Thanks for visiting my fundraising page.
Donating through Justgiving is quick, easy and totally secure. It’s also the most efficient way to sponsor me: Global Charities - Classic FM Music Makers gets your money faster and, if you’re a UK taxpayer, Justgiving makes sure 25% in Gift Aid, plus a 3% supplement, are added to your donation.
Classic FM's Music Makers charity funds music therapy projects for young people and adults with special needs and disabilities, as well as providing access to music education in deprived areas (you can find further details of their activities in the Charity section of the ClassicFM website, at http://www.classicfm.co.uk/). As a keen amateur musician who started to play brass instruments at the age of 10, and still very actively involved playing the trumpet (quite) a few decades later in a local amateur orchestra, these are causes that are very close to my heart. I'm very happy to be able to support a charity which may be able to pass on the gift of that sort of life-long interest and enjoyment to other people.
Another lifelong passion for me, ever since I first experienced them, has been mountain areas, and Machu Picchu has been very near the top of my "must do someday, somehow" list from the first time I ever saw images of it. I consider myself very lucky to have the opportunity to combine two consuming interests for a great cause.
So please sponsor me now!
Time for a first update - sorry it's taken so long to get to this, but the demands on time caused in the early part of the year by a number of simultaneous illness problems in my family meant that I was rather late signing up for the trek. Since signing up I've been so busy trying to see as many people as possible at the college where I used to work, before the academic year came to a close, that other things have tended to get a bit side-lined.
Preparations are going pretty well, I've started to work on my fitness, initially using mainly the exercise bike I have at home. Within the last few weeks I also took a short walking holiday in the Lakes, 3 days of walking to test out both me and the new boots that I reluctantly decided I needed to go in for after a critical look at the 'old faithfuls' that had served me well for about 12 years. The critical look confirmed to me that there was no way that the old boots could be described as properly waterproof (vital for boots to be used on a trek like this). Was very relieved to find that the new boots that had their first serious outings on the holiday caused no problem at all, nor even any unease, after 3 days of walking in the mini-heatwave that we had in the last days of June/early July (temperatures up to 28 to 30 degrees Celsius when we arrived back in the valleys after the day's walking). I think I can now largely forget the worries that I'd had about having to 'break in' new boots within the time available, so I can just concentrate on gradually increasing the amount of hill-walking and looking towards other sources of fund-raising as we move into mid-summer.
