Bob in the Desert

… and am back home feeling pretty tired still, but quite pleased with myself.

I’ll write something in a bit more details soon but, in short, it was a great trip and a great experience.  How can I begin to describe the Sahara… Big is a pretty good start, and not as you would probably expect is another.

Much of the ground is very stony – Hamada as it is called locally.  When I say stony, this can range from being small pebbles – ala Brighton beach – to big rocks.  This meant you were constantly walking with your head down to see where you were putting your feet to avoid slipping or turning an ankle.

And then there was sand.  Lots and lots of sand.  Most of the time this made for easy walking – that is until you entered the dunes, where it became quite hard work on the calf muscles and ankles as you were constantly slipping.  My trick of trying to jump up the smaller ones lasted about five minutes when it became obvious that it was (a) bloody tiring and (b) not all that efficient.  Don’t forget that where there is sand there is sandstorms, and I can tell you that the bloody sand gets everywhere.

Climbing the giant sand dune was an experience I won’t want to do again, that was really hard work – one step forward three slides back most of the time – and that’s when you find that little people have a definite advantage over big old buggers like me, they don’t slide half as much!

The final days walk was over a flat featureless sand-flat – miles and miles of emptiness with no shade and the mid-day temperature hitting 40 degrees.

But we all made it through, and had a good day and evening in Marrakesh to get over it. 

I’ve taken about 400 photographs which I will edit and put into an on-line album and will paste a link up on this site to it once it’s done.

Thanks again for all your support and for the many text messages I got while I was away and when I got back – it was incredible to stand in the middle of a desert with nothing around you for miles and still get a mobile phone signal…

Cheers

So this is it then, well almost.

Tomorrow (Friday) is departure day – it’s come round very quickly!  I’m looking forward to it and seeing minus one degree on the car dashboard this morning makes me think a few days in the sun is going to be a good thing.

Taking this on has opened up a lot of feeling about Hannah that I thought had been put to bed a long time ago, and I am under no illusion that the time spent wandering around in the sunshine is going to add to them.  Sometimes it’s difficult, but one thing I have learned is to focus on the positives, to think of the many happy memories that I have from her short time with me. 

Even though it’s over 25 years since she died I can still hear her laughter, and can still visualise her gummy toothless grin.  And as ‘Whispering’ John said to me last Saturday, “When you get tired, just remember why you are doing it…” I can’t think of a better form of motivation.

I won’t get a chance to update this until I get back – though I will try to stick something on when we get to Marrakech next Friday – so that just leaves me to say thank you , once again, to everyone for their fantastic support and generosity.  Perhaps between us we will stop someone else going through what I went through 25 years ago come 28^th March – if that’s the case then every blister I collect, and every penny you have donated will be worth it.

I really can’t start to say how grateful I am to you all.

See you when I get back.

Bob

SO nearly there, then… this time next week I’ll be out of touch, somewhere in Morocco.  Seems to have come around really quickly – it’s not that long ago that I thought shall I… shan’t I… before having a Nike swoosh moment and telling myself ‘Just do it’ and signing up for the trek.

Touch wood, the gout problem is fading, today was the first time I have managed to walk without having any kind of pain so that has to be a good sign.  Tomorrow I’ll try a bit of distance walking to see how it goes.  I have a cocktail of drugs and natural remedies to get me through, and at the end of the day it’s going to be a case of mind over matter.  There is no way I am not going, and no way that I am not going to finish.

What’s the alternative anyway!  It’s not as if I can sit there and wait for it to pass, is it!

Last weekend all my family came down which was great, we had a bit of an early send-off dinner which would have been all the better had I not been suffering from huge bolts of gout-inflicted agony.  Next week I am working until Thursday and then packing a few‘t’ shirts and pairs of shorts - anything else is going to be pretty superfluous I reckon.   But bring it on I say.

It’s going to be a bit weird being out of touch with everything and everyone, it’s the first time I will have been away from my family for any length of time for a start. My other half did ask me the other day if I was going to miss anything, my answer of Leicester away and Wasps at home was probably not the right one though.  That drew the classic laser-beam stare that all women are born with.

On brighter news, the sponsorship will go through £6,000 this weekend, helped in no small part by over £280 raised at the quiz on Thursday and another £230-odd raised by Fred, my father-in-law who talked people around his village into making donations. 

To think when I signed up that I was worried about reaching the go/no go target of £2k…

If I don’t get a chance to update this before I go, thanks to everyone who has supported me financially or otherwise.  Together we have done a great thing – all I have to do now is go for a bit of a stroll in the sunshine.

How hard can that be… J

… and I’ll be on a plane heading to Morocco.

At the moment though, I am sitting at home with a bag of frozen veg wrapped around my foot trying to take the swelling out of the base of my big toe.  Having cleared up a bit the gout problem is back with a very painful vengeance.  Anyone got any good ideas on how I can tackle it - I’ve got through several boxes of ibuprofen already. 

That aside, the sponsorship still comes in.  I went along to watch the Shedweb boys going through their paces in the week, on that performance they have nothing to worry about from the Cherrypickers.  Just as long as they play tag.  No, seriously boys, I admire your efforts and am grateful for your support.  The boy Matthew enjoyed himself. though not so much getting munched by Snowy as he thought he would make the corner.  He’s really up to play - we’ll see.

Otherwise this has been a slack week - the bad foot has stopped any training or walking which is not good.  Though as one of the causes of gout can be from over exercise perhaps a bit of a break is no bad thing.

Onwards!

So picture this then…Wake up on the morning of 13th February – precisely 21 days before departure for Morocco – wit a bit of a pain in my foot.

It’s dismissed as nothing.  By the end of the day it feels as if some little (insert appropriate expletive) is standing next to me banging nails straight into the joint of my big toe.  An uncomfortable night – and not much sleep – follows, various bags of frozen veg are strapped to my foot to try to ease the swelling that has come up from nowhere. Come Saturday morning and I can barely stand on it.  Fears of how I am going to drag myself through the desert on one leg start to form in my mind.  More to the point, there was the small matter of Gloucester v Sale to get to and the requisite three-and-a-half hours of standing around to contend with.  Fortunately the pain subsided to simple agony by the afternoon so I got through it.  And the mighty cherry and whites won too, so that helped.

A phone call to the doctor brings the response that it is probably gout!  Man alive that must mean I am old and a lush.  The sad thing is that I have hardly been drinking lately, I am a gym junkie in preparation for my walk and have cut out the booze almost completely. 

So I surfed the net to find out what causes Gout, apparently it can be caused by eating too much rich food, also chicken and fish.  And meat.  And vegetables.  And coffee..  So everything really.  Except pasta maybe - and water.  I have eaten a skip load of ibuprofen and that seems to be doing the trick, the pain has subsided from unbearable to just ‘ouch’ every time I take a step.  No sympathy from the family who helpfully told me that I looked funny when I limped.  Nice.

Apart from that, and definitely more importantly, I have smashed the £5,000 target and am now thinking about what to put it up to next - £6k is definitely do-able, should we go flat out for £7,500 – that would be awesome!

The Ian Jones jersey (see below) went well, and the kind chap who bought it has not only paid a handsome amount for it, but has also donated an England shirt signed by the likes of Jonny Wilkinson, Lawrence Dallaglio (boo!), Jason Leonard and a whole host of others.  That’ll be on ebay shortly and should bring in a fair bit.

Then there’s the quiz night, the rugby match, the other auction stuff I have… £7.5k is definitely on!

Thanks to everyone who has supported me so far – you people are amazing!

As of tomorrow there is just four weeks to go before I set off for the Desert.  Am I ready?  Well to answer my own question – I don’t really know.  All the hill walking and gym stuff has made me fitter, but how this will relate to walking in 31 degrees of constant sun?  I’ll find out soon enough.

I guess the only way I could prepare for the heat would be to drag a treadmill into the sauna and go for a jog. I can’t think why, but when I mentioned this to the guys at Esporta they were not too keen…

But as I look around at the three inches of snow outside the window, more coming down and sub-zero temperatures, I don’t care whether I am ready or not – I just want to see some sunshine!  I was out walking the other day, crunching through the snow, thinking  how different it was going to be.

Money continues to come into the fund, I’m confident of topping the £5000 mark before too long, and this is without the proceeds of the rugby match I wrote about previously.

I received a great gift from legendary All Black rugby player Ian ‘Kamo’ Jones recently – signed Blacks shirt that he had worn in the 1999 Tri-Nations series (see the picture above).  For those that don’t know Ian is still the second highest capped All Blacks player, and holds the record for test appearances by a second row.  He is also a thoroughly good bloke.  The shirt is up for sale on the Kiwi equivalent of E- Bay, it’s here if you want to bid on it.  Big thanks to James Forrester too, who has given me a number of signed prints of his No 8 cartoon to auction.

There is also a fund raising quiz evening taking part at the Deans Walk pub in Gloucester on 26^th Feb – be nice to see you if you want to join in.

I’ve almost had all my injections now, a couple more to go next week and then I’m done.  I reckon that there is not an illness known to man that can get me now.   Famous last words, perhaps…

If you haven’t found the just giving site, and would like to make a donation, here’s the link: http://www.justgiving.com/bobswalkinthedesert

Cheers for now

As of today (that is assuming that you are reading this on Friday 16) it is just seven weeks until I leave for Morocco.  I can’t wait now, just want to get on with it – and see some sunshine.

I guess I’m pretty much as ready as I can be, the training has gone really well (thanks Pete) and I am now seven kilos lighter than when I started training for real in October.  That doesn’t tell the whole picture, as the extra work has meant that I have bulked up a bit too – all that extra muscle.  Maybe I should reconsider Dizzie’s calendar idea.  Or not.

We – say we, I mean me – are adding to the training routine now, this means I am in the gym most evenings and weekends.  I’m also out walking at the weekends averaging around 12 - 15 miles a day - you soon find out where your boots rub this way, but better to discover that now than on 9th March…  Additionally I have just about cut all alcohol out of my diet and am living on high protein foods.  God knows how my family puts up with it.

Today, though, I have to mention the doctors.  In the pack I received from the travel company there was a list of vaccinations that I have to have.  The usual polio and typhoid were there, also hepatitis A for good measure. When I spoke to the practice nurse to make the appointment she took great delight in telling me that I needed to add hepatitis B, malaria and – wait for it – rabies to the list too.  And the rabies one is a course of four shots.  I did ask whether I could have them as a cocktail – all in one shot – but apparently this was likely to do me some harm.  So I now feel like a practice target for Phil ‘ The Power ‘ Taylor.  180 my ar*e – literally!

And just to add insult to injury I had to pay £120 for the rabies shots…

We had a meeting of the hard souls who are going to make up the Shedweb team to take on the mighty cherrypickers in April in a fundraising match.  A valiant lot they are too, given that the ‘Pickers only know one way to play – the old school Gloucester way.  Although the scrums are uncontested the rest of the contact areas will be.  Let’s hope the St Johns Ambulance guys are in training too.

Fundraising has been fantastic!  The sale of prints of Andy’s cartoons has pushed me through the £4000 mark and there is more to come.  I revised my target up to £5k a week or so ago, perhaps I need to nudge it on a bit further.  Thank you everyone.

That’s enough for now – I have to stand up.  For some reason it is very
painful to sit down at the moment…

I’ve just looked at the calendar… only just over eight weeks until I go – that’s a bit scary.  What’s a bit more scary is the fact that Pete, my fitness guru, has promised to ‘step up the training’ once we got into the New Year.  To misquote Scotty from Star Trek ‘… I’m not sure (s)he’ll make it, Captain…”

Over the last couple of days I have been out walking the streets – no not the result of some typical Christmas domestic situation, or a cheap attempt to sell my body to pay off Christmas debts – supplementing gym work with real road work (I sound like a boxer now!).  Although it has been pretty cold here, walking the hills and lanes around Gloucester makes me realise what a fantastic part  of the world I live in. 

And having walked over Coopers Hill yesterday (walking off the previous evening’s excesses) I am now convinced that anyone who takes part in the May Day Cheese Rolling event is, without question, certifiable.  That is one steep hill to climb, and is murder to walk down let alone career down after a slab of double Gloucester.

The hardest part of walking is trying not to look like a pillock when I leave home.  Whcihever way I walk I am heading through residential areas for a while, and I guess I just feel a bit self conscious walking out with a rucksack and stuff.  Once I am out in the countryside it’s fine though and as I invariably end up in Esporta at Brockworth I don’t have to worry about coming home -  I get my other half to come and get me!

If you check in on the just giving site you will see that the total is now over £3,000, thanks everyone.  The caricatures that Andy has drawn of the rugby players are creating a lot of interest, they will add to the total in a big way, as will the sale of the originals.  Andy is working on a special picture for James Forrester at the moment, I think he intends to do something with it at his testimonial dinner in January.

So that’s it for now, Happy New Year to everyone – I hope it brings you everything you could hope for.

Carlos!

I’ve been a bit tardy in updating this site, haven’t I… well I have been a bit busy of late.

Training is going well – my personal adviser has now upped the anti and Iam now supplementing the thrice-weekly ‘Death by Esporta’ training withsome fairly serious real walking – this time carrying a filled rucksack weighing in at around 30 kilos or so.  Walking up Robinswood Hill or from home to the top Painswick Beacon are things that – post March – will never again feature on my list of things to do.

It all helps though – I’m feeling fit, am about five kilos lighter than I was this time eight weeks ago (that’s fifty quid you owe me, Coleman) and am in much better shape.  I even beat the boy playing tennis yesterday…

Fundraising is going spectacularly well.  My friends Rachel and Ian are coming up with loads of ideas – fortunately the calendar idea seems to have fallen off the agenda, though quizzes and some sort of Chinese New Year event are very much on.

Ian has also got a rugby match sorted with the Shedweb community taking on the Cherry Pickers – that’s the Gloucester RFC veteran side to the uninitiated.  This will take place in April after I get back.  My involvement will be to watch from the sideline and to dial 999 at regular intervals as the Shedwebbers get crocked – I’d love to play but it’s the back… honest!

I also have some fantastic caricatures of the current GRFC squad that have been drawn by my almost brother in law and world famous cartoonist Andy Davey.  One is included somewhere on this page.  Altogether there are 32 drawings, one or two squad members are not included, largely because they were not about when I asked him to produce them for me.  There is an opportunity to purchase a set of limited edition prints in A4 or A5 format, I’ll post the details onto Shedweb, so check there for more information – cost vary depending on the size of prints.

That’s about it for now, heartfelt thanks to everyone who has sponsored me so far, and to the many people who have offered help and advice so far.

Happy Christmas…

… since this site went live, a little bit more since the Just Giving page (http://www.justgiving.com/bobswalkinthedesert) started and already the total is over £2,000.  I am truly amazed by the generosity of people who are prepared in these difficult financial times to support my venture.  So far most of the money has come from the Shedweb community - the Gloucester Rugby website (www.gloucesterrugby.net) I run.  You people are amazing, I thank you all.

Training is going well, that is if you can call being subjected to two hours of torture several times a week going well.  Pete, my fitness guru has worked out a routine that involves me lurching from machine to machine in an ever more sweaty condition, before groaning in pain as I try and move a silly amount of kilos on various bits of kit.  I feel fitter, though somewhat frustratingly ams still on the XX side of XL.  Time will tell.

My friend Rachel and I are planning some sort of bash to coincide with the Chinese New Year (26 January) as a fund raiser, more information on this to follow.  And Ian has dropped off a lovely Gloucester short signed by the squad which I will auction at some point.  Best of all, my sort-of brother in law, the ace cartoonist Andy Davey (www.andydavey.com) is drawing a whole series of caricatures to auction, raffle or do something with.  As ever more information will follow.

Finally thanks to Sarah at the Gloucester Citizen for an excellent piece in the paper last week, and thanks also to all those people who have ripped the pi55 out of me for pretending to run on a tredmill while wearing walking boots.  It was the photographer who made me do it.

Finally finally, the message board works on this site now - leave a message if you like - I’ll try to reply at some point.

Thanks everyone…