Running on donations

As the old saying goes, charity begins at home. It’s very true, especially in my case – where charity is your cash and home is my JustGiving page.

In my previous entry I mentioned that I’m going to be running marathons and stuff in memory of my nan and to support Alzheimer’s charities. Well, I’ve settled on Alzheimer Scotland as my nominated charity and it’s time to start begging for some cash.

My last entry mentioned giving me some money via PayPal but that hasn’t done anything so I thought I’d set up a JustGiving page instead. At the time of writing I’m approximately 0% of the way to my £500 total so please give generously and help me hit my target. Below is a clever Flash widget to give constant updates on my progress – so if you see this page and the widget says I’m below 100%, you are morally obliged to donate immediately. Court order.

So thanks for donating, thanks for reading, and if you’re still not convinced to give me some money, just have a look at the picture below, then click on “Donate”. You know you’ve got to.

Don't even pretend you can say no to this face.

Hellogoodbye

February is here already; it seems like January disappeared in a blur of singing and drinking. However after the January hangover came the sobering news that my Nan passed away on February 3rd after an extended hospital stay. She was 87 years old, which is an exceptional knock by all accounts. I don’t want to turn this into a depressing entry about the nature of life and death but I would like to quickly mention the things I remember about my Nan.

We hadn’t seen each other for quite a while; what with me living in Scotland these days I don’t get a chance to head down south very often, though that is just an excuse. It’s an unfortunate symptom of our family that many of us aren’t particularly close, and don’t talk to each other much – if it weren’t for Facebook I don’t think I would have contact with any of my cousins, which would be a desperate shame because they’re all such wonderful people. I’m rambling a bit here; the point is, I hadn’t seen Nan for at least 18 months mostly because since becoming an adult, we drifted apart in terms of contacting one another. So all my memories of her are from my childhood – though I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.

I remember Nan’s house had a doorway from living room to kitchen, but no door – she always had those plastic streamer things hanging down from the frame. They used to keep me amused for hours when I was in my pre-teen years… misspent youth or what. I remember her dog, Cindy, who was apparently not a Great Dane according to my cousin Kate (thanks cuz!) but, either way, was much bigger than me. Like all kids, I used to want to ride Cindy and made several attempts to do so – usually being castigated by my mum, quite rightly, at every attempt. Cindy was a lovely old girl and I was sad when I heard she had passed away; I couldn’t imagine Nan without her.

I remember Nan always used to have doilies everywhere, even in places that didn’t require doilies. Then again, I suppose doilies don’t stick to the rules. They play their own game. I remember that she had a Pink Panther lamp that I was desperate to see in action, but always sat on a shelf out of my reach so I couldn’t even accidentally break it.

I remember she used to cook us roast dinners every now and then, but it was always her cakes that got me. Nan was never short of a cake. Whenever we went around to visit, it was the first thing she would do after we opened the door – would you like a piece of cake, Michael? Nan always, always used to make fruit cakes laced with raisins and sultanas – sometimes I’d suggest they were more sultana than cake. As as kid, if you’re given a free choice of cake, you’d never choose fruit cake. It seemed far too healthy and that’s-what-they-want-you-to-eat for me. I’d always eat Nan’s cake though, regardless, because I wanted her to think I liked it even when I wasn’t sure. Doesn’t sound like much, but that’s a pretty big sacrifice for a kid to make.

Ivy May Paul, 1922-2010, with my Uncle Chris. Sweet dreams Nan.

I’m planning on running a series of 10k, half and full marathons for Alzheimer’s charities this spring – Nan suffered with dementia at the end, and Alzheimer’s disease is something that’s sorely under-funded in the UK at the moment. Plus I’m going to the gym a lot more these days and trying to get myself into a nice shapely shape so everything falls together quite nicely. Details of my runs (so far!) are:

March 7th:  Meadows Marathon
April 18th:  Chris Hoy Edinburgh Half Marathon
May 2nd:  BUPA Great Edinburgh Run
May 23rd:  Edinburgh Marathon 2010

Edit: If you’d like to donate, please use my JustGiving page. It’s now officially the hottest JustGiving page this side of the freakin’ sun.

You win again, gravity… until next time.