Delia says yes! I was very excited yesterday to get an email from Delia Smith's PA to say Delia will meet us at Carrow Road on Saturday 6th March. I was asked to ring today to talk through the details for that meeting. Not only has Delia agreed to be photographed with us, she will provide a Norwich City Club photographer and she has invited us to have a meal in the Gunn Club and provided four free tickets for the match, Norwich versus Yeovil.

It seems a long way since those notes back in October when I mused in my first blog about getting Delia Smith on board! Her involvement raises the profile and I'm hoping it will unlock the door for further publicity. However, I want to record my gratitude for her generosity. I am also grateful to Lord Mawhinney, Chairman of the Football League, for helping to obtain Delia's support. A great deal of her time has been spent making a series for the BBC 'Delia through the Decades' so without his influence I don't think we would have succeeded.

Of course, the terrible situation in Haiti must be uppermost in our minds at the moment. However, when the emergency there is over and the TV cameras have gone home there will still be the need for hospitals and schools to be built. This encourages me to think that the ordinary work of helping local communities continues to have high priority.

We have already been able to send (electronically) ten thousand pounds for the Bishop's School in Uganda. We are able to verify that the money has arrived at Barclay's Bank in Kampala. I have spoken by phone to Bishop Edward Muhima to notify him that the money has been sent. He lives seven hours drive away from the bank and so his visits there can only be occasional. This money is tied to providing much needed equipment for the school.

We are now ready to send twenty thousand pounds to the same bank in Kampala. This money will enable the dormitory of the school to be built. Our Church Warden in Ramsey, Jo Latter, has volunteered to travel to Uganda after 12th February at his own expense, Jo is a retired Solicitor. He will visit the Bishop, the school and get an update about how work on the school is progressing. Then in August a party of six, incuding me, will again visit the school and get another update. We are expecting building materials to be brought from Kenya and Kampala. I understand that as long as the money is there materials should not be too long getting to the site.

The new target is fifty thousand pounds, an amount which can provide significant help to the school and the pupils. Sponsor forms are now printed and it will be possible to Gift Aid any gifts. As several people are now walking with me to Norwich it is hoped that a generous sum will be collected.

Today we got our first publicity in a newspaper. The Hunts Post carried a piece under the Community heading. It was a good photograph in colour of myself and June wearing 'Walk for Uganda' tee-shirts leading a conga with Sharon Pollard, Martin Muir and Jeremy Summerell following on. Jeremy was wearing his Norwich City scarf.St Thomas a Becket Church building was in the background. The article by Angela Singer was well written. She mentioned the purpose of the walk but included salient information about those of us going to Uganda in the summer, the fact that June and myself had met the Ugandan President in London and that our local MP Shailesh Vara was giving us his support. I was also pleased that my old mate Alan Howard was mentioned in the article even though he couldn't be in the photograph. Alan, a Norfolk business man, is coming to Uganda with us, and is walking the Ely to Norwich route in March.

The fact that it's the new year and our walk is out there in the public domain means that we are getting our sponsorship forms out. Each person walking will have their own forms to use so we can get wide spread support. I know, for instance, that David Stokes who is a farmer and walking part of the route will get support from the farming community. If anyone else wants to walk even a short way, as Tom Palmer is doing (Tom is in his seventies) please get in touch with me.

It's great to welcome Sharon Palmer as a a follower (it would be good if others too clicked on to become a follower of the blog). I am also grateful to Bishop David Thomson for giving us some further mention in his own blog.

I read in the newspaper today about a prospective MP who decided to walk through the communities of his constituency. He said it gave him a better sense of what those towns and villages were really like. Perhaps I should do the same in my three parishes!

Is there a spiritual something about walking? It requires a slowing down, it provides space, time to observe, to think, pray if we pray or simply to meditate. We need n't think that the world without cars, trains and spacecraft is somehow more spiritual than our own, although it is certainly greener. Yet there is something counter cultural about walking when we walk for a purpose. It doesn't necessarily make the walker a better person, but the combination of slowing our world down and having a worthy aim can be enriching. At one level it gives us time for the people we meet in a world where there is little meaningful encounter. At another level it is an apparently gentle activity which can galvanize and produce companions in a cause. Think of Ghandi walking through India or Martin Luther-King at Selma.

In my own case, as well as raising money for needy children, giving travelling companions and better fitness this exercise has had a mysterious influence on my inner self.

Happy New Year to everyone. It was good for me to get out for a gentle walk today after the relative inactivity of the past few days. I say relative because I have been to the gym twice since Christmas and I had four sevices the Sunday after Christmas. Yet today felt like a new start in a year when I hope our walk to Carrow Road might raise 50 thousand pounds.

It was lovely taking a solitary walk in the direction of Ramsey Marina which is so tucked away and surprising with its Narrow Boats nestling amongst the banks surrounded by acres of flat fen farmland. The day was very cold (-0.5) but the sun was shining from a clear ice blue sky. I had plenty to think about as I walked. I was reminded again of Bishop Cottrell's words about the work I do not being conducive to frenetic activity and about the dangers of trying to dance to everyone's tune in the interests of popularity. This job requires its leaders to be a still centre in a frantic world. I suspect that excellent advice might apply to lots of other people too from very different walks of life. So I sat on a bench and watched a young swan swim beside the boats. One boat with smoke rising from its funnel was called 'ItsGoodEnoughForMe.' That said it all, how the simple can be the most satisfying. I sat wondering what had brought this boat owner to live in such an isolated Fenland refuge.

There is a sense that with the dawning of 2010 comes some serious walking, reconnoitre-ing and hard graft as the 1st March doesn't now seem quite so far away!

There have been two large gifts for building this school in Uganda. When I first thought about doing the walk I announced it out of desperation. I had told Bishop Edward that I would support the school. However,there was no money forthcoming, there was a recession and little interest. I decided to walk to Carrow Road as a daft gesture to raise what I hoped might be a couple of thousand pounds. When others said they would join me, my hopes were raised. Then I had an anonymous offer of ten thousand pounds although the condition was that the money should buy needed equipment for the Ugandan School rather than be used for building purposes. So I raised the bar and decided I would go for twenty thousand. Last week a Church said it would provide twenty thousand to build accomodation for the school children. I have been bowled over by these acts of generosity and thank God for them. I was speaking to a journalist from the Hunts Post who said, you should aim now for fifty thousand!

I don't want these big gifts to take the spotlight away from all those people who want to raise money and who can only give the odd coin or so-let's not forget what Jesus said about the widow's mite, "she gave eveything she had." All efforts are welcome. Neither should the big gifts take away from the innocence of what we are doing. Furthermore even 50 thousand would be a tiny drop in an enormous ocean of poverty and need. No, we now have the opportunity of doing something really significant, perhaps by being able to pay for more teachers etc. Besides who knows where this will all end, and what people's generosity will achieve.

There was a photographer waiting at 9am on Monday morning to take a picture for the local paper of those of us going to Uganda. She had us line up in a Conga!

So much effort is going towards helping Uganda. Joan sent twenty pounds from N Ireland, some local scouts have raised over seventy pounds by holding a cake stall, local Guides wanted the proceeds from their Carol Service to help The Bishop's School,people have promised sponsorship money for the walk in March etc. There has also been a substantial amount given anonymously to provide equipment for The Bishop's School. Through local contacts we have asked the Headteacher in Uganda to tell us what equipment is needed and he has sent a list. He is trying to equip a science lab and all the items he asked for are by our standards very basic, telling us that he is starting from scratch. We understand that the equipment can be bought in Uganda, presumably from Kampala. I am becoming more hopeful that we can raise twenty thousand to build the dormitory for The Bishop's School. When Canon Gershom was with us recently he told us why the dormitory is necessary. At present the children are being housed in a nearby village, which is not always the safest option. He spoke of abuses against children and in extreme cases child sacrifice posing a threat to their safety. The latter sounds unbelieveable in this age, but I have it on the best authority that it does happen in Uganda.

We realise that in the grand scheme the best we can do is only a drop in a mighty ocean. To help Africa, fresh initiatives at the highest governmental and international levels are required. That doesn't mean we should do nothing; every little helps make life more bearable. "Cast your bread upon the water and it will return after many days."