On your marks, get set ...

I'm working hard on my preparations for the Great Manchester Run which I'm taking part in this Sunday on behalf of Mind, the leading UK mental health charity. Mind runs helplines, drop-in centres, counselling, and many other services for the 1 in 4 people who are directly affected by mental health problems as well as their families. I'm aiming to raise £150 to help them in their work.

So for training I went for a 6 mile run on Saturday, I biked 8 miles into work this morning, I've got another 6 mile run tomorrow and ... I baked two huge chocolate cakes.



Don't worry, they're not for me. The idea is to get my colleagues in a good mood tomorrow before asking them for sponsorship - I hope it works!

I'm afraid I can't offer chocolate cake to all my online friends (we just don't have that kind of bandwidth) however I do have something to tempt your generosity.

the Grand Prize



Clockwise from top left: hand-made (by me) pincushion, 1 skein Colinette Jitterbug sock yarn in Dusk, hand-made cupcake badge from Sumptuosity of York, 2 skeins Misti Alpaca Laceweight in Merlot, hand-crocheted (not by me) flower brooch, and finally a copy of Alterknits by Leigh Radford.

All you have to do to win all these knitterly goodies is to sponsor me online at http://my.artezglobal.com/personalPage.aspx?SID=260979 (secure online donation site) and then send an email to thomasinaknits AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk to let me know you have done so. Once the sponsorship deadline has passed I will draw one winner from the emails.

Competition officialness

1. The competition will close on June 17th 2009. This is the day by which all sponsorship money has to be submitted. The drawing will be on June 18th 2009.

2. I will assign each entrant a number according to the order in which I received their email. The winner will then be chosen using a random number generator.

3. I will contact the winner by email after the drawing to find out their postal details. I am happy to post to anywhere in the world.

Finally, if you have blogs of your own I'd be really grateful if you could send people this way. All this lovely stash has got to go!