Okay guys, as most of you will know by now because I have mentioned it maybe once or twice ^_^ over the summer I took part in a four hundred mile sponsored walk for The Mercury Phoenix Trust. If you don't know or just feel I haven't mentioned it quite enough, you can find out all about it, HERE

We completed the walk anyway, and one hell of an experience it was. We decided before we left we would but a deadline on fundraising on the end of September, so we have just under two weeks left to collect any more donations to the cause. I'm sure you can guess where this is going... ^_^

I understand now is not a good time to be asking for money, but while our western corner of the world is in trouble now, the rest of the world has been in far worse trouble and remains to be so, for a much longer time. The Mercury Phoenix Trust, give grants to charities all over the world, to help relieve the devastation caused by the HIV/AIDS virus, with particular focus on third world countries affected by the current epidemic. There is no cure, sadly, but there is a treatment, a cocktail of life saving anti-retro viral drugs which delays and even prevents, the HIV virus progressing to AIDS. On average, 1500 CHILDREN, die every single day from AIDS related causes in Sub Saharan Africa alone.

The reason we did the walk, or did it for MPT, was to try to encourage as many people as we could to step out of the eighties mindset, realize this disease should not carry any kind of stigma, it quite smply needs fighting, and now.

If you can donate, and it could be anything, no donation too small, please, please do. It's so simple, all you need is a paypal account. And click HERE

Our original target was £5000 and I can tell you we have fallen short. Part of that is to do with the economic crisis, I appreciate that, but I do think we can all afford just a few pounds if we really want to. If you can't donate by paypal please contact me, I would be happy to arrange another way. This cause is so important. In 2009 people should not be dying from treatable illnesses, this one in particular is having a devastating effect. Please, please please, do what you can.




(Thank you so much, to those of you who already have =)

For five weeks I've wanted nothing more than to get home, having finished this ridiculous walk, and live in a house again with endless cups of tea instead of a tent with endless bugs and coldness. We made it home on Saturday at last and now, four days later, I'm really not sure what to do with myself. ^_^

I guess the thing is it wasn't just five weeks. For well over a year now everything I did, my job, my gap year, my general thoughts, were leading to Coast to Coast and now I have nothing to think about anymore. Not necessarily a reccommended notion, as I do start Uni in less than a month. That's all too complecated to think about though so I'm sticking to enjoying absolutely lazy nothingness. ;-)

It would be a post longer than LJ allows to include everything I'd want to talk about with the walk, but I think most of that is things we experienced that wouldn't really mean much outside of the four of us on the walk and now we're home, out of the strange world that seemed so never ending, it's hard to think where to start.

Instead of rambling on for Lj's 13000 word limit, I've uploaded as many photos as I can find and make sense of, and included an equally rambling but hopefully comparitively abridged commentary on the walk as I remember it now. (Rather more fondly than I thought of it along the way. ;))


Quick recap for any one who doesn't know, me, my brother, my sister and her boyfriend, left home for Holyhead, West Coast of Britain, on 19th July, to begin a 400mile walk across the country to Great Yarmouth on the East Coast, in aid of the Mercury Phoenix Trust. The four of us set up The Phoenix Fire Foundation, named after our collective team name, the very original, Phoenix. ;-) You can find us HERE, that has more details on the charity, on us and what we're doing/have done/hope to do and of course, you can sponsor the walk there. =)

The one thing I should say, is that the second we started walking it became painfully obvious just how amateurish we were. None of us had ever done anything similar before, none of us can read maps or, as it turned out, use walker sat navs. We still don't know how Coast to Coast is normally done, we just booked thirty four campsites about 15miles apart in a pretty much eastern direction and hoped. I won't speak for the other three but I am horribly unfit and puny and moany. Normally you can't say this without it being cliched and meaningless, but in this case I know it to be true, if we can do it, literally anyone can. ^_^

( Phoenix in Coast to Coast 2009 )