But yes, in happier news we have decided that it is finally time to close the charity bank account where we've been holding all the money, and send the money off to The Alzheimer's Society. Well, we're going to be sending some to the Alzhiemer's Society SCOTLAND and some to the Alzheimer's Society (everyone else in the UK is happy with one, but Scotland HAS to be difficult!)

The total amount we have raised is £7227.08 and we're really really chuffed about that-  seriously, thank you to all of you for your support and donations throughout the walk. With our original target of £5000 we're obviously very very happy with the result.

After thinking a lot about how to split it, we've decided to give £6000 to Alzheimer's UK and the remaining £1227.08 to Alzheimer's Scotland. It seems heavilly in favour of the "UK" society, especially when we consider how much we loved Scotland and its' people, but it has to be remembered that the population of England Wales and Northern Ireland is something like 55 million in total, when Scotlands' is something like 5 million. Going by that it seems a fair way of splitting the two sums of money.

Through just giving we've already given £1631.81 to the Alzheimer's Society, plus £785 in cheques from companies who didn't want to write them out to our account. That = 2416.81
So we're writing out two cheques; one for £3583.19 to the Alzheimer's UK
And one for 1227.08 to the Alzheimer's Society Scotland.

£2416.81+£3583.19+1227.08= £7227.08! :)

We maintain that it is silly to have two seperate charities that are fighting for the same cause!

Once again a massive massive thank you to everyone who helped us and our cause throughout. It was truly an amazing experience. We're well in to the book we're writing, and all updates on that will appear here.

There is also possibly news to come of a much BIGGER fridge related adventure in the pipeline...... Watch this space!

Thanks again,
James and Marcus

Last week (the very snowy week) we decided it to be the perfect time to drive the route we walked, and basically stop in and see as many people that helped us out as we could!

We did manage to see almost everyone in Scotland, barr one or two, despite the massive amounts of snow they had up there (they're actually able to deal with it!). For those that we couldn't reach, we hope to be up in Inverness in late August and so we'll come and say hello then!

We also managed to see most people in North East England (barr two of you who live near Blackadder on the border).

It sort of went down hill south of Alnwick though, and with a lot of snow back at home and more forecast we decided to cut the trip short and head back. So we have a few more people to see in the North, hardly anyone between Yorkshire and Devon, and a few in Cornwall! The thought for this is to do it in the spring once we've both got ourselves some jobs and worked long enough to be allowed holiday!

It was briliant driving the bits of the route we did walk; with the A9 near Brora and Golspie, Aviemore, Kinguisse, and Northumberland really standing out!-  it brought back a lot of fond memories! And of course, it was brilliant meeting everyone again, particularly in the knowledge that there was a car to transport us to the next place!

We'll stick further updates on here... I'm still trying to make an exact route of where we walked on google earth so we know how far we walked, and there's still some money coming in to the Alzheimer's Society!

Thanks,

James

Webjam, the people who host the site, have been rubbish up until now with getting it all fixed, but thankfully we're back up and running again!

Isn't it just typical that the week after we finish the walk, it happens!

I'd (James) just like to take the time to say a huge thanks to the staff, parents and students at All Hallows school/college for the substantial sums of money they've donated to the cause! Last week in a matter of minutes, whilst standing with a couple of buckets outside their annual presentation evening we raised £409! That on top of a lot more that's been raised already! 

We owe an awful lot of thanks to a lot of people, and with us either not thinking about getting address or details at the time, or losing peoples' addresses or details when we had our stuff stolen, we can't thank everyone personally. The best solution seems a list of sorts on this site, where it'd be great if people could drop us an email or something. We're planning on driving our route sometime in the spring... Watch this space!

For now though, a very Merry Christmas to you all!

Cheers,

James

After months of struggling, injuring ourselves, being rained on, feeding various animals and walking day in day out, I'm pleased to announce that we've FINALLY DONE IT!

That's right folks, at about half one on the thirteenth of December two fridges and their rather bedraggled owners limped across the famous finishing line painted on the ground at Land's End, and breathed an enourmous sign of releif.

Apologies for not updating along the way for the past week - internet has been somewhat non existant recently, but we've been through a fair amount in this week alone.  For starters we had to climb the worlds biggest hill. Then we were rained on almost constantly for about 4 days.  After this, although I had seemingly fixed my problem right knee, my left began to hurt quite considerably.  The days after this saw our bodies generally degrade as a result of too much walking - my knee hurt even more, James' ankles began to hurt and even our equipment was showing signs of giving up.  Most importantly James' trolley wheel fell apart completely, spilling vital bits of wheel all across the road.  This was fixed once and broke again, and so we had to call in a new trolley from some friends we had made a few days before.

So all in all, not the most gracious finish, but a finish nonetheless.  And so to EVERYBODY who helped out along the way, from those who beeped their horns to those who let us stay, we'd like to say an enormous THANK YOU - we're eternally grateful.  And if you're ever stuck by the side of the road with a domestic appliance, you know who to call!

Watch this space for the next bout of stupidity.

Marcus and James.

Saturday: Rain.

Sunday: Rain/showers.

Monday: Heavy rain.

Tuesday: Heavy rain.

The outlook is: Staying unsettled with further strong winds and heavy rain.

Excellent.

So.. err yeah, we're going to be leaving my house at about 4 in the morning tomorrow to make the long drive down to where we were last picked up. This just happens to be at the bottom of the steepest, highest hill ever. :) So within 5 mintues of being dropped off tomorrow we will be freezing cold, soaking wet, too hot, and completely worn out (in that order).

Perhaps we shouldn't be that negative though; it will be fantastic when the sun does pop out, especially around the Dartmoor area, and it'll be nice to get the walk completed at last! We shall hopefully update the site between now and the end, but if not wish us luck for the finish line!

(We should be touch the famous signpost at around 2 in the afternoon next Sunday (13th!)

Yay!!

James

As you have probably guessed by the title (i couldn't have really made it much more obvious) we're to start back from where we left off, next weekend. Marcus still isn't right, but we cannot put it off any longer; we both need jobs before Christmas, because afterwards it will be near impossible, and so basically it's either now, or next spring!

So.. what we're going to do is start again, with a fridge each, back as things were before. The plan is for things to stay that way! However, my parents are staying down over the weekend, and so if Marcus feels as if the fridge is a bad idea, he'll regretfully send it home and continue along on crutches.

Yeah, crutches, doesn't sound good does it? But Marcus insists that he wants to finish it before Xmas, and with a combination of very slow days, an expensive fancy knee brace and pain killers it looks certainly possible. The crutches are their "just in case," but obviously a fridge AND crutches is a bit of a no go! If this does happen we'll finish it now, me with a fridge, Marcus without, and go back next spring when we've established proper work, and complete it for good! 

As one other point to note, we've just started writing the book! It's a grand total of 7 pages long so far!

Wish us luck!

James

This is obviously bad news for the walk - if I can't walk three miles with no fridge I don't stand a chance hauling one over Dartmoor.  I shall be returning to the doctors some time later this week to see if they can do anything more, and we'll have to wait and see what happens.  No matter what happens though, we shall be making sure at least James finishes with Charlotte before christmas, even if that means I have to hop alongside.

So watch this space for further plans.  In happier news, the spare time we've had resting my knee has allowed us to have a look through all of the photos and videos we took on the walk, and from the videos we've edited together this short piece.  It's mostly us messing around - there was a definate lack of serious videos - but here is the finished product nonetheless.  If the video below isn't working for whatever reason, click HERE.

(On second thoughts, I'll put the video over there)
                                      |
                /                     |
              /__________|
              \
                \                        

Cheers!

Marcus (and James)

After some discussion of the absurdity of Fridge travel, I was made to do some excercises and stretches that made me look like an idiot, and the problem with the knee was (finally) diagnosed.  Basically, my feet are not quite as they should be, and whenever I take a step my foots rolls too far to the outside, making my knee move in weird directions.  This occuring every step multiplied by 1000 miles eventually became too much and the pain began.

But never fear!  I was taken down into the gym and given a whole bunch of excercises to do so I can now look like a fool 15 times a day!  I was also given ten minutes of a muscle stimulating machine which was great fun to ramp up to as high as I could stand and watch my legs quiver.

The official verdict is that I'll easily be up and walking again for the first week of December, provided I do the silly excercises.

Our updates over the past week or so probably suggested that things were not all too well in our world of fridge. After taking several days rest we got ourselves back on track and hoped to be at the finish for this weekend. Unfortunately a few days rest did absolutely nothing; well I tell a small lie, it allowed Marcus to walk pain free for around 2 or 3 miles, but after that it simly became worse and worse. He limped on for around 30 miles in quite a lot of pain, but in the end it was only going to get worse, and it became too much to carry on.

So we found ourselves just south of Tedburn St. Mary yesterday, inside Dartmoor National Park. It was at this point when the knee brace, pain killers, weird cream stuff AND a stretchy bandage became insuffiecent to stop Marcus being in complete agony. So we sat there thinking "What the hell do we do now?" We'd tried the resting it for a few days option, and it'd done nothing. The only option we had left available to us was to take a month out back home to allow the knee to heal, with an aim to start again in a months' time.

Obviously this is a completely awful thing to have happened, and so close to the end! 4 days walking from the end in fact! But it simply can't be helped, and is a side-effect of walking such a ridiculously long way with a fridge. Again, being so close to the end, it shows just how bad it actually was.

So then we asked whether I should carry on and finish the walk, being so close to the end, with a view to coming back when Marcus is ready, and walking with him. Thing is though is that we've come so far together. We've walked over a 1,000 miles across (almost) the whole country. It would be wrong, and totally against the spirit of fridge to finish seperately and as a result that was out of the question.

So we're stuck in a situation which is hardly brilliant, but it's not the end of the world. We'll get dropped back off in a months time where we were picked up, and complete the walk then. Our original plan before we started the walk was to finish before Christmas, and that is something that (provided Marcus' knee is not completely and utterly buggered) we will do! Promise. 

Wish Marcus a speedy recovery, and watch this space!

Picture updates coming very soon too!

James

We've now had several rest days, and Marcus is the proud owner of a new (and ridiculously expensive) knee brace. He was utterly beaming when he walked out of Boots with it. So we've formed ourselves a little plan!

What we're going to do is start walking again tomorrow morning, and aim to arrive at Lands' End on Sunday 1st. Our parents want us to arrive at the finish on a weekend, and so it's either this, or walk very very slowly and arrive next weekend on the 7th.  This however is entirely depended on whether this knee has had long enough to heal. If not we'll take the option of walking more slowly...

Either way, we'll be there soon and we both can't wait! :)

Cheers,
James

Good news is that WE'VE FINALLY RAISED £5000!!  Thanks to all of you who have donated any amount to our cause - it's immensely satisfying seeing that big blue "100%" on our justgiving page.  However, if you havn't donated just yet, don't be put off! Any amount higher than what we have would be brilliant -  maybe we'll even make £6000 - wouldn't that be nice?

So the bad news - we're going to miss our 31st of October deadline.  We're now more likely to arrive a week later - the 7th of November.  This is due to my (Marcus) knee deciding that after about 1000 miles it's had enough, and dosn't want to move any more. It totally went a few days ago, fixed slightly overnight, and then went again.  We had a rest day (this spawned from another problem, which I'll elaborate on later) and tried again. Just as we reached the Somerset-Devon border it decided no more for the final time and we've been forced to take a few days rest.  We're currently resting at my uncles house, and we'll try again in about 3 days time, and hope it's fixed.  If not we'll have to move on to plan B.  Hopefully this won't happen, because then we'll actually have to think of a plan B.

More bad news is that punctures are becoming incredibly common now, and the other day James built his number of punctures on one wheel to a massive 11.  At this, even the inner tube decided that this was too much and shredded itself.  So there we were, in the middle of nowhere, with only three legs and three tyres between us, in the pouring rain. This was not ideal, so we had to limp on to the nearest village and buy another inner tube, AND visit the doctors.

So, wish my knee a speedy recovery!

Marcus.

We're currently on the very edge of Somerset, about to cross into Devon- the second to last county!!  At the moment our tent is pitched in the front garden of a farm, and we've just been made pizza and chips by Janice and Dave. If you ever asked me what meal I could have if any, my answer would be pizza and chips, so it was a nice surprise! (No nasty vegetables!)

We're now 98% of the way to our target so a big thanks to those that've recently donated! It will look good when it says "100%". :)

So from here near a place called Ilminster, we're going West to Crediton, over Dartmoor and to Bodmin... and then we're pretty much there! As we said in the last update, we hope to be done by the end of October and fingers crossed nothing goes too wrong from here, we're on track.

And finally, here's one for you. Have you ever heard of a yurt? We hadn't up until about an hour ago, however we're assured that they havn't been made up, they're a kind of house-cum-tent.  All the brilliance of camping and the outdoors without the annoying not being able to stand up bit.  Have a look at www.yurtis.co.uk.  We were going to stay in one tonight, but they've been packed away.  We'll be staying in one as soon as we can though! :)

Our total raised is very very very very very very close to the target so keep those donations coming!

We'll update properly in the next few days with some pictures and more info- we're just quickly borrowing someone's computer for a few minutes before we head off today.

We're now just a few days away from the point in which we make the right turn and head for Cornwall. First of all we're headed to Cirencester and should be there in a couple of days where we're meeting up with my old (and brilliant) geography teacher.

It's getting cold in the mornings now with frosts becoming annoyingly common. This means a) that it's even more difficult to leave a warm sleeping bag and actually start walking, and b) that the tent is completely soaked every morning with the frost and dew. Still, it could be worse, we could be back in Fort William... so we mustn't complain too much.

One final note; we're up to 85% of our target of £5000! Keep them donations coming! :)

Thanks, and we'll update soon,

James

Lots has happened since we last updated, including a wonderful break at Alton Towers!  Unfortunately the Fridges wern't allowed in, but we were, and let me tell you, we had difficulty leaving!  Fortunately for us we managed to get an entire cottage to ourselves right next to the park, so we had to do minimal walking. Thanks to Farley Cottage for being so wonderfully welcoming!

Since the last update we've also managed to completely destroy James' trolley, and just after the last update we decided it might finally be beyond repair - the entire handle had snapped clean off!  James is now the proud owner of a brand new trolley, which should hopefully last the distance  On the topic of trolley woes, we'd like to plead with farmers to STOP CUTTING THEIR THORN HEDGES, and spraying thorns all over the road.  Yesterday we had no less than 4 punctures in the space of 3 hours.  Bear in mind we had absolutely none in Scotland at all.

Lastly we'd like to thank Lindz at FYEP for donatng some very warm hoodies, which should hopefully get us through the very cold nights ahead.  Camping is no fun at all when it's freezing cold!  FYEP specialise in eye-catching clothing, and one of theior laest designs we quite like is "monster fridge raid".  Have a look!

Wish us luck on the rest of the journey, and we'll try and update with some more photos as soon as we can!

Marcus and James.

We're now back and running again afthis is er our less than pleasant experience the other day. This is mostly thanks to some wonderful companies in Alnwick and Newcastle, who have been incredibly kind in helping us get back on the move.  After our stuff was stolen, we were rescued from the middle of nowhere by our sponsors at Vaude, who gave us a bed for the night, and more importantly a portion of chips each! They then went even further by giving us a mix of discounts and freebies on new rucksacks, coats, sleeping mats and the like.  As well as this, we also owe a huge amount to a group of 3 Newcastle based companies - GetFitOutside, Wingrove Lettings and PanHaggerty - who got together to fund some much needed equipment.

Before our stuff was taken, James bought some new shoes, and has recently been through the joys of breaking them in.  The shoes in question have lead to a huge blister on the top of each of his big toes, and he's sprained a muscle behind his shin.  Being a trained first aider (ha!), he has fixed the problem with a bandage and 3 pairs of socks.  Although this has worked, it has the disgusing side effect of his feet smelling three times as much.  The smell in the tent has now reached the stage where it can melt peoples noses at thiry paces. I'm not kidding either!

A mention should also go to Lionheart FM - Alnwick's local radio station - where we spent most of the day when waiting for James' parents to come up and replace some kit. We were invited in for an interview, which soon became an interview and a cup of tea.  Before long biscuits and muffins were added, and we spent most of the day there choosing songs, reading out the station number and generally lounging around. Our host Carl and his team were very welcoming, and we suggest you have a listen.  They broadcast online, and so even if you don't live anywhere near Alnwick, log on and tune in!

Also in Alnwick we met the very interesting Lord Michael Bates. He's currently spending his time walking 100 miles from Holy Island to Durham Cathedral in aid of the charity "Tomorrows People". This is a charity which focuses on helping young unemployed people back into work. It's a brilliant cause, and he was a very inspirational guy, so we suggest you have a look at www.walkfortomorrow.org . As far as I can gather he has now completed his journey, and we'd like to congratulate him for doing so!

And lastly, we have recently learnt that there are two Alzheimer's societies in the UK - Scottish and English.  Apparently the two are separate due to the difference in laws in the two countries, making it easier for them to operate as "sister" charities, rather than a whole.  We didn't know this at the start of the walk, but we have now come to the decision that we will be splitting the money between the two.  After all the money has been collected we will sit down with a calculator and try to split the money fairly.  We did after all walk through Scotland, and recieve a lot of kindness there. If you would like to find out more about the Scottish Alzheimers society, click HERE.

Our next stage of the journey will hopefully be taking us to Doncaster, and we should be there with a few days.  We'll hopefully be able to do another update then.  Wish us luck!

Marcus (and James)

Thanks to these companies!:

Vaude
GetFitOutside
Wingrove Lettings
Pan Haggerty
Bedrock Communications
James' Parents

At about 7pm yesterday we left our fridges and rucksacks in a layby for a couple of minutes in order to go and check out the next road junction just ahead to see if we were on the right route.
On returning, there were still two fridges, but our bags, along with all of our belongings were gone. And this includes iPods, chargers for phones, a shaver, the poles for our tent, our sleeping bags, memory cards (fortunately as of yet unused), a water purifying life saver bottle, coats, Marcus' chicken sandwich that he was looking forward to, you name it... but the worst thing of all to go missing were the diaries that we've both been keeping along the route.

So there we were, stood in the middle of no-where with half a tent, two fridges, a bit of food, and the clothes we had on. Hardly a ideal situation, some might say.

Of course, the question we kept asking ourselves was how the hell could someone do that!? The fridges were there, right next to them, with the posters' and charity tin (which fortunately we'd emptied earlier in the day) so it was obvious we were doing a charity thing. Even with this happening, fortunately the amount of kindness we've received, and the amount of brilliant people we've met so far make up for it many times over. 

Thankfully, Chris from our sponsors, Vaude came out to rescue us from the side of the road (and he bought us chips :)), and we're trying to sort things out from here. We hope to be back on the road walking again in the next day or so, and we'll most likely be B&B-ing it until the weekend, when Vaude send us some new poles for the tent, and my parents meet up with us to give us gas burners, and our old sleeping bags etc.

Err.. so yeah, all in all not a good moment of the trip; and from the bottom of both of our hearts, we wish the person or people who stole our stuff, an uncomfortable nights' sleep... 

Thanks again,

James and Marcus

A few days ago we made it into sunny England, after about a month and a half of torturous rain, mountains and more rain.  We're now sat in Alnwick, a few miles north of Newcastle, with a cup of tea from one of our sponsors!

Upon entering England we were immediately almsost mown down by a Range Rover, however since Engand we have been on the receiving end of a fair bit of sunshine! The weather here is (for once) very sunny, and we're very welcoming of it.  Berwick lead us into an unplanned rest day due to a puncture which slowed us down a great deal.  It certainly seemed that something did not want us to leave Berwick; we were stopped from mending the puncture by health and saftey, age restrictions (on bike glue!) and even a helicopter which landed on a mini roundabout in the middle of town.  Eventualy we had to buy a new inner tube, which should hopefully last the distance!  We'd especialy like to thank Margret of the White Swan B&B for all her patience, especially when oil, mud and Fridges were dragged through!

We are now about half way through our journey, and plan York as our next big destination and rest day.  Wish us luck!

Yesterday we crossed the Fourth Road Bridge and met with Alison and Adrian, who've kindly let us stay with them for a couple of nights and a much needed rest day! A big thank you to them both for letting us just chill out, pig out, and watch Dave for most of the day. Something we've been craving for a fair while. :) Edinburgh marks approximately a quarter of the way through our journey and I've got some stats for the way so far; needless to say that it's been very wet in Scotland this summer! I'd just like to say now that the miles walked could be slightly inaccurate- it's something that will be checked over when we get back home!

Number of days on trip (inlcuding rest days and walking days) : 39

Average number of miles walked (excluding rest days): 13

Number of miles walked: 382 (approx.) < This includes our needless and long journey to Fort William.

Number of days where rain has fallen: 33

Percentage of days with rain falling: 85% !

Number of nights spent in a tent: 12

Percentage of nights spent in a tent: 31% < due to the amount it's rained! 

Number of times offered drugs: 2 

Number of sausages eaten by me (James): 49

Ml. of Lucazade drunk: 14,010ml (or 3.08 gallons)

Number of cups of tea (Marcus) has drunk: 45

£ spent in chip shops so far: £57.75 (each-approx)

Yes, some of those stats are slightly scary.. 

From Edinburgh we hope to follow Sustrans cycle routes along the North-East coast of England, before cutting west around the peak district area and continuing south. It will be a slightly longer route than was hoped for, but it will be a lot drier on the east side, and we've seen quite enough rain to last us the trip already. Our average distance walked should also increase as we continue along the cycle tracks and more flat terrain further south. 

We'd like to take this oportunity to thank the Bankfoot Inn in Bankfoot for their hospitality, cheap room and delicious free meal, as well as Mckays in Pitlochry for their equally delicious food. If you're in the area, check them out! :) 

Thanks,

James and Marcus

 On our new and improved cycle route route we've walked 101 miles in 5 days! As a result our trollies have started to suffer again and we've had to indulge in a spot of welding.  At 10 o clock at night.  With no health and saftey to be seen.  Luckily for us we're up and running again, just a few hours after our initial setback.  I've been assured by James (the man we're staying with) that a video will be up on youtube soon, so we'll post you a link.

 We'll do a full update on our rest day in Perth - a few days time.

 ALSO, James will be on the Xtra Factor this Saturday being an idiot as usual.  Look out for him!

Goodnight! Marcus