Part five: Getting back to everyday life

After a similarly traumatic journey home to Cumbria during which we were unsure until the last hour whether trains would be running further north than Preston, we had lots of time waiting for connecting trains in which to consider the enormity of our win.

We also had a huge wonderful cake to carry which had been made for the competition but became something of a liability in its large protective box; I was determined, however, that selling slices of it would become the first step in our fundraising activities!

Our trusty Chimp guarding the celebratory cake

We arrived back at Penrith very late that night, still on a high from the day. The next couple of weeks were a flurry of related activities - telephone and email interviews with journalists, requests for comments and book reviews from the team, a photo shoot when Imogen and Sol dragged themselves from their sickbeds to appear and, of course, discussion in school about the whole event and the consequences of it.

All too soon Christmas was upon us and in the holiday I spent some time researching the cost of flights and racking my brains for ideas which would translate into raising a whole lot of money. When term started again we met with the parents of our team members to discuss whether participation in the trip around the globe was feasible and if so, how we would finance it.

To cut short a very long story, we had 100% support from everyone who mattered to the trip but it all seemed so unreal until I began to receive emails from New Zealand and from Bristol Grammar School, the other team who had won an invitation to the world final. In school our wonderful Development Manager, who knows all the right people, set to work on our behalf letting people know that we were looking for financial support for our trip and we were given our first donation from a cake sale held by one of the Year 8 forms. More form activities followed and sponsored silences, reading and swimming all contributed to the funds.

'Cluedo' on World Book Day raised money in school...

...as did a 'Where's The Monkey?' competition

As the weeks passed we received financial support from several local businesses and other organisations whilst various other fundraising activities took place, both in school and undertaken by individual team members. Many grateful thanks must go to these donors, both corporate and individual, whose support has been extremely generous and enabled us to reach our target remarkably early on. Thankfully the price of the flights hadn't increased too much by the time we were able to purchase our tickets. After that we really felt as if we were on our way!