Charity Case…

I can be many things: an egotistical fruitcake with no fashion sense, a foul-mouthed drunk with no decorum or tact and, very occasionally, a depressed and bad-tempered grump.

I am not, however, a bad man. Honestly. But I feel like one at the moment. Let me explain…

The Missus’ father does a yearly bike ride, the rather craply named London Bikeathon no less, for Leukaemia Research because he had a good friend who died from the disease. And as I’m now a fully fledged cyclist he invited me along to keep him company this year.

I told him I wouldn’t do the whole fundraising bit but I’d pay whatever it cost to sign up and just do the ride. So I paid my £20 and registered and the Bikeathon pack came through the post – then my father-in-law had a little accident (a broken wrist rather than not making it to the toilet) so he’s now no longer doing it. And as I was only going to keep him company I’m not doing it either.

But among the sponsorship forms and other stuff was a Bikeathon t-shirt and a discount voucher for Evans Cycles. Now I quite like the t-shirt as it’s a bright green colour and is highly visible to wear on the roads and I’m certainly going to use the Evans voucher. With my father-in-law also no longer taking part I’m now going over to his for a big feed – so the way I see it I’m up on the deal as I’ve got a new cycling t-shirt, a discount voucher and the prospect of free food and wine for an afternoon.

Even funnier I wore the t-shirt to cycle into hapkido this morning and somebody in the gym started telling me how it was a great charity to support. So I lied and pretended I was still doing the ride. The bloke even patted me on the back.

I am a charity fraud. I may have to donate some money to ease my conscience…