233 CARTOON NETWORK...

I posted the little animation I created showing our route on Facebook, and it is fair to say our donations exploded. If they say a picture paints a thousand words, then a daft little cartoon of a 'bread van', as someone in work called it, wiggling its way around Europe generated over £500 for New Start.

I met Ellis at work years ago, so I've also sent some of the 'glamour shots' to our Communications Manager. We'll get them on the company website and raise a few more quid for the Wythenshawe Hospital transplant unit. I know the guys in the two teams he worked for won't let us down.

We've exceeded our original £1,000 target. I discussed with the team increasing the total to £2,200, as we are travelling 2,200 miles. Let's have a think.

I've joined the Bust Rallies Participants 2026 Facebook group and noticed many have created a cartoon poster for their team as part of their introduction to the group. Richie did one and shared it in our WhatsApp group, and it was brilliant. Rachel did mention she had received a glow-up courtesy of the A.I. agent, which made her look even more fabulous than normal!

I hit ChatGPT and tried to create my own, based on one of the pictures brother-in-law Tommy took of us. Superficially, the results were great, but as ever with A.I., the devil is in the detail, and it took hours to tweak the image so that daft things like signposts faced the right way.

Eventually I got everything just so... and then our rapidly learning digital overlords suggested adding a banner for New Start, which was actually a great idea but meant lots of things went wrong for seemingly no reason at all. Grrr. Another couple of hours, and it still isn't exactly what I want. But I've run out of energy. The important thing is that Lisa likes it.

I'm going to post the image on the group today and introduce Team Dirty Martin along with Team Ellis. I'm also going to post it on my regular Facebook page and tag everyone who sponsored us after the animation went up. The number of sponsors and their generosity have blown us all away.