Rainbow connection

Kilimanjaro

"Goodbye Harry!" Joe said softly, taking a mental picture of his son and kissing his head gently.

"Goodbye Abby!" He said, using the same soft tone and kissing her cheek.

"Goodbye Dot." He said, even quieter, his voicing finally breaking at the end.

"Joe, don't cry, you'll upset us!" Dianne said, rubbing his shoulder firmly. "You're gonna be amazing, you've put in as much training as you can, and you're gonna raise so much money!"

"I'm sorry, I'll see you in 2 weeks." Joe said, pulling the 3 lives of his life into his arms for one final embrace, taking in as much of their individual scents as possible.

"Love you." Dianne called as her husband disappeared into security, before leading her children out of Heathrow airport in the vain hope of making it to school on time.

"Mummy?"

"Yes, Abby?"

"Where's daddy going?"

"Kilimanjaro darling, it's a mountain in Tanzania in Africa!"

"Why's he gone there?" Harry asked, struggling to fasten his seatbelt.

"To help the poor people?" Abby asked, the older of the siblings knew their dad was partaking in a charity challenge.

"Yes sweetheart, daddy's going to climb a mountain, to raise money for comic relief, who help poor people all over the world who don't have food, or medicines when they're poorly." Dianne explained, helping Harry fasten his seatbelt after giving him more than enough time to experiment.

"How does climbing a mountain raise money?" Harry asked, still confused as to why his daddy had to leave him for 2 whole weeks.

"It's going to be on TV munchkin, not now, in a few months time, so hopefully people will watch Daddy and the others working really hard and donate."

"That's weird." Abby commented. "Oooh I've got Art today!" She said excitedly, suddenly changing the subject.

—

Joe woke up cold, aching and feeling no more awake than he was when his body hit the sleeping bag the night before. His thoughts immediately went to his family back home in the Uk. 7 year old Abby and 5 year old Harry were his proudest achievements, and along with his beautiful wife Dianne, made up his world. He sighed quietly and tried to imagine their little faces, and what they'd be doing right now. There's no way they'd be awake yet; it was barely 5 am, but soon their little family cottage in Wiltshire would be bustling with the stress of breakfast before school. Harry would want to watch numberjacks and Abby Chucklevision, an argument would break out and to the detriment of the children, his wife would decide no one would watch tv before school.

Joe was approximately half way through the 9 day hike to the summit of Kilimanjaro and it was fair to say his body was feeling it. Having spent the whole of yesterday feeling extremely queasy due to the attitude, the YouTuber turned TV personality was beyond grateful with how little nausea he was feeling that morning. The downside to not being distracted by the attitude, was that Joe was now more aware of how much his little legs were aching. Aware he couldn't lie still for much longer, he heaved himself up and made his way out onto the campsite and to his surprise, fellow celebrity Tom Daley was already awake.

"Morning man, how you doing?" Joe asked, as he pushed his floppy hair out of his face.

"Yeah, not too bad, you feeling better?"

"So much better thank god." Joe sighed, before taking a seat next to the Olympian.

"Kettles juts boiled off you want anything?" Tom asked.