Relay for Life

Yesterday was 'Relay for Life' a national event run by the cancer society-the local one run by my friend Donna. Teams of a dozen or so members relay a walk for 12 hours from 6pm till 6am. Amelia (the new nurse at Redwoodtown) and I were part of the Marlborough branch of Zonta team and what we didn't know when we signed up for the event was that we also had to put on a song and dance act on stage in front of goodness knows how many people (not just Amelia and I, the whole of our team- tho I think Amelia and I on our own may have been better organized).

The whole nation has been battered by a storm in the last 24hours- parts of the North Island had it much worse than we had but a considerable amount of rain had fallen and the site for the relay was pretty muddy. The relay track was around the outside of the rugby ground and every group had a big tent in the middle- where you could rest/sleep/party till your turn to walk. Our group had an old tent which was leaking badly and all the bags of clothes and food were floating after a short time.

They started the event early with the 'Survivor's lap'. About 200 cancer survivors go round first to a round of applause from the rest of us-there were men and women and children-some surviving better than others, some in wheelchairs. That part was really moving. Then all the rest of us there did a single lap and were then asked to stay off the track because it was turning into a bit of a mudbath.

Within an hour I was soaked to the skin and when I dug out my bag, all my spare dry clothes were soaking, but spirits were high, in more ways than one. Someone brought out a bottle of whisky and we all had a dram and we danced in the tent and sang along with the loudspeaker music.

For the stage show we were dancing to Kylie and the locomotion song, but we had a mad choreographer who kept on changing the routine. We only had one rehearsal and a quick run through on the night- it was complete chaos- made worse by the fact that half way through the routine she moved into the audience and started including them in the dance-very embarrassing but hopefully the gold tinsel wig and $2 gold top hat I was wearing mean that nobody would recognize me. I think we were the worst by far. Some groups had obviously put a lot of work into their show.

Shortly after this, the organizers announced that there would be no relay. The candle light procession to remember those who hadn't survived their cancer would go ahead at 10pm and 'breakfast' would be served at midnight instead of 6am. Thank goodness. None of us could see how we could get through the night in a sopping wet tent. Amelia and I went home to get some dry clothes, planning to go back at 10pm, but we got a phone call from the rest of the group saying they had abandoned ship. It just hadn't stopped raining.

So I went to bed early and had a big long sleep instead. And today, Sunday, a wonderful sunny warm blowy day- it would have been perfect for it!!