Friday 5 June 2009

18 Working Days To Go!!

Today was a rather productive yet unproductive day! I managed to get the Rottweiler Welfare Association on the phone after getting answer phones for the last couple of days only to be told I would have to ring the secretary!! It was fairly late in the afternoon though by this point so I just took a note of the number and will give her, Jenny, a call tomorrow and hopefully we can get something sorted so I can register them on Just Giving.

I was also about to register my other pages on Just Giving and then thought it might be an idea to actually speak to the charities first – I have already had contact with Help For Heroes by email but not been in contact with the other 2 yet. Anyway, I read through the email from Help For Heroes and there is a link to register my event with them and then I can take it from there. Again, though, it was quite late in the afternoon so I have left that for tomorrow (if I find time!).

I am determined now to get in touch with all 4 charities tomorrow – it’s well frustrating not being able to get everything ready on my blog so people can start donating. I can’t wait to see the money start rolling in for the charities I have chosen!

I now have only 18 working days until I finish at work and it’s starting to dawn on me just what I have done! I need to hand over all of my work by the time I leave and I will have a pretty intense couple of weeks now as I need to have everything ready by Thursday 18th June when I visit our other office at the other end of the country to make sure everything will run ok.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not having regrets about putting my notice in. Quite the contrary, I have not felt this relaxed in a long time and I know it was definitely the correct decision. It’s been a bit of a tough time lately with a lot of pressure to keep the house going on my own – I have been living off £30 a month since February but I feel that all the pressure I have been under is now being released. It’s not so bad being skint if you are not working for, effectively, 2p an hour!!

On a positive note today, I rang the vets on the back of a comment left on here to do with hip scores for Roman. For those of you who have not seen the comment Levismum (I know her from a Rottweiler forum I am a member on) left a comment expressing concern that he may be getting too much exercise and asked what his hip score was.

To be honest, I don’t know as I have not taken him to the vet to find out – I never intended to breed from him so had no real need to know but when I read this comment I kind of panicked and thought I better check it out! My mind was soon put at rest though – the vet advised that Roman is in perfect health (I take him for regular checks so he sees him regularly) and that it would really be a waste of my money to get it as he believed that he was fine. He also added that as Roman has been being exercised so much and has not shown any ill effects (in fact, if anything, he is raring to go within an hour of getting home!) that he could not really see there being a problem.

Whilst I was on the phone I enquired about the possibility of an existence of a national database of vets that I might be able to tap into in order to raise interest in what I am doing but was disappointed to find that there isn’t one in existence – I think the best course of action will be to try and obtain the email address for as many vets as possible and send them a flyer and ask them to put it up.

The conversation then got onto the issue of how I was going to provide food for Roman along the way and I said I was going to try and approach a dog food company to see if they could provide me with some vouchers to be able to go and buy food with on a daily basis – I don’t fancy lugging a 15kg bag around with me! The receptionist at the vets (Sam) said to leave it with her. 15 minutes later she was back on the phone to tell me that she had spoken to one of the high end dog food companies (I won’t mention them until anything is confirmed) and they had said that they would be able to provide me with food as long as I could advise them where I would be from day to day prior to the trip – Result! Thanks Sam!

4 comments:

  1. Hiya Matt, I didnt mean to panic you honestly, and it's great to hear that yr vet says he is in great condition, you know what these Rotts are like with Cruciate Ligaments going and Im just a born worrier!!. All good news then, and fantastic if the dog food supply comes through for you, I hope they are donating, that would be even better. I cant wait for you to start, and Im really quite envious of you making this trip, even though its not going to be all ups, but I hope there wont be too many downs for you both, it will be such an experience. Dont forget Romans pet passport and also dont forget to pack yr camera so we can follow yr progress in piccies too. Its so exciting, I bet you cant wait. Im telling everyone I know so hoping you get a lot more followers. Bye for now, Lynda aka Levismum x

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  2. Hey Lynda! Don't worry about panicking me - it's just there is so much to think about that when you said that I just had visions of getting it done and them saying he can't go! That would have been terrible!

    With reference to the pet passport, I had all that done a couple of months ago - I even got myself a nice new shiny passport too! I just need to get a really good photo of Roman now to put in his - it's not a requirement but I think it'd be pretty cool!

    I will definitely be taking a camera - and lots of memory and lots of batteries just in case! I will be diarising all of the pictures I take with a note as to where the picture was taken, what it is and, if applicable, the story to go with it.

    Thanks for helping me publicise this, it's so much hard work but I know it will be worth it - there are already signs that it is going to take off. The rate of growth on my Facebook is increasing quite considerably now!!

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  3. Hi Matt, great choice of charities and really pleased a pet food company has offered to help, if they can supply vouchers for you to use on the journey that will help tremendously.
    Hope to see you Sunday
    Angela

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  4. Hi Angela

    I will definitely be there Sunday so I will tell you more then...

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