Hello everyone and (finally) welcome to my fundraising page..

Most of you will know that I am running the London marathon at the end of April, which will be the second time I have done it and hopefully this time round won't be quite as dramatic! Stitches in forhead, not being allowed to cross the finish line... all those things are a distant memory!

So, to the important bit. I am hoping to raise lots of money for a really great Charity - a trust which funds a group of nurses to be able to come and care for my Grandad in his own home, without him needing to uproot and live in a care home. Whether you know me well or not, a lot of you will have heard me talking about my Grandad and what a great (and grumpy) man he is, and how one of my favourite things to do on a weekend is to head over to Lincolnshire and spend some quality time doing the crossword with him, drinking some nice red wine and listening to him talking about the old days - he really is one of a kind and not just my Grandad, but my best bud.

He suffers from emphysema (COPD), which is a disease of the respiratory system and he is now at a stage where he needs to be hooked up to his oxygen tank 24 hours a day. Usually at this point families may decide that a care home would be the best option, but I know how much Pops loves his house and the garden he's spent so much of his life looking after, so we all knew we had to do whatever we could to make sure he could stay at home. So, between the nurses and us as a family we have made this possible, going to stay with him as often as we can, although without this extra source of help from the nurses we may not have been able to get this far..

So, when it comes to sponsoring me, you know that every penny you donate will be something I can see the effect of, knowing that the nurses will continue to be funded. Any money I raise will also be used to train up new nurses so they can go out into other areas to do the same - we are lucky that Lincolnshire has this in place but the same can't be said for other counties. The nurses do an absolutely brilliant job and I am sure there must be hundreds of families out there who are in similar situations.

So dig deep, this is what will be keeping me motivated when I'm 15 miles in and craving an icy cold beer!

Thank you so much, as far as I see it we have got the easy bit to do compared to Pops and his nurses x