Discovering the world on $20 per day ......................




Post 20: 'Loose Ends'


'We are ready for any unforeseen events, ... which may or may not happen' ...... George W Bush (again)

The breaking news today is that Alan Kelly has taken custody of a Garmin Zumo Satnav. In the words of our most famous pub landlord; 'shame on you, shame on you, shame on you'. From the start I've been quite proud of the fact that we'll be relying upon our limited skills with Map & Compass to eventually find our way back to London. Apart from the fact that there are now no excuses for getting lost, there is a much more serious consequence to his purchase. Assuming that I'm leading the ride for 50% of the time, .. he's going to know every wrong turn that I make. I'm beginning to think that he only bought it as payback for the times that I've had him following me through London, ...... I can almost see his smirk in my mirrors now.

Whilst recovering from Mr Kelly's devastating news, I decided to tidy up some of the loose ends related to general living. I was pulling my hair out earlier in the month when trying to arrange the Russian Visa's, ....... but that was nothing in comparison to dealing with TV Licencing and British Telecom Plc. For the record, I appreciate that my call is 'of great importance to you', I accept that all of your operators are 'currently busy' and that there may well be a 'high demand for this service', but please, .......... somebody pick up the bloody phone. (Rant Over)

Apart from collecting some Triumph specific parts, fitting our newly acquired 'Acumen Electronic Chain Oilers' and tying up a few administrative loose ends, we're all but ready to go. There are still a million things that we should do, but on such a limited budget certain corners have to be cut. If we had another six months, I'm sure we'd manage to fill them, ..... but we don't.

A casualty of having only three months of planning has been the time we've dedicated to raising money and awareness for our respective charities. Poor Circulation was never intended as a 'Charity Event', .... if it had been we would have simply handed our budgets and free goods directly to the hospice and saved everyone a whole lot of effort. I guess that the fundraising side makes us feel a little less guilty about doing a trip that we would have done anyway. Over the coming year I've set myself a target of raising £5,000 which will cover the hospice's overheads for approximately 1 day. With a little luck I'll get somewhere close to that amount and hope that at least another 364 people are thinking along similar lines. As promised on my 'Just Giving' page, I've added the names of those who have sponsored me to the bike, ....... but there is still plenty of room for more :-)

www.justigivng.com/geoffgthomas

www.poor-circulation.net

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Chok dee teerak, pom kit teoung koon, pom ruk koon