Monday 19th December 2011 We have done it!!!!!!! Three million steps

Back in October I told you that 'we have registered our 2 million steps' and that 'David now has set himself the challenge of reaching 2 million by Christmas by himself and I am aiming for 1 million by myself!' Well in early December we both met our new targets!!!!!! 

I am so pleased we pushed ourselves back in the summer and early autumn as December has been  very busy and difficult to go out for long walks.  Add the shorter days to busy  work and throw in a bit of illness - all this means the pedometers have not done a lot of counting recently!  But we hope that over the holiday we will again be able to get out walking once more.

I will post one last blog on Sunday 22nd January 2012 for anyone interested.  Then I  will be able to tell you all the final figures - the amounts raised for Marie Curie Cancer Care and Water Aid, the actual number of steps walked and most fascinating for me how many people have accessed this blog and from which parts of the world.

We are going to keep on gathering sponsorship and donations until Christmas and after if people still want to give!  Go to our Just Giving sites: for Marie Curie Cancer Care or for Water Aid


But can I thank all who have supported us on our challenge and wish everyone a great Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year

Until our final blog on 22nd January 2012

Jean and David Penny

PS It is great that many of you are getting interested in how many steps you walk each day and we know of some who have dusted off their own pedometers and started counting!  Also, as we come to the last few days before Christmas, remember that pedometers make great and inexpensive Christmas presents.......

Sunday 27th November 2011

Sorry I did not blog last week but we were away with friends at the weekend then I was away with work and suddenly it was midweek so I decided to miss a week.

Lots to say though and the most important thing is the amount we have raised.  After saying last time that 'donations are understandably drying up' they have leapt again - thanks to some very generous people.  I am delighted to say that we now have raised £1,470 for Marie curie Cancer Care and £1,439 for Water Aid!!!  A total of £2,909 - how good is that?

We both continue to make excellent progress with our steps.  Back on the 17th October, I told you we had done the 2 million steps between us and that David had set himself the challenge of reaching 2 million by Christmas by himself and I am aiming for 1 million by myself!  Well, as of today, I have only to count 8,677 steps to make my million and David has just 41,733 to get to his 2 million!  So I strongly expect that in my next blog I will be able to tell you that we have completed our 3 million challenge!

We continue to try to walk wherever we can but as David has a outside job and mine is often in front of the laptop, some days the variation in our scores is depressing for me.  Last Wednesday 23rd November, I scored a very dismal 1,361 steps (pathetic) but David's pedometer showed 23,331 - what a difference!  

 

However we both greatly increased our step count last night by dancing.  We went with friends to a fund raising Ceilidh organized by the Rutland WaterAid committee.  In three hours of  do-si-doing, a-la-main lefting and stripping the willow (all country dancing terms for those of you who are confused!) I registered over 6,000 steps on my pedometer - the equivalent of 3 miles!  Great fun though. Then this morning, after waking to a power cut, we went a few miles down the road to the iron age hill fort at Borrough on the Hill (for more info click here ).  Although the sun was shining, it was bitterly cold and very very windy - it certainly blew the cobwebs away.  Dressed up for the cold, we remembered with longing the days when we were in shorts and tee shirts ..... 

More next week

Jean (and David)

Tuesday 15th November 2011

A bit late with my blog this week as we have been up to Scarborough again, to our flat.  As always a great weekend and lots of steps added to our total.  We tend to park the car and leave it as we can walk everywhere: to the High St. shops, to the theatre, to the museum and to the restaurants - very different to living in our tiny village where you have to drive everywhere. 

Saturday was a glorious day with a lovely sunset (photo) giving hope for a great day on Sunday but it could only be described as 

  'grey' - one where you can hardly tell where the sea stops and the sky starts.  We still went out of course - we drove 15 minutes south along the coast to Filey.  We  walked out along the spur of land called Filey Brigg, along the beach and then back through the lovely little town - of course stopping for afternoon tea!  Filey beach is 5 miles long, flat, with firm sand and is very wide when the tide is out and in 1903 it was used to test the first powered flights in the UK (photo).

Back in Scarborough it is great to be able to walk around the headland to the shops  A new work of art has appeared on the North Bay promenade that we understand is temporary and for remembrance weekend.  It is a huge sculpture of an old man, an ex-soldier, sitting on a gigantic bench looking out to sea.  His open arm and room besides him on his 

 bench invites you to sit beside him - we could not resist.  (sorry photo is on its side - I cannot make out how to turn it!!!!).  But the plaque on the bench bears a serious message.  It says:

They said for king and country, we should do as we were bid.

They said old soldiers never die, but plenty of young ones did.

So thanks to our weekend away our steps are still adding up and we have now counted a total of more than  2.5 million.  Over this weekend alone we have walked over 90,000 between us - that is the equivalent to about 23 miles each!

The donations are understandably drying up a bit.  But we are still very pleased with the amounts we have raised and we will not stop rattling our tins until 25th December!

More next week (it may be Tuesday again as I am off working on Monday)

Jean (and David)

Monday 7th November 2011

This is a bit of a 'no no' week in terms of steps.  What with work and lingering colds, we have not done any special walks to report on.  We did go to a 60s themed firework party on Saturday  - fancy dress (see photos), great food, wonderful fireworks and a lot of dubious but very enjoyable singing - with microphones!  All there were allocated a song to lead - our duet  of the House of the Rising Sun was memorable but for all the wrong reasons - the Animals have nothing to worry about!   

But I am afraid that all the singing with gusto caused me to lose my voice completely yesterday and for my cold to make a comeback with a vengeance.   So David went out by himself (without the wig!) for a walk around Rutland Water to add a few steps whist I had a duvet day instead.  It was very frustrating not to be able to make the most of the glorious sunshine.

However the steps are mounting up and the daily averages we each have to do in order to achieve our new targets (David 2 million and me 1 million) are coming down.   We are determined to make it and promise to try harder this week.  I will report more on the our steps and the money raised in my next blog.  But  pleased to say the money is still coming in - mostly by cash or cheque donations which I add to the off line donations of the Just Giving sites.

I must tell you of one friend who turned up the other week with a big heavy plastic bag containing lots of cash including bags of 1ps and 5ps as well as £1 coins.   He had gone around his house, looking in trouser pockets, down the back of the settee and emptying all the pots that held change.  He says he always does this to buy stamps for Christmas cards but this year he donated it all to us.  Thanks to him and as always thanks to all who have donated.

More next week

Jean (and David)

Monday 31st October 2011

Last week I said that the sponsorship has dried up a bit - what a difference a week makes!!!  One friend who wants to remain anonymous has been very very generous with a cheque for each of our charities.  A really BIG THANKYOU!!!! So now our fundraising has leapt to £2,559 in total with £1,175 for Marie Curie Cancer Care and £1,384 for Water Aid.  But continued thanks to EVERYONE who has donated.  It makes it all worthwhile!

As I predicted back in the summer when we started, doing the steps is getting more difficult as winter draws nearer.  David has had a horrible cold all week but by Saturday, when we had planned another section of the Rutland Round, he was feeling a bit better. I on the other hand woke up at 7am, it was dark and I had a sore throat and runny nose - I had caught it!  When the alarm went off at 7.30, it was so hard to get out of bed, get ready and get in the car to drive to where we were to start walking!  I can honestly say if it was not for this charity challenge, we would have turned over and gone back to sleep.  But off we went and it was glorious and we both felt much better for getting out in the fresh air.  We walked 7 miles (14,000 steps each!) from Lyddington to Barrowden and we will think of this as the railway section: going under and by the side of old, now unused local railway lines and with wonderful, if misty views of Seaton Railway Viaduct.  A few facts about   the viaduct: 70ft high, 82 arches, built in just 2 years between 1876 and 1878 by 3,000 navies and it has been calculated (by some person with a lot of time to kill!) that 20 million bricks  were made locally to build it.  It is still in use for mainly goods trains, however, once when the main line was blocked, the Leicester to London train I was on was diverted over the viaduct - a long but very impressive diversion. 

One thing I have not yet mentioned is that for our weekend walks, we try to start walking at about 10am and aim to finish by 1pm with lunch at a pub.  So if anyone wants any recommendations of where the best ploughman's lunches are in Rutland - just ask us!  

Finally, where are we with our steps?  David is just over 1,500,000 and I am just over 820,000 - so going well towards the 3 million (2 million + 1 million) by Christmas.

More next week

Jean (and David)

PS both now coughing and wheezing - the Penny household is not currently a healthy place to be in!

PPS according to the stats on this blog, 771 people (excluding me) have viewed it - WOW!!!!!!!

Monday 24th October 2011

This week we have started our individual challenges to make up the 3 million steps.  But due to work and other commitments we have not been able to do any more of the Rutland round.  However on Saturday we walked in Leicester.  Not very exciting I hear you say....

Well, we were out in Leicester in the evening and wanted a few things from the bigger shops so decided to go in for the day.  But we decided to look at Leicester as we would if we were going to visit a city not known to us, as opposed to one where we grew up.  So before we left home, I went onto the 'what to see in Leicester websites' to see what was suggested to tourists.
 
We started off going to the 'cultural district' where the Curve is, a new(ish) theatre  that we have not yet visited.  Lunch was in their restaurant watching street performers in the square outside.  In the afternoon we walked to the museum via the traffic free, tree lined New Walk.  The Leicester Chronicler website says: Leicester's New Walk was laid out in 1785, and was probably the first pedestrian walk of its kind in the country.  It follows closely the line of the old Roman route from the town south towards Medbourne and possibly Colchester.......  New Walk is a charming and idyllic route for thousands of people who walk in the city, connecting the railway station with the centre of the town.  It is the home of  a variety of wildlife including foxes and squirrels, and is lined with a rich heritage of architecture.

David and I were trying to remember the last time we had been to the New Walk Museum and Art Gallery and couldn't.  I think for me it was when I was still at school - many many years ago.  But what we both remembered was the huge dinosaur skeleton which is still there as part of a new and fascinating dinosaur display.  But we remembered the museum as a quiet, not very user friendly place - how things have changed - it was vibrant and buzzing with lots of families as it was half term!  The best for me was to see the new Attenborough Collection of Picasso Ceramics.  In 2007, Lord and Lady Attenborough announced that their Picasso ceramics collection would be entrusted to the City of Leicester to commemorate the lives of their daughter, Jane Mary, and their granddaughter, Lucy Elizabeth, who perished together in the Asian Tsunami on 26th December 2004.  (From the Museums website).  The Attenborough brothers, Richard and David, grew up in Leicester.

Then on to a bit of retail therapy and happy hour cocktails in the Highcross area of the city before going out for the evening.  Not quite the Rutland Round, no rural landscapes or  bird song, but looking at Leicester as a tourist was new experience, which we will do again, and we clocked up a good few thousand steps!

Now the weekly step total and I start with an admission.  I got mixed up with the numbers of 0s in our step count last week.  I should have said that I have clocked up just over 700,000 steps and David has done just a little under 1,300,000 steps - I did not out in enough 0s!!!!! (I have now corrected last week's blog!).  This week I have added 52,462 and David has done 100,101 - he always does about twice as many as me........

Sponsorship has dried up a bit but not altogether.  Marie Curie now stands at £905 and Water Aid is at £1,100.  We are very very pleased with this but we are still hoping for more

More next week
Jean (and David)
PS no photos as I forgot to take my camera

Monday 17th October 2011 We've done it!

We've done it!  We have registered our 2 million steps

 We set ourselves the challenge of doing it by Christmas, 154 days from when we started.  But in just 84 days we have done it!!!!!  We were out walking the next section of the Rutland Round on Saturday, another glorious autumn day, and when we got back I put all the weeks steps onto the spread sheet and BINGO - just over 2 million.

A few stats (don't you just love spread sheets!): We have raised over £2,000 pounds (and this really is the important bit), I have clocked up just over 700,000 steps and David has done just a little under 1,300,000 steps, I have averaged 8,612 steps / day and David is at 15,543 steps / day.  On the graph I have put a line of our average daily steps David is the red dashed line and mine is the blue dashed line way below.

 So what now you might ask?  Well we are not stopping here.....  David now has set himself the challenge of reaching 2 million by Christmas by himself and I am aiming for 1 million by myself!  To tell you the truth we are enjoying it!  It is giving us the motivation to get up early on a Saturday and walk the Rutland Round (which we hope to finish by Christmas), seeing parts of Rutland and Yorkshire  that we have never seen before or just park the car and walk anywhere!  You can see on the graph the difference the weekends make - the peaks indicating the times when we have packed up the ruck sack with coffee and waterproofs and walked. 

But the important thing is the fund raising, so we will continue to 'shake the tin' until Christmas and try to raise even more money for Marie Curie Cancer Care and Water Aid

More next week
Jean (and David)

 PS Christmas is not so far away!  Have you seen all the tinsel and crackers already in the shops......

Monday 10th October 2011

What a difference a week makes!  After unseasonably hot weather of the other week - now it is really autumn.   We went  to our flat in Scarborough over the weekend - just two days but if was worth it.  The weather was 'fresh' i.e. not really cold but certainly not warm.  

 
 Gone are the shorts and out have come the wind proof jackets.  We did not go off to walk the moors this visit - not really the time.  But to walk around from North bay, around the headland under the impressive Scarborough Castle, past the little funfair and into South bay around to the Spa is a lovely walk of about 3.5 miles.  When the tide is out  we walk as far as we can along the beach but at high tide it has to be on the promenade and on windy days this involves a few side steps avoiding the splashing waves (see the pictures from this weekend).    

We have been there when the roads are closed along North bay and pedestrians warned not to walk around the headland as the waves are so high it is dangerous.  In fact once we actually saw a mother and her pushchair, with her little girl in it, knocked over by a huge wave.  Luckily they  were fine but very very wet!

 Our steps are still mounting -we have now recorded 1,882,381!  Not many more to go to reach the 2 million but as I said before we will go on until Christmas and see how many we actually do.  Our stats show that while I am averaging 8,751 steps / day David is averaging a massive 15,695!  And the money we are raising continues to grow.  We have so far raised £1,995 thanks to all our friends and contacts.  That is £895 for Marie Curie and £1,100 for Water Aid.

 More soon Jean (and David)

Monday 3rd October 2011

Well here it is October and I am sitting here in shorts and a tee shirt with the window open to cool down!!  What weird but wonderful  weather???  However our garden has never looked better at this time of the year.  Last week I was able to spend some time in the garden and have really whipped it into shape.  This equated to lots of steps walking backward and forward and a good topping up of my fading suntan.  David was with me on Saturday doing all the heavy jobs and we both feel really pleased.  But we cannot bear to pull up all the lovely bedding plants - they still look glorious - so a few more jobs still to do.

The Rutland Round

The quarry

Yesterday, Sunday, we left the garden and did another section of the Rutland Round.  I must admit, my legs and back were aching after all the gardening so it was only our fund raising that got me out there!  David of course was rearing to go.  But once we got started it was lovely.  We only did a short walk, about 4 miles, from Ketton to Normanton Car park on Rutland Water.  It was a strange walk.  One minute we were walking along lovely leafy lanes then we came on the HUGE quarry for Ketton cement.  Many times I have driven within half a mile of it but never realised just how big it is (see pictures).  Is it a blot on the landscape or a great source of business and employment for the county? We could not agree as you could argue either way.  The walk finished at Rutland Water and we were looking forward to a bacon roll in our favorite snack bar.  But catastrophe - by the time we got there at 1.00pm they had not only  run out of bacon but virtually everything because they had been so busy....we had to make do with two of the last few Cornish pasties.   We have never seen the car park so full, but it was lovely to see so many families there.

Rutland Water

 Anyway the money for our two charities is now up to £895 for Marie Curie and £845 for Water Aid and we have recorded just a few steps short of 1,700,000! Our aim of 2 million is not so far away........

More next week

Jean (and David)

Sunday 25th September 2011

 
I have been thinking how this walking fund raising has certainly changed my habits of a lifetime.  Take this week, twice I have been on trains rides with connections.  Before, as I waited for the train I would have sat a read or had a coffee.  Now I pace up and down the platform and I made sure I get there in plenty of time and instead of a taxi I have walked.  All to register a few more steps!!!  But I wonder if it will last after Christmas????
The scores on the doors this week continue to please.  For Water Aid the total is £830 and for Marie Cure Cancer Care we have raised £895.  This makes £1,725 all together.  And steps - this week we have registered one and a half million - only 500,000 to get to our two million target!!!  We hope to get there by the end of October but we will continue to count our steps up to Christmas and perhaps set ourselves a new challenge - watch this space......
I have said before that David has an active day job.  This shows in his average of 15,503 steps / day since we started and I am trailing with 8,976 steps / day.  But at weekends I do try to bump up my total.  Yesterday we walked with my brother and a friend.  They are walking the Leicestershire round, a 100 mile walk around the county.  And as they were walking a leg that just happened to go right through our village we joined them.  We walked from our house, through Withcote past Launde Abbey to Belton in Rutland - 3 hours and 7 miles along lovely tracks and paths in early autumn.  A great way to spend a Saturday morning but can you explain why coffee always taste so  good when drunk from a flask outdoors?  And of course our walk just happened to end with a pub lunch......
A couple of pictures of our walk below
More next week
Jean (and David)
                                                                                                            

Coffee at Launde Abbey

The avenue of trees going towards Withcote

Friday 16th September 2011

Sorry but I did not write an update last weekend as we were away - more of that later.  First the important bit.....  our current fundraising stands today at £1,650!  That is £810 for Water Aid and £840 for Marie Curie Cancer Care.  As always thank you for all those donating on line and offline - we have had over £500 given in either cash or cheques that we add to the sites as 'off line donations'.  Our steps count continues to rise - our total last night was 1,284,502.  Only 3/4 million still to do!!!

 But what a week! We took some friends to our flat Scarborough last weekend and luckily they like walking and the weather was lovely - so we walked along the sea front, up to the castle, to the shops, to the restaurants, to the park  - we walked everywhere.  David and I clocked up over 100,000 steps over the four days. 

But then back home and yesterday I registered the lowest number of steps since we started - only 1,508 in the whole day.  The only activity was going up and down stairs for coffee and lunch and it shows how inactive we can be spending the day working at the computer.  I have done more than that by 10am today as I went into town!!  

Also this week we went with other friends down Foxhole caves in Derbyshire owned by the National Trust.  Not many steps but quite a bit of crawling.  I have attached  a photo of the back of me going into the narrowest part and David coming out of that same section - it was a real experience!  And by coincidence it was our anniversary and it occurred to me that 37 years ago at 2pm I walked down the aisle - 37 years later, I went down a hole!!!  
More next week
Jean (and David)

 

Monday 5th September 2011

Well we are half way there!  We set out on 25th July 2011 to count 2 million steps jointly on our pedometers by Christmas.  And after only six weeks we have logged 1 million steps.  We knew we needed 5,000 on Saturday and when we got back from the weekly supermarket trip we had done it!  Photo to prove it.....

Completing the 1 million so soon has surprised us but doing this is certainly encouraging us to look for ways to walk more.  I have attached a graph (now I have at last learnt how to attach photos there will be no stopping me) showing the number of steps we have walked each day and you can certainly see the peaks.  Last week on that lovely sunny Friday, we went to Burghley Horse Trials.  Although we saw a few horses (it was dressage day) we went particularly to walk the course - we both registered over 11,000 steps walking around past the 33 huge fences..  And of course the shopping!  There were certainly more shops than there were 10 years ago which was the last time we went and such a huge variety of goods on sale.  But again, although we walked virtually every where together and certainly going around the course we registered a similar number of steps, going around the hundreds of shops David registered 3,000 more steps than I did!  The only reason i can think of is that he stomps around and I glide or mooch as one friend has said! We know the pedometers work the same as we have swopped and David still registers more than me - but those of you who knows him knows that he rarely keeps still

However the important thing is the money we are raising and I am pleased to say it keeps going up thanks to all our friends.  

We have now raised £760 for Marie Curie Cancer Care and £735 for Water Aid.



More next week
Jean (and David)

Monday 29th August 2011

Well - a real red letter week this week.  First of all we have logged 3/4 million steps, so we are well on track.  But best for me is that on Tuesday I registered more steps than David!!!!! He had spent the morning doing paperwork then was in court in the afternoon (for those of you who don't know David has not broken the law - he is a magistrate).  I on the other hand went to an exercise class in the morning which made all the difference.  It felt SO good - I wonder how many more times this will happen before Christmas when we stop counting.
But onto the important figures- we have raised £630 for Water Aid and £715 for Marie Curie Cancer Care - in total £1,345 - we are so pleased.
People have been so good.  For example we have had some tee shirts personalised for our walk and the lady in the shop in Scarborough only charged us list price when she heard what we are doing as her father had had the wonderful care from Marie Curie nurses.  We have donated the difference to Marie Curie part of our fundraising.
More next week on our new walking challenge - the Rutland Round
Jean (and David)

Monday 22nd august 2011

We have been counting our steps for nearly a month now and we are so pleased we are doing it!  Thanks to all our friends we have raised £520 for Water Aid and £715 for Marie Curie Cancer Care – how good is that!!!!!!!!!
The steps are still going well – we have now counted 707,137!  But as I said right at the beginning, we need to be ahead of the game while the weather is good and the days are long.  Any of you that know me, will appreciate that I don’t do wet and cold…… but I do stats.  I could tell you all sorts of things but for now to let you know that David is currently averaging 16,257steps / day and I am at 10,841/ day. 
David does far more steps even when we have walked the same route – he is like a sheep dog – always on the move and it shows!  And those days when I count only 5,000 or less are the days when I am working at my laptop and have to make a real effort to get up and move – just like today!. It is strange how disappointed I feel when we record our steps at night – I remember the old reports for school about my PE lessons ‘must try harder’
I did have a worry last week.  I went to buy some new walking trousers but when I got home my pedometer was not in my pocket (we both use Oregon Scientific Pedometers which you put in your pocket and they count even if they are upside down or back to front).   But it had been found and handed in by some honest customer.  This would normally have been a mild irritation but at the moment – catastrophe!
More next week
Jean (and David) Penny
PS I am still trying to work out how to attach pictures (must try harder!) – bless……