And Now the Hard Work Begins

Big and Little Ols Celebrate!

Well its been another week of putting one foot in front of another to progress to our overall goal, quite literally. Pictured to the side is me and Olive (the bride mentioned in the previous blog), having just completed the New Forest Half Marathon. Both of us completed it without stopping and inside our target times, so big smiles all round. I had vowed that I could only enter the London Marathon if I completed this by running the whole way, and managed this with now problems. So next stop April 22nd for me! I do have to get a place, but hopefully I will be successful with the ballot, otherwise I may be able to get a charity place with VSO.

Tightening the Belts

We are now over 6 months into our adventure, and it is becoming apparent that we now have to take the whole thing seriously if we are going to save enough money. Our aim is to fund the whole trip ourselves, which we think is going to cost somewhere in the region of £30-40,000. We also hope to raise the same about through charitable events before and during the trip. This money will go straight to VSO. So after our great holiday in Ireland we are now cutting back on the socializing and will probably be becoming hermits in our Southampton base (all visitors welcome). This is not a bad thing, as we have plenty to do to keep our selves busy - this weekend was waterproofing the tent.

More Website Redesign

Because we are soon going to be fund raising we wanted to ensure that our website reflected our partnership with VSO, so we have added a new column on each page with various VSO links. At the same time we have tidied up the website somewhat andtriedd to make it a little more presentable. We have also decided against visiting Scandinavia on this trip, and this is causing us to need to change the routing information that we have. This change of heart was mostly for financial reasons, as we calculated that the trip to see the Northern Lights would probably cost the same as the visas, permits and guides needed for China. We also think we have the rest of our route. But more of this for the next blog.

Anyhow, thanks for reading (Mum), and we'll keep you up to date with any big changes. :)