Monthly Archives: November 2016

on walking with others

Diabetes UK, million steps, Uncategorized Leave a comment

so it is almost two months since I completed the Million Step Challenge, by the end of September I had amazingly walked over 650 miles.  The benefits of walking are with me every single day.

I am passionate about the difference it can make to life, getting active, feeling in touch with my body and with the world, not even the onset of winter in the Peaks has dissuaded me.  I continue to walk, not every single morning, sometimes it is just too dark and damp, but it is a rare day I am not out and about.

One joy is that I am able to share my experience and my passion with others.  The group I set up on Facebook continues to attract new members, each sharing and supporting with their walking stories.  Last week I took this a step further and began the Walking Well group for parents at a local primary school.  Funded by the local council I am able to run a twice weekly walking group which has quickly captured members who are already benefiting from regular exercise and social contact.

Seeing the delight on the faces of people who had never walked anywhere as they increase the step count is amazing.  Listening to tales of solo walking, of using stairs instead of lifts, of the joy of being outside.  This is powerful stuff.  So simple, one step in front of another, on the streets where you live.  This works.

So, world I am coming to get you.  I have a model that is working, evidence to prove the point and am available to go where ever it is needed.  Watch this space. I will get the world walking, one step at a time!!

on Children in Need!!!

#DubsNow, Lone children Leave a comment

How in whatever world you live in is it ever ok to leave over a thousand children and young people all alone on a chemical waste site with empty containers to live in??  Then, just to make it more difficult, you turn off the drinking water and start bulldozing all around them.  To add to the torture tease them with talk of buses that never arrive, or of a new start with relatives that love them, and then never follow it up.  Then to rely on ordinary people, grassroots organisations to feed them and keep them as safe as they can.  Then make that more difficult for those trying to help by restricting their access to the children and leave a few armed police around to guard them.

I cannot say just how angry I am feeling about this.  It is a national and international disgrace.

Imagine just one of the young people you love being treated in this way.  Imagine they have seen their family and friends killed, drowned in the sea, as they survived travelling for hundreds of miles, in flip flops, walking, carrying all they own. Imagine your nephew being targeted by gangs, being beaten by truncheons, falling from the top of a lorry while trying to get to you, his family, in the only way available to him.  Imagine then him being left behind, on a chemical dump. Imagine that.  Your sister’s son, your brother’s boy, left behind alone.  How would you be with that?

You see these are not statistics, they are not faceless numbers, they are real people, with real lives and people who love them.

So, to all those people who think it is not your business, who suspect that they are not quite what they seem, who believe the racist rhetoric in the media, wake up and see what is happening in front of your eyes.

Or don’t.  It is your choice.  Keep believing you are making Britain great again.  Keep spouting the same old stuff about job robbers and terrorists.  Go on, you do that.  Heaven forbid that you may actually show some compassion, you might actually want to save the children.  Keep writing on your social media about checking dental records, just in case we accidentally help someone who is slightly older than eighteen years.

This month you may go off and sit in a bath of beans for the BBC, a nice safe British charity, raise money for people like,  you, go on you do that, I am sure you feel great doing your bit.  You know the one, marketed as  ‘your BBC’, while constantly broadcasting just the one agenda.   Meanwhile a few miles from blissful Britain, children are left, abandoned and you don’t care.

Why is it you don’t care I wonder?  Is it because they have different skin colouring to you?  Because they may chose a different God to worship than you do?  Maybe it is because you think they should have stayed and fought a war they could never win, albeit one your government created and finances to this day.  It must be a lovely space in your world, where you are right and there is no harm done.

I will never ever understand this.  I don’t know why my MP hasn’t even replied to my email.  I don’t know why we are not all out on the streets demanding action.  Maybe my take on the world is the wrong one.  Maybe I should content myself with supporting Children in Need while just ignoring those who actually are.