What do you think a crew of drunken pirates need first thing in the morning. If you guessed bacon, egg and hash browns you were almost there. If you guessed beer with those food items we are starting to get a bit more accurate.

Which is why the offer from the previous nights pub to open early and gives us a breakfast buffet was too good to miss. So we rocked up, entered the pub at about 9 o’clock and got some food down us, ready for a busy day’s driving.

Eventually we started heading off in convoy – and the Newcastle boat were very pleased to discover that they actually had power first thing in the morning – though setting off on time was less pleasing. A lie in would be nice – but they are going to be few and far between this week.

It seems a lazy Sunday’s punt on the river is quite the place to be seen – the canals were busy, with all sorts of weird and wonderful creations. The sunshine had attracted those who like a quite afternoon on the river. Which is a shame as there were also some gradually more and more tipsy crew’s out and about, no more so than the Newcastle boat – fast becoming known as the party boat (which no actual Newcastle walkers, and the ‘Special Effect Team’ leaving, we were down to one walker – John – who was too injured to walk after his fall at the launch party anyway).

It was hot, and for many walkers too hot. But for us crews it was perfect weather. The tops were off, the suntan lotion on and we were loving being able to lay back and relax whilst the walkers did their bit for charity. It is a shame the next few days were to be harder work.

Mutiny

But whilst all was well with the world for us, others were less happy. Those of the Not-Nots (London Irish – Not London and Not Irish) were far from happy. They had an open rebellion – armed with ladels and spatulas – and eventually forced their captain to walk the plank. Where he was quickly eaten by Piranhas.

Of course the reality may be different – in fact it is rather boring – so we’ll stick with the mutiny story for now.

But for us mutiny was a long way from out minds – and so was soberness. A quick discovery by the fantastic captain (Me) that Powerade and vodka worked as a combination meant that we were all not only tipsy but roaring drunk by the time we rocked up to the pub. At which point it would have been rude not to continue a session.

Well a few more beers, and a burger or two were consumed. Though the Wasps walkers thought themselves too good for the burgers and instead chose to buy a proper dinner. Flash sods.

By the time we finished our boozing and duck feeding at 2am we were beginning to regret our drunken state – as a 5am start awaited us….

All sorts was wrong, from the engine not starting to having no power, to no running water. It was not an auspicious start. But we are not a crew to sit around moping. We are in fact far more resourceful than that – we are a crew to sit around drinking instead.

After a quick panic call to the owners of the barges to come help us out we settled in for a wait – with a pint of Guinness, which quickly multiplied.

The barge owners turned up, left again to get new batteries, and came back. All the time we were showing true British grit in the face of adversity. Pickling our livers. Is there a more British way to deal with a crisis?

Go, again.

After a few pints, a change of batteries, a quick fix of the engine and goodness knows what else we were on our way – about 3 hours behind everyone else. But there was no rush, we had plenty of beer to be getting on with and the walkers had everything they needed with them.

The day was a glorious one, sunshine all day. We got to punt along the river without a care in the world. We passed some walkers – including one hard as nails man Matt. Not only did he complete all 17 miles on the first day – but he did it using crutches!

We got to relax, we got to take in the sights, and we got to drink beer – which stood us in good stead as we were ending the day, as is traditional, in the pub.

The pub were kind enough to lay on a bit of food for us, a choice of curry, chilli or beef stew gave everyone some much needed sustenance. Though, of course, some of us partook in more than one helping.

A pub quiz was part of the entertainment and we all enjoyed it – though the 1,000,000 rounds (well if felt that way) were a tad much considering most of us were shattered and just wanted to get to bed. It might sound daft considering all I did was drive a boat whilst walkers had just knocked out a ’swift’ 17 miles – but my feet were killing me and I wanted nothing more than to get some shut eye.

Eventually the quiz finished – with my team (wasps 1) finishing first and the others Wasps team (Wasps 2) winning the prize. People slowly drifted away and managed to get some much needed sleep ahead of a big day tomorrow.

After a nightmare journey up to Rugby to get the boats from Clifton Cruises – a journey that included missing the train we were booked on from Euston and having to buy new tickets for the next one, we rocked up just in time. Just in time to miss the instructions on how to drive a boat. But who needs such advice? I’m here for the beer charity.

So we got there, dumped our stuff aboard – me with Newcastle, Stacey with Wasps, and set about making a severe dent in the beer supplies. And what beer they had! Not just any old beer for the Walk 4 Matt walkers, oh no, we had something special. A specially created bitter named ‘Hambo’ (after Matt Hampson) was ready and waiting for us, including a very special label (see the picture).

Good to see more people after my own heart are involved – help charity through beer and rugby. What more could you want?

Entertainment

We may not have needed more, but more we had. To help with the entertainment for the evening not only was there copious amounts of alcohol available but the organisers had kindly laid on a band for us – singing plenty of sing-a-long hits. A big thank you to them for being one of the few bands to play songs I have actually heard of (i.e. anything by the Stereophonics and that’s about it, I am far from a music guru).

Some walkers, the ungrateful sods, decided this wasn’t enough. But fair play they put their money where their mouth is – including my co-driver Colin. Colin decided that what we REALLY needed was a tad more skin for the women to gawk at. So he stripped himself down to his boxers, took a run up and leapt right into the canal – fears of diseases, rats and sharks (there are sharks in canals aren’t there?) were dismissed, all that mattered was getting naked entertaining the troops.

The night wore on, more booze was consumed, more friendships made (it’s a charity blog, I need to have some cliches, it’s contractual). Gradually people drifted off towards their new bunks to get some shut eye for the walk ahead of us – but not before the Earth moved for someone.

No, not like that, nothing that exciting. The Earth literally moved – or at least the paving slab. Making his way towards the narrow boat John, one of the crew of the fantastic Newcastle boat (no bias), managed to somehow collapse a paving slab through a hole no-one knew was there, go arse over tit and collapse in a heap.

The judges all gave the fall an 8, aside from the Russian judge who gave it a dubious 9.5.

A nasty looking cut to his ankle and a bang to his elbow, and some sniggers covered by trying to make sure he was ok, was his reward. It was bound to happen to someone, I’m just grateful it wasn’t me. But there is a whole week to go and tomorrow doesn’t get any better…

I have bad news. Cap’ain Dan is back, and he is again rounding up a crew – but this time plenty of other Cap’ains are joining him and all are in need of workers to swab the decks and clean the latrines. Too much work for a crew of Wasps to manage, so they have a solution – the Press Gangs.

Already they have caught a wide range of people on the streets, from useless vagabonds (like that Rugby Nick guy) to important professionals (such as the kind hearted nurse, Stacey Harris, aka ‘Roger the Cabin Boy’). They care not for your station in life, only that they can chain you to the boat and force you to do their menial labour.

How then to avoid such a fate? There is but one guaranteed way – pledge a donation, of any amount – to http://www.justgiving.com/stacey-harris0 and your life can again be your own. But don’t venture out after dark, lest they steal you away, never to be heard from again.

A pretty good day was had, despite the scoreline bothering most of you. Many drinks consumed, a good band afterwards, and of course a good game of rugby. The bucket shaking? An impressive £975 raised in two hours standing in what was, at times, some awful weather (I happened to make a beer run missing the worst of it – getting a round in can be useful at times)!

A big thanks to the fans, and the fans after the game where I wandered around the beer tent selling some of the very stylish wrist bands at £2 a pop – £120 raised in about 30 minutes from both sets of fans (this one went to the personal fund raising total, the £975 to the general Wasps pot).

So all in all over £1,000 raised on the day – so to those who were there our most heartfelt thanks (and for making the atmosphere one of the best I have been part of since starting to go to Adams Park). To those who weren’t – get sponsoring us ASAP

• How about having to wear an England shirt?
• How about having to wear an England shirt on International day?
• Or how about having to wear an English shirt, on International day in Cardiff

No, the answer, as I discovered, is having to wear an England shirt, on international day, in Cardiff – and then stand on a chair in front of a packed pub and sing the English national anthem.  But that is what I had to do in the name of raising money for Walk 4 Matt.

After raising over the £300 mark I was required to do this, and do it I did.  I wasn’t happy but them the breaks.  On the plus side we managed to raise another £90 by sending a pint glass around friends and randoms afterwards, presumably to stop me from doing an encore (I’m tone deaf as you are about to find out).

All this means we stand on £460 raised so far, with more promised over the next fortnight as people get their pay days etc.  A cracking effort and one that almost deserves what i did for the money.  Almost.  Nothing can ever get all the way there.  No matter how many showers I have I don’t think I’ll ever feel clean again.

But a big thank you to everyone who donated – and for those that haven’t please do so by clicking here and donating by card or paypal.

Anyway here is the video as promised.  I hope you think it worth the money.

An English Rugby Shirt.

Yes it will hurt. There is every chance it will leave my skin blackened and burnt, my nerve endings never to recover. But I will go through that pain because of your generosity! But £350 is still shy of the BIG target we want for me going through this – £500.

So please keep giving. If we get £500 by lunch time tomorrow I will, on top of wearing an English shirt and getting filmed singing the English national anthem, be wearing a bowler hat and have a temp tattoo saying ‘I love England’… which would seal forever my being an outcast from the land of my father’s.

But get ready for the photos, get ready for the videos. But whilst you are preparing yourself please donate.

http://www.justgiving.com/Stacey-Harris0

Thanks.

I my cry

Nick

Now we all know I am a proud Welsh man, and we all know that as a proud Welsh man I have been brought up to dislike the English rugby team with a passion. So this makes what I am about to offer a very painful idea of making money for charity…

If we, myself and stacey, make the first 10% (£150) of our total by saturday morning I will wear an England shirt for the whole day, including going out in first Cardiff and then Swansea.

This is not something I am looking forward to – so if we can raise £149 I will be very happy – but the Matt Hampson Foundation, a charity for helping severely injured rugby players, and Special Effect, a charity for helping severely disaabled children, are two very special causes – and if I have to suffer the pain of wearing an England shirt for them I will.

So if you want to support these causes and want to make me feel like a right tosser doing it then please donate anything you can spare to http://www.justgiving.com/Stacey-Harris0 and if that £150 is reached by Saturday morning I will be doing the unthinkable – and possibly being disowned by my countrymen.

New Criteria

* £150 – wearing the England top all day
* £300 – a recording of me singing the English national anthem put onto youtube
* £500 – a temp “I love england” tattoo and bowler hat

In a few months time we will be doing it all again, walking, drinking, abusing professional players and generally making idiots of ourselves… which means we need to be blogging about it again so you know just how idiotic we are being! To that end the blog is going to slowly start back up again, beginning with some alterations – updating the badges, the sponsorship pages, the team details etc.

Hopefully we can grab a few photo’s of last year’s walk as well.

Of course this means that we are asking you to donate again, to give money to this wonderful rugby charity. You should see a ‘donate’ button in the top left – please do hit it and donate as much or as little as you can afford. Don’t want to sound too supermarket like, but every little helps. Size doesn’t matter… I hope.

What, you don’t believe me?  Then read this article to understand just what I am talking about.

Matt has been named one of the 6 ’super heroes’ by Mens Health – choosing to name him as ‘the survivor’.  This goes alongside such A – List celebrity stars as Hugh Jackman and Lance Armstrong.  The sort of echelon his bravery and positive outlook easily deserve to be.

So whilst he may not fly through the air with the greatest of ease (was that superman or someone else?  I need to learn my comic book heroes) he is a hero to inspire us all.  His dedication to showing people what they can do with their life no matter what happens is something that we can all admire and respect – as is his tireless charity work.

So congratulations on becoming a superhero Matt.  If you get to meet Lois Lane off Smallville can I come along!?!!!