The Hospice of St Francis in Berkhamsted is a fantastic small charity that do wonderful work, looking after patients and their families during the most difficult of times. They receive just 20% of the £4.7million they need each year from the NHS – the rest has to come from fundraising. So I want to do something to help them, in memory of our friend Paul Shyvers, who lost his brave battle with cancer last year.

The last couple of years I’ve done a few runs, including a half-marathon last year - and many of you have been kind enough to sponsor me. But I don’t enjoy running very much at all – this year I thought I’d do something a little different. 

So towards the end of August this year (tides and weather permitting), I will be joining 3 friends in attempting to kayak around the Isle of Wight. This seemed like a great idea, until a couple of things happened: 

1) I had a look at a map, and discovered that the Isle of Wight isn’t quite as small as I’d thought it was (it’s about 100km around, so nearly a marathon-distance to cover every day for 3 days)

2) I had a go at kayaking on the open sea – and it turns out it’s hard work. I say hard – it’s actually pretty brutal, even on a calm day

But after some soul-searching, a few training trips, and a fair amount of nervous laughter, we’ve decided that we’ll give it a go.

And this is where you come in. This is a big undertaking – and I want to raise as much money as I can towards supporting this great cause. So please dig deep and donate whatever you can – it really will make a huge difference, and will keep us going during the many hours of painful paddling that lie ahead (and that’s just on day 1!).

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