ByteNight 2008's done and dusted. Silicon Comrades (Nic, Graham, Richard & myself) managed to raise more than £5k in the end which was over the target set for teams, a great result. All together ByteNight should be raising around half a million pounds!
I arrived at around 6.30pm having got a little lost on the way there on the V-strom, but fortunately I found bike-parking immediately outside Potters Field. Locking up the bike I staggered off to the E&Y building to register. I met Graham in the queue to register, turns out he's another biker so we hit it off immediately. Once I'd changed and had all my clobber safely stashed in the cloakroom, we headed off for the restaurant where after speeches from Ken Deeks and Jenny Agutter amoungst others we had a quiz. Matthew Lagden from Action for Children joined us on our table, Matthew's an long time friend of mine and one reason why I got involved, so it was good to have him there. Then it was grub time, E&Y had laid on a great meal with a number of different options that would fortify us for the sleep-out to come. Then it was time for the quiz, but after the picture round, things went quickly downhill for us (it must have been the alcohol we were consuming) and all I'm going to say is that we didn't finish in the Top 10! Once the quiz was done with there was an auction of items, the most popular of which was the signed Dr Who script which went for around £2.5k! Nic had started to bid when the price was under £500, but decided to give up as the price flew higher.
Then it was time to gather our belongings and set out for the field where we would be sleeping out and wow, it was cold. Nic said that it was down to 3deg Centigrade and it felt like it. I stayed up for an hour or so drinking and chatting, but at about midnight, I decided to turn in and slid in to my sleeping bag. I was very pleased to have the thermal layers and the decent sleeping bag (thanks Mike!), gloves and woolly hat. My feet stayed warm throughout the night and at no time did I feel really cold. Phew! I think I got about 3 hours kip, not helped by Graham who has a tremendous snore, although Matthew (attempting to sleep between me and Graham) also said I was doing well to compete with Graham!
I was surprised how quickly 6am came round and everyone started to wake up as the smell of bacon wafted through the camp. However I decided to forgo the bacon sarnie because once I was up and about felt the urge to get home, so I packed up and pottered off to find my bike. The others had also decided to take off, but Matthew hung around until I'd changed in to my biker gear and packed everything away. My bike had survived the night - a good chain and disc-lock had seen to that - and after 5minutes getting everything loaded I was underway. Gratefully the streets were deserted and the journey was quick and painless. Just before 8am, I was back home and being climbed on by the kids. What a huge difference in just an hour - cold, damp and tired at 6.30am, warm, dry and being kept awake by the kids at 7.45am!
I guess I'm lucky to be able to do that, find somewhere warm and dry and where I'm loved. Whilst I can't say I know what it's like to sleep on the streets, I think I understand what an ordeal it can be now and to imagine children having to do it really concerns me. I'm glad we were able to do this and raise the funds we did to help Action for Children continue their work with the UK's homeless and under privileged kids.
Will I do it next year? I'll have to think about that one.
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