Oscar's flag- take 3

Today's been eventful.

Anyone who's been reading this blog regularly will know having the flag itself made has been an ordeal. I put together an original design on a green & white background, using images of Oscar & logo's of the charities involved. It proved too complex for our flag manufacturer, who admitted defeat about 2 weeks ago. They put me in touch with another company, a wholesale company who don't usually deal with the public, as they had more manpower & should be better placed to help us (I'm not going to use the names of these companies, until we've resolved our issues).

This company agreed a more basic design of one white horizontal stripe on a green background, with simply "The Oscar Knox Appeal" across it in large black lettering, with a smaller "Team Oscar" in white in the bottom right hand corner.  They agreed it would be ready for dispatch on Monday & we should receive it by Wednesday. I planned on taking it along to Goodison on Wednesday night, but was prepared for it to not be ready in time. When it didn't arrive yesterday, a little bit of worry set in. I e-mailed the company, but no reply. This morning, I called them first thing. No answer. Numerous (increasingly anxious) e-mails & phonecalls later & I heard nothing. The postman came & went & no sign. Sheer panic set in. One more post window before Man City v Everton tomorrow, for the 'trial run'. More importantly, one more post window before the Hibs-Hearts derby. The flag may well turn up on Monday then, but if it wasn't in one ground, surely this would've failed?



I decided to ring round some local flagmakers, in the hope that one may have dealt with this company in the past, & have an alternative method of contact for them. I spoke to Charlie at Barmy Flags, at about 4pm today, & after trying to contact the other company on my behalf, he called me back & said he would have a go at putting something together for us, to be picked up tonight. The man was an absolute lifesaver.



I got home from work, & the fog was ridiculous. You couldn't see your hand in front of your face,
& myself & my wife had to set off for the Peak District in it. The obvious traffic & a few closed roads aside, it was much more straightforward than I anticipated.



Although the flag is even more basic than we wanted, & doesn't quite convey the message we wanted it to (we had to limit it to 10 characters or less), I'm delighted that we have the flag, & for probably the first time since we started this, I feel relaxed. I've put in all the work I can to be prepared for this, & everything else is in the lap of the Gods. Surely we've had as much bad luck as is possible now?


I intend to add a few more bits to it manually, just Oscar's web addresses (http://oscarknox.blogspot.co.uk/) (https://twitter.com/Wee_Oscar) & the neuroblastoma alliance details, mainly so people will hopefully look further into it.
You can have a look at the flag in it's current incarnation so you can have a rough idea what to look for on Match of the Day tomorrow night (these photo's are taken outside the MOTD studios tonight), but hopefully it will be a bit more detailed by then. Deano has arranged t-shirts for us to wear to games with it, which will certainly be noticeable (!) once the main tour starts on Sunday.

As always, those of you who haven't already,please use the above links to familiarise yourself with Oscar's story. Also, anyone who would like to donate to our JustGiving page, you can do so here http://www.justgiving.com/7ma7ches7coun7ries7days

We are funding this trip entirely by ourselves, & 100 per cent of all donations page will go to Oscar's charity


Thanks for reading

Itinerary- as it stands

Thought I'd better throw up an update of how it looks at the moment

Sunday- Jamie & Dean travel from St Albans to Edinburgh for Hibs v Hearts. I'm on a train from Manchester,go the match, then straight back home for work Monday morning, in Manchester,7.30 start.

Monday- train for me,after work,straight to Newcastle,while Jamie & Dean are on a train from Edinburgh(rather than from St Albans as initially booked) for Newcastle v Wigan. Straight after the match,we're on the overnight bus to Glasgow for a 12.20 flight into Paris.

Tuesday-Land at 3pm local,drop bags at hotel,leaving us approx 4 hrs to sort our tickets for PSG v Porto.

Wednesday-me & Dean fly into Barcelona at 10am,whilst Jamie makes his way back into Luton. Barcelona v Benfica that night

Thursday- Fly from Barcelona onto Milan. Don't land there til late afternoon,Inter v Neftci

Friday- fly from Milan into Eindhoven,as we were originally headed for Heracles v Utrecht,but are instead onward bound from there,via train for Hamburg v Hoffenheim. Jamie's got a 7am flight from Stansted direct into Hamburg,whilst me & Dean leave Milan at 6am

Saturday- is currently a blank canvas for us. These fixtures have changed so often, it's best to leave open now to see what's best positioned for us,money wise & timewise. Ideally, it will be a Dutch game but a Belgian game would be cheaper & easier for us making it to Charleroi for our flight back into Manchester.at 9am Sunday morning.

Sunday-1 last venture, train across to Liverpool for Everton v Spurs, our original English fixture.Jamie & Dean have a train from Lime st back into Watford,whilst its back to Manc for me. To catch up on some sleep,before work,7.30 Monday morning. All over again

You can plan a picnic, but you can't predict the weather

First of all, I'm sorry about the title of this post. It seemed appropriate to the content but it's really bad.I am sorry.Just not sorry enough to change it

Just 3 more days to go before it all begins & there are still countless loose ends to tie up. Least of all the flag itself! Despite the seemingly basic nature of it, it's still not ready,so didn't make it to Goodison last night. However, it simply has to be ready in time for a 'practice run' at Man City on Saturday. If its not, I've no idea what our alternative is,but we're getting used to thinking on our feet. Our budget is at pretty much bursting point,if we're to maintain that side of the challenge,& we've no fallback money in it for when things,inevitably, go pear-shaped on the continent. We've allowed for our (increasingly restricted) spending money & the tickets/travel we need to arrange whilst out there,but anything else means we lose out on this aspect. In the grand scheme of things, who cares? We're on the adventure of a lifetime,& these little challenging ground rules are only a little fun factor anyway. The main purpose now is raising the profile of the Oscar Knox Appeal & I apologise to those involved with it for not spending more time doing so at this stage. I promise that,once were on the road, its all about that. His cause is a great one so please share our story where you can, but more importantly, share the links at the bottom of this page to his blog & the justgiving links. Every little helps

On the subject of the challenge aspects,the Ryanair flights only proviso went by the wayside recently anyway, but this was a lot more important than any budgetary issues. 

In the last blog, I mentioned that Jamie had received some bad news of his own. 

Unfortunately, his sister-in-law lost her battle with cancer last weekend & we had to sort out some flights back to the UK for Jamie to attend the funeral. Her funeral will take place on the Thursday but due to the timing of the service,Jamie will be flying home from Paris on the Wednesday,instead of onto Barcelona with me & Deano. I'm particularly gutted for Jamie because I know the Nou Camp was the part he was looking forward to most, but he is 100% right to be there for his family,especially his brother,at this difficult time. Our thoughts will be with them all,as well as Jevs, on that day. Jamie will be rejoining us on the Friday, in Hamburg.

I'm starting to get mixed emotions with it all now. We're determined to get Oscar's flag pictured in some of the top stadia in Europe to try & promote his appeal, so there's a focus. 

There's also a great deal of anxiety as to what else could possibly go wrong. I wince at every single weather forecast I'm seeing at the moment (Please, for the love of God, tell me the flooding/frost/snow couldn't possibly affect travel in & out of Newcastle?or(Ryanair) flights out of Glasgow? Paris/Barcelona/Milan are tropical hotspots this time of year, no?).
There's also a great deal of excitement seeping in now. Beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel (famous last words)

**********in this place was supposed to be a video of Everton fans singing in Amsterdam,when we were away at Alkmaar to represent football fans trying to keep warm in Holland in December, but I only had an hour to search YouTube to find a safe video with the keywords 'Everton fans Amsterdam' 
I'll get back to you if I find one******* 

As I said when this blog began, it's been hard work adapting to fixture changes initially, but even more so when real life gets in the way of something like this. I apologise that this blog hasn't exactly been a barrel of laughs at this point, but I promise that,from Monday night onwards,knowing these lads the way I do, it will be more interesting, & there will be a 'witty' anecdote or 2, as Jamie & Dean will be taking over the blog at some point next week, although sadly you'll now be deprived of the story of when Jamie Franklin was on the Curva Nord.I expect the climax to this tour to be nothing short of legendary to make Jamie's efforts worthwhile

Lastly, the justgiving page is up & running now,so please take a few minutes to read Oscar's blog (http://oscarknox.blogspot.com/)
& then donate to ours,(https://www.justgiving.com/7ma7ches7coun7ries7days) or Oscar's justgiving page (https://www.justgiving.com/donation/sponsor?process=1&queryId=cABhAGcAZQA9ADQAMQA1ADYAMQA4ADcA), follow the wee fella on Twitter (https://twitter.com/Wee_Oscar) & like his Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/OscarKnoxAppeal)

His story is truly heart-breaking, whilst his courage is truly heart-warming. For for those of you I haven't bored to death in person by bleating on about him, please read it & familiarise yourself. This is now the whole purpose of this trip, & as the banner says, if every person that reads his blog donated a pound, it could save his life. The same sentiment applies to those of you still reading this. From small acorns & all that

I will update tomorrow & there'd best be a picture on a flag. If not, expect a pic of a hastily painted bedsheet

https://www.justgiving.com/7ma7ches7coun7ries7days

Just giving

A lot has happened in 24 hrs. Having spoken with numerous friends & family about it, I've decided, with a heavy heart, to proceed from Barcelona to Milan as planned. The costs incurred in getting back in & out are all too much, on top of everything else, & this is a once in a lifetime attempt at doing something like this. I've been in touch with Jevs' family & I hope they can understand my reasons for not making it to his funeral next week. He'll certainly be in my thoughts

Jamie unfortunately received a bit more bad news of his own recently, that will massively affect the trip, but it's not my place to comment on that at this stage, at least until we've resolved everything. I was going to title this post "it never rains,but it pours" but it's too late in the day to be negative on our setbacks. Whatever decision Jamie reaches, we'll support it & help him out accordingly

So, back to the planning of it, & everyday's post brings a new batch of tickets. We've now got 4 of the game's tickets in hand, so that'll make life a little easier on the other side. PSG on the Tuesday night is our main concern, but I'm more determined to complete all 7 now more than ever

I've also been told the flag is almost finished, so hopefully I'll have it in time to take to Goodison tomorrow night, but I won't know until later in the day. I'm a little nervous to see the finished product, as it's nothing like the original design idea

So, now that I'm personally fully committed to all 7 games again, nows the time to start the justgiving  campaign. I realise it's a bit late in the day, with us setting off on Sunday, but I've explained the reasons we decided against it in the initial blog, & we've set a target that we don't expect to raise by the time we return, so it gives us a commitment to continue fundraising for Wee Oscar afterwards

Here's the link

https://www.justgiving.com/7ma7ches7coun7ries7days 

Finally, the main purpose of this blog, & now this trip, is to raise more awareness for Oscar's story. Please read his blog here

http://oscarknox.blogspot.co.uk/

Follow him on twitter here

https://twitter.com/Wee_Oscar

Like his Facebook page here

https://www.facebook.com/OscarKnoxAppeal

Curveballs

So I said on my last blog that I would be updating it on a daily basis, with more recent developments of our plan. Truth is, I've sat down to do so a few times now, & each time, not finished it, because I'm still waiting on a few things before I can make a concrete decision. Trying to organise something like this is a lot of work, however life obviously goes on whilst the process takes place, & life, as it does, continues to throw all sorts of curveballs at you. We all have our own personal crosses to bear & I've tried to keep my everyday worries out of this challenge. However, the 2 are now inextricably linked



2 weeks ago, a good friend of mine was subbed off from a football match, complaining of chest pains. He was taken to hospital to be checked out,but unfortunately passed away within hours. Paul Jevon was 31 years of age. When something like this happens, we all seemingly go through the same process of shock at the sudden nature of it, grieving for the family, before reviewing our own priorities & questioning our own mortality. However, Jevs' death now also has a very direct impact on this trip & that's why I'm mentioning it now. His funeral was announced on Saturday to be held on Thursday 6th Dec in Brookman's Park, Herts. On that day, I'm due to fly from Barcelona to Milan to take in the Inter game.



I've spent the last few days weighing it all up. I've come too far & invested too much time & money to simply give up on it. More importantly, Jevs was a real keen traveller & that would be the last thing he would want. If I were to attempt this,however, & miss out on a game, having missed Jevs' funeral, it would haunt me forever. At this stage, my inclination is to miss out on the Inter Milan game, before flying back into hamburg to resume the trip. I realise that this will mean I don't complete the challenge in full, but at this point, I feel like I have to prioritise. As well as that, the flag has become a much more important part of this all anyway,which Jamie & Dean will be able to carry forwards,& hopefully they'll be able to complete all 7.



However, there are still a few problems standing in my way, so this isn't a final decision. I'll have to re-work the logistics of getting back in & out of England in time,& at this late stage, this will be at a huge cost to myself.So, it's still not 100 per cent certain that this is the way I'll go. Just figured I'd update as to where we're at



Thanks for reading

I will make sure that tomorrow's update does include the justgiving link

Baz

The 'ever-evolving' itinerary

When I started this blog, my intention was to update it on a daily basis. I appreciate that this is now a bit late in the day, but from here on in, small, daily updates. After today

The last few days have been manic. First of all, the flag isn't going to be finished to our spec in time. In fairness to the company who have been working on it, they admitted defeat & put us in touch with a firm in Newcastle who can salvage as much as possible of it, but its highly unlikely that it will contain images that we wanted it to. However, we have settled on a design that will hopefully convey the message that we want it to & Deano has taken it upon himself to get t-shirts done now, so hopefully we can put something together. I was hoping the flag would get to make its debut at Goodison on saturday, when I'm at the Everton v Norwich game, but that's not going to happen now. There is still an outside chance of it being at Goodison when we play Arsenal next Wednesday, but if not, it'll definitely be coming to City v Everton. Despite all of our clubs playing in blue & white, we've opted for a green & white flag, as wee Oscar's a Celtic fan. How that will go down on the Friday night,when we're at Hamburg (who have big links to Rangers, whilst their city rivals St.Pauli have even bigger links with Celtic) remains to be seen

The colours however,I expect will be welcome at Easter Road for the Edinburgh derby. When I finished the first blog, I mentioned that our ever-evolving (I've used that term a lot throughout this process) itinerary may be changing to take in Hibs-Hearts. I contacted Hibs & asked them to flout their rules a little to allow us to purchase said tickets & they obliged, so we now kick off a day earlier.A massive thank you to Hibernian Football Club for keeping all 7 countries alive. Where there's a will, there's a way. It'll be a bit surreal for me, as I'll have to get home afterwards, go to work early Monday morning, before rejoining the lads in Newcastle.(If anyone reading this has a connection at Red Bull, who may be interested in trialling an IV drip during this process, put them in touch with me, please)

Jamie & Dean,meanwhile,having been booked on a train from Stevenage to Newcastle on the Monday, will be travelling to Edinburgh instead on the Sunday. I also mentioned on the last blog that their ticket was non-refundable. So we've lost £80, whilst spending another £200 on match tickets, travel & digs. every action has a reaction, so we have to shave that off the other end of the budget. 

I deliberately left the travel clear between landing in Eindhoven on the Friday morning & flying out of Charleroi Sunday morning. This was to give us a little flexibility & allowed us to trade Heracles v Utrecht for Ajax v Groningen & go to Hamburg on the Friday. I've been to Amsterdam on 4 occasions but never for football, so, ever since we dropped Bayern Munich from our itinerary, this was the highlight for me. Unfortunately, Ajax have a policy of charging non-Dutch citizens an absolute fortune, & coupling that with the costs of a train from Hamburg to Amsterdam, to then leave & travel to Belgium for an early morning flight, that looks like where we make up the shortfall in our budget, by heading for a Belgian game instead. 

So we go back to Standard Liege v Charleroi, as its en route, only to find that this is another victim of late fixture changes (BBC football & Statto websites are still reporting it as saturday 8th, so it must be recent). So, at the time of writing, our most feasible option to round it all off is Mons v Anderlecht, as they are geographically the closest club to our flight home (obviously excluding Charleroi, who are at Liege)That'll be that 'ever-evolving' itinerary again. Who knows where we'll be going by this time tomorrow?

Before I finish off, I have to mention the reaction to my first blog. A lot of people I've spoken to since have mentioned that only some of the links to Oscar's pages worked, so I'll try & get them all right this time around. However, the biggest positive for me was people taking a bit of an interest in Oscar's story & being moved to donate to his justgiving page ( http://www.justgiving.com/OscarAppeal ) . As a result of this, I've thought about setting up our own Justgiving page for friends & family to donate & seeing what we can raise ourselves. As I said previously in the blog, we are funding this entire trip ourselves & the idea of asking people for money while we swan off across Europe is crass.The sole purpose of the flag was to raise awareness for Oscar's story. However, some pride must be swallowed,as Oscar & his family deserve all the help they can get, so I will ensure tomorrow's update (a much briefer version, I hope, although I've always said "why use 1 word when 1000 will do?") contains a link to our own justgiving page. I just hope its not too late in the day for us to raise a decent amount before we set off. Meantime, read Oscar's main blog (http://oscarknox.blogspot.co.uk/), donate via that page, follow him on Twitter (https://twitter.com/Wee_Oscar)& like him on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/OscarKnoxAppeal) 

Once you've done that, spread the word

Oscar's Flag

7 top flight football matches in 7 different countries in 7 days. Just writing that makes me feel tired. Excited, but tired.

I've always had a passion for football,as well as travelling. Unfortunately, I also have a 'passion' for getting drunk with my mates & talking myself into stupid scenarios that I then refuse to back down from. This has led me to overnight trips to Basle, Switzerland for no apparent reason, or a mini-tour of Scotland following a Friday night in a pub in St Albans,Herts, to be home in time to play sunday league football. (over 24 hrs of drinking & travelling is not fun when followed by starting in central midfield straight after. Even less fun when you concede with the last kick to take the game into extra time!)

Both of these occasions were shared with my good mate, Paul, who was best man at my wedding. The reason I'm mentioning these is to give whoever's bothered to read this some insight into how this idea came to fruition.

It seems relatively straightforward in this day & age(!), so we decided to set some boundaries. First of all, the games have to be top flight,(or both top level teams in a cup competition) to prevent us from just filling with mickey mouse local teams. Secondly, we can only use public transport (planes, trains & automobiles). The flights we're taking (there are now quite a few) for some sick, perverse reason, must be Ryanair. Anyone who's ever travelled with them will understand why this is the most nerve-wracking part of the journey for me.  We have to work within a set budget (I'll get to that later) & we're at the complete mercy of the fixture list. We thought we could put together some sort of social commentary piece on how Sky are ruining football by messing around fixtures at short notice, but that idea fell away (truth be told, I've learned throughout this process that Sky are a very lesser evil in terms of European tv affecting fixtures- I'm writing this 2 weeks before we set off & just today we lost a very crucial fixture in our plan. We now have absolutely none of the games we initially plotted to take in on our itinerary).

I'm an Evertonian, whereas Paul is a Spurs fan, so we decided with everton playing Spurs on the sunday after a European week, that would be the week we would go for it. We had planned a preliminary route & once the Champions League  & Europa League draws were made, we hastily ripped that up, as not many fixtures fell our way.  I think at this point, there must have been 30 different fixtures on the agenda. I still expect to be brainstorming when we inevitably get let down again

Unfortunately, whilst we were putting this all together, Paul had to pull out due to work reasons, & the whole thing seemed very improbable. Until 2 other mates, Jamie & Dean stepped forward to keep the dream alive. Both in their (very) late 30's, Jamie's a Chelsea fan, whilst Dean keeps the Spurs connection alive. Both are top lads, who won't make the drinking side of these 7 days any easier, but the banter (I really hate that word, but it seems apt) will certainly be top notch

Whilst I've been putting this trip together, a lot of people have asked what charity we're fundraising for. The truth is, this is a once in a lifetime experience for us, which will involve watching some of the best football in the world, whilst seeing some of Europe's finest cities (through beer goggles), so to be asking people to sponsor us to do so, seems extremely vulgar to me & I would be cynical of anyone collecting money in this fashion. However, for the past 6 months or so, I've been following a blog written by the family of Oscar Knox (http://oscarknox.blogspot.co.uk/). Oscar is a 4 year old boy from Northern Ireland who was diagnosed last year with neuroblastoma, an extremely rare & aggressive form of childhood cancer.His family are aiming to raise £250,000 to give Oscar the best treatment possible, whilst assisting other children with this disease & the fundraising campaign that has taken place in Oscar's name has been nothing short of phenomenal. As a former pub landlord, I wanted to organise a fundraiser in Oscar's name but felt I had lost the contacts to make it a big enough success since moving to Manchester. I decided to try & tie this trip into raising awareness for oscar's story. I contacted Oscar's family asking if it was acceptable to get a flag made up bearing Oscar's name, twitter /facebook account details  (@Wee_Oscar  #TeamOscar  facebook.com/OscarKnoxAppeal) to raise awareness via televised games in the biggest stadia in Europe. This is the reason why I am now writing this blog. We set off in 2 weeks time & are now very likely to make complete fools of ourselves by keeping everyone at home informed of our exploits, via this & various social media networks, as well as promoting Oscar's justgiving page at every opportunity, via every available platform (: https://www.justgiving.com/donation/sponsor?process=1&queryId=cABhAGcAZQA9ADQAMQA1ADYAMQA4ADcA ). This, of course, also leaves us very vulnerable to the possibility of not completing it (at the time of writing, having just lost said key fixture, we're in line to do 7 games but in 6 countries. Also, 1 of the games is a potential sell-out, leaving us 4 hrs from arrival to negotiate 3 tickets without speaking the language. Particularly looking forward to that bit)
We are currently even sweating on the flag itself, but confident it will be made in time. If not, it'll be a home-made bedsheet but its the most important component of this trip now & I will be working a lot more to raise awareness of Oscar's story throughout this

So, here's the itinerary, as it currently stands. Monday 3rd December has proved to be truly tricky date for European football, so we have had to start right here in England with Newcastle vs Wigan. As I had only 4 days holiday remaining, I am having to go to work, in Manchester that day, whilst Jamie & Dean are booked on a train up from St Albans. 8pm ko, & then we're on the MegaBus (the £1 ones with Dara O'Briain's face on the back-charged us more than £1 & all) to Glasgow. We arrive in Glasgow at 2.40am, so have had to find a hotel with a 24 hr check in. From Glasgow, we fly (Ryanair, of course) to Paris (by Paris, I mean some town within 2 hrs of it), landing just 4 hours before kick off. As of now, PSG, who play Porto that night, are only selling tickets as a package with their lesser fixture  against Troyes, at 120 euros each, putting them way out of our budget, so we're up against it for this one. From Paris, we fly to Barcelona, where we'll be taking in (hopefully) Barcelona vs Benfica. Thursday,we're flying to Milan for Inter vs Neftci in the Europa League. Friday night was supposed to be Heracles vs Utrecht, but due to Saturday's fixture moving (I'm getting to that), we've decided to go to Hamburg vs Hoffenheim instead, freeing up Ajax vs Groningen on the Saturday night. However, we have already booked flights from Milan to Eindhoven, (at 6am no less!) & Ryanair were never going to allow us to change that. So, it's a train from Eindhoven to Hamburg for no apparent reason, then Hamburg to Amsterdam the following day. Following the Ajax game, much to Jamie & Deano's disdain, we aren't spending the night in the Dam, instead opting for Brussels. This is due to a 9am flight from Charleroi back into Manchester, to get a train across to Liverpool in time to get home to Goodison, for said spurs game. I believe Paul will be joining us for this one, whilst Jamie will be joining me in the Gwladys st end, due to his "dislike of all things Tottenham"

As I've mentioned earlier, we are restricted to a strict budget, so every penny counts with travel, accomodation, match tickets, the flag itself, & of course, drink to be covered by this. I suppose food, as well.

As we had lost out on the monday game, our plan was to travel from Almelo (where the Heracles-Utrecht game is being played) down to Monchengladbach to see Borussia play Mainz at 3.30, only to leave early to make it to Liege in time for Standard vs Charleroi at 8pm (& hope to blag a lift to the airport with away fans, I suppose). This allowed us to exclude the Everton game & still make 7 games in 7 different countries within the 7 day window. As I also mentioned earlier, the Monchengladbach game was earlier today moved to the sunday, hence the rearranged schedule,& the 2 games in 1 day idea was no more. This means we've still got 7 games in 7 days,but only 6 countries. (already got the 4 EFC-Spurs tickets in hand, so no chance of doing a game that sunday instead).
Brainwave. Scotland,on the sunday before we're due to start. The only game that fits the criteria, however, is the Edinburgh derby. I've always fancied going to Hibs (I'm currently reading Skagboys, Irvine Welsh's prequel to Trainspotting, which paints a real picture of Leith), however, having spent £100 of our budget on Jamie & Dean's (non-refundable) tickets to Newcastle, from St Albans, the following day,& tickets to the derby, understandably, only on sale to those supporters with a purchase history at Hibs, this seems to be yet another challenge along the way

So, I think this, my first ever blog, is long-winded & boring enough for now, but I just wanted to convey the logic behind this trip, what we've had to endure thus far (it has been a whole lot more, but I've summed up. Seriously.)

I will aim to update it regularly, with pictures of the flag, once sorted, maps, a twitter account & a facebook page, as well as more details of Oscar's pages, before eventually pictures & details of the trip itself


EDIT- adding our justgiving link to the original blog

https://www.justgiving.com/7ma7ches7coun7ries7days


Many thanks

Baz