ITEX... we survived!

Well. I've just got home from the 'ITEX weekend' in Jersey. 11 mad friends, two chaotic houses, one very very long walk, a lot of Love Bars, peanut butter sandwiches and packets of crisps, and a few bottles of beer and cider thrown in - makes for a mad, tiring, but rewarding weekend. A good time was had by all, I think (as the organiser, it's always a bit difficult to get a perspective on how things have actually gone, but I think it was all ok!).

Massive thanks go to my parents, Kelly, and Amy for putting up with the chaos and being excellent hosts. I hope tranquility has returned to your houses tonight and that we've not left anything behind or forgotten to do anything!

The walk was certainly a challenge, but we all did amazingly. Richelle and Naomi were an excellent support crew, picking us up when we dropped and getting to the later check points ahead of us to encourage us and point us in the right direction. With varying degrees of pain and injury, we managed the following:

Sally - 17 miles
Tania - 20 miles
Me and Steve D - 26.2 miles
Marty - 30 miles
Steve B and Rich - 32 miles
Helen - 35 miles
Pete - 48.1 miles

Yes, Pete did the full distance! Massive congratulations to him, and to everyone else - I think we all went further than we thought we could, and it amounts to fantastic personal achievements all round.

There are some photos in the usual place, but Rich has more (and better) which will probably appear here at some point over the next few days.

The walk also sees me having completed one of my New Years resolutions - so that's one down, and 8 to go. I had a number of fantastic birthday presents last week, but by far the most inspired and thoughtful was a collection of gifts from Na, Steve, Helen and Pete, themed on my resolutions (a Love Bar for the walk, The Godfather to read, An Affair to Remember to watch, a sleep mask, an Italian DVD, a wooden bracelet for luck on not falling over, a toy saxophone, a map of Bali, and the London by London book). Fantastic!

I am however left with some general aches, and a slightly more concerning pain in my right knee... having already damaged the ligaments in my left knee (now mostly healed) and torn the cartiledge in the now infamous frisbee incident last year, I was a bit worried about how that knee would fare on the walk - very well it seems, because that knee feels fine now. The right knee however, not so - it hurts, it much the same way as the ligament pain did in the other knee. I'm really hoping that there won't be any lasting damage and that the pain will ease off.

So, Pete, Helen, Steve, Sally, Naomi, Steve, Tania, Rich, Marty and Richelle: Same place, same time, next year...?!? ;-)