Elaine Cook's Fundraising Page
Elaine Cook is raising money for Breast Cancer Now
Story
London to Paris Cycle June 2009
Ok, here we go again "dig deep, give kindly for charity". It gets a bit much doesn't it. Every time I walk down Putney High Street I'm acosted by one charity worker after another. I didn't mind putting 10p in the collection box of that little old lady meekly standing at the entrance to the sadly missed Woolworth not so long back; I think she was collecting money to buy a new collection box to replace the previous one which was robbed from Putney Cathedral by a gang of hoodie wearing brats from the Grammar School. At least I got a free sticker. But the modern street corner charity collector is anything but meek and mild. Firstly they don't stand on any corners but hog the middle lane of the footpath, it's either step two paces to the right and get knocked down, two paces to the left and step on the blind man's guidedogs tail ; the blind man who meekly and mildly stands shivering in the rain outside poundstretcher shaking his tiny box while exhorting "I'm blind but I'm not deaf - let me here the clink of your tupenny bit in my box ladies and gents". No, the modern day charity collector is a Dick Turpin, anorak wearing, overinsistant nuisance.The modern day charity collector will not budge.
Thing is, there is another way of doing your bit for charity. In my case it was to have been cycling round sunny caribbean Cuba, spending my evenings drinking rum and dancing salsa and my daytimes breezing along Fidels sun and wave kissed shores. It was to have been so, if my boss would have let me....
So, since my boss won't let me do THAT mode of raising funds for charity, I have no choice but to spend my charitytime, not cycling round the sun blessed tropical shores of Cuba but braving the wind, rain and cold of the hard asphalt Putney to Paris highway, dodging megatonne jugernauts, on the outskirts of Landan, escaped crazed asylum seekers around Dover and French men wearing stripy shirts and berets, carrying strings of garlic round their necks, and riding rusty bicycles. And it's all in the name of charity..........
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