I'm alive and it's raining cats and dogs

I sit on my bed in our den upstairs. It is Monday of week 5 - I have ten days of door-knocking left to do.

I think about my target and what I will have to do to reach it. I've raised just under £100 in standing orders and over £300 in donations so far. What that means is that I've raised just over £6,000 for Karuna so far. My target is to raise £270 in standing orders by the end of the appeal, which if I make it will add up to £16,200 in total for Karuna. This is it, the crucial week 5 - if we all have a good one then we will be well set up to raise our individual and team targets. We've all raised pretty much the same amount of money at this point. This is unusual I find myself thinking - I wonder what it means. We've set ourselves a weekly target of £80 each this week in standing orders to get, a team target of £320. We are revved up and ready to go.

It's been raining on and off all day. Not just drissle - it's torrential. As I sit here typing I hear thunder and lightening, and the rain splashing off the roof. In a few minutes I will put on my waterproofs, check out my trusty steed (alias bicyle) and head off to Kentish Town.

I was talking to Jo earlier on today about the fact that I've managed to do 10 weeks of fundraising for Karuna in total in the past year and a half and not once have I had to put up an umbrella because of the rain. I tell her I've got this image of me, sad and desperate, standing in the rain under my umbrella asking people to help me, and they just turn to me, and look at me with pitying eyes, and say, sorry, love, you'd best go home, what are you doing out in the rain anyway?

Jo suggests I think about "Singing in the rain" and Fred Astair and Ginger Rodgers, and Frank Sinatra and how they'd all love to be out there dancing and singing and jumping around in the puddles having fun. How they'd sing and laugh and smile. I realise that it's all an attitude how you look at the rain. I think about whether I'm a willing victim for the evening, or whether I'm prepared to go out there and contact my playful side, contact the showperson within me that loves to sing and dance, and laugh. I think about being invited into people's homes because it's raining, and how they will feed me dinner and tea and we will chat about Karuna, and they will sign up. I imagine it all, and the rain begins to stop.

It's time for me to hit the streets once more.