The final countdown

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Forgive me bloggers for I have sinned, it's been 4 weeks since my last post, hopefully you'll be sympathetic as the reason for this has been because I've been mostly concentrating on taking my training seriously & to be honest, have been too darn exhausted to type! My logic being that getting fit & making sure I am strong & ready for the ride has had to take priority over everything else.

Before I rabbit on about what I've been up to - a lot of you have told me you've had problems finding the online giving link, you can click on the Community Music In Action logo on the right of this page, but I've discovered if you're reading this on a mobile or a tablet, these links don't appear. So in case you want to sponsor me & I'd be so very grateful if you did, you can do so by clicking the link at the top of this post.

It does what it says on the shirt.......hopefully!

So, it's been a busy 4 weeks bike-wise, and training is/was paying off. My weekends have been spent chewing up the miles either with the bike club, sometimes alone & sometimes with my cycling buddies Cath, Andy & Bill who have been brilliant & entertaining company (thanks guys). As you know I had started part-commuting to work (15 miles round trip) twice a week & I've also added in riding the 35 miles trip home  once a week. I did the ride home a couple of times when I was training for London to Paris & it used to take me about 3 and a half hours, it's been a massive encouragement & motivation that I can now do this same journey in around 2 hours and 40 mins - great to see how far I've come & improved in a year. I think there are quite a few factors that have helped, a lighter bike, a lighter me, better weather & perhaps a strong headwind - but I'd like to think I'm a better cyclist than I was twelve months ago too.

So here I find myself, with only 3 days to go & with all the miles I'd put in, you'd think I'd be feeling confident & raring to go, but actually I'm feeling almost as scared & apprehensive as I was before Paris. The route is flatter & should be less challenging, but the distance is further than I've ever done, the weather is looking changeable & I'm nervous about meeting new people & not being as fit as everyone else in the group, I'm racked with guilt & regret that I haven't done enough training, I'm wishing I'd paid more attention to my diet & I'm definitely wishing we hadn't ordered that extra bottle of red with dinner last night! The feeling that there really is now nothing more I can do, should be a satisfying & exciting one, but it's not, I'm tormenting myself with every what if question I can think of & I should have learnt from last year, that planning to have a weekend of doing nothing in preparation, mentally really isn't what I need.

But then I think back to actually why I'm doing this, to raise money for Community Music in Action, which I help to run. Last year, with the help of your donations over 150 vulnerable people in my local community benefited from the different music projects we ran. We set up an extra curricular choir for students with Special Educational Needs at Glebe School in West Wickham, we ran a singing project for people with Alzheimers at the White Gables Day Care Centre in Bromley & we ran a Rap & Lyric Writing Project with Riverside Specialist School for children with Autism to name but a few.

On Wednesday we met to talk about the forthcoming projects we are planning over the summer. It's going to be a busy one with two projects already confirmed & more in the pipeline.

The first one is in conjunction with Whizz-Kidz. There are an estimated 70,000 disabled children and young people in the UK waiting for a wheelchair that fits their young lives. That’s where Whizz-Kidz come in, they provide disabled children with the essential wheelchairs and other mobility equipment they need to lead fun and active childhoods. But, giving a disabled child a wheelchair is just the start of their journey with Whizz-Kidz, all around the country disabled children and young people are meeting and making friends at their growing network of local Ambassador clubs. Which is where Community Music In Action are getting involved, we will be running a music workshop at their Ambassador Club in West Wickham, an experienced music leader will help children with lyric writing & group singing, helping the children develop communication skills & giving them tools to express themselves creatively, but don't take my word for it - have a look at the video to see what goes on & what the kids get from taking part............

The second project we are planning is with Bromley Young Carers, a local support service for young people who are aged between 4-18 years and who live in a family where someone is affected by a long term illness, disability, mental health issue, alcohol or substance misuse or HIV. We will be running a musical summer camp for them in the school summer holidays & are currently scoping their requirements & finalising plans & ideas. We really hope to be able to provide these young people some much needed respite from their very difficult day to day lives.

We're also in talks with Demelza Hospice & Carer's Bromley for projects later on in the year. There are so many people in our community that can benefit from our help & we want to do more. With your donations, that will become a reality - so please do give whatever you can, however, small - I promise we'll put it to good use.