Welcome to Val Robson and Jim Hewison as followers. Val has very kindly given the walk some generous space on the Diocese of Ely's News Website and our piece has gone out live this week. Jim is a valued member of St Thomas a Becket Church and a former Church Warden.

This has been an exciting week as Delia Smith has come good and agreed to welcome the walkers at Carrow Road on 6th March. There has also been a sense that we are entering the final phase of preparation. Jeremy Summerell (Ramsey) and Alan Howard (Norwich) who as yet have never met but are walking together, have volunteered to work on the exact route from different ends and look into where we can stay en route. If I had been a details man all this would have been sorted out months ago. The good thing is that we are a team with different gifts and we will each play our respective part. I can think of nothing worse than someone like me giving the team a briefing with no space for anybody else to participate. Like the Church we can be a body with different functioning parts but working for the common good.

I went to the gym this morning to review my programme,. The instructor increased the exercises with more of an emphasis on endurance. The bad news is someone said "why are you doing this for Uganda, isn't it one of the richest countries in Africa?" The answer is a resounding no, it's extremely poor. Once I told him about the low average life expectancy, the plight of the orphans, the prevalence of HIV/Aids, malaria, breathing related illnesses to name but a few, he got my point. This is not even to mention the growth of child sacrifice, corruption and some very basic schools. We need to get the message out there that the poor are indeed with us.