Many years ago, when my lovely wife Maria was at university, she had a brain haemorrhage. Unbeknown to her, she had an AVM, which is effectively a tangle of abnormal and poorly formed blood vessels. They have a high rate of bleeding, which can have devastating consequences. Brain surgery followed to remove it. A couple of years ago, after our daughter Clara was born, a scan showed that the AVM had grown back, but thankfully radiotherapy was successful this time round. Not everyone is as lucky as us though. Around this time Maria heard about this hugely inspirational girl, Nikki Christou, who suffers from a very rare form of craniofacial AVM, which is currently incurable.

Although Nikki was only 6 when she was diagnosed (5 years ago now), this amazing young lady has gone on to set up a charity, and has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds to find a cure and help other AVM sufferers. She has won the UK's most inspirational girl award, a National Diana award, been praised by countless people, and is frankly just incredible.

It is absolutely phenomenal how such a young lady can have such a positive outlook on life, can not only accept the terrible things that have been put upon her, but turn it into a mission to help others as well..

Both Maria and I are absolutely in awe of Nikki, and raising a bit of money to help find a cure and raise awareness of AVM's is a tiny tiny thing to do. So... what am I doing. With two friends we are cycling to Paris from just outside Oxford. We're going to do it in 2 and a half days, ending with 130 miles in France on the last day. I'm not very fit, and not particularly suited to exercise (or lycra), but willing to push myself and go through a bit of temporary discomfort and hopefully raise some money for this incredibly worthwhile cause.

If you are able, any pennies would be gratefully received, and well spent by the Butterfly AVM charity.. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this!!

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