Hi all,
Hi all,
I've not been on much over the last 5 years but things are finally back on track and hopefully you will all be hearing from me more from now on
right onto the main reason for the post...
Ok to save the eyes of the lazy ones amongst you i'll do a short and long description/explanation.
Firstly the short one, Myself and my wife (along with 15 other bikes) are doing a 1500miles journey to raise money for http://www.childline.org.uk/Pages/Home.aspx.
The whole thing is organised by http://www.childlinerocks.org.uk/great-british-invasion.html and all the expenses are being paid for by the individual riders so all money raised goes to the charity.
We start off in Cranbrook, Canada via Whitefish, Bozeman, Cooke CIty, Dubois, Vernal and ending up in Park City, Utah
There is much more information on the linked websites.
We are aiming to reach £2000 but it would be fantastic to beat that amount being such a fantastic charity and all.
to sponser just go http://www.justgiving.com/jenny-seward/
Long description.
Firstly a bit about me and my recent past, The last 5 years have been a rather hard period of my life with many changes all starting when a builders ldv decided to pull out of a side road and turn right somehow without seeing me.
Suprisingly slamming into the side of said vehicle at 40mph is not good for you or the bike.
Most importantly the bike was not saveable (a major crime in its own right) but it also left me with a paralysed left arm (brachial plexus injury for those interested) and a brain injury being the major points.
The next couple of years are very hazy with little remembered about them something I think largely todo with the head injury and opiod based painkillers.
What I do remember about this point is lots of pain, confusion and major depression, My timing for this accident couldn’t have been planned better, I had handed the notice in on my job (standard 3 month notice and they put you on immediate garden leave!) sold our house and was in the position of finding (and being offered) new job(s) and house hunting.
My partner(now wife) was sitting her finals at uni - of course know you have 3 months off I hadn't started packing..... when I came out of hospital somehow Jenny had passed her exams, packed our stuff up and moved out - she is simply amazing (yet not particularly bright considering she married me - hence her being perfect!)
So as you can imagine no job, limited ability to understand things (due to pain and effects of head injury) a change of personality and the frustration of trying todo things one handed, harder than you might think, it made for a very difficult time. I must admit I withdrew from everything for a lot of this time and its only recently that I have felt I can deal with others and talk to people again and do social activities again, so you may all be hearing from or possible even seeing more of me
Anyway i think you get the idea, simply it was a **** time.
Fast forward to the beginning of this year (5years later) and finally the insurance situation is resolved this was a major factor in changing our lives, the amount of stress it was creating not knowing what out situation was going to be was surprising. This allowed me to get back on a bike, firstly one loaned to me by another fantastic charity http://www.nabd.org.uk/, Being a few stone heavier than I used to be the poor 125 found it difficult and I found the twin lever setup difficult to adjust too so I got hold of a blackbird and had a semi auto clutch fitted, the indicators moved and I was back. riding one handed is a little scary...
Cant say how great it was to be back on a bike - a challange but great.
6 weeks ago I got an email from a web group I'm a member off talking about a charity ride accross america, now bearing in mind I have wanted to do that since i was 15 (18 years ago) and I planned to do it at 25 but then i was supporting my partner through universityso it was put off till 30, accident happened, no job, no money and diddnt believe I could ever ride again. So I saw this and just had to contact them and see if I could get it too happen, It certainly wasn't easy but they were excellent at helping me get through it. The very nice people at Kamloops in canada looked into converting one of thier loan Harleys (were all riding harleys) so I could ride it and how much etra it would be if they could. 3 weeks ago they came back and said they could do it - I can't say how great they are!
I still suffer from exhaustion, pain, goldfish memory, struggling to understand what people are explaining etc so doing 1500 miles in six days is going to be a major challange but at the same time a fantastic experience, it will probably take me weeks to recover what an achievement and all in the name of childline who lets face it supply an amazing service to the children of the uk, giving them someone to contact/talk to when they need someone to be there or even to ask help from weither its bullying or something darker.
So please feel free to donate either to support me through this or to help childline.
I will try and give daily updates, photos and location while we do the journey, hopefully on twitter and somesuch, must be an app out there somewhere that will help, so feel free to give it a read
(also feel free to message me if you think you can help with this bit or know what software/website to do this with, it would be really appreciated)
Thankyou very much for reading this and i'm sorry for the grammer/spelling mistakes and the disjointed way of writing
And again feel free to stick your sponsers here at http://www.justgiving.com/jenny-seward/
Wayne
Hi all,
I've not been on much over the last 5 years but things are finally back on track and hopefully you will all be hearing from me more from now on
right onto the main reason for the post...
Ok to save the eyes of the lazy ones amongst you i'll do a short and long description/explanation.
Firstly the short one, Myself and my wife (along with 15 other bikes) are doing a 1500miles journey to raise money for http://www.childline.org.uk/Pages/Home.aspx.
The whole thing is organised by http://www.childlinerocks.org.uk/great-british-invasion.html and all the expenses are being paid for by the individual riders so all money raised goes to the charity.
We start off in Cranbrook, Canada via Whitefish, Bozeman, Cooke CIty, Dubois, Vernal and ending up in Park City, Utah
There is much more information on the linked websites.
We are aiming to reach £2000 but it would be fantastic to beat that amount being such a fantastic charity and all.
to sponser just go http://www.justgiving.com/jenny-seward/
Long description.
Firstly a bit about me and my recent past, The last 5 years have been a rather hard period of my life with many changes all starting when a builders ldv decided to pull out of a side road and turn right somehow without seeing me.
Suprisingly slamming into the side of said vehicle at 40mph is not good for you or the bike.
Most importantly the bike was not saveable (a major crime in its own right) but it also left me with a paralysed left arm (brachial plexus injury for those interested) and a brain injury being the major points.
The next couple of years are very hazy with little remembered about them something I think largely todo with the head injury and opiod based painkillers.
What I do remember about this point is lots of pain, confusion and major depression, My timing for this accident couldn’t have been planned better, I had handed the notice in on my job (standard 3 month notice and they put you on immediate garden leave!) sold our house and was in the position of finding (and being offered) new job(s) and house hunting.
My partner(now wife) was sitting her finals at uni - of course know you have 3 months off I hadn't started packing..... when I came out of hospital somehow Jenny had passed her exams, packed our stuff up and moved out - she is simply amazing (yet not particularly bright considering she married me - hence her being perfect!)
So as you can imagine no job, limited ability to understand things (due to pain and effects of head injury) a change of personality and the frustration of trying todo things one handed, harder than you might think, it made for a very difficult time. I must admit I withdrew from everything for a lot of this time and its only recently that I have felt I can deal with others and talk to people again and do social activities again, so you may all be hearing from or possible even seeing more of me
Anyway i think you get the idea, simply it was a **** time.
Fast forward to the beginning of this year (5years later) and finally the insurance situation is resolved this was a major factor in changing our lives, the amount of stress it was creating not knowing what out situation was going to be was surprising. This allowed me to get back on a bike, firstly one loaned to me by another fantastic charity http://www.nabd.org.uk/, Being a few stone heavier than I used to be the poor 125 found it difficult and I found the twin lever setup difficult to adjust too so I got hold of a blackbird and had a semi auto clutch fitted, the indicators moved and I was back. riding one handed is a little scary...
Cant say how great it was to be back on a bike - a challange but great.
6 weeks ago I got an email from a web group I'm a member off talking about a charity ride accross america, now bearing in mind I have wanted to do that since i was 15 (18 years ago) and I planned to do it at 25 but then i was supporting my partner through universityso it was put off till 30, accident happened, no job, no money and diddnt believe I could ever ride again. So I saw this and just had to contact them and see if I could get it too happen, It certainly wasn't easy but they were excellent at helping me get through it. The very nice people at Kamloops in canada looked into converting one of thier loan Harleys (were all riding harleys) so I could ride it and how much etra it would be if they could. 3 weeks ago they came back and said they could do it - I can't say how great they are!
I still suffer from exhaustion, pain, goldfish memory, struggling to understand what people are explaining etc so doing 1500 miles in six days is going to be a major challange but at the same time a fantastic experience, it will probably take me weeks to recover what an achievement and all in the name of childline who lets face it supply an amazing service to the children of the uk, giving them someone to contact/talk to when they need someone to be there or even to ask help from weither its bullying or something darker.
So please feel free to donate either to support me through this or to help childline.
I will try and give daily updates, photos and location while we do the journey, hopefully on twitter and somesuch, must be an app out there somewhere that will help, so feel free to give it a read
(also feel free to message me if you think you can help with this bit or know what software/website to do this with, it would be really appreciated)Thankyou very much for reading this and i'm sorry for the grammer/spelling mistakes and the disjointed way of writing
And again feel free to stick your sponsers here at http://www.justgiving.com/jenny-seward/
Wayne
