Hooray! Hooray! Thanks to great generosity, I have reached the £2000 mark. I am really grateful and so is everyone at Holy Cross. But be warned: I am redoubling my fund-raising efforts and no one who has ever known me is safe. I apologise in advance but this is such a good cause; and although I do not sally forth on my voyage until September, the Treehouse Project ideally needs to raise £20,000 by July. They're about £2000 off that as I write.

Meanwhile, my progress has been greatly helped by Penny's birthday gift of a sculling mirror, an extremely handy asset when you are going backwards, fast. It clips on to my cap and I've started trialling it on my outings. Last week, for instance, it gave me generous warning of an erratic - though good-hearted - narrowboat which made rather a business of coming out into the Thames at the little link from the canal in central Oxford. I was thus becalmed and safe when they surged past heading upriver, calling out to me: "Is this the way to Reading?" I politely put them right.

Here is a picture of a snail on Clementine, the opposite of symbolic in my opinion. The bird splat is another minor hazard of the operation. This one was exactly where I snuggle up against the boat when lifting her on to the car roof. What with that and the oceans of extremely slippery goose-poo on Thames slipways, and you can see what terrors I am braving in return for your very generous faith and cash.