Team Honk, the Mayor of St Albans and her Sport Relief Onesie!

Introducing the Mayor of St Albans, Cllr Annie Brewster

If there's one thing I've learnt with blogging it's to expect the unexpected. And that was certainly very true on Tuesday when the Team Honk blogger relay came to St Albans.

After something of a sleepless night, Tuesday morning saw the usual nerves that come with helping to organise something like this. What if it rained? What if the Mayor forgot to show up? What if the baton was late? What about if something happened to one of the school kids taking part? What if the local paper came and yet there was nothing to photograph? What if we lost the baton?

Well – about 30 minutes before the baton was due to arrive in St Albans it did rain. In fact, it hailed. And I then realised that I'd left my coat at home as I'd been too busy trying to remember the packet of safety pins so everyone taking part could attach a sign about how to sponsor us to the back of their costumes!

The good news is that the rain stopped in time for the children of Mandeville and St Peter's schools to line the route between the two schools and although the baton was about 10 minutes later it didn't really matter and we were able to make up time in the human chain between the two schools without any problems.

Team Honk Hemel arrive with the baton at Mandeville School

The Mayor most certainly did turn up, completely in style wearing a Sport Relief onesie (which I heard her telling the editor of the local paper was incredibly comfortable) with her chains of office over the top! She went along the whole length of the human chain between the schools encouraging the children to pass on the baton and giving a big wave to all the confused looking motorists that drove past. The elderly woman who was walking her dog past the human chain did look a little confused when she stopped to ask me if that was the "real Mayor".

Mandeville have written about their involvement in Team Honk on the school website here and there's also a great video that one of their Governors took of the relay from a remote controlled drone! It is very much worth a look.

The excitement of the children who took part was fantastic and I'm so pleased that we were able to share the Team Honk fun with so many of them. Huge thanks have to go to Jenny from Cheetahs in my Shoes who came up with the human chain idea in the first place and sold the idea to the school head.

Team Honk dressed to impress outside Cuthberts Toys (and yes that is Helen from Actually Mummy with me!)

From St Peters school the Mayor helped the baton travel into the centre of St Albans by scooter and  after photo opportunities outside Cuthberts Toys and in the Town Hall Old Court Rooms the baton was on its way again from there to DJs Jungle on the north side of town.

Official handover of the baton in the Old Court Rooms

From there Kirsty from Damson Lane and I collected it and took it back across to the train station from where it travelled into London to be handed over to the London Team Honk for their Honkopoly adventures the following day.

Kirsty and I receiving the baton at DJs Jungle for our leg to the station

The Herts Ad have been incredibly supportive of our work for Team Honk and this morning I was so pleased to see that the Mayor and her onesie have made the front cover and we've all made page 2 of the paper. Some great publicity for Sport Relief.

I'm delighted to say that we've managed to raise £800 for Sport Relief so far – and that's before we take into account the amount that was donated via text message. If you still want to donate then you can do so here. Thank you for all your support.