Our aim is to raise money to help Heycroft Primary School maintain and if we raise enough funds, improve the school swimming pool. As many of the school parents will know, we are fortunate that our children have access to a swimming pool on site. My children have been lucky enough to benefit from it's use over the years and hopefully so will many more children in years to come. I think that learning to swim is a vital part of growing up. For safety, for exercise and fitness but mostly for fun.

I realise that many of you have been kind enough to support me in my fundraising in the past and you all know i wouldn't ask again if i didn't feel it was for a worthy cause. I hope the challenges are enough to pique your interest and persuade you to part with some of your hard earned money. As always, every little helps.

The first challenge is taking place over the Easter Weekend. On Saturday 20th April, my good friend Phil Coombe and I are taking part in the 2Swim4Life challenge. The challenge is that between the two of us, we will swim 1 mile (1600m) on the hour, every hour from 9am Saturday morning until 9am on Sunday morning. The event will take place at Guildford Lido which has a 50m pool so it will work out to 32 lengths every hour. So in total, we will swim 768 lengths, a total of 38,400 metres! It's not a challenge we are taking lightly. The distance itself is a challenge but taking in to account the sleep deprivation and the cold weather that the evening will bring, it really will be the toughest challenge that i have personally undertaken. I recently made the mistake of reading some blogs regarding the event from previous years and the one comment that stood out most for me was, 'as the evening draws in, you will find much more space in your swim lane as people inevitably drop out!’

Challenge number 2 is a work in progress but the general details are this. Mr Richard Wood, my very good friend, triathlon buddy and general lover of all things slightly bonkers, and I are hoping to make a swim crossing, from Kent, back home to Essex! This is a difficult challenge to organise, as it requires permission from the PLA (Port of London Authority) who are not keen on the idea and also, backing from the RNLI and additional boat support. Rest assured, if it's possible, we will get it done.