12/10/2026
Hey 👋 if you’re new here I’m Toni, 34 and owner of TBA. I start this journey in 2018 where I applied for the TCS London Marathon to run for Leukaemia Care but the only trouble was I needed to raise £2,400. I raised the first £750 through family and friends pretty easy but then stopped as I had a year until I needed to run. Plenty of time, right? Wrong.. 2019 came around and I left it too late and panicked. Fortunately Leukaemia Care let me defer for a year and in the meantime I did what I thought was best, made an Instagram page and sent a message out to influencers to see if they’d share my baked goods in exchange for a post. It was for charity and any profits would be going directly to the cause.
The amazing and most down to earth Vicky Pattison responded and was more than happy to help - to the point where she even made sure she posted at a prime time for this to blow up and get as much custom for the charity as possible. Kindness really goes a long way and I’ll forever be grateful. Regardless the fact that those poor brownies look like that will always haunt me, please let me send you a new batch 🤣
Jokes aside thanks to Vicky I hit target within 2-3 months. I took every order via DM and baked in the evenings and weekends around my full time job.
Due to Covid I didn’t actually run until October 2021! By this point my Nan had unfortunately passed away (she had leukaemia and was alive when I signed up, with the intent for her to see me complete it). I had gone through a breakup, house move and started a house reno alone. Running stopped completely and I ran the marathon with no training. I had to walk the last 6 miles due to getting runners knee but I DID IT!!!
After this I completely stopped baking. I had little time and due to leaving my IG page and not posting (IYKYK algorithms 🥴) when I finally came back to baking the online orders came in so slowly.
In regards to how I got back into baking; my amazing now fiance Dave had a colleague/friend who randomly came across my Instagram page. Him and his wife were obsessed with Blondies and they placed an order and it was that single order that lit that fire and passion which started the whole journey over