Last weekend I was lucky enough to take photos at the Midnight Walk, a charity fund-raiser, organised by and in aid of Severn Hospice.As usual my day started a couple of days before, recharging batteries, formatting memory cards and cleaning lenses (the 6 Ps).
I arrived at TCAT in Wellington at 21:45 in time to meet the other photographers; Rob May, Nick Cameron and Colin Rees and also just in time for the briefing.
At around 22:30 the first ladies started to arrive to register for their walk, all looking amazingly cheerful considering they were about to walk 10k through the streets of Telford starting at Midnight. A lot of the walkers were in fancy dress, we saw smurfs, policewomen, dalmatians, gruffaloes and many more. The walkers were efficiently through the registration system and free to take advantage of the market stalls set up in the hall, chocolate and face-painting seemed to be particular favourites.
The walkers were given a final briefing and a poignant reminder of why we were all there. As the time approached Midnight the Smurfs were named as winners of the fancy dress. Finally the ladies were warmed-up to ensure there were no pulled muscles although those in fancy dress must have been plenty warm enough! 
Finally it time for them to set off from TCAT on their route around Telford. For people about to spend almost 2 hours (or longer) wandering the streets of Shropshire they all seemed remarkable happy, I assume that I just never saw the alcohol!
This meant a hours respite for the photographers, time to back-up images onto laptops and grab a hot drink.
Before long the ladies started to arrive back at TCAT again they all seemed very bright and breezy, such a shame they were greeted by my grumpy face behind a camera,
All too soon the party was over, highlights for me; bumping into an old friend who I haven't seen for too many years (great to catch up Mark), Leah bringing a warm hat to a bald man - thank you, my wife finishing the walk a few weeks after her knee surgery and of course the sight of 11 smurfs doing an aerobic warm-up!!
More photos can be found on Facebook and on the Severn Hospice Flickr page.
