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India Red and Malt Shovel charity cricket match

Just as I was about to engage in another driving lesson with Nikki(eldest daughter) I saw this flash BMW cabriolet pull up on the road outside. It was Ian Gilling from Amblesides cricket section. I have known Ian since school when we were in the same class at George Eliot. Ian told me that there was a charity match on across the road and the £40 fee was for us, in fact they bunged in an extra £20 so he handed me £60. Fantastic I said, thanked him and continued with the driving lesson setting off towards Market Bosworth.
After returning and scoffing a cracking Roast dinner cooked by my lovely wife(don't all throw up at once) my phone went and it was Ian. "Bob, they have had a whipround after the match, can you come over and pick up this money?"
Off I trotted with the pooch, who I later caught having a crafty Guinness!
The whipround totted up to over £123.00! the loose change went in the air ambo box on the bar.
Whilst chatting and thanking the team captains one said, I know you, do you use my resturante, The India Red? Oh yes I certainly do. I thought I knew you I said. It then became clear that the match was between the India Red and the Malt Shovel PH.
I have not been in the Malt Shovel but I know it is very popular and I will make the effort. I have been to the India Red (formally Woody's Free House) in Abbey Steet next to the CO OP carpark and can say what a transformation, for a long time T/C PH's to a very classy Indian Resturante with fresh food cooked by the best of chefs. If you haven't been yet you don't know what you are missing. Very friendly staff, fine food and an ambience which would lead to to believe you are a million miles away from Nuneaton.
A very big thank you to you both and your teams for the money you have donated to our charities.
Bob&DB

OMG-Less than 3 weeks to go!

I find myself again first apologising for the lack of updates, I'll blame it on work, annual leave and anyone else I can think of. Really not a lot has been happening of late and we have eased off on the fund raising, to be honest it was a relief when we reached our minimum goal.
We gave ourselves just over 4 months to raise the £9,990 with most people having between 12-18 months to raise tha same funds, at the outset I said to Neil(who shall be refered to from now on as "DB" it's a long story) "we will need to hit the ground running onn this one" That we did and the support we have recieved is enough to restore anyones faith in human nature. Bearing in mind we started this not long after Children in Need 2009, you still gave readily to support those less furtunate than ourselves.
We had a couple of months where we were both a little down due to a problem at work which saw DB lose his driving authorisation for a while. I will state that DB in my and 99.9% of our colleagues eyes had done nothing at all wrong, he was an advanced driver doing his job, something he was trained to do, and do very well. I will not go into any more detail, the matter is done and dusted, DB has been exonerated at the highest level.
Without doubt this did affect our fund raising, we expected to end up closer to 15K rather than 10K, it looks like we will crack 11K before we go.
Enough of that! we have less than 3 weeks to go now before we board the big white bird and head off for what I am sure will be an adventure of a lifetime, an experience that we are told by many will change our lives.
We have been watching the 2008 highlights on Men and Motors and are both fully aware that this will not be a walk in the park by any stretch of the imagination. We are having a supper meeting tonight to sort out the final preparations, I feel the next 19 days will be a blur.
I went to Sonic last week and met with Liam Thornton who is putting together the Coms/head cams for us and confirmed that we can collect them on 21st Sept.
I have not heard from Long Way Down since Rob the producer passed us on to one of his charity organising staff, I have re emailed him and hope by tomorrow when he returns to his office that we can continue negotiations re a link to our site and the possibility of using some of our footage to encourage others to follow in our steps(we are just doing what Charlie and Ewan did) to raise money for children in SA.
In the days that lead up to our departure, I hope to update this blog daily. One date to remember is Sept 29th when we will be pulling the winning tickets out of a hat for our prize draw in the bar at Ambleside Sports Club. We would love you to join us for a send off so please try and come for an hour or so, I'm sure DB will bring his pipes along again.
If anyone would like to make a last minute contribution via our PayPal button, please do so, every penny is for charity, the more we make the better for the children. For those of you that have already done so, I thank you again.
Please keep on reading, I hope to keep you posted on this site from SA.
Bob&DB

Car User LTD

Hi Folks,
Sorry we have been away for a while (well from the net) It's less than 2 months to go and we are on the last push to raise as much money as we can for Enduroafrica. Soon we will be having to start on the malaria tablets - Yuk!
We have still to get and practice with the Cams and Comms from Sonic and are still in negotiations with Big Earth to tray and raise our profile for the last 6 weeks or so. I am spending as much time as I can on an off road bike but due to circumstances beyond our control Rathers is going to have to get some last minute training in, I am hoping that using the XT660R's at work will sharpen my skills as they are not so forgiving as the smaller bikes, so when the time comes the CR230's will feel like a pushbike to ride(I wish)
Went to see Gary the MD of Car User today at 12 Alliance Close, Attleborough fields ind estate and he has donated a cheque for £100, I have not checked on the figures for a while but I reckon we should be over 10.5K.
We still have £200 en route from the sale of the Salmon fishing certificates.
I will try to keep the updates coming more often from now on, sorry again for the lack of news over the last 6 months.
Regards,
Bob.

Police Mag, The Billboard run article

The Police Magazine the Billboard has very kindly included us in issue 13 which can be downloaded as a pdf format from the net. Many thanks to the Editor Brett Tudor for having us in his Mag. I hope that we may just get one or two more donations to bump up our end total from the extra publicity.

You can read the link by checking out the website: http://www.thebillboard.co.uk/magazines.php

Thanks Brett, we will let you know how we get on,
Bob&Neil.

Guest Blogspot - Andrew

Hi folks,

Another Blog site you may be interested in is one of our fellow participants form accross the pond, please have a look at his blog, if enough people log on in one day then he will "Juice Google!" Wanna know what that means? have a look at his site and help him out.

Andrew lives in Bethesda MD with Elizabeth and their dogs, Katy and Adie, and cats, Mischa and Sasha

Good luck with the fund raising Andrew, from Bob and Neil, look forward to seeing you in SA

http://andrewsenduroafrica2009.blogspot.com/

Quiz Night sends us crashing through the 10K goal.

A massive thank you to all who turned up for our quiz night last night, a real good turnout with us having to seat some people outside on the patio. Lauren, Rachel and the girls put on a fantastic spread for us which was a very kind gesture, not a scrap of food was left.

Mike Farrell again helped us out a lot with setting up, and the bar staff, Rabbit, Tilly and Craig were all kept very busy, cheers boys. Again thank you to Higham Lane Leisure Association who let us use their excellent facilities for free.

A special thanks to two team members, Norman and Andrew Blount who helped us out by selling nearly 3 books of raffle tickets!!

A total of £522.00 sent us crashing through the 10K barrier to a healthy £10,381.06. As you can see I have wound the thermometer up to 15K (who knows?)

20 teams settled down to a noisy night which they seemed to enjoy, if you were there please let us know your thoughts on the comments section.

The results are as follows:

1. One wheel short of a cycle 80.5

2. Just you and me kid 73

2. the Evictees 73

3. Scrambled Eggheads 72.5

4. Quiz Tarrant 68

5. The nosey Parkers 67

6. Bourne again blondes 65.5

7. The singletons 63.5

8. Fudge cake 63

9. The Ruby's 60

10. No! 59.5

11. Drinkers not thinkers 59

11. Oops a daisy 59

12. Norfolk and hope 58.5

13. Norfolk and chance 56.5

14. Holbrooks wanderers 55

15.Weddington Wanderers 54

16. The best generation 53.5

17. Sick notes 53

18. If we win it's a fix 51.5

19. The team 50

20. The Shrug 47

Thank you all again for your support,

Bob&Neil