My son Andrew went trekking in Nepal in 2013 as his first real adventure holiday, and came back with stunning photographs and a heartfelt respect for the people and their culture, their kindness, cheerfulness and endurance, often under conditions of extreme poverty.

He vowed to return one day and was particularly distressed when news of the earthquake in 2015 made the headlines. I privately (and rather selfishly) gave thanks that he wasn't in the country at the time, and made myself a promise that I would do something to help when the time was right.

I took early retirement last year, and since then I've been going on increasingly challenging walking holidays, physically pushing myself further with each one. On most of them I've been the oldest and slowest member of the group!

Purely by chance I happened to see an advertisement for a charity trek to Nepal which took my attention and got me thinking. Could I manage something that strenuous? .....hmm...  After a bit of detective work I decided against that particular trek, but the seed of the idea had been planted and I looked further.

I eventually chose the trek organised by KE Adventure (read the trip details here: https://www.keadventure.com/holidays/juniper-trust-schools-trek) for two reasons: 

• Andrew had used them to trek in Nepal three years ago and had nothing but good to say about the company, and
• their charity, the Juniper Trust, is run exclusively by volunteers and they guarantee that 100% of donations are used directly for the project which is to rebuild ten schools which were destroyed or damaged by the earthquake.

Andrew has decided to join me on the trek which will be great.

The trek visits nine of the ten schools which were destroyed, and which the project is rebuilding. Some of them are in extremely remote locations which makes transporting building materials etc. quite a challenge.

To top it all, I'm making plans to take part in a tandem skydive within the next few weeks. Watch this space for a confirmed date and maybe some photographs for proof!

So ......... I now have a new challenge on which to focus my efforts, which will hopefully raise awareness of the need to continue helping the victims of the 2015 earthquake, even though it's no longer front page news.