Day 144 – 10th December 2010

An early bird today. I had a 7.30am Network meeting at the Brighton Chamber of Commerce and then a dash to the office as we are also moving today (after 12 years at the same offices). So I ventured into the sea at 6.45am for my first ever freezing cold solo swim! The Arches was dark and uninviting this morning and after sitting there at 6.15am for about 10 minutes I gave up on the talking myself out of it and took the plunge (so to speak). As it was both freezing cold and extremely dark I stayed very close to the water’s edge and simply did the groin to pier swim that Bob and I have been doing of late. The hardest thing for me was actually trying to unlock the Arches when I got back, my fingers simply not wanting to respond to the signals my brain was trying to tell them. Either that or my fingers were well up to the job but my brain was frozen and forget to send the message down; either way it was certainly character building at 6.30am! After a very very quick shower and change I was back in the car and heading over to the meeting. Having got there half an hour early I was able to thaw out and make myself presentable. My task at the meeting was to address a number of local businesses and tell them about the Starr Trust and to answer some rather odd questions; for instance “if my charity was an animal what would it be” ? I think that the meeting went well and in truth the questions made it a bit more focused and certainly added a lightness to the event. Afterwards I met a number of really interesting people and then left Micala there to carry on the Trust talk and I headed back to work to get involved with the move.

Moving offices, especially two offices, was quite a daunting task, but the organisation that my team brought to it was astounding and by the end of the day we were settled in and everything was working; a miracle indeed.