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... 

i check my look in the mirror

I type to you this evening as a ginger.

The deed was done after work on Tuesday, with my flatmate Fi-Fi in control of the hair dye and my partner in crime Katie in charge of documenting the event with photos. Most of you will have seen it by now, but this is how it's looking:

It has been approved by my generous sponsor, who I don't think actually believed I would go through with it. All I can say is never underestimate me, I don't back down from a challenge.

I've been dealing with a bit of ribbing; carrot, Ginny, Ron, Garfield, to name some of the more polite teasing I have had to put up with. But of course it is all done without malice and I am happy to put up with it.

It has been a weird couple of days. People stare, you see. The problem is that I keep forgetting that I'm a ginger now so I get very confused by the expression on people's faces as they stare at me. Hilariously, I got off pretty lightly because it turns out I suit the ginger look. This means that I have been highly amused by the fact that people are at first unsure as to whether I have done this to myself out of choice, or if perhaps it could be another of mine and Rogers 'office dares' or something. They are scared of saying the wrong thing or offending me by asking (well, those with any tact anyway) and so choose to say nothing, while still giving me a wary look. This is the point at which I jump in and explain and they then look relieved.

Nothing can be so amusing though as when I shock myself as I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror, expecting to see my normal blonde self and being confronted with a fairly bright orange.

It won't be long before I have to carry out my next challenge, as we are getting pretty close to the £1000 mark. It has been agreed that Ms Motivator (aka Katie) is the ideas woman, full of charm and organisational skills. I serve as the comic relief, someone willing to do outrageous things and be laughed at.

Having said that, Katie has let it be known that if someone is willing to sponsor her a substantial amount of money, she would be prepared to go ginger too - so if anyone is willing to contribute to that fund, please let us know. I know I'd like to see Katie do something utterly ridiculous.

Our next fundraising endeavour will be announced in the next few days, so stay tuned for that. In the mean time I will leave you with our first 'team photo' and yet another link to our sponsorship page.

Sponsor Soph & Katie here for trekking/hair dying/any other silly ideas you may have. 

we may need to change the title of this blog...

For once I find myself somewhat lost for words and unsure of what to say. Since my post the other day in which I shared my plans to dye my hair blonde/pink/blue, there has been a development.

It is my birthday today and I'm about to head to London to see one of my favourite bands (Sigur Ros), so I will keep this short and explain more soon.

I have been offered an incredibly generous donation for dying my hair a colour that doesn't appear on the original list. It is such a generous amount of money that there is absolutely no way I cannot do it. Even my father is on board here people.

It will happen in the next week or so, there will be no time wasted. I'm not going to lie, I'm nervous. I don't really consider myself to be a vain person, but this is a pretty big ask and so I am asking, please, please, please, if you would consider donating some pennies to sponsor me for dying my hair...

I'm going ginger, baby!

all the colours of the rainbow

It is time to step things up a notch people. Let's get serious.

I am pretty much willing to do whatever I have to in order to raise as much money as possible for the James Hopkins Trust. In my eyes, obviously, there is no better or more deserving cause.

So. With that in mind, this is my plan.

When we reach certain milestones, I will do something ridiculous in 'celebration'. The first milestone is £500. When we reach that point, I have agreed that I will dye my hair. There is currently some discussion (read: argument) about what colour this should be, so I thought what better than to leave the choice entirely up to you.

These are your options:

• 'Debbie Harry in the Atomic days' blonde
• Pink
• Blue
• I'll pay you lots of money NOT to dye your hair (that one's for my father)

If you want to have your say, all you have to do is sponsor us. If you do that through our bmycharity page, then when it asks if you want to comment, include your colour choice. I will also get some jars (or something) together to keep on my desk at work. Put the money in the appropriate pot and I'll get someone neutral (i.e. not you) to keep track of which option is winning and voila! The one with the most money when we reach the £500.00 mark wins.

I promise I will absolutely go through with this (and get it done by a pro - don't panic kids).

And before some of you cry/have heart attacks/freak out/shout at me... just remember it isn't permanent. It's hair dye. It's temporary. My hair will grow. And it's all for a good cause.

It's still to be decided what the other milestone celebrations should be and I will take all suggestions on board, but bear in mind that reaching £2000 will result in me wearing a dress to work every day for a week (and not complaining about it). And I just know you want me to have to go through that traumatic experience.

If you want to see all this ridiculousness happen, get sponsoring us people. Spread the word.

You all know you want to see me looking silly. 

i will be

The last week has been a great one for my training. After a successful hill walk last Sunday, I was motivated to go to the gym on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday morning and I was feeling really good for it. I am learning that I shouldn't let myself be daunted by the big picture, every small improvement counts and will help me in my trek.

An example. I was encouraged a few days ago when walking to the pub with my flatmate when she told me I was walking too fast and that I needed to slow down. Me! I think she was about as shocked by this as I was, as a general rule I can't even pretend to keep up with her pace.

Yesterday I got up relatively early (for a Saturday) and took myself to the gym. I decided to push myself a little and increased the levels on each of the machines I use. By the end of the hour I was about ready to drop, but it was the good kind of exhausted that left me feeling completely satisfied and kind of amazing.

Then, disaster struck. I started sneezing and sniffling and by the time I had walked home and had a shower I was feeling like complete and utter crap. There was no denying it, I had caught a cold from one of my colleagues (I car share with her, I suppose it was inevitable). My plans for doing some hill walking today were cancelled, which was probably for the best because I headed to bed early last night and slept for 16 hours, before spending the rest of my weekend dozing on the sofa feeling incredibly sorry for myself. Something tells me that I probably won't be making the trip to the gym I had planned after work tomorrow.

It's incredibly frustrating, because I have had such a good week exercise wise, and I really felt like I was beginning to turn a corner. I know that a cold is only going to hold me back a few days, but I was keen to keep the momentum going, seeing as my motivation has been very up and down recently and my trekking partner in crime, Ms Motivator, is currently abroad.

While the exercise is starting to improve, I am struggling to find the time to make all the fundraising plans that I had promised Katie I would work on while she is away. I told myself that I would sit and make some proper plans this weekend, but then when I started feeling so pathetic and sorry for myself I decided instead to curl up under a blanket and wallow. That has got to be my focus for the next week. I want Katie to see that I have done something positive when she gets back. As yet, I have done nothing.

Time to stop my wallowing (the Tom Waits isn't helping) and get a decent night's sleep before tackling the small problem of raising £3000 tomorrow.

Sponsor us here

That's not really funny

Time is moving faster than I can keep up. I'm not really feeling any fitter and that scares me a little, but if I'm really honest I know that I haven't been training hard enough lately. Life has been a little hectic and my exercise routine was the first thing to suffer.

I had a long conversation with flatmate this weekend and vented a lot of the stuff that has been weighing pretty heavily on my mind. She reminded me that I'm not someone who fails when I put my mind to something, and I have to admit that I do feel a little better about things for talking to her about it all.

She helped me come up with a plan of action and will support me as much as she can over the next few months. I suffer from depression which can at times be crippling, and sometimes I need someone like flatmate to give me a slight kick up the arse and push me to do what I know is good for me. Today we started by going on a walk. I had actually left the house with the intention of going to the gym, but before I reached the end of our road, Fi-Fi walked round the corner and insisted that the day was far too beautiful to spend in a gym. So off on a walk we went.

We had only been walking for a few minutes when Fi-Fi pointed out our destination at the top of a distant hill. I have to admit that at that point I honestly didn't think I would make it so far, but the day was beautiful and I had to start somewhere, so I decided to stop being freaked out by the big picture and just take it a step at a time, see where that got me.

We first tried walking along a public footpath through fields, until we discovered that the farmer had taken down all the signs and clearly didn't want to encourage walkers. There were a few dicey moments as we got a little closer to the farmhouse than we had anticipated and the sound of barking dogs was putting us both on edge. Eventually we spotted a public footpath sign which was thankfully taking us back onto a road. That would be the last 'off road' portion of our walk, which was a little annoying as there was a lot of traffic heading up the hill to a well known local beauty spot, I suppose unsurprising on a sunny Sunday morning/afternoon.

I suppose my fitness is showing slight improvement, because the one thing I have noticed is that while I still get really out of breath just walking up a bit of a slope, my recovery time is so much quicker. A few seconds rest and I'm almost back to normal. You have to start somewhere, so I'm holding on to that.

Eventually, we reached the top of the hill and our destination. I couldn't believe that we had made it so far and that I was feeling pretty much fine. It helped that I was greeted with this view. The crap camera on my phone doesn't do it justice.

 

By this point we had been walking for a couple of hours and flatmate was starting to get hungry, so we headed back . By the time we got home I was exhausted, but happily so. The plan is to make our walk a regular thing, and I really appreciate the fact that she's going to help me through this.

Tomorrow my plan is to head to the gym after work, get the new week off to the right start.

how am I gonna be an optimist about this?

Ms Motivator has been teaching me about 'yoof' music. The title of this post comes from a song she told me to listen to by Bastille. I liked it. I'm like, well down with the kids. Totes. Etc. 

The last week has involved one visit to the gym, a couple of hours lugging computers up and down stairs in our office move and unloading a delivery of 45 heavy boxes of leaflets. Ideally I would have liked to fit in another gym visit, but once again life and circumstance just seemed to get in the way and I'm choosing to count the lifting of stuff at work as an extra workout.

The one thing I did do was go on a walk with the flatmate (let's call her Fi-Fi here from now on) up Leckhampton Hill. I have to be honest, at points I felt like I was going to die and we didn't even walk that far (Fi-Fi thinks maybe 6 miles, max?), but I'm choosing to blame the exhaust fumes I was breathing in. Once we got off the main road I certainly found it a little easier, but I know I have a long way to go to be mountain-fit.

I refuse to lose heart and let myself be beaten down by my doubts and an incredible lack of self esteem. Yesterday I had some moments of panic, because if I can't walk up a hill now then how the hell am I going to survive 3 days trekking? But the thing I have to keep reminding myself is that they are just stupid doubts. If there is one thing you need to know about me, it is this. When I set my mind to something, I don't give up. Some people say I am brave, others think I am stubborn and a few just incredibly stupid. Whichever of those characteristics is closest to the truth (I suspect stupidity), I am a fighter and I am going up this bloody mountain if it kills me.

We have eight months. A lot can be done in that time.

In fundraising news, I met Ms Motivator after work today to discuss our plans. We don't know each other well, but if I didn't already know it before, it was cemented in my mind that she is the right person to do this with because she walked into my flat this evening and got excited by my collection of Russian literature, and she is also a little bit in love with my straight-crush, Benedict Cumberbatch (I have a Sherlock calendar in my kitchen, much to the horror of my flatmate who is convinced everyone will think she is the one who fancies him, what with me being 'a gay' and all. She shouldn't worry though, my love for Benedict is well documented. I even have the t-shirt).

Anyway, as well as being the motivator, she also has a key role in being the organiser and the ideas person, because I am just generally a little bit incompetent. We decided that our first fundraising endeavour should be a cake sale, because she is swanning off to Africa in a couple of weeks and I almost hyperventilated at the thought of trying to organise some other kind of event in the fortnight before she leaves. Cakes are good. Cakes are easy. And if there is one thing I know my colleagues love, it is cake (we work for the NHS, this is fairly standard).

So. I will make some of my flapjack for sure, because I know my lot kind of like it. If any of my colleagues who happen upon this post have any other requests, let me know (within reason - time is a factor and alas there is no way I will have time for millionaire shortbread) and I shall see what I can do.

This is another call-out to my Sanger House/EJC buddies. If anyone else would like to donate a little time and energy to bake cakes for us to sell, please let me or Katie know.

As for the rest of you, watch this space because when Katie returns from Africa we'll be talking wine tasting, auction, quiz night and the ultimate Sanger House vs EJC Ten Pin Bowling match.

It's going to be fun, dudes.

In the mean time... SPONSOR US!!!!