Walk for Life 2016 completed

My sponsored walk to raise money for the Alzheimer's society has finally taken place. A big thanks to everyone who sponsored me, I exceeded my target which was great. 

Big Girl kindly said she would accompany me, and we left home with a decent amount of time before the start so we could find a parking spot. Unfortunately the car park right next to the start was full, so a  quick look on my phone showed me the next nearest one which had plenty of spaces left. At six minutes away it didn't seem too far, but silly me, I had the settings on 'by car' - 'by foot' was a 14 minute walk. Well I guess it was a good warm up!

There were hundreds of people congregated in front of Mariners' chapel, a great turn out that exceeded the Alzheimer's society's expectations which was fantastic. We got yet another warm up, as everyone was asked to participate in a mini Zumba workout!

Then we found out that the route had changed. It was supposed to be quite a scenic route, starting at the docks then going on through Alney Island where there is a nature reserve. I was rather looking forward to it as I haven't been there before but apparently not enough people had volunteered as marshals so for health and safety reasons they had to keep it local. So it was changed to four times around the docks 😕

A countdown to 10.30 and we were off! The walk began alongside the Victoria Dock, accompanied by a cheery, if rather aged, Samba band...

The Candle is a 21m (68ft) high sculpture designed by Wolfgang Buttress. It has lines from the poem 'Requiem', by the Gloucester writer Ivor Gurney, engraved around the base. Known locally as 'the Rusty Needle', the Candle is meant to be a reminder of how many fires have occurred in the docks over the years...

If you click on the photo below you should be able to read it...

There were several onlookers, come to support us I think 😉....

And lots to look at as we walked, including several vessels being maintained or repaired in the dry docks...

Gloucester Docks was used as a location for Tim Burton's film 'Through the Looking Glass' starring Johnny Depp. The docks were dredged to provide enough depth for five sailing ships. I don't know if the one we saw was one of them. The weather looks rather ominous in the photo below doesn't it. Luckily there was only a few spots of rain, and one brief downpour near the end of the walk...

The walk took a bit longer than it should have as there was a bottleneck at the bridge over the lock and also the one by the dry docks. Hundreds of people converging on a single track bridge meant a few minutes wait every time we got to one.

There was another short hold up when we had to wait for the Llanthony bridge to come back down after a vessel had passed through...

It took around one and a half hours to complete but would have been less if we hadn't had to queue. Big Girl was quite pleased to get a medal at the end. Now it's just a case of working out my total donations, waiting for a few last minute ones and sending the money off!

Once again, thank you to all our supporters, we couldn't have done it without you (well we could but it would have been a bit pointless without raising any money!)

Xxxx