Cometh the hour, cometh the men…and the woman (!)

Scott, Shackleton, Amundsen…to that list of intrepid adventurers who conquered snow and ice in pursuit of their goals, can we now add the names Newstead, Hare, Brown and Trevethan?  Or did we end up more like Captain “I may be some time…” Oates?

For despite all the tongue-in-cheek bloggery about how difficult, hazardous, and potentially lethal our 13.5 mile canal-side half-marathon walk could be, the elements did appear to conspire against us to turn what could reasonably be described as a “good stretch of the legs” into quite a tough challenge – well tough for four normally office-bound 40 and 50-somethings at least.

Looking back, the whole affair seemed - like the wonderful, and thankfully now Anne Widdecombe free Strictly Come Dancing - to pay homage to the movies…with a little bit of classic TV thrown in for good measure. Read On. If you don't have time to read on but would like to donate anyway, please go to http://www.justgiving.com/simonandcolin2

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Thursday morning. With the smug grin wiped off my face I battled through our first significant snowfall of the season to Woking Station to face the usual South West Trains bad weather chaos. But to my delight, in spite of serious delays, the few trains that were running were at most half full, and I arrived at my desk at a very reasonable 09:45. The only member of our party who was unable to dig her car out and get to work was Clare. Taking an enforced day’s leave did, however, give her a full day to somehow get from Southsea to Woking for Friday’s big event.

Thursday afternoon. As the day wore on, South West Trains went into total meltdown, amidst tales of two hour delays and thoughts of a night sleeping on the concourse I reluctantly grabbed my laptop and headed off early to Waterloo.

Colin managed to get the last guaranteed Woking bound train from Surbiton, and Clare had also managed to get onto a train, as it turned out had Tony.

At Waterloo, hope was fading fast as the information desk explained “we have trains on every platform, but no crews, and lots of trains outside Waterloo that can’t get in because all the platforms are full.” I turned to head for the cash point: Taxi seemed the only hope.

Then I saw a face I vaguely recognised. “Are you Ben? Ben Spencer” An old school chum who I hadn’t seen for more than 25 years. It was indeed him so, to cut a long story short, after a visit to the ATM and some tough negotiating we persuaded a taxi driver to take us home. It was turning into a real life “Trains, Planes and Automobiles”.

Meanwhile Clare was arriving at Woking after hours of cross country zig-zagging. As she pulled in, the train doors remained resolutely closed - they were frozen shut and had to be chiselled open, in a scene rather reminiscent of Doctor Zhivago when the only way they can get out of the frozen Siberian train is to shatter the curtain of ice with an axe!

All smiles now: So would you be - just hours earlier Clare was trapped in a frozen train

After a couple of hours catching up with Ben, I arrived in Woking. You’ve all heard of “Miracle on 34^th Street” well I was about to experience “Miracle on White Rose Lane”. The taxi meter had stopped some £15 higher than the driver’s estimate. But to my total astonishment he insisted I only pay him the original cost quoted. It was still an expensive way to get home, but I was home, and £15 better off than I might have been. Cue angelic voices and tinkling Christmas bells.

Friday morning. D-Day arrives. By now we appear to be getting a constant stream of texts, facebook messages, e mails and voice mails all saying basically the same thing. “Don’t do it, it’s too dangerous, you’ll slip over and break your legs/fall in the canal/freeze to death/catch hypothermia”.  Hmmm. Maybe we are all mad, but we’ve managed to get to this point so on we must go.

The mountain of clothes laid out on the bed must have weighed at least half a stone, presenting a serious dilemma: Extra weight and with it more warmth, or less weight and the possibility of one very cold and miserable day indeed? The extra layers won.

With no trains to Guildford another taxi beckoned, and a long bus ride for Tony, just to get to our starting point. As we drove the last few hundred yards to Guildford Station, we caught a glimpse of the frozen canal and the taxi’s external thermometer registered -3C. Yikes.

Weighed down with layer upon layer of warm clothing and ample provisions – M&S sandwiches, mini pork pies, energy bars, fruit juice, jelly babies and of course Colin the Caterpillar cola flavour chews - we hit the tow path. Well we tried to hit the towpath, but the closest we could get was the town centre bridge across the canal. Short of abseiling down the bridge, “Die Hard” style we couldn’t seem find a way to the towpath. Finally we found a path that led to an alley that led to some steps that eventually led to the towpath. It was 10:30am.

Frozen ground, frozen canal, frozen grins. It was cold.

After an hour we checked our progress. Oops. Too much frolicking and photographing had kind of slowed us down – we had managed a measly mile and a half. It was very slippery underfoot but if we carried on at this rate we would not finish until half past seven. Which would mean at least three hours of walking in the dark, something not to be recommended on an icy towpath.

We had to inject some speed but unfortunately it wasn’t long before Clare slipped and fell, twisting her knee. With about ten miles still to go this was not good news. As we progressed she dropped further and further behind. I considered leaving her a trail of jelly babies in the hope that she would eventually catch up with us, but then had visions of her being picked off by a hungry snow leopard, just like a little arctic fox cub at the back of the pack in one of those David Attenborough documentaries. However, a swift change of footwear soon put her right and we quickly regained our momentum.

Friday afternoon. By 1:15 we had covered 6 miles so we stopped for a coffee and toilet break. As we sat in The New Inn at Send the clouds parted and at last the sun made a welcome appearance. This gave us just the encouragement we needed and we set off again with new found enthusiasm.

A bit of sunshine can lift the sprirts no end

Crossing snow covered water meadows bathed in late afternoon sunlight was beautiful, but we soon realised that we had seen hardly anyone all day, and as our shadows grew longer and longer things started to get just a little bit spooky. It felt as if we were the only survivors in a post apocalyptic ice age, walking and walking to who knows where, never getting there, just walking and walking. Then the silent beauty of the snow covered countryside was replaced by electricity pylons, and graffiti-covered concrete pillars carrying thundering traffic on the M25 directly above our heads. It was a scene from 70s kids TV classic “Changes”.

Friday Evening. The sun dropped below the horizon just after four, the mist started to rise from the canal and the temperature plummeted. I went to take a swig of water from the bottle I was carrying in my bag only to find that it was frozen. Thank goodness for the extra half a stone of clothing.



Pretty? Yes.  Cold? Yes.  Dark? Very nearly....



Darkness presented an altogether new danger – Tree roots, now invisible to the naked eye are the perfect trip hazard.  At least the white of the snow enabled us to see where the towpath ended and the canal began. It was about this point where we realised we had miscalculated our route. Thinking we had only two miles left we our hearts sank as we discovered we still had three miles to go. Hardly surprising that this was when our joints started to seize up: Knees refused to bend. Shoulders and elbows ached. Toes throbbed in silent protest and our spirits started to flag.

Forced smiles: with over a mile to go it is pitch black. 

Text messages enquiring after our progress and sending wishes of encouragement spurred us on until at 5:30pm, seven hours after we had started, the four of us emerged from the darkness, just like Dennis Quaid and his rescue team in “The Day After tomorrow”. aching and limping, tired and hungry, but absolutely delighted to have made the finishing post, our old local, The British Volunteer, together.

With the end in sight, the body starts closing down...

We walked in to the sounds of cheering and shouting. Someone was ringing the pub bell; a message of congratulations adorned the mirror over the fireplace. The Landlord and landlady bought us all drinks and we collapsed into our seats to celebrate with friends who had come to cheer us home. With them was Sarah, Tony’s wife, who had also completed her sponsored swim that day - 44 miles over 12 weeks, the equivalent of swimming to France and back - raising well over £200 on her own.

The ever supportive Dawn and Martin give us a right royal welcome at The British Volunteer

So far between us we have raised just over £1500, which is amazingly only £400 short of what we did last year. If anyone would still like to donate, you can do so at www.justgiving.com/simonandcolin2. £2,000 is within our sights!

The sun sets on this year's mad cap fund raising ;o)

Two days to go: Any chance of a heat wave?

What do Grace House and The Wey Navigation tow path have in common? Well, it's not the weather, that's for sure. Forecasts for Friday, aka D-Day (Daft Day? as that's what is seems like right now…): Woking, Surrey: mostly sunny, top temperature of -2C. Siem Reap, Cambodia: sunny, top temperature of 32C.  Now mad we may be, but I even I wouldn't choose to walk 13.5 miles in 32C and 90% humidity, but a few degrees warmer in Surrey might be nice. Still, as long as we wear plenty of layers we should survive, even if we do largely resemble a group of toddlers in over padded romper suits.

Just a few degrees warmer.. please?

Of course the main hazard will actually be sliding into the canal, or more likely onto the canal. After the forecast low of -8C on Thursday night the Wey could be completely frozen over, which might just prevent is from falling into the water. I can picture it now, legs going at 20 to the dozen in a vain attempt to resist the inevitable crashing down onto the proverbial arras.

Whilst walking on the towpath does usually provide a little shelter from precipitation by way of overhanging trees, like city pavements, the council doesn't grit or salt them. And having walked to and form the station twice now on the Olympic standard skating rinks that Woking's pavements have become, I am afeared that the current weather conditions could seriously hamper our progress on friday. We had thought 4-5 hours would be enough, but unless I can find some studs to screw into the soles of my boots - rather like they do to horses (any suggestions work colleagues?), I think we could be looking at 6-8 hours. Hypothermia does seem a real possibility.

Despite the weather, training did continue this last weekend in deepest darkest East Sussex. We set off from our cosy holiday cottage and headed for Pevensey Beach. As we left, no snow. As we arrived at aforementioned beach? Tons of the stuff.

Not white coral sand, but a lovely snow covered beach

Notwithstanding the extreme cold and treacherous car park, it was in fact quite a pleasant walk.

A very plesasant walk really

I have never been on a snow covered beach before, so this was a whole new experience. The sun came out, the pebbles snuggled under a thick cloak of virgin snow. Everything looked magical. It's funny how a liberal dusting of white powder can turn even the most prosaic of objects into on something much more alluring. Mind you I find the same happens with a few pints of lager.

Magical: Snow can make even a tired old groyne look attractive

Unfortunately we walked for way too long, without sufficient layers and back at the cosy cottage I had to take to my bed, fully clothed and wrapped tightly in a many-togged duvet, in order to stave off the worst case of rapid onset hypothermia ever seen by man. I recovered in time for The Strictly Results Show. Which also caused me to have a relapse again. What is it with Anne Widdecombe?

Even as Dorothy, she's no friend of ours

Until now we really thought the most serious barriers to our completing our walk would be a recurrence of plantar fasciitis (Simon), a worsening of our lateral Epicondylitis (both of us), or anything to do with Colin's feet. And of course a nasty drop of rain. BTW that’s policeman’s heel and tennis elbow. It’s amazing how much you use your arms when hiking at ramming speed.

Surely no one in their right mind would choose to go walking in such arctic conditions? In fact, if this was some professionally organised event, the Health and Safety people would probably have called the whole thing off.

Well we won't be calling it off as it's all in a great cause and there are plenty of warm pubs en route where we can take a nice hot drink if we get desperate.

Which reminds me. There is something that the Wey navigation has in common with Grace House. This Friday they will both play host to some slightly unhinged people doing slightly crazy things all for the sake of those who are much less privileged than we are.

Two days to go, so here's hoping for a last big fund-raising push. If you would like to sponsor us on our hazardous, nay life-threatening walk, please go to www.justgiving.com/simonandcolin2

And here's latest news from Bridget at Grace House:

"It’s been an emotional rollercoaster of a week.

Last weekend we watched the traditional boat teams racing down the Siem Reap River as Part of the water festival celebrations. Then we lit an offering which we also sent down the river. Unlike Phnom Penh, The races only last 2 days in Siem Reap but, just like Phnom Penh, the town was packed with people from the surrounding countryside.

Grace House closed Monday and Tuesday for public holidays, but Monday was a special day for Piseth, our welfare co coordinator. His mother died 100 days ago so he invited us all to his village to celebrate her life. All the staff and volunteers donned their best clothes and drove 60 km in a hired mini bus to Piseth’s home village. We paid our respects, were blessed by monks and visited the local pagoda (temple) and Angkor era bridge. We all had a really great day and felt very honoured to be invited.

I was woken early Tuesday morning by my daughter phoning from the UK asking if we were ok. That was the first we had heard of the terrible events at the water festival in Phnom Penh. The pictures on Khmer TV were horrific. Luckily everyone we knew wad OK.

Back to work on Wednesday. The staff were all in a state of shock but put on brave faces for the children.  A young mum came into the office with her own 3 month old baby and a 10 yr old girl. The family have just moved into our village and brought the young girl with them.

The girl’s mother had died and the couple felt the father was not caring for her, so they just brought her 100 kms to their new home to look after the baby while they grow vegetables!  She could not understand that what she has done is illegal, even in Cambodia. We will meet with the village elder next week and try and sort things – watch this space.

Second visitor was another young mum, obviously very poor with 2 children, malnourished and under size for their age. She lives in a neighbouring village but not one we serve so we had to turn her away. This was a very difficult decision but I know if we help her 20 – 30 more families will come and we just cannot help everyone.

Thursday – National Day of Mourning – Grace House closed – time to reflect

Friday – 26 Australian students came for the day to help us work on our football pitch and volleyball court. With them were two Aboriginal lads who gave the children an impromptu musical demo on a didgeridoo. Actually it was a piece of metal pipe, but it did the trick just as well. This was followed by a game of football which is always enjoyed by everyone.  It was a great finish to a very difficult week"

If you'd like to help make every week a little bit easier, please sponsor us on our 13.5 mile arctic hike this friday at www.justgiving.com/simonandcolin2

Celebrations, frustrations and tragedy

You know how we like to live life on the edge, inveterate risk takers that we are. Well, here's something: since our funds are now over £700 (and that doesn't include the money raised by our two recently recruited cohorts - Tony and Clare) we have decided to put the target up to £1000.  I am sure that with everyone's help, on a downhill slope with the wind behind us we'll get there in the end.

In the meantime, an update on our training. Yes, we finally made it to Limerick. But No, we did not get an almighty drenching. In fact the sun shone all weekend. Much to the delight of our host Bridget, who threatened to kidnap us if it meant the weather would continue to be so glorious. Let's face it, they need something to cheer them up in Ireland right now.

No, not a drop of rain fell from the sky during our brief sojourn, which made for very pleasant sightseeing indeed.



Cliffs of Moher, bathed in sunshine. You couldn't make it up 

In fact we covered over 300km on saturday (in the car that is, what do you take us for, serious athletes?) and although we didn't get much opportunity to hike, we did manage a bit of dangerous thrill-seeking by walking a slippery, unfenced 300m high cliff path and succeeded in putting in some serious fitness training - several hours of dancing with reckless abandon  at Bridget's **th birthday party, which did lead to multiple muscle strains the morning after.

It was EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, cos it says so

It was probably the first time we've danced like that since the infamous Abba and Gloria Gaynor-studded episode at a Cambodian Karaoke bar during our last trip. Which, incidentally was where we met one Bridget Dillon, from Limerick, who was on her second volunteering stint at Grace House when we tipped up last December.

Cambodian Karaoke: Doing our bit for Anglo-Khmer relations

Which brings me neatly back to why we're doing this "half marathon" in the first place...
Apologies for those of you who were expecting something light hearted and, dare I say it, witty from our blog this week, but it would be wrong to gibber on in my customarily frivolous fashion when Cambodia has been the scene of yet another human tragedy this week. 

It seems even more tragic when you know that most of the people attending the water festival where the stampede occurred and almost 400 died were country folk on their once a year visit to the big city to give thanks for the passing of the monsoon and to pray for a good harvest. They don't have many reasons to celebrate in Cambodia so it seems all the more unfair that a normally joyful festival should have ended with such needless loss of life.

Thankfully no one we know was injured, although a former member of Globalteer staff, now living in Phnom Penh had gone out to join the celebrations but luckily was put off by the huge crowds and went home before the tragedy began to unfold.

I wonder if the police are tacitly admitting that they were in some way to blame given the speed with which compensation has been offered to the victims. I'm sure we'll never know what happened for certain but it puts poor Cambodians' lives into sharp perspective when the goverment offer of compensation for a life lost this way is just $1200 or £800.

It only serves to underline that when we say just a few pounds can make a difference to many lives in Cambodia, we really mean it. So if you would like to help out, please go to www.justgiving.com/simonandcolin2 and sponsor us on our half marathon hike - which looks like it may be happening in the snow too...

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Thankfully life for Grace House and those that work there goes on as normal - well as close to normal as it can be.  They continue to set up their vocational training centre but life is not without its challenges. Bridget Cordory sends us this short post this week.

"Alan – Vocational Training Director - has just had possibly the most frustrating week ever!

We have been donated 10 wood turning lathes and scroll saws by a kind Australian man, Issy, who will teach some of the village fathers how to use them to make wooden gifts and souvenirs. The idea is they will then be able to sell them to make a living. These men are unable to undertake heavy manual work due to poor health but have no other skills to rely on to earn a living.  Mums, of course, are welcome to join the classes too!

Vocational training: increasing villagers' chances of earning a living

First shipment of machinery arrived safely and after we paid the duty they arrived at Grace House. But the second shipment is causing problems. Issy had been given 10 computers and apparently it is illegal to import second hand computers. But customs MAY let us have them, as we are a NGO (Non Government Organisation).

Alan and Piseth (one of our teachers) spent 3 days filling in all the forms to prove our status, and duly mailed them off to Phnom Penh only to be told that since the letter to customs was written in the “female” form of Khmer, Dani, our female director, would need to sign the paperwork. So poor Dani had to catch the night bus for a 5 hour trip to Phnom Penh to sign it.

We are still waiting for the top man to say Yes or No as there have been 2 days of public holidays due to the Water Festival. So we’ll have to wait until Wednesday or Thursday before we find out if we can have our computers.

You’ve probably already heard that the Water Festival ended in tragedy, with more than 350 people killed in a crush on a bridge. It puts my moaning about computers into perspective."

If you would like to help Grace House continue building a future for their villagers, please sponsor us at www.justgiving.com/simonandcolin2

If you like making love at midnight...

Here it is. This week's installment. On top of all the hard training we are doing we are pleased to report that Colin is doing a school assembly presentation at a teacher friend's school and I have been asked to play duets on the organ at the school's carol concert. We are very touched by the way people continue to help out - We know that there are lots of calls on everyone's money at the moment so big thanks.

I like to think that my constant talk about Grace House has had some influence on my niece's pronouncement that she is going to help out with a charity in Rwanda next year. I'd prefer it if she were going Cambodia with people we know. But it's good to know that even some 16 years olds do want to do some good. Even if she doesn't know where Rwanda is. I suppose it has some similarities with India.

Anyway. On with the blogging, and just in case.... www.justgiving.com/simonandcolin2

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Songwriters have long harboured this perverse notion that getting a drenched by an unexpected cloudburst is somehow good for the soul.  I blame Gene Kelly with his cheerful rendition of “Singing in the rain”. Then there was seventies songster Rupert Holmes likened the pleasures of a late night romantic encounter with walking through a shower in his catchy lyric, "If you like making love at midnight, and getting caught in the rain..."

Rupert Holmes: would you trust this man?

Even 10cc (who are British after all, and given our islands' propensity to rather too much of the stuff should know better), couldn't resist it with the lines "like walking in the rain and the snow when there's nowhere to go" in their romantic hit "The things we do for love". I can testify that there's nothing romantic about donning a scarlet cagoule and hiking boots (not scarlet) and walking six miles through wind, rain and cold on an English November afternoon.

A week of rain and rotting leaves had also turned the towpath into a hopscotch of muddles (that's mud and puddles together, the sum of which is altogether much more dangerous than the component parts) and meant we ran the constant risk of slipping over and hurtling headlong into The Basingstoke, and a near-guaranteed demise from either Weil’s Disease or, hypothermia.

Yes. We are still in England. Limerick is next week, so apologies for those of you who were expecting a soothing combination of craic, blarney and brogue.

But the English weather had taken on an emerald tone anyway, leading to few passersby on whom to test our theory that levels of friendliness are directly proportionate to county of origin. In fact the only people we saw were a solitary (and very muddy) jogger (in shorts no less) and groups of soldiers lurking, or possibly sheltering in the trees as we passed the barracks at Pirbright.

With the gloomy weather, the soldiers in the tees and the constant rat-a-tat tat of gunfire from nearby Bisley Rifle ranges we felt like a couple of stiff upper lip Brits in a black and white war movie.  "Your German is very good" said I, in my best German accent. "Why thank you very much" said Colin in his best Gordon Jackson lilt. Oops. Rat-a-tat tat.

Colin imagines what being a film star might be like....

We snacked at halfway on tomato and olive oil sandwiches. Incongruously Mediterranean, considering the climatic conditions, but as we headed back the rain finally stopped,  the clouds briefly parted and the sun made a welcome, it tardy appearance, low in the afternoon sky.

Goblin stole my sandwich.....or maybe a gnome

Of course walking in the rain can be quite nice in the tropics. Especially after a hot, dry summer. At least it’s warm. And it means there will be crops to survive the next few months. However there is always the risk of flooding if it happens to be a monsoon or a passing typhoon. Thankfully this monsoon and  typhoon season has now passed in Cambodia but life can still be pretty challenging. This week, Bridget has sent us a daily blog from a very hectic, and very emotional week at Grace House

Monday

Wood turning lathes and scroll saws arrived for the new vocational training course. 10 of each, we will teach parents and young people wood turning and eventually set up a workshop to produce bowls from recycled local Cambodian timber.

Interviewed for candidates for a support worker for Brul, our young man with learning disabilities. Asked 2 to return and see who Brul likes. His previous worker has just left to train as a teacher.

A local woman called Soreng visited the office, she is in her early 30’s (she is unsure of her exact age) with 5 children under 11. Her alcoholic husband had left her and she is 3 months behind with the rent. The family had moved here from Battambang (in NW Cambodia) after their house boat sunk. The landlady was coming at 3 pm to evict her so Dani and Piseth (two of the teachers at Grace House) and I went to the house. 

The house was like a cattle shed - brick built with cement floor and a tin roof, there is a bathroom but no water. The family are sleeping on a mat under a mosquito net on the hard floor. The whole place smells as the floor is porous and without water it is impossible to clean. The youngest child is about a year old and runs around naked.  Soreng collects water from a neighbour’s house about 100 yards away.

The landlady did not appear, but we met the children, none of whom have ever been to school, all looking malnourished, in need of a shower and clean clothes.

Tuesday

Grace House was closed today - Independence Day. I put a brief description of Soreng’s family and their predicament on Facebook to see if anyone could help out.

Wednesday

A quiet day at Grace House. Just 4 children to hospital with chest infections and suspected Dengue fever. Donations pledged from ex volunteers for Soreng’s family.  People are so kind

Thursday

Art club at lunchtime run by 2 volunteers from another NGO

Friday

8.15 arrived at Grace House - a family of 4 children had lost their father in the early hours.

This family live next to Grace House in a palm leaf house. During the gales last year the house was blown down and Grace House rebuilt it. At the time Dad and one of the sons lived there. When we had finished the house Mum and the other 3 children moved in together with Mum’s new partner. Dad moved out and had been sleeping in a hammock under a neighbour’s house until Friday. 

Repairing the house after the 2009 typhoon

We visited to pay our respects and made a donation so the family could proceed with the funeral celebrations.  Dad was in his early 40s and had a lung condition. We have been supporting this family with rice for about 6 months.

Friday pm

Soreng came to say her landlady was in Phnom Penh and would be back on Monday.  We discussed her life story and learnt that despite never going to school, she is a very skilled basket-maker. With the donations received we were able to offer her a job teaching basket-making to other mothers at Grace House in the afternoons.

We can’t pay much but it will cover her rent and give her some rice.  We were looking at expanding the bag making into the afternoons, and this has just moved it along. The condition of employment is that the children come with her, instead of running wild, and we teach them basic Khmer.

If you would like to donate to help people like Soreng and her family please go to:
www.justgiving.com/simonandcolin2

Power-walking to little India, and yet more weather blether!

Welcome to this week's update.

Do you remember my bemoaning the fact that Hillary Rodham Clinton's visit to Cambodia didn't get a mention in the British Media? Well get this. I am delighted to report that a later stage of her trip did get into our esteemed press. Indeed. Just days after I posted my blog there was a nice photo of Hillary rubbing noses with a Maori in New Zealand. Glad to see our newspaper editors have got their priorities right.

 If you think that the poor of Cambodia might be slightly more deserving of attention then please sponsor us on our half marathon at www.justgiving.com/simonandcolin2 . Serious bit out of the way - let the blogging commence!

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We have had a request to stop writing about balmy autumn days and romantic canalside walks as it reminds Bridget from Grace House of her pre-Cambodia Days when she and husband Alan owned their own narrow boat. Of course, in Cambodia there are lots of boats, and a good job too, as rather than our civilised temperate climate with its four rather benign seasons, Cambodia has just the two really. Hot and dry or hot and wet. And the wet is seriously wet, hence a nice narrow boat could come in handy.

But I digress. The reason we continue to walk along the canal (sorry Bridget) is because I have a very nice book, an atlas of British Waterways, and one of its irresistible features is that it has mile markers all along the canals, so you know exactly how far you have walked. Which makes it a hell of a lot easier to plot your progress than using a streetmap and a piece of string. Map

geek? Moi?  

A canal, not dissimilar to "the Basingstoke"

Not wishing to harp on too much about the weather, (which obviously means I am going to) I was reminded on Monday morning of just how hideous our little 13.5 mile walk might be. A washout journey to work in the freezing cold took 2 hours instead of the customary 1, and left me convinced that I had lost all my toes in the severest case of rapid-onset frostbite known to man.

Now a five hour walk in those kind of conditions would be a serious challenge, even for hardened survivalists such as we. Sort of Hare Grylls types, if you will.

I am glad to report that Saturday's training session was not dampened by inclement weather. However, it was rather short as we were due to entertain that evening and hadn’t done any shopping. In fact it was a mere sprint of five miles. It took us east from Woking on the Basingstoke canal, a route which is altogether more bucolic than the westbound one through previously mentioned urban wasteland and al fresco drinking dens. Which only serves as a reminder of how broken Britain really can be. Hampshire's gentility was but a distant memory, our friendly greetings met with thinly disguised suspicion rather than an eager and welcoming smile.

I think it could be because Colin was wearing a Nike hoodie. Hug a hoodie? I don’t think so. I mean, would you embrace Colin down the canal?

Snack attack: But would you hug this hoodie?

We stopped again at the half way stage for a sugar fix. Ok, we didn't really need it after just 2.5 miles but those fine little traditions are so hard to shake, like tiffin and dressing for dinner (too much Downton, possibly). A banana and myriad fortune cookies. I'm not saying that we ordered way too much food from the Chinese takeaway the night before, but I can't think why else they would have delivered enough fortune cookies for a family of 6.

Anyway, the words of wisdom were not entirely inspiring. "If God lived on Earth people would smash his windows" was curious enough though. If God lived in Woking there's a strong chance people would smash his windows too, and it would have nothing to do with being God. My second effort was a bit more promising though. "Your first love is still thinking of you". Of course Music was my first love, and it will be my last. Which begs the question: can music actually think?

Onwards we went, dicing with death as we sneaked past a Great White shark. I know, you couldn't make it up.

Great White: The Sheerwater shark

And as we were short of time we had to incorporate a trip to the Indian Supermarkets on Walton Road for some ingredients. Little India might be more apt a name for this exotic area of town, there are so many authentic Indian shops, but we've decided to call it MG Road, as every major Indian town has one. Not "MG"  as in the hairdressers' sports car, but as in Mahatma Gandhi. All that aside, you would be amazed what you find in these shops, and I mean amazed.

Woking's very own MG road harbours all manner of culinary delights

We'd hope not to find one of these floating in that soup 

Five miles completed, and once again no rain. Next week we are in Limerick (now this is starting to sound like Countryfile...), for the 40th birthday of one of the volunteers we met in Cambodia. So, West of Ireland. November. I'd say the chances of a spot of soft weather were pretty good. At least there will be a good pint of Guinness waiting for us at the end. Slainte!

And one more sneaky plug www.justgiving.com/simonandcolin2

A visit from Hillary Clinton and a very spooky training hike....

So, Hillary Rodham Clinton has nothing to do with our fundraising or our training, and no she didn’t pop in to visit us in Woking for a cup of tea and a macaroon. She did, however pay a visit to Cambodia this week, visiting the Angkor Wat temples near Siem Reap (which is where Grace House is located), and The Genocide Museum in the former Khmer Rouge detention centre in Phnom Penh known as S-21 or Tuol Sleng.  It was Duch, the director of S-21 who was recently sentenced to 19 years for his part in the torture and murder of 17,000 people during the genocide of the1970s.

I only mention Hillary’s visit as it doesn’t seem to have got any mention in any of the UK media, despite some very important dialogue with the Cambodian Prime Minister about the $445m that Cambodia still owes the US and the forthcoming trials of other Khmer Rouge Leaders.

If you don't have time to read the blog but would like to sponsor us please go to www.justgiving.com/simonandcolin2

Anyway, back to training:

Having got a thorough soaking whilst walking to a local hostelry on Friday evening, we were banking on the accuracy of the “dry and sunny” forecast for Saturday and our 8 mile training hike. Dry would be good, sunny would be ideal, but rain of biblical proportions was not on our wish list. However, as we set off on Saturday lunchtime, the heavens opened and Friday night's weather made a very unwelcome reappearance. Undeterred, we pressed on. We would hardly be able to bail out on December 3rd if the weather was against us so perhaps a bit of wet weather training would actually do us some good.

As luck would have it, it didn’t take long for the rain recede. We soon left the drab and grey of Surrey and drove into the warm brilliance of North Hampshire.

We started near Greywell tunnel on the Basingstoke canal, famous for its large colony of bats, a sort of “bat tunnel” if you will. But despite our high hopes, for the next three and half hours of very strenuous flat terrain walking there was no sign of the 1970's superhero, or his enthusiastic sidekick (although we did hear what Colin reliably informed me was a real robin singing away in a copse in the autumn sunshine).

Clearly with no superheroes around there would probably be no dastardly villains either and very few hazards to exaggerate, in order to make out that our training regime was highly risky and we therefore deserved everyone's sponsorship money even more. We did see a bloated carp floating on the surface of the water. Industrial poisoning? Possibly. And we saw what was almost certainly an escaped crocodile or alligator. It turned out, most surprisingly, to be a log. I swear you couldn't make it up.

But, joking aside, the Hampshire stretch of the Basingstoke Canal was the antithesis of the urban decay of the Woking stretch. The sound of crows, the smell of wood smoke, and the colours of autumn floating into the glassy canal were straight from the pages of a romantic anthology. A strangely dressed man, in plus-fours and gaiters, tightly buttoned waistcoat, tweed jacket, and a pair of highly incongruous orange sunglasses strode out of the undergrowth like an extra who had accidentally wandered of the set of the next series of Larkrise to Candleford. Unless of course he was a ghost. In broad daylight.

A canalside walk can be very strenuous...

At the half way stage we stopped for a welcome sugar fix. Jam butties and two leftover fortune cookies from the night before. Colin's told him that his next fortune cookie would be “more interesting than this one” (yawn). Mine, on the other hand said that I would become the parent of someone very famous. Given that is highly unlikely to happen naturally, barring sordid arrangements involving a turkey baster I can only assume that I am destined to adopt a Cambodian orphan, who will turn out to be the next Japanese-style piano playing prodigy to take the classical music world by storm.

Colin enjoys as an energy giving jam butty

And that was as spooky as it got. Well-dressed families with well-behaved chocolate labradors stood to one side to let us stomp past with a smile and a polite “good afternoon”. Well-fed cattle chewed the cud next to well-groomed horses in well-kept water meadows. Everything was very genteel.


So, apologies for failing to fall in the canal, sustain injuries or be abducted by aliens, but there's no getting away from it, there is a lot to be said for a spot of fast walking along the towpath on a bright October afternoon. As we neared the end I suddenly spotted a flash of electric blue darting along the water. And then again. It was a kingfisher. The first time I'd ever seen one in the wild in England. Then we did almost break into a run, which was a real shock to the system. Time was marching on, It was getting dark, and we hadn't put enough cash in the pay and display machine. Oh the excitement of living on the edge. Just call us the dangerous brothers.

Simon imagines what it might be like to be exhausted

In Cambodia, the monsoon rains have receded, and the floods have dried up making it possible once again for the children to get to Grace House and for the staff of grace House to get out to the villages to help those in need. This week, Bridget tells us about one of the elderly women whose life they have had a chance to change for the better:

“Yesterday “Granny” visited Grace House, just to say “hello”. With a baby on her hip, a toddler clinging to her skirt and a big toothless grin, Granny is a tall elegant lady whose poverty is only defined by her clothes. She often pops in for a chat. In the UK she would be coming for coffee but here it is just to natter. The problem is my Khmer (Cambodian) is almost non-existent and she speaks no English at all, but we get by with the help of smiles, nods and some translation.

Granny is my age, mid fifties, but looks at least 70. Her life is hard. Her daughter has abandoned her 5 children, all aged between 1 yr and 12 yrs. Granny looks after them. A few weeks ago Mum took the baby away returning her a week later with bite marks on her arm, Granny was very upset. I think it is just as well I did not understand the names she was calling her daughter. 

Just to make her life more difficult her eldest son has now left his 2 sons with her too. So Granny now has 7 children under 12 to raise with little money and only the support from her youngest son who lives with her.

All the children except the youngest 2 attend Grace House. We support the family with rice and have installed a well for clean drinking water and a toilet.  Pek, the son, manages the Grace House vegetable garden and we pay him a monthly wage for this. Granny just gets on with life, never complaining, and always with that toothless grin on her face. She is fast becoming my heroine!”

If you would like to sponsor us and help Grace House continue supporting the children and their families please go to www.justgiving.com/simonandcolin2