Dona Nobis Pacem

44 Days - and 1/5th of the way to target!

To start, just a reminder where the Just Giving donation page is.

Now, the good news - we've just passed £200!!! That's one fifth of the way to the target! Thank you everyone who's donated so far :-D :-D

Recent donations have come from Pip (A special big thank you to her for all the help and advice she's been giving me too!) and from Penelope Brett (hope your daughter didn't bully you into it! :-) )

I can't remember if I answered Caroline Roberts's comment- hats are building up (I keep coming across them, and thinking 'that'll be handy!', and have some promised for Christmas too!) Luckily I have a little collection of my own anyway - I do love hats!!

Also, I have to say Kath, you are forgiven for putting me on the spot about speaking in assembly - You've been fantastic, getting the kids to go round with the collection boxes to all the classes in your 'house'! I don't know how much has been raised yet (I had my own collection to make - my daughter) but, whatever it is, thank you for your great help. (And yes, I will get round to talking with the other 2 houses about speaking in their assemblies.... ehm... plenty of time yet!). Oh, and of course thanks to the girls who went round with the boxes!!

Also got the sponsor forms in circulation - I have a few ideas where they might best be available for all the millions of sponsors rushing to sign up!! :-) The first one signed on the dotted line this evening - the lovely mum who's been looking after my daughter all day (Thanks Diane! :-)) . So, now there's another £10 in the pot (actually £12.50 with tax - I'll keep pushing this as it really does make a difference - another 25%!), so we're creeping up to a quarter of the way there already - isn't everyone being so fantastic!

On a last note, I was chatting to a small group of kids from the lower school at lunchtime. They'd started by commenting on my going bald, and asking why I was doing it. Having repeated about my friend Julia, and the reasons the baldness has significance for me, and having had the mickey taken about my future shiny scalp (and their amazement I was going to actually do it!) we talked ended up talking about how it was affecting one of the girl's mother's friend, and her friend's sister, and how it ran through the family.

Sometimes I can't comprehend how many people are affected, either directly or indirectly, by this disease (go to any holistic healer/ doctor, and they will remind you 'disease' means 'not at ease', so something that isn't sitting right with your body/ mind...) The sadness I feel each time I hear of another person who is living with it, doesn't blunten with the hearing (sometimes I wish it would! :-( ) but grows all the time.

Each person's (I shouldn't say 'pain' and 'hardship' - that's not supposed to help with being positive- though that is what I'm thinking), life challenges (shall we say) seems to accumulate... and I'm finding butterflies (actually, I think they're bats!) flying round my stomach. Because, in a way, although I'm trying to do something to help, I really don't feel I am. Small drops in the ocean, and all that...

But, I suppose, if we can only be a small drop, then we should all try to join a stream, and that stream to join the sea...

We do what we can.

(There was something else I was going to say today, but I can't for the life of me think what it was! Maybe I'll remember tomorrow...)