What a month!!

Well where do I start?

April wasn't a very good month for either me or Andy as it turned out. On the 14th I was admitted into Maidstone Hospital having had a particularly nasty flare-up of my Crohns disease and was promptly laid up for 3 weeks. 3 days into my stay whilst feeling 'quite rough' I was visited by my wife who was carrying pictures of the newly 'folded' Scarlett in her hand. I was devastated to hear the news but thankful that both Andy and his children were ok. I was even more surprised and thankful to hear that Andy was looking into having the car repaired by AW repairs. At first glance I thought the car would be a write-off!!

A few weeks later and I was discharged from Hospital and able to speak to Andy for an update. I was ready to offer an inventory of what parts I had to offer for the repairs, but once again Andy was on the ball. He had already sourced the parts required and arranged for the car to be repaired again. Good work that man!! I must admit I felt quite useless at this point as I had done nothing and was finding it difficult to even get around my own house! I suppose its at times like these you realise how fragile health can be and how lucky I am compared to some who suffer with truly horrific pain and discomfort in their lives on a daily basis due to whatever illness they are unfortunate enough to have been afflicted by. And this makes me all the more determined to do my best in raising money for these charities.

I have already stepped up my efforts by visiting Holland for the excellent Roadstar event and advertising S2M on a display I made for the rear window of my Rocco. Although I still felt a bit rough for the duration of the trip, it was a really enjoyable few days with an excellent atmosphere and very friendly people. My display attracted a lot of attention, and I have had one or two promising offers from some new friends, including help spreading the word further around Europe perhaps even to VW themselves! I have also added two videos of Roadstar on youtube and added an ad at the end of each to plug S2M. The links to these are below if you want to watch these.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLzYsH5mdDQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwbWZyqhCko

Gelert becomes newest sponsor of S2M

One of the world leaders in camping equipment supplies has now become the newest member of the "We support Scirocco 2 Morocco" club !.

After I had made initial enquiries only a few days ago, they have now generously offered to supply myself and Glen with a couple of tents for us to use on our 4000 mile adventure.But these are not just any tent.....these are the sort made for people like me who find pitching a normal tent...erm...fun to say the least !...these are Gelert "quick pitch" tents, and boy are they an answer to the prayers of lesser mortals (such as me !) who just want to "pitch and crash" as you do after a long journey without the arduous task of putting in too much effort :-).

Thanks to those nice folk at Gelert ! :-)

Chuggaboom....my "temporary" Scirocco

Imagine my delight after the disaster of the recent accident, when a member of the Scirocco Register offered to "give" me a car so that I could stay on the road whilst Scarlet is in the repair shop.

You know the old saying "you don't get anything for nowt", well i can categorically dispute that now...and with some degree of qualification, such as.......

No dashboard !

No headlining

No heater

No door panels

No stereo

No Petrol gauge 8-0

No temperature gauge

No centre console

and No sun visors !

Yes, you can certainly get a lot of Nowt for...well nowt really :-)

On the upside i can honestly say that i have not driven a car for a long time that makes me smile quite as much as this one.....and the looks on peoples faces as they stroll past..have a quick look...walk back..have a better look...comment to either themselves or anyone nearby (content of comments is currently unknown but probably includes several expletives !) then smile/laugh/point and go merrily on their way, is worth a million..erm..things !.

To give you a better idea i thought it pertinent to post a few piccies, as they say, a picture speaks a thousand words...most of them far to rude to post :-)...enjoy !

Of course the plus side is that if anything goes wrong on the inside of the car it's not very difficult to find, and you don't have to remove panels to work on them. To be honest most of the missing panels are safe and sound...in the garage or the "half Roc" trailer !

On a serious note though, can i just say a great big thank you to Rick for getting me out of a tight spot regarding transport after the accident by letting me have the car and delivering to me so quickly.....cheers mate ;-).

P.S. If anyone would like to buy Chuggaboom over the next week or so, she will be for sale as soon as Scarlet comes back from AW's.MOT only until 6th June,tax until September.£100 donated to one of our charities and she's yours ! :-)

Hope your having fun Glen !

So here I am in sunny (ish) Blighty whilst my friend and Co-driver Glen is off partying in Holland....alright for some eh ! :-).

Seriously though, i hope that he has a great time over there with Rachel as he has just come back from a short stay in one of those posh NHS hotels...sorry...hospitals, and deserves the break.

Glen and Rachel are attending a show near a town in Holland called Boekel, which is held annually (this is the 20th year!) and the event is called "RoadStar".

Every year upwards of 400 Scirocco and Corrado owners have a bit of a get together for a nice quite chat,some poetry reading and lashings of ginger beer........Ok, so it's loud music,lots of fun and gallons of the local (rather excellent) brew (beer), but you get the idea :-).

In an attempt to cover up this blatant excuse for a knee's up Glen is going to be attempting (between drinks ?) to sell some fundraising "53" and "Scirocco 2 Morocco" stickers, and gain some sponsorship from our European friends (Glen...wait until later after the beer kicks in and people are feeling more generous !) and fellow Scirocco owners.

Anyone reading this blog who would like one of the said stickers, they are still available on Ebay
priced at between £1.49 and £2.49 (free postage !).Also we are now advertising our Scirocco2Morocco T-Shirts.The first 3 have landed with their new owners and their feedback has been very positive.

Anyway, if you would like to see what these blatant party animals ...sorry, "Over sea's sponsorship coordinators" are up to, have a look at this video that Glen made of last years bash....dirty stop outs :-)..mumble,mumble !

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dJJaxifIPq8

Oh...and here are some pictures of this years bash.....looked like fun for all :-)

http://www.scirocco89.de/Roadstar%202008/

First the good news....

At this moment in time I am at a loss as to what to write about!Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of news to report about the progress of our challenge...but unfortunately not all good I’m afraid :-(.

I suppose it would make sense to start (As they say) at the beginning, and in this case that would be a week ago,the location is AW Body Repairs in Sleaford and I have just been driven down to their premises by Teresa to see for the first time the newly resprayed Scirocco a la Trailer combination.
The guys at AW's have done something that many fail to do every day of the week...shut me up!, I am pretty much speechless at the sight of a "straight from the showroom" Scirocco and matching trailer...absolutely gob smacked is the phrase that springs to mind....absolutely speechless and, I wont deny it, almost shedding a tear in admiration of the transformation to this 21 year old "Vintage car" that only a few months earlier was destined for the breakers.
Andy Grinned (he's very good at that!), and asked if I was happy with the result? Of course the answer was pretty much written all over my face and the huge smile that I was wearing was hard to disguise :-) "That is bloody fantastic mate" I mumbled, "absolutely bloody brilliant".
Shortly after having a good look at the car I went over to the trailer and yet again I was (initially) speechless, it too was just as we had envisaged it, just as the "virtual" trailer that Glen had made looked so many months ago, and this looked 110% better than the image because now it was the real thing.
After my delight had subsided again It suddenly occurred to me that even though I now had an immaculate Scirocco, I currently had no way of towing the equally immaculate Trailer home as I had forgotten one small detail....I had yet to fit the tow bar !....what a plonker !, so after arranging with Mick (the manager) that I would get the tow bar fitted the next day, and then to return to the compound for the trailer I went back home and planned for the next days (hectic) proceedings !.
Saturday morning arrived and I was up with the lark (or perhaps the sparrows!) and was soon busily drilling holes to fit the tow bar. All went well, but then I got to the point of wiring the electrics and realised that I had absolutely no wiring diagrams at all.....this was going to be fun!
A few emails and posts on the owners club website prompted several replies, amongst them was a very useful "idiots guide" which even I could understand. Well most of it anyway.
The afternoon saw me driving over to Lee Ballands home to let him fit our new (improved?) logos, and on the way I stopped of at a very nice fella’s house in Walcott to pick up free plug and extension lead for the trailer electrics (Cheers Dave!).
Lee spent around 1 and half hours fitting the logos, and at around 6.25 PM I headed back to Sleaford to get some tea and do a little blogging.
On Sunday I was up at 5.35 AM and by 06.05 was busy completing the install of the tow bar electrics on the car. At 08.20 myself and Andy Jr (Mini Me!) set of to navigate our way to Santa Pod drag strip and our first "official" fixture for 2008 which was the GTI Spring Festival were thousands of VW enthusiasts congregate to drive their cars down the 1/4 mile (if it's not wet), buy parts for their cars and get mugged by villains masquerading as chip and milkshake sellers!.
After a very wet but interesting few hours of chatting, eating chips (£2.00 for a tray the size of a very small flip-flop !) and chasing my mad al 5 year old son around, it was time to say our fond farewells to the other Scirocco register members, and drive the 80 miles back to sunny Sleaford.

Now we get to the not so good news section of this weeks update....and boy is this BAD NEWS>

I took the car to work on Tuesday without drama, she ran great (as usual) and was attracting a lot of interest from other drivers on my way to Mansfield and also folk who saw it parked up at the hospital. Now for Wednesday...black Wednesday.

I had arranged to take my 2 girls to my parents on Wednesday, and as usual we were running a little late after leaving home at around 07.20.The trip was uneventful really, and we arrived in Mansfield Woodhouse at approx 08.17...then the world went bang...or rather it made a sort of screeching, mettalic screaming sound as we had an almost head on with another car after stalling the car whilst turning right at a crossroads...

I remember seeing the car coming straight at us, I was already executing the turn but at that moment the engine revs dropped and it stalled so i dipped the clutch to start the engine and all I could do then was to wait for the impact. That came violently in that weird sort of slow motion way that these things do....slow and deliberate, and there was nothing I could do but brace and wait. There was a sound of breaking glass, twisting metal and then silence...except for my heart which was now well and truly lodged in my mouth.
I remember trying to open the door and finding it was almost seized shut checked the girls were alright and then stumbled and squeezed my way though the door which was now the size of a letterbox slot, then I remember telling the other driver how sorry I was and then my legs buckled. I knelt on the road in the middle of the crossroads for what seemed like an eternity, contemplating what had just taken place, the emotion was raw, my mind was spinning and I felt faint, but somehow I got back up and after apologising again to the other driver I squeezed back into my Scirocco shaped post-box and with another screech of metal I reversed her back then parked her on the side of the road. I looked again at the damage and felt sick, the front appeared to me to be almost gone and the beautiful resprayed Scirocco 2 Morocco vehicle looked shattered and destroyed.

The next couple of hours were spent making the obligatory calls to my insurers, my wife and work to explain why I was late. The most difficult call was the one I felt compelled to make to Andy Walsh (AW Body Repairs), when I had to inform him that the fantastic job he had completed on the car only a few days earlier was now looking as though it had been hit by an express train....to say I was gutted was possibly the understatement of 2008.

Andy was incredibly upbeat about the whole thing, and, after ensuring that myself and the children were ok, he arranged for the collection of the Scirocco and afterwards to explore the possibility of repairing her. The insurance had all but said that based on the age of the car it was "almost certainly a right off", but with a little luck, a lot of help from Andy and his staff the Scirocco 2 Morocco challenge will be back on the road once more.

Update: The car is now being repaired by AW body Repairs in Sleaford, and will be back on the road in the next few weeks. In the meantime I may be seen driving another Scirocco around, rather an interesting Blue one that a member of the owners club has donated to me whilst Scarlet is in the workshop....to say it is rather "lightweight" would be something of an understatement, mostly due to the fact that almost all of the interior fittings are in the boot....if you see the car around have a look...if you want a laugh :-)

Note: Anyone or any business that would like to help us out with our challenge, please feel free to contact us and we will be glad to link to your websites,stick a few logo's on and mention you in our dispatches :-).

Remember that from perseverance comes character,from character comes hope, from hope comes faith and with faith anything is possible.....take care :-)

Scarlets new look !

The other week it was time to pick up Scarlet from AW's after they had completed her refurbishment, and along with the car they also presented me with the newly resprayed "Half Roc" trailer...awesome !.

Andy Walsh must have thought that my face was about to split in half with the size of the grin that filled it when i went over to collect the car.Thanks go also to Mick the manager (sounds like Bob the builder !) and his team for doing an absolutely first class job on the paintwork.Looks like i owe some more people even more drinks now !

To say that they had done an excellent job would not be enough, they had transformed the car into a real head turner, and the trailer, which had only a few weeks previously been part of a derelict car on a drive in Derby, was now certainly a joy to behold, and is sure to make people "sit up and pay attention" when we drive by !.

Thanks go also to Lee of Custom Vinyl Graphics for his hard work in getting the Logo's onto the car in superfast time and also for sorting out some charity stickers and T-Shirts for us to sell to raise even more funds for our challenge

Now we have to carry out some finishing touches to Scarlets mechanicals,decals and the trailers electrics (need wiring up !). No rest for the wicked eh !

Tales from daan sarf! (Glens first post!)

Thanks to Andy I now have powers to add my own thoughts to this blog.......should be fairly short then!

It seems so long ago now that I joined Andy for the last few miles of his Roc-around-the-clock challenge, and led him convoy style around the streets of Kent. I can still remember breakfast shortly afterwards when he mentioned a fleeting thought of doing a similar challenge 'in Europe somewhere'. I believe the original plan was to take part in 'Home to Rome' or 'Staples to Naples' where we would be one of many making a long journey to our destination. Simple, I thought. If we break down somewhere, one of the others will help...The arrangements were to be 'modified' somewhat between then and now!!

So here we are, well into 2008 and things are going quite well so far with our preparations as you will know if you having been following the blog so far. I must admit after getting over my 'you want to go WHERE?' moment during our discussions about destinations, Iam glad Andy had the courage / madness / poetic talent to suggest Morocco as our destination. This is going to be one hell of an experience that neither of us will ever forget.

So I figured a quick update on what I have been up to would be in order. It will also give Andys hands a rest as he is the one who has done all the writing so far!

An old friend from the Register recently moved to Munich and sent me an Email inviting me to clear out any spare Scirocco parts we wanted from his shed. These included hoses, driveshaft parts, seals, tappets, camshafts, interior trim parts, a spare spacesaver wheel (we have 6 wheels now remember!) and even a grille spoiler! If you read this, thanks Tony. Im also throwing in a set of Wolfrace alloy wheels to finish the look of the car off too, so parts are looking good so far.

I have sent out a fair few emails to local businesses, but have had almost no success in this area - a real blow to confidence. I have also sent mail to the Kent Messenger as well as Meridian and South East Today about possible coverage of our event in the local press - I will keep you updated here as to any progress, hopefully we can get our challenge featured on the T.V.

I have also been keeping in touch with MacMillan Cancer Support regarding our progress. Today I popped into their Maidstone office for a chat about the challenge and how things are going so far. They have given me various bits and bobs to help us collect more donations including some banners, balloons and even a collection bucket for when we attend the car shows this year. They have also promised to put links to our sites on their main website and added up my total 'offline' collections to date - some £135! This brings Macmillans donations total to over £500! So, a big thanks to all of you who have supported our challenge so far. Keep spreading the word if you can - we could still do with plenty more help and support.

Lastly, I have been working on some T-Shirt designs to promote the challenge. You may recall seeing me and Andy in our own shirts for our radio interview earlier in these pages. The new shirts will be put up on E-bay soon in a variety of colours and the money made on the shirts will be added to our donations to the two charities. Watch this space for more news on these in the next few days

My word, did I write that much? Must be thinking more than I realise then.....

A fishy tale !

Just a quick note relating to an idea that has been considered as relevant to our little foray to Africa,namely the possibility that we can arrive there perhaps bearing gifts that could help the people of Morocco !.If anyone reading this blog has an idea as to the contact details of a worthy cause that perhaps operates in Morocco (or maybe beyond, but is based in North Africa)then we want to hear from you.We will have a reasonable amount of room in the trailer and as such we should be in a good position to deliver a reasonable amount of stuff to worthy causes.Please use the Email Address mentioned in this blog to contact us.Cheers ! :-)

Oh,nearly forgot my scheduled rant for the week.............food, but more specifically prepacked Scottish Mackerel fillets !.Just to prove what a crazy mixed up world we live in these days let me give you an example of how to much information can be worse than none at all.

My 5 year old wanted some Mackerel this evening, so i sourced some from the fridge and then had a read of the instructions.The pack told me several things.The calorific values,the amount of Sugar,salt and fat.How much Omega 3 it contained.The fact it was a produce of Scotland and that although the packaging was not recyclable at the mo...."We are working on it" was the message.It contained 98% fish and 2% salt,weighed 200 g and had a very comprehensive cooking guide which asked to me ensure that the food was "hot throughout before serving".It was produced in the UK (in case i was not sure were Scotland was ?) and the pack advised me to use it within 2 days after i first opened it.Sounds like all good advice then yes ?......Err NO.Because it then went on to advise me that "Allergy advice: Contains fish".......Really ?...what Mackerel...No !.But by far the worst issue about this "rant for the day" became obvious when my 5 year old began to choke on a fish bone.....now why (after telling us that Fish contained...erm...fish !) would they not advise the consumer that these fillets (Definition= fillet, also filet (pronounced or ), is a boneless cut of meat or fish.) may contain some (bones) still ?.........Is it me, or are the people who write these instructions/guides not seeing the wood for tree's, or perhaps not seeing the bones for fish ?.Take care :-)

Do you ever have those days when...........

Do you ever have those days when things just don't go to plan ? Those days when even though you try to get things organised,prepare in advance and attempt to cover every base things still just don't work out !.I had a day like that every day this week and boy was it annoying :-(.
First on the list was the news that the car was (due to circumstances beyond AW's control)still not ready, and would not be until around the end of next week,this of course then meant i had to reshuffle the logo applications by Lee and also caused me concern over getting time to attach the tow bar.
The next problem was that after receiving the All singing all dancing Satnav from Kaz and Pete (Thanks !)and then spending nearly 2 hours updating the software, installing the mandatory "silly voices" (Yoda,Clint Eastwood and Austin Powers amongst them !)the bl**dy thing stopped working !.I could not switch it off or reset it and as it is a sealed unit it was not possible to remove the batteries....so i was left looking at a glowing,blank screen for around half an hour before i packed it away back into it's box with the intention of letting Kaz send it back !.Interestingly at this point we had a very rare piece of good luck because the following morning having decided to have one last check that I had put all the bits back in the box i was amazed to find that the unit had had second thoughts about giving me grief, and was now working as advertised......i later decided that I had probably caused the problem by forgetting to plug in the power supply whilst the unit was connected to the USB port, thus it had run out of juice just as i disconnected it and gone into "not playing" mode shortly afterwards.....must remember not to let it run down in the middle of Europe...could cause us a few headaches if it did !.
Today (Sunday) Andy Walsh of AW Repair Centre called to discuss the delay with the car, and it was during the course of the conversation that i decided to tell him that the first outing that was due to Happen on the 19th April at GTI Spring festival (Santa Pod) was actually on the 13th(Ok...so it was my fault again !)...i got my dates wrong...oops :-0.After Andy had picked himself up off of the floor and composed himself (is it possible to put a Scirocco there ?) he promised to put the wheels in motion to ensure that the car would be ready by next Friday (the 11th) so that we would be able to get her down to the Pod and get the publicity machine into gear....fingers (and everything else !)are now crossed.
On the plus side this weekend I decided to see if we could sell any merchandise on Ebay to raise not only money but also to get the word out about what our challenge is all about.Result ? We sold 10 window stickers in 22 hours with a request for more from several people.These are the '53' stickers that denote the type number issued by VW to the Scirocco model during development...and also by coincidence it happens to be the number worn by the most famous VW of all,Herbie !
T-Shirts are now being offered with the S2M Logo on them, so we will just have to see how these go over the next few weeks.
If you can offer us any support in our challenge then please feel free to contact us either by phone 07974 955611 or by email scirocco2morocco@tiscali.co.uk :-)

Time to start the media (Volks)wagen rolling !

Random picture...but it made me laugh :-)

Today during my teabreak I was in the vacinity of the Mansfield 103.2 radio studio, so took the oppertunity to pop in and introduce myself.After a brief chat i was wisked upstairs (oh err !) and ten minutes later i emerged from the recording booth having "laid down" a short resume of our little expedition onto the studio's interview suite.Hopefully in the next few days our message will start to hit the airwaves and the guys at Mansfield 103.2 have promised to keep the folk of Mansfield,Ashfield and Bolsover up to date with our fun and games by producing/broadcasting updates on a regular basis...nice :-).
Also today I emailed Sean Dunderdale of Lincs FM 102.2 to ask if he will support our event via their radio satation, he has agreed to do so and also, as the station is the official radio of the Waddington Airshow, he has promised to keep mentioning us to the airshow crowds when we attend Waddington in July.

I am still considering how to best utilise the several fantastic prizes that we have been given to raise funds (F1,Flight Sim,Karting etc) and have had an idea about hosting some sort of Quiz on this Blog page.The basic idea is that over a few weeks we will ask questions,perhaps give some clues to the answers, then all the people that email me with the correct answers will go into a prize draw for the goodies.Also an idea has been put forward to use the Scirocco trailer as a huge collection tin whilst we are at Waddington/VW meetings, and we shall encourage (Force !) innocent bystanders to throw any loose change into it ....like some kind of strange "wishing trailer" type device (well we don't have an ...erm......."well" do we !)as they say "Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves" !

Dreams are like Angels...............

I try to keep things up beat in this blog, but you know some days things just can't help but get you down :-(
In the last week or so i have been feverishly typing away sending emails to a multitude of companies asking for help in our challenge....and the result has been nothing short of amazing...ly depressing !.It seems that all UK companies are involved in their own charity/trust operations, or are partners in something or other.Even the ones who don't mention anything about chairty involvement in their "official" websites reply with the same stock "No" to a request for even the slightest help, and to be honest i am getting a little fed up of the amount of times our requestes for help are being declined.

I must just point out that we are still scratching around for any help at the mo, be it in either cash sponsorship,prizes or items on our "wish list" that we need to complete our challenge so anyone who is able to help us out PLEASE do get in touch and make yourself know....:-)

I have been tempted to see what would happen if we approached the same companies again, but this time with the story that we had a celebrity coming along with us for the ride....i wonder if i would get a stock email reply...especially if it was an "A" lister of some description.

It's not until you get involved in events such as this that you find out just how much work goes on in the background before the actual event takes place, and there have been days when I do question my reasons for getting myself and Glen into this malarky !.The answer is of course that both of us feel compelled to help others, and to that end we must always persist in our endevours to keep this event alive..no matter how many "No's" we come up against (and there have been a lot......a LOT !).For my own part being involved in this sort of charity work is a kind of therapy, and keeps my mind focused on things that are constructive and positive.There are days when I do consider my future, when the worry about my own Leukaemia do start to enter my thoughts and trouble me, but having something like S2M to keep you engaged makes sure that the times like this are fewer, that those early moring wake ups when the house is quite and the fear is most acute are not so common as they may be.Scirocco 2 morocco is now a dream, but a dream that will with a bit of luck and a little help become a reality in the not so distant future, and as the lyrics to that old Frankie Goes to Hollywood song go "Dreams are like angels,they keep bad at bay". Ok....better get back to work now....life goes on !

New Prize donated,watch this space F1 fans !

Just a quicky (as the actress said to the bishop !),to let you all know that yesterday,whilst chatting to my cousin who works for the Renualt F1 team, the subject of our little charity bash came up (strange how it always seems to !) and he has pledged to get us a couple of tickets for the British F1 Grand Prix at Silverstone in July.Not only that, but these are the all singing types with hospitality thrown in for good measure (that,for the uninitiated,means lots of grub,free tea and coffee, a grandstand seat and lots of free goodies to boot...nice !).I will keep you posted as to the exact deatails as i recieve them, but it is going to be an excellent prize for someone :-).

Update 2/4/2008

It now looks like the prize will be in the form of a pair of tickets to attend the Qualifications at Silverstone on the Saturday,along with Breakfast,drinks and lunch included.A view of the action from the Renault team grandstand area and then later on in the day a guided tour of the Renault F1 HQ in Oxfordshire...how good is that ?

We will be posting details of how to enter the competition to win this awesome prize in the next few days, so keep an eye on this blog !. *****DETAILS ARE NOW POSTED*****

The joys of fundraising :-)

So today (Saturday 22nd) it has been a typical British March day.So far we've had sunshine,rain,wind,blue skies and to cap it all...snow !.I took the kids out to participate in a local Easter egg hunt in Sleaford, we completed the course around the nature reserve in about 25 mins, braving the affore mentioned adverse conditions...i don't know about an Easter egg prize at the end, they should have got an SAS survival award :-).

Over the last couple of days myself and Glen have been trying to secure the collection of a car identical to our Scirocco 2 Morocco vehicle that has been offered to us free of charge by a guy in London.Unfortunately neither of us has access to a trailer, the car is not in a running state and the fella wants it gone by the end of the bank holiday !.Its a real shame that we can't get her up here, or even across to Glens pad as she would be a great source of spares for our project, oh well, you can't always sort everything i suppose.

"Scarlet" the S2M car is now being given some proper TLC at AW's in Sleaford, and along side her in the workshop is our "Half Roc" trailer (As yet unnamed).I spoke to Andy Walsh on Thursday night and he is aiming to get the car back to me by the 29th, and the trailer sometime a week or two later.

On Friday I phoned Lee (Custom Vinyl Graphics) to have a chat about plans for the production of our logo's, some T-Shirts and some car stickers, and discovered that moment he was in Sleaford with his family, and on the way to an indoor play area (for the benefit of his 2 boys, not himself...well thats what he told me !-).After finding this out I decided to pop down there with my 4 year old and have engage with Lee in an impromptue "business meeting" in the middle of a large room full of very loud screaming noise....like most meeting that i attend come to think of it !.

Changing Tack slightly can I just say a big thank you to a mate of mine at the hospital called Sean (the mate, not the hospital !).Sean has very kindly offered to loan me one of his cars for a week or so until I get the Scirocco back on the road.Cheers mate ! ;-).

Sponsorship wise trying to get any "big names" on board is proving a little more difficult than I first expected.So far we have had replies in the negative (or no reply at all !) with names such as ....no, i will spare their blushes :-).Anyway all respond with similar explanations along the lines of having "designated charities" or the likes, and whilst i appreciate this may be relevant if i was asking a small local business, i don't really think that the request for a single mobile phone, a few gallons of liquid gold or a few quid to stick some logo's on the side of the car is going to break the backs of global "Blue chip" companies...do you ?

We are really hoping to take the car and trailer on their first fundraising outing at GTI Spring festival on the 19th April, and it is to this end that we really have to get things sorted asap.Once the car leaves the paintshop we will be driving her up to Lee to get the graphics fitted, then the towbar needs to be attatched and wired, the engine tuned and a good valet just for good measure.Looks like the next few weeks are going to be quite busy.......for a change !.

Oh, nearly forgot, if anyone knows of any worthy causes based in North Africa that would benefit from the deliver of items via our trailer (we hope to have a little spare space we can utilise for cargo), please get in touch and lets make an effort to try and use this trip to not only help people in the UK, but also those over in Morocco who have hardships that we will never understand, and lets try in some small way to make life a little easier for them :-).

You can call me on my mobile if you are able to help our event in any way, or if you have an idea for helping an North African based charity.Mobile: 07974935611.Andy

Read the book,seen the film,got the..............

Last Saturday I had a very useful and interesting conversation with a chap called Chris who was introduced to me a few weeks ago as "the fella who has been to Morocco...and beyond "!.

Chris and his wife travelled to Africa in an old VW Passat in 2006, and judging by the enthusiasm Chris displayed whilst chatting in the pub, they had a hell of a good time....or was it just the beer ?................. (just joking !).

It's a strange thing, but even in the modern age travelling to a foreign country outside of the EU is still a very rare thing to to, probably because the majority of us Europeans don't really like "roughing it" when away on our hols, and consider a walk of 100 yards down to the beach as being a "bit of a hike" !.

Meeting Chris was a godsend in the simple fact that having himself driven to our intended destination, and using a similar method of transportation he had an awful lot of info that Glen and I are going to find immensly useful in our challenge...especially interesting was the story of a hurridly carried out repair to a collapsed shock absorber utilising such random items as a short legth of scaffold pole and a couple of wire coathangers :-).

Entering Morocco appears to be the most intense experience that is set to confront us when we first alight from the ferry, the process of getting into the country with your car involves lots of documents,some money a lot patience and plenty of handfulls of boiled sweets to keep the local youngsters (minders !) happy.He advised us to carry duplicates of everything important.Driving licences,passports,green cards,insurance documents etc as they quite often form the basis (by their non return after examination) of negotiations with the local officials and how much they squeeze out of you for passage to your next destination, Chris refered to these "payments" as gratuities or tips, the sort that you would give to a waiter...except that a waiter would not have the power (or inclination) to stick our sorry ass*s in jail if he so decided !.

One thing that struck me during our chat was the sheer size of the continent we are visiting, and this was further demonstrated when Chris produced a fold out map and extended it to it's full size,suddenly I realised what a small part of Africa we will get to see !, even driving over 100 miles into the country we are only just touching its periphery...the analagy of iceberg tips seems very apt as a metaphore :-)

I am still reading the very useful manual that Chris was given by the organisers of the rally he went on, and the information it contains therein will, i am sure, be just as relevant and useful to myself and Glen when we make our run down to "The dark Continent".When we first started planning this trip some 3 months ago it seemed that perhaps we were getting carried away and there was no reason to start so early on in the year, but to be quite honest I am glad that we did, because there are an awful lot of bases to cover, and now in March with less than 6 months to go before the off there are still emails to send,calls to make and routes to plan...oh, and we had better sort out some sponsorship at some point too !, after all, that is what all this preparation is for isn't it.

So much happening,better do an update !

Ok, so where do I start ? I won't try to recall the exact dates that events occured, but will instead just try to include all relevant details that I think are worth mentioning...so here goes !....

The Car's refurbishment is now well under way at AW's Accident Repair Centre in Sleaford after a slight delay , and owner Andy Walsh will be documenting the progress of Scarlet from ugly duckling to Swan by photographing her over the next fortnight (Thanks Andy !).I will post more details of scarlets refurb when I get some pictures to accompany it.

The Trailer (or "half Roc" as we call it !) was progressed this week after Paul B took it on himself to try out his newly acquired compressor and saw on his old GT2 Scirocco, and after shedding a few drops of blood in the process (nothing serious...who needs to count to 10 on their fingers anyway !), he trailered the rear end of the car from Derby to Mansfield arriving at the premises of our metalwork experts (and greatly appreciated sponsors) ASMech (Mansfield) mid day Tuesday.It took 5 or six of us to get the bum of the Scirocco off of the trailer, but after a brief struggle we managed to get her unloaded and into the workshop were work started in earnest on it's transformation from scrap back end, to eye catching trailer.Many thanks to Richard Toon and his crew for this priceless help, it will make the whole process of getting the "rig"ready in time for the start of the VW show season a lot easier :-).

A big thanks you to Bob over in Nottighamshire who,after letting me have a towbar for the Scirocco for the huge sum of £3.00 ! then went on (after I yapped on for some time about our trip...sorry Bob !)to donate a pair of rear lights for the trailer (the old clusters had gone).Top Fella :-)

Lee, my trusty Graphics/Vinyl man has agreed to do the logo's for the trip again, and we may also be producing T-Shirts with the logo that we will be selling @ approx £10 each to raise even more funds for our charities.

Alistair from Waddington is going to produce a 1/18 Scale Die Cast model of the car and it's trailer (complete with log's), then pop it in a display case and we will have that with us at the shows.Eventually we will be holding a draw to win this unique prize.Thanks Alistair.

On Saturday last week I received an Email from Kaz and Pete, some people up the road that I had met originally through "FreeCycle", an Internet recycling organisation that has groups around the UK.They had heard about the trip that was being planned (probably from me because I tell anyone.....well anyone who hangs around long enough to listen !) and had decided between them to help our efforts by donating a SatNav System to us....how good is that ?.
Now the reason that Kaz and Pete decided to help us is not just down to them being thoroughly nice people, but because both of them have lost siblings to Cancer.Kaz lost her sister to Leukaemia 3 years ago at the age of only 35, she had 5 children and did not even know she had the disease.
Pete lost his brother only six months ago to Myelodyplasia which,although not cancer,can develop into leukaemia. and the symptoms of which are often very similar to those caused by cancer.
In my experience of fundraising (which is only really about 9 months or so !) I have found that it is the ordinary people that I meet that are the most likely to help you out,sometimes because they know someone who has the disease, maybe they have an illness themselves,or perhaps sadly they have lost a loved one through cancer of some sort.These are the bread and butter of campaigns such as this on that myself and Glen are undertaking, they are proof if proof was needed, that out there in this big wide world of ours there are still good,generous people who care about more than just the material things in life, and have in some cases been touched by events that have resulted in perhaps the loss of someone very close and very dear to them.
You know during the preparations for this event I have sent out hundreds of emails,made dozens of phone calls,dropped in to many companies and spoken to many individuals about our challenge, often asking for help and support in our quest....and do you know one thing that I have learned in all of this ? It's not the big companies, the multinational corporations worth hundreds of millions of pounds, and are always telling us how much they care for our custom,for our well being and for our best interests that are the first to offer help,often I get no response to emails,letters and answerphone messages...not even a simple "NO"!
Its the small companies, the local companies, individuals and local groups that are the ones we should be proud of.
I want everyone who reads this blog to take a good look at the left hand column headed "S2M Sponsors", and also the list of private individuals that I will soon be posting, and I want you to give these people a "virtual" pat on the back !.Well done and thank you to all, for you,every one of you,are our inspiration.Andy and Glen.

P.S anyone who I have forgotten to mention in this "dispatch", please forgive me, but I am currently typing this in between nursing 2 poorly children and tidying my house !.Until next time,take care :-)