El Camino Ride for Cancer

A fundraising pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela and Cape Finisterre

When my dear wife, Lesley, passed away in 2006 from a brain tumour, she left behind many happy memories for me and my young sons Christopher and Luke. She fought hard and against the odds to leave us those memories and relied heavily on a local charity called the South East Cancer Help Centre.

The Centre does a fantastic job of supporting patients and carers at the most difficult times of their lives. From personal experience I can say that they make a real difference and you could help their work by contributing to our fundraising efforts. Donations can be made via JustGiving.com http://www.justgiving.com/el-camino or directly at the Centre which is in Purley. For more details of the Centre and their work see their website at http://www.sechc.org.uk/

Our original ride myself with Luke and Des Donohoe was a huge success raising over £9000 so this year Des and I decided to don sack cloth and ashes to make a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela and eventually Cape Finisterre in north western Spain and back. A distance of 1500km.

A change of personnel was called for after a brief meeting with Luke.

Me: “Would you like to go to Compostela?” Luke: “No!” Me: “Why not?” Luke: “Just two reasons. I hate cycling and I hated spending two weeks with you old people.”

Oh well, my charms still work on Christopher, now a medical student. He has agreed to put down his stethoscope and spend three weeks with us so YES we have a team!!

Please don’t think this will be a doddle, Des is now 72 and even my joints creak whilst walking up the stairs. As you can see from last time, we have all our luggage to carry plus we’ll be staying in Pilgrim Hostals, rough living even for those of us who are used to the infamous “0 Star” Scout camps! So please be generous, it will make our journey easier knowing that someone cares!

 

 

You can also follow our blog at http://the-picos-ride-for-cancer.blogspot.co.uk/