That's "thank you very much Cardiff!" for those not down with the lingo. I feel compelled to start on that note because of our tremendous success in the Welsh capital; our street collecting raised a whopping £660.87!
The journey from London to Cardiff had been far from a smooth one, with traffic jams galore on the way to Nickski's in Oxford. We entered through the open garden door to his great surprise as he was caught unawares sipping a shandy with Britain's got talent on. He hastily switched over to something more manly as we offloaded a few items into his Mary Poppins' handbag-esque garden shed, and picked up Matty. Nickski was unable to join us as somehow he'd got tickets to the FA Cup final and even more surprisingly, somehow Chelsea were in it. With a quick turnaround we handed the keys to Matt who had yet to drive Dougie. In mere milliseconds he'd succeeded in swerving a number of times before hitting a bollard, all in the space of 10 long yards. After the eventful beginning he drove more than capably all the way to Cardiff, inspite my best efforts to shine the map light into his eyes and Dangerous having his own disco in the back. After some fiddling with the various lighting options, he settled on a blue glow in the rear of the ambulance which we later thought might have been a UV light, as he emerged at the other end more David Dickinson than David Andrews (I'd have gone for the Hull link and used Phil Brown but you can't beat the alliteration of that bargain hunting oompa-loompa).
It's worth noting at this point the perks that come with driving something that has 'Emergency Ambulance' emblazoned across it. Aside from the several waves you get from real ambulances, there have been a couple of occasions already where we've made lucky escapes. Once was when yours truly was speeding down a dual carriageway, along which a police van was performing speed checks with a handheld radar gun. On seeing the Douglas Car approach, the policewoman holstered her radar gun and nodded! Thanks, we don't want speeding tickets anyway. The second instance was on the crossing of the Severn bridge, where vans are normally charged a credit crunch defying £10.90. Having carefully counted out and dropped the coins on several occasions, imagine our surprise when as we approached we were greeted with the sign 'Class 1 - Exempt' and a thumbs up!
We arrived past midnight at chez Milston Milston (Sr.), and dropped off to sleep almost immediately in the knowledge that we had an early start to our day of collecting.
Having donned our total football/bright orange Helen and Douglas t-shirts, we parked Dougie on our allocated spot in the high street next to Cardiff Castle and were off! Plastic tumblers at the ready we fanned out around the ambulance and let no passerby slip through our net, telling all what we were collecting for and exactly where we were driving to. With no prior street collecting experience, I was genuinely surprised at how tiring it can be. Constantly talking on your feet and in the sun really took it out of us, and poor Dangerous was feeling the heat inspite of the radiative protection of his fake tan.
Nonetheless, we ploughed on for a good six or seven hours, and experienced the full generosity of the Welsh public. Juan and Harry also came down for a few hours to help out; with the former applying some liberal ‘take no for an answer’ attitude and Harry relying on his posh and apologetic manner. Their help provided some much needed support, inspite a short period where they recruited the services of a particularly drunk local who seemed hell bent on driving people away. Nearly stole a t-shirt too (which came in handy later on, keep reading). The biggest cheer of the afternoon came when Everton scored after 25 seconds, sadly as our fortunes grew those of the footballing world fell from grace as Chelsea won. Probably cheated, it’s the only way they know how.
Back to the collecting, we got a startling amount of £1 and £2 coins, which would definitely add up come the end of the day. Several people were genuinely interested in what we were doing, and there were many occasions when following a donation we would find ourselves happily chatting about the trip and showing off the ambulance. There was also the odd generous soul who dropped in a note, not least of all the raucous hen party who plagued us pretty much from 11am to 11pm. They offered £2 from each of their party of twelve for a photo with our tops off. I warned them that my pre-marathon carbo-loading had continued with some gusto after the run itself, but they were goggle eyed at ‘Musclebound’ Matt Davis and so gave us £24 for our troubles! Not willing to leave us at this juncture, they wanted a souvenir. Dangerous ‘Commando’ Andrews obliged, and that’s all I’m saying on the matter. Any questions send in a request with a donation via our website and he’ll happily respond. Or if Beccy’s reading then don’t worry. Nothing happened. He wasn’t even in Cardiff.
At the latter end of the afternoon we called time on what had been a packed and fruitful day, driving back to MM’s flat to count our winnings. Dividing the heap of coins and notes into their respective denominations we each placed early estimates at the total, the largest of which was £501. Imagine our delight when we came to £660.87! This has now put a sizeable stride in our quest for the £10,000, and we were all over the moon at seeing what had been a tough and draining day come to such fruition. The only thing left was to celebrate our triumph and we headed out to sample Cardiff’s nightlife together with our fellow volunteers Juan and Harry, Holly, Maria and Andy (the poor man’s Harry).
The following day we began our drive to Oxford, nursing some pretty severe hangovers. Wales tried to make us pay on the way in via the toll bridge but it certainly made us pay as we left. None more so than old man Andrews, who showed the alcoholic aftermath caused by his advanced twenty-five-going-on-thirty years of age. At the risk of getting too graphic for the scope of this blog, he chundered. Then chundered some more at high speed. He may still be chundering but I don’t live with him. It must be said the second coming was hilarious; having said “I don’t feel so good” in the passenger seat he then stuck his upper body out of the window and redecorated the side panel. What the poor biker following us must have experienced is anyone’s guess, but it made a fantastic argument for wearing a helmet with the visor down. I as the driver had an unobstructed view of proceedings through the large wing mirror. After pulling a face of tremendous discomfort, there followed a relaxed and contented smile, not too dissimilar to what dogs must feel like when they stick their heads out of car windows. For the more attentive of you, we used the stolen-then-recovered t-shirt from the Welsh Oliver Reed for the cleaning operation. Being in the sightless back of the ambulance at the time, Matt couldn’t see what was going on and just figured it was raining outside.
The trip was rounded off nicely by a barbecue at Nickski’s, with the food very kindly provided by Mrs. Hawkins and the comedy provided by her father. We left Dougie in Oxford, waiting for a few new logos to get printed before our next fundraising weekend in Reading.
Huge thanks to J.M.Milston for the accomodation and night-time chaperoning, and Harry for coming to help out with both the collecting and counting. We also wish to extend our sincere thanks to Mrs. Hawkins for the use of her garden shed in the storage of random spare parts and for all the food.
Mae fy hofrenfad yn llawn o lyswennod, hwyl fawr!
Advait
