Last week we received a mail from our good friend Andy.
His mail caught our attention straight away as it was quickly obvious that it was not the typical catching up mail but one of a more serious nature.
Him and his wife had met a couple, Matt and Colette over in Grenoble where they recently moved to. A lovely
ordinary family with a baby called Joseph.
In his mail Andy told us how Joseph suffered from a condition known as Leukodystrophy.
Having read Matt and Colette’s blog I was touched and impressed by the determination and positive, pro active attitude they took on what I classify as the worst parent’s nightmare.
On July 13th in an effort to raise money for both the Myelin Project UK and the European Leukodystrophy Association Matt will be taking part in the hugely challenging triathlon-The Ironman Switzerland- 2008.
I had heard of biathlon and triathlon but I had never heard of The Ironman!
This triathlon consists of 3.8 km of swimming, 180km cycling and a 42.2 km run.
Read more on the reasons why Matt decided to take on this particular challenge here.
We will be supporting Tri4Joe. We will add this widget on the blog and hope you will do the same.
<a href="http://tri4joe.com/donate/"><img src="http://blog.fuelmyblog.co.uk/images/this-blog-supports-trip4joe.jpg" alt="We support Tri4joe" width="125" height="125" border="0"></a>
(Check there aren’t extra speech marks on your copied code, this will prevent it from working)
Whether you decide to add the widget, blog or make a donation is up to you, any help will be greatly
appreciated by this outstanding family.
29 Comments
Please pass this onto as many people as possible
The level of training that is required to carry out an ironman triathlon is staggering
Matt is going to swim 3K, cycle 180K and THEN run a full marathon without stopping - it is a huge task, but he is doing it to raise as much money as possible to help his son (who incidently is a right cutey!)
Please please please PLEASE give something to help him raise money for this extremely worthwhile cause.
And if you know anyone that has kids then please pass this link onto them and ask them to pass it on.
The challenge that awaits Matt in three weeks is nothing short of gargantuan
All we need to do is stick our hands in our pockets and make a small contribution, it’s nothing in comparison to competing in an ironman - but if everyone that sees this contributes just a few euros pounds or dollars then that could make a massive difference to Joseph’s life and all the other kids that suffer from this debilitating illness
Thanks so much to Kev and Sylv and fuelmyblog for promoting this fundraising activity
And thank you to anyone in advance who contributes to this highly worthy cause
Andy
Oh - how dreadful for them. I shall add to my blog now.
Thanks Niamh that’s great
Andy: Let’s hope we can move this fundraising forward, what Matt and Colette are doing is simply amazing x
I will had the widget and post something about it too both in english and portuguese in both my blogs.Do you know Vanessa Fernandes?So great she is and so simple.I like her a lot, so much more than silly football portuguese players…
<a href=”http://www.triathlon.org/?call=TVRFeQ==&id=ODQ=&keep=sh”Vanessa Fernandes Triathlon Champion
oh, the link went wrong…:-(…why???
<a href=”http://www.triathlon.org/?call=TVRFeQ==&id=ODQ=&keep=sh”
rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr….Can’t do it!
I made a quick search for Leucodistrofia…terrible disease.Poor child.What a faith.I am going to write something…now…:-(
Belinha, Paul is looking into it now, should have a solution very soon
Thank you for your patience and support on this 
Belinha: I just got the green light from Paul, try it now
They look a lovely family and we’ll be sending some dosh to both those links.
Obviously Matt is a nutter to do the Ironman ….. so I approve - tee hee.
Hello!As I could not get the widget to work on my blog- the link was ok but the image did not open!- I took the photo and kept it in my PC, and made the link to it and to the Joseph’s family blog from my computer.But Niamh did it.So maybe it is my blog that has something that spoils the widget’s code,I do not know.As for the link on Vanessa I’m going to try it again,just a link to her photo:
Vanessa’s photo
Coooolllll!I did it!;-)
And why is DP’s ugly avatar showing?!!We were better without it,eheheheheh!!!Kidding DP, don’t be annoyed!!!!But, by the way, why is my avatar not showing?Is it I that must do something to it? I commented on here 25 times?!!!(((^_^)))
Posted it -
Go Matt!!!!
Go Joe!!!!!
Belinha - I’m just soooo good at working computers - and I followed Rotus’s advice in the comment section on the previous post [now there's a man who knows his stuff - and he's got a caterpillar crawling above his mouth].
I’ll check Rotus…and now I’m going to change the picture that says TRIP!!!I was about to erase the P in Photoshop….
What a terrible thing for any family to deal with.
I thank my luck stars I have a healthy child .. I am so on board with this.
Good luck to the ‘ironman’ what a challenge but wtg Matt
have C&P’d the link above but it doesn’t work… could you post it again in the comments bit ??
@Belinha: Belinha I am in awe of anyone who can achieve such a challenge!
I don’t think I am fit anymore
That’s great to see your support everyone, 70 I am sending Paul around…he is very good at fixing codes
thank you
Wow, good luck to that cute little boy and to his dad!
My caterpillar in the garden says:
you need to copy/paste AND make sure to:
change the ” into “
Hugs for Joseph, Colette and Matt.
Your medical story is so different than ours, yet:
“your love story is so similar” …
would be a huge understatement.
More hugs to all of you.
i’m broke, but i can add the widget!
the image code is not working for me
Easiest way to get it working, copy/paste the code into (for example) a new email or notepad. Then, replace all existing ” with a new fresh one, should cure the problem, WP doesn’t like you to copy code and can do strange things! Esp when using ” it changes them every time..
I’ve posted the widget on Splice-Here.
sometimes the extra slash with space after it, before closing the code element is not only unnecessary, but causes problems with some editors :o)
Hi, Sylvie! Hope you and Kevin are doing well!
-Kendall
@KevinD: Shouldn’t be any need for that. I had fixed the code, just that it got messed up by the WISYWIG editor when someone edited the post later.
Have fixed it again and all should be perfect.
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