Shake, Rattle and Freeze

I told myself that I will only ever be light hearted on this blog as I think there’s far too much doom and gloom in this world, however I kind of need to make an exception for this item (or kind of – light hearted stuff at the bottom!).

For the last few years, my husband has arranged a Marie Curie street collection in our local market town. We start at 9.30 am (trust me, this is a major achievement for me on a Saturday morning) and do a 3 hour stint, standing there rattling our cans, staring at the shoppers with pleading eyes – you can’t even hint at people to give a donation – apparently it’s against the law!

Last Saturday was our annual shake, rattle and freeze for Marie Curie Cancer Research.

So there we stand for 3 hours collecting, in my opinion, for one of the best charities ever, Marie Curie Cancer Care. It’s probably true that the vast majority of people have at some point in their life, lost someone close to them due to cancer. Personally, over the last few years, my immediate family has lost to this evil and wicked disease an amazing Father, a truly fabulous God Father, a Grand Mother and a Grand Father and only too recently one of the most brilliant people I have ever met. So doing this year’s collection meant more than it usually does.

The number of people that donated and gave their story as to why they ‘only give to cancer charities’ was pretty amazing and sometimes incredibly sad. I am a bit of emotional person, and now remember to take my handy pack of tissues for such times!

Others, however, pretend not to notice you – although we were all wearing vibrant, fluorescent yellow jackets – and that’s fine too. Collectors and their charities, don’t expect people to donate lots of money – pennies are fine too, as they say, ‘every little helps’. Next time you see someone collecting for a charity, please don’t look at the can and think, ‘oh no, not people collecting again’ take a look at the cause they are collecting for and see if there’s a link to you and your life. If there is a link, just think twice before walking by and pretending you’ve not seen the volunteer – there is a reason for this form of collection – it helps continue the good work of their chosen charity.

And now, to the funnier parts of the collection………..

• For those that pretend not to notice me – I AM wearing a fluorescent yellow jacket, I AM shaking a can of change so incredibly loud I KNOW that everyone within a 50 meter vicinity CAN hear and see me.


• My hands nearly seized up whilst holding the box of daffodils and collecting can – I don’t function very well first thing in the morning and when I fell out of bed and looked out of the window to see a lovely sunny day, this somehow got interpreted in my brain as ‘oh, a summer day, no need for the winter woollies’ – yes, I was very wrong, it was freezing, you get to stand in one place whilst you’re collecting and you can’t jog up and down the street to keep yourself warm.


• You get to tell kids, it’s nearly Mothers Day and they can buy a flower for their Mom!


• My husband and I got to wear this incredibly bright yellow, oversized hat with Marie Curie and Yellow Pages printed all over it – fantastic conversation starter – it also kept your head warm! We only had the one hat and therefore had to fight over who wanted to look the biggest idiot yet at the same time be the warmest idiot. Whatever little street cred we had before we started the collection has most definitely gone now!! On the plus side, whoever got to wear the ‘stupid hat’ saw an immediate increase in their collection takings.


• We get to hand over 6 full collection cans for someone else to count and send off to Marie Curie (sorry, this is not the attitude, but last year we raised a lot of money and it takes a long long time to count up all that change)

Click here to see the flowers and THE hat - and if you’re feeling ‘the link’ donations can also be given on this site.