Today, we visited Broak Oak Nursing Home. For me, it was my second visit, in which we looked at doing a RISE project on a little garden area they want to redo. We looked around two of the four units and met some of the patients – and I seriously just want to take them all out for an awesome time! The first unit we went to, Stanley, was for people with physical illnesses, so there were many frail people around, people asleep or just out of it. There's a fellow in there who is due to turn 100 in a couple of months and another who's a rugby fanatic – he used to play himself and when he heard about our assistant team leader, Tim, being a ex-Saints player, he got quite excited!

The second unit dealt with short-term memory loss, dementia patients and the like – I remember them mentioning that they had two wards to deal with this, but one was for the more severe cases, and so on. There were some lovely people in here; one lady in particular sticks in my mind. She talked to Lewis and I, then Anna and I.

She asked us what we were doing first, and we explained that we were at St. Helens College doing a personal development course called the Prince's Trust, and we'd be taking a few of the residents out for three days of fun and awesomeness. She told us to do what we wanted to do; to complete college and take our studies seriously, and to live our lives to the full. The wisdom behind her words was staggering and she got it bang-on; this is exactly what we should be doing; making the most of the opportunities available to us now while recognising that there's always the time to do that little bit extra. She advised us to know exactly what we want from life and to go for it. Then she wished us the best of luck with our college course.

This was one of her moments of clarity. I was so glad I was there to see it.

We met another lady in the unit who thought that we were all members of her family; the ones who didn't visit very often. Anna made an excellent point when we got back; if she thought we were her family, it must have made her happier that we visited. It was nice to think that we could have brought that moment of joy into her life.

This is pretty much why I'm doing this sponsored 'novel'. Even if I, like the female Maxwell Sim of the writerly world, have ignored my satnav and strayed wildly away from the chosen route.

Only I don't have a box of toothbrushes and a sack of postcards in my possession. The whole toothbrush thing in that novel really made me giggle – Trevor's enthusiasm for toothbrush design was really quite amusing!

The raffle ticket sale tomorrow, I think, will be a challenge to my leadership and team skills. As much as I like the people I work with, they can be a pain to work with. One is one of those aforementioned 'it's cool to be angsty' characters, the other has a tendency to get distracted from the task at hand and loses motivation quickly. I think I'll struggle with the former the most. Even the most gentle, benevolent encouragement is taken as 'having a go'.

Basically, I see a day of myself being cheerful, encouraging the others to be cheerful, being cheerful some more, encouraging them further, failing, getting down, down, then annoyed, and then being left there on my own to sell raffle tickets as tempers explode and people bugger off.

Perhaps that's a worst case scenario. The reality is that I probably won't get person A to work; I've abandoned them as a lost cause in my head because they don't do anything and then the smallest confrontation sets them off. But confrontation is needed with lazy people – you have to challenge them to get them off their arses and working.

Well, we'll see. There's no sense in sitting here being apprehensive about it, is there? I say leave the apprehension to my 'contemplate the day' time on the bus tomorrow.

That's if it's not packed and I don't have to commit over 60% of my thought processes to not falling over. Jerky buses and long legs = TIMBEEEERRR.

I absolutely cannot wait to get my guitar and clarinet tomorrow. I'm so excited that I might get them on my lunch break, some back with them and stand there abusing this clarinet to attract buyers. Actually, that might not be such a good idea – my group is based outside of the library. You know, where people go to work. I don't think people will much appreciate me playing my poor rendition of such classics as 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' and 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat' when they're trying to study.

I do hope we make good progress with sales tomorrow. And it would be nice if I got a few sponsors, as well. If anything, I should consider going round all of Newton over the next couple of days and getting craploads of sponsors for this novel, because so far I've only managed to get the obvious few; people from the course and my Dad. I need to knock on every door in Newton-le-Willows, smile, be friendly and explain exactly what lunacy I've got myself involved in and why.

The good thing is that I technically have until Monday to raise this money and write the novel. I'm already past a third of my goal, which puts me in a very good position.

Anyway, we're actually taking the residents out on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Monday, I'm assuming, is a day for finalising plans based on how much money we've earned, going over people's duties, making sure we're well prepared and aware of any of the residents' needs. So, That gives me a few extra days. Less panic, which is probably exactly what I need!

This massive tangent has helped me immensely, I must say, in meeting my page goals. The sponsored novel has been stressing me out so much ever since I started it; heck, even when I suggested it, I realised immediately afterwards that I'd probably thrown myself in at the deep end.

I suppose the way to go about this is to simply write what I want. 'The Great Couch Happening of '69' is a different kind of 'write what I want' in that it's less pressured, more about writing something entertaining. This is literally just about page count. I need to write 150 pages of rubbish for those people and I sure as hell will do it! I'll prove to myself that I am capable of writing a lot in a short space of time (though technically I've already proven that with my Write or Die adventures – good program!) and I'll burn myself out very conveniently before Script Frenzy begins! It's all good!

Speaking of Screnzy, my idea keeps floating in and out of my head. The last time I ventured into Screnzyland, I think I was after doing a graphic novel about the Burnley Tiger. Which, let's face it, can be nothing but awesome.