I visited my old secondary school, Plymstock School, at 8:30am, and now I have a completely and utterly full van. This is only my second school to visit, but to be fair we did collect a huge amount of stuff on the weekend at my unplanned stop at Morrisons. The Plymstock School students and staff [...]

Everyone keeps asking me what it was like being in Saipan on March 11th, so here goes …. It’s absolutely NOTHING compared to what everyone else has been through but nonetheless friends are interested. I was sitting at the beachside outdoor restaurant, in my usual spot overlooking the sea, and working on the fifth chapter [...]

I know some people might find it amusing that I care about my dogs as much as I do but those that know me well know how much they mean to me and indulge me in that. Usually I try not to leave Japan for more than ten days because I don’t like being away [...]

Now THIS is what I came here for! I started the day with a 4K run (how much do I love yesterday’s acupuncture that sorted out my sciatica?!) at the end of which I popped into the corner shop near Mum’s to ask them to support Japan how they could. A couple of lads were [...]

I picked up the van from Hitachi Capital in Trowbridge today — honestly I couldn’t have met a nicer bunch of people. They were so keen to have the van spotless, filled up with petrol, and with countless emergency numbers in case I needed them, and then insisted that I brought it back with an [...]

And my favourite drawing from the children at St John’s.

What a great day today!!!!! Hitachi Capital were thrilled to be approached to lend a vehicle for this mission — they had donated 3.5 million dollars to relief funds immediately and were actually having a meeting about other practical ways they could help when my step-mother-in-law called them yesterday (I had roped her in after [...]

Yesterday was a very frustrating day. I had spent the day before running around Newbury trying to convince people to lend me a van with no success. So yesterday I decided to hit the phones. I called about 20 van hire or removal companies to see if they could lend me a transit van for [...]

Not a bad start for the first day of my mission ….. got someone to print three t-shirts for me, and someone to print signs to go on the side of a vehicle, got a bank to waive any transfer charges, and raised a hundred pounds. And I haven’t visited one school yet. No luck [...]

Not that I needed any reminders of why I love Japan so much but 24 hours in Shanghai have given me plenty. Never mind; after 16 hours sleep and resorting to swearing at anyone that approached me I am feeling much better and ready for the 12-hour flight to Heathrow. I can’t access my Facebook [...]