Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

I  decided to celebrate reaching 50 by seeing just how far I could mange to run. It went well over the summer so a few weeks ago I entered the Amsterdam marathon.This will only ever happen once!

24 hours after the event I can say I'm glad I did it and Amsterdam was a perfect venue, good organisation, windmills and canals to distract you and perfect running weather.My time was 4.26 which I was pleased with and will remain my personal best.

It would be fantastic if anyone who wanted to sponsor me would chose between 2 organisations.

The first is Open Arms in Malawi. My daughter Kirsty visited there in 2007 and was very impressed their work. This charity has long term links with several schools and individuals from Yorkshire and a small donation really will go a long way.

The other organisation is a new one and at present cannot be linked to this web page so it will take you a bit more effort to donate to it but I really hope you will consider it. Toe in The Water aims to help severely injured service men to regain their confidence by taking part in competative sailing events. My son Hamish has met some of the service men involved and as you know as a family we love (? in Kirsty's case) sailing. Please take a look at their website www.toeinthewater.org I am sure that many people will wish to help the organisation develop its work. Hopefully any donations can will become eligible for gift aid the website does explain the current situation.