Bob in the Desert

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!