Day 17: Wow, cough, wow!

Umm for once in my life I am not really sure what to say. I woke up this morning to more kindness and awesome support and an extra £200 pounds in my bank account.

I am so amazingly grateful I just can’t even find the words. It means I can relax a bit (which is great cause I’m still sick as a dog) but even better, it means that I can go an explore some awesome sharing economy platforms that were just a little out of reach.

To give you a little bit of a hint at what is to come:

• Have dinner at a pop up restaurant in someone’s flat — Grub Club
• Suspended Coffee — there are some cafes in London thanks to the suspended coffee movement that lets you buy a cup of coffee for someone who needs it.
• Go for a run to do good things with Good Gym
• Maybe rent someone’s campervan for a trip out of London through — Camperbug
• Stay on a boat in the thames — or the wildest Airbnb place I can find.

And who knows what else I can discover.

This is also a good time for me to ask if any of you have questions about the sharing economy that I can investigate for you? Anyone curious about car-sharing? Or want to know how you can use the sharing economy to get a mortgage? Let me know and I will happily get on the trail.

So today locked inside cause I was too sick to go out. I got a bit creative and made some products using platform Zazzle (and please let me know if you have problems with postage as I can easily convert to Australian or US site). Taking inspiration from Portlandia’s “put a bird on it” I “put a queen on it”. There are some “i like to talk to strangers” items, all stuff that you would use in public and hopefully might spark a conversation. A magnet from Day 2 of my travels, and a t-shirt with my favourite saying: “They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds”

It’s apparently a Mexican proverb in this form, but has also been attirbuted to a Greek poet from the 70’s who fought for gay rights. I heard it from Lisa Gansky at Ouishare in Paris. Wherever it came from I think it’s beautiful.

It feels a little like what happened to me this week. Sick, feeling poor and trapped I felt like I was buried under my own stupid pledge to try and survive in the sharing economy. But just when I didn’t think I could do any more, it all turned around. People from all over the world, both who I know and who I am yet to meet started to help me out, both financially and with messages of support. I felt like I was buried, but now I am growing.

I have learnt such a lot from this experience already, and there is still almost two weeks to go. Thank you again to all of you who are reading these posts, and I hope you are enjoying the ride, there is still more to come.