treats to make him happy to come along. The challenge shouldn't be too hard to achieve.  Walk 60 miles in June with Reggie with us.  Whilst he is happy to be with us, happy to sniff everywhere, happy to pee everywhere, he isn't a great walker. It's only an average of two miles a day though. Sometimes he'll even hide under the dining table as soon as the collar and lead/leash are sighted. I know it is pretty pointless giving the donations URL but here it is.  Just in case someone that reads this has a few quid to spare. Donations -  https://www.facebook.com/donate/139710528201889/10157803736686744/ Information -  https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/get-involved/dog-walk-challenge