Cracked it - made it to £400 - thanks everyone. 

I have now completed the Great North Swim challenge, I took part on 13th September at 9.30am in Lake Windermere, my time was a very cautious 62 minutes - see http://www.greatnorthswim.org

The weather was perfect, with the scenery of Windermere and surrounding lake District fells making it a pleasure to take part in this well organised event.

This is the first time that I have done a fundraising event like this! The sponsorship raised certainly gave me incentive and spurred me on to keep up the traiing and complete the event. I am now thinking of improving my technique and bettering my time next year.

I took part this year with my daughters help, Emma joining me for the swim, she is a much better swimmer than I am and kept checking I was OK with a come on dad, plus also Julia helped as all important ground crew.

This has been a great opportunity for me to get into some proper swimming - not exactly a strong point. The training went really well, if a little difficult to juggle around a busy work schedule.

The dsay itself required an early start and it was fun to be amongst all the other swimmers, many of whom were also doing the swim for the first time.

I chose Mind because we still understand very little about how our minds work, and with busy complicated lives so many of us find that our mental health is being affected.The charity  Mind helps people to take control over their mental health. They make it possible for people who experience mental distress to live full lives, and continue to play their full part in society.

You can read more about Mind and how donations will help them here : http://mind.org.uk/donate

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Please help me to hit my target of £400, just a few more £'s to go now.

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