So I usually start my tea party prep in January but I have had to scale things back quite a lot this year. Moving house in October has taken up a considerable amount of my precious energy.
Every year since 2013 I have, with a huge amount of help from my family, held a tea party to raise awareness and funds for M.E. On the Sunday of M.E. awareness week we have invited friends & family to join us to spread a little awareness of the illness that I was diagnosed with in 2010. Local newspapers have often picked up the story and shared details of the event, inviting locals to join us on the day to raise a bit of money. Other people around the world(!) have hosted their own tea parties with their own family and friends. To date Blue Sunday tea parties have raised almost £10,000.
Blue Sunday has grown and grown, and so we have ended up needing to hire a venue for the last few years to accommodate everyone (and all of the cake!)
Last year it was so successful and we had so many people turning up to support us that we ran out of parking spaces in the car park! Unfortunately, due to my health, we have made the decision not to have such a big tea party this year but I am hopeful that we can be back to our best for 2020. It’s a huge undertaking and I’m not quite feeling ‘match fit’ after the house move in October. Classic M.E. recovery time for you!
As so many of my online friends and fellow M.E. sufferers are unable to travel, the event has also always been an online event. To join in from the comfort of your own home, all you really need is an internet connection. I spend the day posting photos and videos of the ‘real life event’ online so that everyone can feel as if they are really there.
Over the years it has been so wonderful and heartwarming to see people posting pictures of themselves drinking tea and eating cake from the comfort of their own home. People have used Blue Sunday as a good excuse to meet online friends in real life for the first time. Seeing people meet and make new friends online by ‘attending’ the online tea party is so lovely.
You can find the Facebook Event HERE.
On Instagram and Twitter you can follow the hashtags #BlueSunday2019 and #teapartyforME. I still have the JustGiving page open from last year which you can find HERE, where you can donate the price you’d expect to pay for tea and cake in a café. Alternatively, donations to an M.E. charity of your choice would be lovely too.
Really hoping to see you on Sunday 12th May for tea and cake again.
Lots of love,
Anna @ M.E. myself and I
M.E. myself and I 