The website has been a little blog free over the past couple of weeks due to a busy period at work and also the need to get ready for dispatching books when they arrive. Additionally, I spent last Sunday riding in the White Horse Challenge (I’ll blog this later) and most of this week organising a bake sale raising money for Breakthrough Breast Cancer.
A team of 15 riders are riding the London Knightrider in June to raise money for this charity, we have organised a number of events leading up to it and have accumulated £3,050 prior to the bake sale. Five of the team turned up this morning to support, the banter and camaraderie abounded.
The bake sale was fantastic; we were helped by our own local fund raising celebrity who undoubtedly improved our profile and income. Ray Collins spends a lot of his free time raising money for local charities in Wantage, in fact, well over the £50,000 mark in the last 7 years. This year is no exception, he is revitalising the Wantage Carnival; no small task. As a community, we all pitch in on each other’s projects; Ray booked a day’s leave to help us this morning. I was a little worried that we would not have enough cake to sell but this proved to be unfounded.
Ray and Harriet, I’m stripping off in the background.
Steve and I arrived at 8am with our bikes and turbo trainers (Nobby pitched up to ride with us too); these were set up under a huge gazebo along with a couple of trestle tables from the cricket club. The idea being that we would cycle away as a point of interest, drawing the punters in to buy cake. In reality, three middle aged berks pushed the pedals round and sweated a lot but no one seemed to mind. Once again, Facebook made sure that the event was well advertised and recruited bakers with ease upon our behalf. By the time I had parked the car up and returned, the two tables were groaning with cakes and more arrived as the morning progressed.
I met and chatted to a lot of people: some old friends from school and some new friends made through social media. I finally got to meet Stephanie Jones who had driven in from Oxford with cakes. Stephanie helped to read through the first draft of Point North & Pedal, she provided corrections and suggested changes, something I appreciated a lot. Sarah Keane had driven from Duckington to deliver her cakes as she could make the sale itself; thank you to all those who made the effort.
The cake mountain diminished as we sweated away on the turbos; it rained a bit but that didn’t stop people buying. By 1.30 we had sold out and started to pack up. The total raised for the day was £669; an unbelievable amount which takes us to the £3,700 mark, £5,000 could definitely be on the cards. I think most people were happy with that. Tomorrow is the first time in a long while were I do not have to get up early, I’m looking forward to a slow start to the day followed by cricket at home v Letcombe. However, I am not looking forward to Monday when I wake up and roll out of bed in bits…roll on my cricketing pension!
Steve and me ‘working for cake’.
Further reading…..
If you liked this blog please take a moment to check out my book describing the solo Land’s End to John O’Groats ride in 2012, all profit from sales to www.criduchat.org.uk
Please click the cover image for the Kindle version or click here to order a paperback copy. Thank you!
