Amy's Big Walk

I arrived safely back home on Monday evening after a hectic two weeks, went promptly to bed and stayed there until now. I was shattered. How I kept going through that fortnight is a mystery to me but I guess I was running on adrenaline or something and now that I can finally relax, it’s all caught up with me. Not to worry though, it’s just a blip. I’m still feeling a lot fitter than I was a while ago so things are definitely on the up.


Another person who’s pushing herself to her limits is Amy, a young lady who’s probably out there right now, covering the next leg of her long journey from Leeds to Cardiff. Every day for 10 days she’s walking an average of 20 miles a day in order to raise money for Link Community Development, a charity that builds schools for children in Ethiopia, Uganda, Ghana, South Africa and Malawi.

Amy came to stay with us on Wednesday night as a ‘couch surfer’. She found us through couchsurfing.com, a website designed to help travellers find free accommodation for a night or two. I originally signed up when LM was thinking of going travelling, basically just to find out what it was all about, but as being a member means I can probably help a few people by offering them a bed for the night, then so be it. Amy was my first ‘couch surfer’ to come stay and a very nice girl she is too. Very grounded, takes things as they are and asks for very little. In fact, she spent the evening in my bedroom with me, LM and Sam (a friend), perched on the end of my bed. We all shared some stories and had a good laugh though and it was 11pm before she finally dropped into the spare bed. I guess that means she enjoyed herself :)

Now 20 miles a day might not sound like an awful lot to some people but when you consider that a marathon is 26 miles, you suddenly realise that 20 miles a day for 10 consecutive days is actually quite a mammoth task. And Amy hadn’t even trained for this. In fact, she told us that the furthest she’d ever walked before was just 4 miles. Brave girl!

Amy will be going to Uganda in the summer to help build schools. A laudable thing to do, as I’m sure you’ll agree. The world could do with more people like her who are willing to actually put themselves out in order to do something to help those who are less privileged than us.

If you’d like to sponsor Amy, she has a JustGiving page at www.justgiving.com/amyleedsuganda. The minimum amount is £2 I think, but I doubt that’ll break the bank for any of us. And she really does deserve our support. After all, what’s a couple of quid compared to the blood, sweat and tears that she’ll be enduring over the next week?

Go Amy! You’re a star!

Sharon J xx

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Giving Something Back - What Is There For Me?

Because of my inability to work on any kind of regular basis my income comprises solely of what the state choose to pay me. It’s not a lot but still a whole lot more than what some people in this world have and I’m grateful to the taxpayers whose earnings my income is dependant on.

There have been other times in my life where I’ve been dependent on benefits too. When Paul was little he was very difficult to handle (profound learning difficulties led to irregular and sometimes dangerous behaviour) and when several child-minders had given up and pretty much left me in the lurch, I realised that paid employment just wasn’t going to work out. I had to be at home with him and as a single mum that meant going on benefits.

I’ve never liked just taking and not giving anything back though so I did voluntary work instead. That way I could take Paul with me when I needed to and have time off when he was ill (which he often was back then). I enjoyed the work I did and felt I was doing something useful as a way of saying thanks for the support I was getting.

At the moment I feel kind of stuck though. I’ve looked into all sorts of voluntary work but they all want people who they can depend on to work regularly, something I can’t promise. When my stamina’s good I can work, but when it isn’t I can’t even get out of bed and downstairs let alone out of the house and actually do something. So that’s no good.

I’ve been doing the odd bit of charity knitting and am planning to do more but that doesn’t feel like enough somehow. And I give to charity shops of course, but who doesn’t?

Ideally I’d like something I could do from home like typing for example, but nobody seems to want that.

Do I really have to go on just taking without returning anything? Surely there’s more I can do?

Any ideas would be gratefully received.

Sharon J xx

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