Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page. 

Also ,if you were a contributor to last year’s challenge thanks for your donation.

In June 2020 Sharon, my wife of 42 years, passed away at the end of a long journey with bone marrow cancer. She died peacefully in St John’s Hospice Lancaster after a short stay where the superb care the staff gave her made her last days as comfortable as possible, as well as making her death more bearable for her close family.

Later that year, in November, I entered my 70^th year, and inspired by a close friend decided to aim to mark it by doing something of significance, and at the same time raise money for St. Johns. This took the form of climbing the equivalent height of Everest in the Year November to November. I completed this challenge and raised about £2500 for the Hospice. This was a bit less than I had hoped so this year I initially decided to repeat the challenge and in particular try and climb the mountains I didn’t manage last year.

In April this year I had 5 glorious days on the Isle of Eigg in Scotland during which I swam every day in the sea.
When I returned home I came up with an alternative idea. You could say it was hatched on Eigg (apologies for the pun !). This was to combine walking and swimming, so, whilst still retaining the objective of climbing the equivalent of Everest, each walk had to include a swim. It seemed that this approach would take advantage of the Lake District’s vast array and range of opportunities to swim, and to combine this with a walk entailing some climbing. It would also
cut out some travel miles and the need to arrange accommodation.

Since I got back from Eigg I have been pursuing this objective and it has proven to be both enjoyable and inspirational. Whilst the climb was the main objective the choice of where to swim was both an important aspect of the walk and something which became a focal point to anticipate and look forward to. It also involved experiencing and looking at the landscape I am so lucky to live near in different way. In addition to all of this the weather has been exceptional with a plethora of fabulous days to get out into the Lake District. It even helped make the swim more enjoyable as the abundance of sunshine and warm weather we have had has had a positive effect on the water temperature !

I am hoping to sustain the challenge right through to the anniversary of the previous challenge, which is November, irrespective of where I am in terms of achieving the height required. I suspect that the swim, with the weather progressively getting colder, will become more of an obstacle that the walk.

If you feel inspired to sponsor me, please donate to St John’s Hospice using the Give Now button. Any donation, big or small will be really appreciated.      

Currently my progress can be viewed on my Facebook page at the following link. Highlight the link, right click and use the 'go to' option.  I have not taken down the entries for last year’s challenge but added this year’s entries to those already there. To keep the entries a bit more compact have created a summary of each month’s activities,

https://www.facebook.com/Peteseverestchallenge 
                     
                     
     

Pete