Following the launch and Success of “Blanket Earth Walks The World”  at the Halloween Carnival Parade in Derry/Londonderry City Northern Ireland on the 31st October 2011′.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the school children who dressed up as Withches,Ghouls and Scary Monsters  that carried the first piece of Blanket measuring 212 ft x 9 ft into the history books to the tens of thousands of people that lined the streets in Europe’s Biggest Halloween Carnival Event alongs the banks of the river Foyle.

BELFAST ~ Love will be in the air in Belfast around City Hall as we display two “Love” pieces to the public/media on 14th February 2012′ on St Valentines Day measuring 36 ft x 9 ft.

The two pieces we are displaying were created and designed by Thornhill Girls College Derry/Londonderry City Northern Ireland and they managed to help the White Oaks Rehabilitation Centre in Donegal and Sister Deirdre Mullens (Noble Prize Winner) for poverty in Africa … The second piece is by the Sacred Heart Girls College in Napier North Island New Zealand and the two pieces combind should look spectacular side by side and hopefully add some Love on the day.

OMAGH ~ We may be adding Omagh Co Tyrone to our Calendar Walk on 21st April 2012′ as it has played a huge part to this project from the world Go !  We would be dedicating this Walk to the wonderful Grovehill Animal Shelter Omagh and every penny raised will go directly to the sick and poor wee abandoned animals … I will be having a meeting with Lynda Hill and the committee of the Grovehill Animal Shelter on 22/2/2012 and see can we organise the school children/manpower/volunteers/authorities etc and if this can be achieved in such a short time frame of only two months then Omagh Co Tyrone will take up the reigns to Walk No 2.

DUBLIN ~ On 6th June 2012′ “Blanket Earth Walks The World” will officially take the next baby steps at 1.00 pm at Trinity College Dublin the same day the London Olympic Relay Torch is expected to come to town … Many school children will be invited to carry the Blanket up Grafton Street and down Dawson Street and back to Trinity College … The 350 ft in length x 9 ft in width piece could again add some flavour on this special occassion.

Final planning and preparation will take place on this tiny Island over the coming months on the route we intend to take around the world and fingers crossed we hope we can get up and close to the closing ceremony of the World Olympic Games on Sunday 12th August followed by Edinburgh’s Comedy Festival.

The final size of the Blanket is estimated to be 1.5 times the size of Wembley Stadium and will take 12 yrs to complete with over 600 schools invited to participate in the project globally.

Every school is asked to try and help a charity of their choice and create and design a piece of Blanket on a heavy calico piece measuring 6 metres in lenght and three metres in width …  choosing one of six words - Love-Hope-Change-Kindness-Peace-Happiness.

The logistics of the project is huge and requires many to help out along the way … Our first Blanket Earth bus will hopefully(fingers crossed again) be launched in the Southern Hemisphere early 2013′ with the aim of pushing the project forward with a team of International Volunteers.

Our ”First” big presentation  will be aimed at the opening ceremony of the World Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro Brazil 2016′.

It is estimated that the Worlds Largest Blanket will help many along the way and God only knows how many signatures we could have on it by our third and final presentation at the closing ceremony of the World Olympic Games in 2024′ and your guess is as good as mine to where that may be ?

Its sooo excittting !

Maybe I could write a book someday on my journey to date … its been most interesting to say the least … I still say life is amazing inspite of some setbacks along the way … but thats life isn’t it ?

Cycling Australia was some journey in itself and helping the homeless with the help of mass media and the aussie folk … I felt like a celebrity at times and I found that very tiring to be honest … I really liked cycling the great frontier or some would call it the Outback of Australia as it was very spiritual and very fulfilling lying under the stars most times with all kinds of strange and eerie sounds and gazing up at the shooting stars and thinking to myself how miniscule we humans really are in the vast scale of things.

Setting up a registered charity in Ireland in the booming Celtic tiger followed the success of the Oz trip and the idea came about to get schools together in trying to help put the worlds biggest blanket together … I almost got married to an aussie girl and fell off the wagon and that was just in Ireland.

I continued my journey into parts of Europe and markets started to wobble so I took myself to New Zealand and then down to South America and back through Asia and found myself back once again upon Irish soil to a collapsed economy.

Over the last seven years I have been in the headlines of national newspapers and television … been in hundreds of newspapers … sometimes for the right reasons and sometimes for not all the right reasons … I met many celebs and the down and outs at times … I have been officially homeless for five years and depended on the generousity of others … sometimes staying in hostels .. Hotels .. friends homes …Tents … Under bridges … Hammocks .. Haysheds … Sleeping on beaches … Under the stars … In trees and Sleeping with the homeless and the list is endless to say the least.

I have managed to help over one hundred charities on my journey and shook the hand of six thousand sponsors to date and sometimes I even dressed up as Santa and thats become a habit in itself as I’ve done it now six times  … deep down there must be a big child in me somewhere … I’ve met the most amazing people around the world and have fallen in love a couple of times too.

I have been in many a tight corner and yet never gave up …I’ve been robbed,bashed,beaten up,urinated on and have almost died along the way many times and like a cat with nine lives I’ve pushed on regardless,I’ve seen the inside of many hospitals and even lived in a homeless shelter for four months and can still say  “Life is Amazing” !

An old lady once said to me ”Somebody up there likes you ” and I thought to myself … she has a point !

One single moment can change our life forever. I am living proof of that.

I have been asked many times about how this crazy idea started of travelling around the world and piecing together the world’s largest blanket. To this day I haven’t really told the full story as it always seemed a bit weird and I was afraid people would think I was some kind of crazy man. Today I want to share that story.

In 2000 I went to Australia, to the other side of the world, to recover from alcoholism. I was a hopeless case and couldn’t stop drinking. I settled on the central coast and joined Alcoholics Anonymous and made many new friends. They became my family. My recovery wasn’t easy, however for the first two years it was made easier by the fact that I managed to help many other sufferers of this insidious disease along the way. It helped me to stay sober whenever I brought another sick person into a rehab or detox clinic or even to a hospital for that matter.

I worked my program 24/7. I bought a little cream station wagon and cleaned a few windows and signs in order to get a little pocket money to pay for my rental on a wee caravan with an annex attached. I was very blessed to have my wee caravan. I got sober in one of the most beautiful places in Australia and I could hear the sounds of the ocean most nights as I fell asleep on a futon mattress in the annex.

After two years of recovery I decided to take a journey to Byron Bay. One thing led to another and before long I was working as a mystic on an amazing beach under two palm trees, teaching and healing people from all walks of life. It was an amazing journey in itself and the letters of gratitude kept coming as I spoke about God and my recovery, how beautiful life was and how you should keep reaching for your dreams and stay positive.

I had total peace inside. I could share the wisdom I had gained from my experiences, and meanwhile I myself was being supported by my AA family and continued meetings. I moved around and eventually made my way up north and found myself helping to save a teenage girl who wanted to take her own life. This took me in another direction and left me with a very serious decision to make. Do I stay in Australia illegally to continue my healing work, or do I leave the country and return to the booming Celtic Tiger? My visa was running out and the government wasn’t going to renew it, but I decided to follow my heart. I broke the law and continued on my journey.

People came out of the woodwork.  They just seemed to find me and I ended up in Cairns working with all kinds of people. They said I had a gift, yet I knew deep within me it wasn’t my gift but God’s.

After a few months though, the guilt about over-staying my visa started to get the better of me. Even though I was broke and didn’t want to leave, I decided to return to the Central Coast, sell my car, pack my few things from my caravan and pull out of Australia.

I had just gotten back to the caravan park when the motor of my car blew up. I had nothing to sell for my ticket. I found Don, the owner of the park, had had a stroke and was now in a wheel chair, so I decided to stay on and help him out while I tried to raise some funds for my return to Ireland.

One day I borrowed a bicycle and rode 12 kms over to Erina Fair to see if some old clients wanted their shopfronts cleaned. I attached my bucket, extension rod, and some cleaning cloths to the bike and took off towards Erina. It was a hot and steamy day and I felt like a great fool on a pushbike cycling 12km to drum up work. When I got to Erina I spotted a homeless man sitting on a wall and stopped to talk to him. He reminded me of where I was back in 1999, homeless. I gave him my last five dollars and continued on my way. I spent all day trying to drum up some work but had no success.

Totally deflated, I got on the bike and started my return back to the caravan. I had no food at home and no money in my pocket and a car with a blown up motor. I was furious. In spite of the many people I had coached over the past two years about faith and love and God, here I was forgetting everything. I flew into a rage and started to blame God for the mess I was currently in. I cursed him and was screaming at him non-stop in my mind for most of the way home. I said, “If you’re there and you can hear me, show me a sign or get me out of this mess, for you have all the power and I have nothing.”

Further along, I noticed a scruffy weirdo with long hair and bare feet walking up the hill in the same direction, but I didn’t give him a second thought as I was busy abusing God. In the distance just ahead of the weirdo I noticed what looked like a car seat cover in the middle of the road. If only I had a car. However, I took this as a sign to return to Ireland as soon as possible as it had spots of green on it. I shot passed the weirdo to reach my prize and ditched the bike by the side of the road to claim the car seat cover, only to realise it was just a stupid blanket. I was just about to dump it into the ditch when I noticed the weirdo almost adjacent to me. I started to approach him and as I got closer I started to feel very calm and peaceful. I stood directly in front of him and asked him if he needed a blanket. He looked straight into my eyes with the brightest eyes I have ever seen and in that moment every hair on my body stood up, he opened his palms and all he said was “Bless You”. It felt like time had completely stopped. I was in some sort of shock. After a few moments of just standing there in a daze and no conversation I returned to my bike. I mounted it and turned to wave him good-bye but he was gone.

I don’t know what happened that day on the side of the road but by the next morning I had decided to push-bike around Australia helping the homeless. I started making plans and whenever I told anybody about my plans they said I was mad, I wasn’t mad, I was totally mad. But here I am, six and a half years later, still going around the world, visiting schools, raising awareness, fundraising for charities, and creating the world’s largest blanket.

I remember that single moment that changed my life forever!

Editors : Laine Mullen USA - Ben Whitten NZ.