good times gonna come

What a week it has been. Our fundraising has really picked up pace over the last 7 days, and our running total currently stands at a truly stunning £1,325.37. That's almost half way to our target.

I have already told the story of how I came to be ginger, and today the Chief Exec handed me a cheque for £500, as agreed. I always knew that she would keep her word, but there was a certain relief in having that money in my hands and knowing that the loss of my blondeness wasn't all for nothing.

Most of you will know by now that I am always up for being a bit of an idiot. A colleague and I have been trying to out-do each other with progressively more and more ridiculous 'office dares' for 6 months now and so it was probably no surprise to anyone when Roger and I showed up to a work event last Friday night with more ridiculousness up our sleeves.

Roger completely screwed me over at Christmas when I ended up wearing an elf costume, so I decided that I would attempt revenge this time around by not keeping to our agreement of showing up to the party dressed in the onesie he had bought me. He was wearing some 'ridiculous' trousers, but of course they were nothing compared to the bloody pink onesie and he actually suited the stupid things and pulled the look off well.

After a few vodkas I was finally convinced to put the onesie on. Another colleague had promised to sponsor me £10 if I put it on and went onto the dance floor. I'd barely got the flippin' thing on before the DJ announced that I was doing this trek and summoned me to the dance floor, the eyes of the room upon me. It was humiliating and all I could do was stand there, awkwardly, cursing and telling them all how much I sodding hated them for putting me through this. I have issues with social anxiety, so you can imagine that this was actually my worst nightmare. People may be shocked to know that I have social anxiety, but after 10+ years I have learned to deal with it by overcompensating, acting the fool and pretending to be far more confident that I actually am. On the outside I played along, while on the inside I was dying.

I may be a little biased, but my colleagues are a pretty special bunch and they took pity on my embarrassment and soon a bucket had been filled with change, another £113 to add to our tally.

I can't quite believe I'm about the share this with you, but here is a photo of me and Roger from the night:

I know, I know, I look twelve.

I have decided that I should give the 'making a twat of myself for money' thing a rest for a little while and instead I have handed over to Katie to do some sensible event organising. We are holding a Champagne and Sparkling Wine tasting evening in Cheltenham on Saturday April 20th, so if you would like to attend let us know. I can't remember how much tickets are, but I'm planning to make Ms Motivator write a blog post about it herself anyway.

My focus is once again going back to training. I can't seem to focus on both at the same time and during the last couple of weeks I have pretty much done zero with regards to exercise. On Sunday Katie and I went for a walk, which admittedly involved a lot of chatting and not always a huge amount of walking, but we covered some decent slopes and called the day a 'team bonding' exercise.

Picture of the pretty:

After getting the cheque from Jan today I was feeling excited and hugely motivated, and making myself go to the gym after work was pretty easy. I pushed myself pretty hard and expect to be feeling the pain tomorrow, but I'm feeling good for it.

Things are looking up, people. We are totally doing this and totally kicking ass at it. But we couldn't do it without you, so thank you so, so much to those of you who have sponsored us so far. It means a lot to both of us.

Next time on lettersfromavoyage: Ms Motivator speaks and I tell the story of another offer on £500 sponsorship which might be a step too far, even for me...