hats off, purses out

31Mar08

I read about this on tender[hooligan]’s blog here and decided that I wanted to also give this guy some coverage just in case his story touches anyone who reads Blue soup.

Nigel Hearden of Gosport, England, is currently part way through a sponsored walk from Gosport to Rome, a total of 1,200 miles in memory of his late wife Anne who battled cancer several times during her life. On his personal website, he states that there are four main reasons for undertaking this project, called “Return to ROMANCE”, which stands for Return to ROMe for ANne and CharitiEs. These are:

1. To recognise a brave fight borne with tremendous courage and celebrate a wonderful lady who I loved very much
2. To honour a promise made – we were to have spent our 30th wedding anniversary in Rome in March 2006 having spent 4 days there in May 2005.
3. To raise much needed funds for 4 charitable causes that Anne supported.
4. To help me move forward – when you lose someone close, you have to take control of your feelings and undertaking this walk is my way of facing the future.

The beneficiaries of the walk will be

• Action Aid
• Harbour Cancer Support Centre, Gosport
• Friends of Oncology and Radiotherapy Cancer Charity (FORT), St Mary’s Hospital, Portsmouth
• Catholic Church in Gosport, which is twinned with the parish of Mbetta in Cameroon and raises funds for education, health as well as pastoral projects in the area.

You guys all know that I am big on sponsoring worthy causes (although my bank balance hates it) so I thought I would follow in tender’s footsteps and flag this up. Sponsor Nigel here.

Of course, my fundraising is also continuing. At the moment, I am 4% from my target of £2,500, currently sitting at £2,390. I would love to get to £2,500 for Jo’s Trust, so if anyone is feeling generous, please go here to donate. I am now doing not one but two sponsored events – a 3-5km walk at the end of April and the BUPA 10,000 at the end of May. 

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