Afterwards, looking forward to the prospect of telling the tale of our encounter with nature and all her stunning majesty, we were told that our story had been upstaged:

image from The Guardian

The lesson we learnt from this last few days? Whales: Bloody Show-offs.

Another video I’ve come to adore and give serious consideration towards adopting; Weezer’s Buddy Holly accompanied by a dancing troupe of Ferrets.
Watch it, bounce along to it’s happy little melodies, giggle a bit, then replay it.
And replay it.
And probably replay it again.

I have recently been given the fantastic opportunity to run away from the glorious(?) climates of London and participate in a week-long dog sledding trek 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Norway.

Tomorrow.

Yes, I know this is very last minute, but it would be a perfect opportunity to raise some money for, appropriately enough, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, my local charity. This would NOT be a way to pay for the trip for me, that has be organised separately; I just want to take the opportunity to raise as much cash as possible; every penny of which will go to the home.

All donations are gratefully accepted and anything you choose to give would be fantastic. Please follow this link to donate online (I’m in IT, what do you expect?)

http://www.justgiving.com/richarcher.

This is a secure and very well known charity site; so donate away in confidence.

A little bit of info:

I’ll be travelling up to the town of Alta in Norway. From here I will go on a five day trek through the gorgeous Norwegian scenery, starting at 300km North of the Arctic Circle, and even further away from West London…

It will be somewhat ‘nippier’ temperatures than here, I am told that at this time of year the temperatures will range somewhere between 0 and –5 Celsius during the day and taking a further dip down to –15 degrees at night time. There will be a team of 12 of us going out for the week; I’ll be running my own pack of five dogs over the very steep Norwegian landscape – which means not much in the way of free rides letting the dogs pull me along; I’ll be running alongside in full Arctic gear for a lot of the way – covering around 35km each day.

Each night I will look after the dogs, feed, and prepare for the next day before getting my head down for the 04:30 am start!

Along the way I’ll be travelling over the Arctic’s largest frozen lake, travelling through the massive Norwegian herds of reindeer and hopefully sleeping with the Northern Lights flickering over my head.

Once again the website to donate is http://www.justgiving.com/richarcher

The page will be available for the next few weeks, so you will be able to donate while I’ll be waist deep in cold, cold snow, and you’ll be in your comfortable, warm offices and homes… Just remember that.

Thankyou in advance for all your help!

Rich xx

Normally I’d just play around with this and then put it down again — but LOOK! It thinks I look 78% like JT! It must be true!

It also goes some way to explaining why someone kept calling me Katie and asking me about Tom the other day…

HEAT exclusive!! “Holly Hunter and Justin Timberlake meet two losers in a London pub last week”.