Target smashed: focus back – In the name of Thiago – Day 253


Amid all the emotional turmoil of yesterday, I did rather gloss over the fact that I’d exceeded the original £10,000 fundraising target last night in a joyful surge of donations stimulated by those splendid fellows Bulldog and Moose.

I decided that come what may, I was going to get out today. But before I get to that, I want to point you to the interview that I did with Rev. Geoff Eze on BBC Radio Stoke this morning.  Skip along to 3 hours and 8 minutes into the recording on the link above and hopefully you’ll enjoy the ten minutes as much as I did!

 

He’s quite a character is Sunday’s morning’s presenter on my local BBC radio station. I don’t know whether talking about Thiago on local radio necessarily raises much in the way of donations, however I know it goes an awful long way towards raising my spirits. After the day I had yesterday, a raising of the spirits was most definitely in order.

 


 

Feeling hugely uplifted from talking to the good reverend, I made off for the tennis courts at Draycott with something akin to a spring in my step; the first time I’d had that for quite a while. With the energy sapping heat, the spring in the step didn’t last all that long but my groundstrokes and volleying stayed true for long enough to see off the challenge of possibly my third favourite baldy, Rich 6-4, 6-2. For the record, JCB Steve is way ahead at no.1 and big Kev is in the silver medal position.

 

One of the other chaps from the tennis club, Alan, also turned up to make a cash donation for the walk, which means that not only will I have achieved my target but I’m confident of going on to smash it out of sight over the coming weeks.

 


 

I dropped Dad’s meds off to him on my way to tennis this morning. He seemed in pretty reasonable spirits considering he’s without his car at the moment, after vandals decided to try to break into it earlier in the week. He insisted on showing off the concreting that’s been taking place in his garden in readiness for the enormous shed that is about to arrive in the next couple of weeks.

 

The shed, I suspect, will get rather less use than Dad makes out. But he’s happy and Lord knows what I’d give to be able to tap into some of that. As I said yesterday, it’s not the state of happiness I’m looking for, more just a smidgen of it every now and again.

 


 

When I do get back from my month-long trek from Eastbourne to Stoke-on-Trent, I’m looking forward to spending some time in this place – my kitchen. It’s ended up costing more than I care to mention here and it’s fair to say that there are unlikely to be any Gibbs family holidays for quite some time. Much as we love our travelling in the Gibbs family, we also love our entertaining and that’ll be the focus over the coming months.

 

I can’t tell you how relieved I am to have got through yesterday – it was quite horrible. I feel a lot calmer today and dare I say it a little happier. I have some good tasks to look forward to getting stuck into at work tomorrow as well, so there’s even more positivity floating around for a Sunday night than usual. Four and a half working days to go and then I’m off folks. Off to sunny Eastbourne to get started on the greatest challenge of my lifetime. Exciting stuff. Keep the donations coming guys and girls – it’s been an absolutely incredible effort.


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