Canterbury's Lady Mayoress threw down her gauntlets in the pages of the Kentish Gazette last week and challenged me to raise more cash than her for taking part in the charity zip wire challenge in the Dane John this Saturday.

The odds are somewhat weighted in her favour as she obviously has a lot of friends in high places whilst mine only live around the lowlands of Canterbury, Whitstable and Herne Bay.

I suspect though that some of her friends at the council may be feeling the pinch a little right now which is good news for me.

My fund raising page is at www.justgiving.com/bobmower and, as you will no doubt see when you go there to donate, the figure raised so far is not huge.

This is because of my dastardly plot to keep her guessing how big my stash is right up to the last minute.

I will then burst forth and reveal all - but hopefully not whilst I'm dangling 60 feet in the air over the Dane John.

---

I had a strange experience on Thursday morning when I woke up and lost the ability to move my neck.

Eventually, after a very painful morning, I managed to get to the chiropractor.

Liz promptly laid me down on her couch, studied me from all angles, told me that before she could work on the neck problem she needed to "straighten me out."

---

Give your reaction to Bob's Blog here>>>

---

Apparently I'm a bit wonky, bits of me are out of line and one leg is longer than the other.

She set to work with big wedges, pushed them underneath me, one on each side and promptly pressed down very hard in various places and I was then "straight enough" to work on.

The neck problem consisted of a bunch of knotted up nerves and bits and things all of which needed to be freed up.

Anybody who has ever had a similar problem will know that there comes the time when you need to have the dreaded neck jerk which is about one small twist away from having your neck broken and can be excruciating.

Fortunately, because my neck was too painful, I got the gun instead!

This is a device which is similar to a rivet gun but instead of firing rivets it has a flat plate on the end and is put against the pressure points and fired - and it works!

By Saturday morning I was able to move my head from side to side and by Saturday afternoon, after another hour in the hands of Liz, I felt like a new man.

---

Feeling better on Sunday I took my son Charlie to Crabble Mill at River, near Dover.

Originally it was going to be a castle or place of historic interest but they all seemed to be closed until half-term and I've been to Dover Castle so often this year that I'm intimate with the gate keeper.

Anyway, I checked the website. "Open Sundays" it said. So we got in the car and drove to River, pulled into the car park then crossed the road and tried to enter the mill to be faced with locked gates!

Two elderly men were leaning on a wall having a conversation.

"Excuse me, what time does it open," I butted in.

"Open now," he says.

"But the gates are padlocked."

"Are they?"

"Yes, Is there another entrance?"

"No."

"But it says open on Sundays on the website and on that notice on the gate over there as well."

"Oh sorry I've just remembered why we're not open today, there's a private party."

"Thanks," I say sarcastically and noisily slam the exit gate which is open and we end up at ......Dover Castle!