My daughter Maisy is currently studying Animal Management at Writtle College, bravely following in the family tradition of staying skint in the pursuit of a career she loves.

One of the opportunities that comes with this course is for a few of the students to spend time in a charity run wildlife reserve in Africa where she will get the chance to work with the reserve to protect and monitor the wildlife in their natural habitat.

The students are encouraged to fund raise as much of the cost as possible because...well...students... and because they want everyone to have the chance to go not just those with money!

We will be doing a variety of things this year to work towards this goal including quizzing, singing and in my case walking...a lot... of walking!

In May I shall be walking the Pennine Way...

...pause for midlife crisis jokes and cries of "Are you Mad"...

... for those asking "The What now?!", The Pennine Way is a National Trail starting in Edale in Derbyshire and ending in Kirk Yetholm in the Scottish Borders. That's 267 miles through the hilltops of the Pennines and onwards, solo, mostly camping and carrying everything.

If you'd like to sponsor my walk feel free to just use this page but if you fancy a more 1970s approach I'll be taking 'penny a mile' type sponsors... the catch being, I'm going to include my training walks in the mileage and when (if?) I get to Kirk Yetholm I may actually not stop walking so you are bidding Xp per mile for my entire year's (Tracked) walking mileage. As a guide I currently do 10-15m a week.